How to raise student achievement through better labor-management collaboration

Labor-management collaboration in California's ABC Unified School District has led to gains in student achievement.

Laura Rico, union president for southern California’s ABC Unified School District and national vice president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said the idea of collaboration between labor and management was “very risky—even political suicide” when union leaders began working more closely with district leaders in the late 1990s. But the partnership has paid off in a big way, she said—demonstrating that when both sides come together in the interest of students, better achievement can follow.

For ABC Unified, the timing was right to take such a risk. In 1993, the district’s teachers went on strike over cuts to their pay and benefits. The strike lasted eight days, and it taught Rico and her colleagues that “it’s better to be in a labor-management partnership than it is to be out on the street,” she said—better for the students and for everyone involved.

The hiring of a new superintendent in 1999, coupled with the election of three new board members that same year, opened the door for greater collaboration between teachers and district leaders.…Read More

Wisconsin protests grow as teachers balk at proposed legislation

Protesters have gathered at Wisconsin's Capitol for days to oppose the governor's proposed labor changes.

Republicans who swept into power in state capitols this year with promises to cut spending and bolster the business climate now are beginning to usher in a new era of labor relations that could result in the largest reduction of power in decades for public employee unions.

But as massive public protests and legislative boycotts in Wisconsin have shown, the Republican charge can be fraught with risk and unpredictable turns as politicians try to transform campaign ideas into action.

The question GOP governors and lawmakers are now facing is exactly how far they can go without encountering a backlash. Do they merely extract more money from school teachers, prison guards, and office workers to help ease their states’ budget problems? Or do they go at the very core of union power by abolishing the workers’ right to bargain collectively? Do they try to impose changes by steamrolling the opposition, or by coming to the bargaining table?…Read More

D.C. schools to use data from teacher evaluation system in new ways

Although the main purpose of the District’s new teacher evaluation system is to rate teachers’ effectiveness, officials are beginning to use the fresh troves of data it generates for other purposes, such as assessing administrators and determining which universities produce the best- or least-prepared teachers, reports the Washington Post.

“There are hundreds of human capital questions you need to answer to effectively run a school district,” said Jason Kamras, personnel chief for D.C. public schools and the main architect behind the evaluation system, called IMPACT. “And for the first time, we have really good data allowing us to answer those questions. There is a bigger picture we are now able to understand.”

Across the country, education reformers have been pressing for more rigorous, quantifiable ways to evaluate teachers, and the District’s new system is in the vanguard of that movement, even as unions and education experts question its merits. Now in its second year, IMPACT uses five classroom observations to rate how effective a teacher is in nine standards – including explaining content clearly and engaging students – deemed essential to good teaching. Certain teachers are also judged on whether their students’ test scores sufficiently improve – a metric known as “value-added.” All of the numbers are crunched into a teacher’s annual rating, ranging from ineffective to highly effective……Read More

Plan offered to overhaul discipline of teachers

Teachers accused of misconduct should have their cases decided within a speedy 100 days by a special examiner and not be cast into an interminable limbo of waiting, said Kenneth R. Feinberg, the arbitration expert, who investigated teacher discipline at the request of the American Federation of Teachers, reports the New York Times. On Thursday, Mr. Feinberg will release his plan for dealing with teacher misconduct like absenteeism, corporal punishment and sexual advances to students. In an interview on Wednesday, he called the 100-day window for resolving cases a “radical” departure from current practice…

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Many see influence of teachers union in Gov. Jerry Brown’s shakeup of California Board of Education

In one of Gov. Jerry Brown’s first official acts this week, he sacked the majority of the state Board of Education, replacing several vocal proponents of charter schools, parent empowerment and teacher accountability, reports the Los Angeles Times. A broad range of educators, policy makers and others say the move was widely believed to be the handiwork of the California Teachers Assn., which heavily supported Brown in his gubernatorial campaign. The union’s support will be vital if he, as expected, places measures on the June ballot to temporarily raise taxes to ease the state’s budget deficit. It also appears to delay a key vote about parents’ power to reshape failing schools–an effort opposed by the union–leading to strong criticism of the governor from fellow Democrats…

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Obama’s deputy CTO leaves to launch start-ups

Andrew McLaughlin, the nation’s deputy chief technology officer, said Wednesday he is resigning his post to launch two start-ups aimed at technology development in communities in the United States and abroad, reports the Washington Post. McLaughlin, who previously worked as a Google executive, oversaw many of the White House’s internet policy initiatives including Internet access regulations, the expansion of broadband connections and global cybersecurity…

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A ‘highly qualified’ gift from Congress to Teach for America

Should teachers still in training programs be considered “highly qualified” to teach kids? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently ruled that they aren’t, but some members of Congress think so, reports the Washington Post. Senators have included in key legislation language that would allow teachers still in training to be considered “highly qualified” so they can meet a standard set in the federal No Child Left Behind law. In an era when the education mantra is that all kids deserve great teachers, some members of Congress want it to be the law of the land that a neophyte teacher who has demonstrated “satisfactory progress” toward full state certification is “highly qualified.”

