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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Taking on teacher attrition

We once believed that teacher effectiveness dramatically increased for the first three to five years on the job and then plateaued. But recent research suggests that substantial growth in effectiveness can be seen for the first 12 years on the job, and likely longer. This suggests that teacher quality develops over time and that experience can influence effectiveness.
We also know that students who have highly effective teachers for three years in a row can score 50 percentile points higher on achievement tests than students who have less effective teachers three years in a row.

But academic gains are just one of the outcomes of high teacher effectiveness. Research showed that as teachers gained experience, their students’ absenteeism rates declined. Experienced teachers tend to be better at classroom management and motivating students, resulting in fewer conduct issues and higher attendance.

And then there are soft skills, such as the ability to collaborate and problem solve, think creatively, and be empathetic. These skills—which have been linked to higher employment, greater job satisfaction, and lower crime rates—are developed, not taught, and teachers are a huge part of that development.…Read More

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Report: States improve teacher policies

NCTQ’s annual report finds state policies to support teacher effectiveness are no longer the exception in the U.S.

teacher-policyTeacher policies across the U.S. averaged a C- grade, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), which on Dec. 8 released its ninth annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook.

The annual policy yearbook analyzes every state law, rule and regulation that shapes the teaching profession, from teacher preparation, licensing and evaluation to compensation, professional development and dismissal policy.

Across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, states average a C- for their teacher policies in 2015, up from an overall grade of D in 2009. The average state grade has held steady since NCTQ’s last comprehensive report card in 2013, despite the bar being raised on several key topics, including aligning teacher licensing policies with the expectations of college- and career-readiness standards adopted by many states.…Read More

Gates Foundation: Test scores not enough for teacher evaluation

The most reliable systems for measuring teacher effectiveness include a balanced mix of evaluation methods, researchers said—including student test scores, lesson observation, and student surveys.

After three years of research on measuring teacher effectiveness, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Jan. 8 that it takes multiple measures to most accurately evaluate teachers.

The Seattle foundation concluded in its final report on its Measures of Effective Teaching research that test scores or principal evaluations are not enough on their own. The findings mirror what teachers unions have been saying.

Through incentives grants (such as Race to the Top) and waivers to No Child Left Behind rules, the federal government has been pushing states to update their teacher evaluation systems because it felt existing systems were inadequate.…Read More

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What the U.S. can learn about improving teacher effectiveness

International school systems can help the U.S. improve its teacher recruitment methods, a new report suggests.

U.S. policy makers and educators should look to high-performing global education systems for valuable lessons as they seek to develop systems that improve teacher and school leader effectiveness, according to a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE) and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE).

The report comes in advance of the International Summit on the Teaching Profession, hosted by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and designed to engage countries around the globe in an intensive discussion about promising practices for recruiting, preparing, developing, supporting, retaining, evaluating, and compensating world-class teachers.

“Teacher and Leader Effectiveness in High-Performing Education Systems,” edited by Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University professor and co-director of SCOPE, and Robert Rothman, a senior AEE fellow, examines highly effective lessons from global education systems that develop and support teachers and leaders in Finland, Ontario, and Singapore.…Read More

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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