Teachers still in training programs are disproportionately concentrated in schools serving low-income students and students of color, the very children who need the very best the teaching profession has to offer. In California alone, nearly a quarter of such teachers work in schools with 98-100 percent of minority students, while some affluent districts have none. Half of California’s teachers still in training teach special education. Allowing non-certified teachers to be considered “highly qualified” would be a gift to programs such as Teach for America, which gives newly graduated college students from elite institutions five weeks of summer training before sending them into low-performing schools. Teach for America participants, who commit to staying in the program for two years, then continue education studies while they are teaching.

Under No Child Left Behind, all students are supposed to have a highly qualified teacher. School districts are supposed to let parents know which teachers are not highly qualified, and they are supposed to be equitably distributed in schools. But the federal government issued a regulation in 2002 that included in the definition of “highly qualified” those teachers–called interns in some states–who are still participating in alternative route preparation programs. A lawsuit–opposed by Teach for America–challenged the regulation, and a lower court ruled in favor of the Education Department, but last September, the appellate court reversed the ruling. So language to make the regulation law was inserted into one bill, an omnibus Senate bill that was pulled by Sen. Harry Reid. But it’s back, this time in a continuing resolution unveiled today, and hammered out behind closed doors by legislators who ignored pleas from student advocacy groups to drop the measure……Read More

New effort aims to turn teacher education ‘upside down’

Aspiring teachers need more time in classrooms to learn their trade, according to a new report.

Eight states are beginning a national pilot program to transform teacher education and preparation to emphasize far more in-field, intensive training—as is common practice in medical schools.

“Teaching, like medicine, is a profession of practice,” said State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, who is co-chairwoman of the expert panel that released a report on the recommended changes Nov. 16 in Washington, D.C. “Making clinical preparation the centerpiece of teacher education will transform the way we prepare teachers.”

The pilot program—developed by K-12 and higher-education officials, along with teachers unions, to improve instruction—is being rolled out in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee. The states agreed to implement the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning, created by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).…Read More

Obama calls for more STEM teachers, longer school year

Obama: “Strengthening STEM education is vital to preparing our students" for the 21st-century economy. (AP photo)
Obama: “Strengthening STEM education is vital to preparing our students" for the 21st-century economy. (AP photo)

Barely into the new school year, President Barack Obama issued a tough-love message to students and teachers on Sept. 27: Their year in the classroom should be longer, and poorly performing teachers should get out. Separately, the president also announced a goal of recruiting 10,000 teachers over the next two years in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

American students are falling behind some of their foreign counterparts, especially in math and science, and that’s got to change, Obama said. Seeking to revive a sense of urgency that education reform might have lost amid the recession’s focus on the economy, Obama declared that the future of the country is at stake.

“Whether jobs are created here, high-end jobs that support families and support the future of the American people, is going to depend on whether or not we can do something about these schools,” the president said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.…Read More

Education Department grants $442M for teacher merit pay

The federal Education Department is giving school districts and nonprofit organizations from across the country $442 million to create merit pay programs for teachers and principals, reports the Associated Press. The Teacher Incentive Fund is aimed at attracting and rewarding high-quality educators and encouraging them to work in the country’s highest-need schools. The programs will create performance pay systems based on evaluations of educators, among other incentives. Winners include school districts such as Wake County, N.C., and the New York City Department of Education. State education departments in Indiana, Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana also won grants, as did private companies such as Uplift Education, which has five charter schools in Texas. This is the first phase of the larger teacher incentive program, which has $1.2 billion in funding over the next five years. But the effectiveness of merit pay has come into question after a study from Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives showed that offering bonuses to teachers didn’t improve test scores. The study, released earlier this week, is billed as the nation’s first ever scientific look at merit pay for educators…

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Are qualified teachers always effective teachers?

An effective teacher can alter a student's achievement by as much as 50 percentage points.
An effective teacher can alter a student's achievement by as much as 50 percentage points.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools are required to make sure every teacher is “highly qualified,” which—according to the law—means teachers must be certified in the subject areas they teach. But amid a growing consensus that “highly qualified” doesn’t necessarily mean “highly effective,” a movement is under way to reshape how the nation views successful teaching.

The effort is particularly relevant as learning in today’s schools undergoes a 21st-century transformation, some observers say—and they say true reform won’t occur until education leaders redefine what “highly qualified” teaching means.

In the typical instructional model of the past, the teacher was a “sage on the stage,” well versed in facts within a specific subject area and able to teach from a textbook. But now, 21st-century education demands a different kind of teacher, many stakeholders say—more of a mentor than a sage, and someone who can facilitate both individualized and collaborative learning.…Read More

Survey: Staff development is top ed-tech challenge

CTOs ranked planning as their highest professional development need, followed by instruction, policy, and leadership.
School district CTOs ranked planning as the top professional development need for themselves, followed by instruction, policy, and leadership.

Making sure staff members have the professional development they need to ensure effective 21st-century teaching and learning is the top challenge facing school district chief technology officers (CTOs), according to a survey that queried more than 50 Illinois school district CTOs.

The survey, titled “The Challenges and Professional Development Needs of the District Technology Leader,” was conducted by the Illinois Chief Technology Officers (ILCTO), a nonprofit organization that helps CTOs in “realizing their [school districts’] visions and goals for the effective, secure, and rapid implementation of instructional technology and operational information technology.”

According to the organization, a district CTO “could be an administrator, manager, or teacher who has responsibility for technology operation across a school district.”…Read More