May 2010
| Volume 67 | Number 8
The Key to Changing the Teaching Profession
Marge Scherer
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Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Christine Power
The authors take stock of teacher preparation as one aspect of the larger concept of teacher quality by identifying 10 major trends. The list moves from larger issues related to national agendas and policies to mid-level issues related to teacher preparation structures and program types to more specific issues regarding the content of the professional teacher preparation curriculum. Controversies concerning these trends center on issues related to standardized testing, out-of-school factors, challenging the status quo, and finding the proper balance between teaching practice and pedagogy.
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Richard Ingersoll and Lisa Merrill
Analyzing long-term demographic data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, Ingersoll and Merrill found a number of intriguing trends in the teaching force that they say "appear to have been little noticed by researchers, policymakers, and the public." The number of teachers, they write, is growing at a rate that far outpaces increases in student enrollments. Both the proportion of teachers who are nearing retirement age and the proportion of teachers who have just 1–2 years of experience are rising. The proportion of teachers who are female, already high, is growing. Teacher turnover is also increasing, and turnover rates are higher in high-poverty, high-minority, urban, and rural schools. The academic ability of teachers remains lower than that of other professions. The authors discuss some of the possible reasons for and implications of these trends.
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Pam Grossman and Susanna Loeb
Alternative routes into teaching, particularly in urban school districts, are becoming increasingly prevalent. Four features capture the range of variation in these programs: the nature of the provider, specific labor market needs, the timing and focus of coursework and fieldwork, and the focus of recruitment and selection. The issue of student outcomes is crucial for urban districts, where the majority of teachers from alternative routes are placed. The evidence on how teachers from alternative routes perform in classrooms, however, is mixed. Mirroring the diversity of alternative routes, the retention of alternative route teachers also varies across programs. We can most likely learn more by shifting away from differences in pathways and looking instead for program features that make a difference in outcomes for teachers and students.
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Ellen Behrstock–Sherratt and Jane G. Coggshall
An influx of teachers from Generation Y—born between 1977 and 1995—has the potential to change the face of the teaching profession. The authors cite data from a 2009 study conducted by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates to shed light on the supports that this group of teachers want and need from their school leaders. Gen Y teachers, they say, share with previous generations a strong desire to teach effectively. At the same time, this group has particular characteristics that school leaders should consider: for example, they desire close monitoring and feedback, expect customized professional development, and place a strong priority on using their talents to make a difference in society. "If school leaders understand the unique characteristics of Gen Y members as well as the needs and attitudes they share with their older colleagues," Behrstock and Coggshall conclude, "this new generation of teachers can become a force for transforming teaching and learning."
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Wendi Lee Foltz
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Renee Moore and Barnett Berry
The voices of our best teachers are rarely included in ongoing debates about the future of the teaching profession. To bring teachers' voices to the center of the policy discussion, the Teacher Leaders Network convened a study team of 12 teacher leaders to develop a vision of what teaching might look like in 2030. After more than a year of exploring the thinking of policy pundits, researcher, reformers, demographers, and futurists, the team has identified a number of trends described in this article. Among its predictions: The education system of the future will demand intensely individualized learning; novice teachers will be teamed with expert teacher leaders; drive-by professional development will be replaced by new technologies that spread teacher expertise; and structures that recognize flexible teacher roles will expedite more authentic and comprehensive teacher compensation.
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Catherine Huber
Three false assumptions characterize the traditional way of sharing resources in school: Key staff members have privileged access to essential resources, schools need to look outside rather than inside for expertise, and professional learning will take place because a professional development plan indicates that it will. Web 2.0 technologies can help schools update their professional learning by enabling all staff members to share and create resources, by consolidating learning from within the school, and by protecting professional learning time in such venues as faculty meetings. One New York elementary school established a Moodle as a protected place for professional learning and conversation. The Moodle houses lesson plan drop boxes, the school's Twitter account, the school newsletter, forums, wikis, resources, and blogs.
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Susan Moore Johnson and John P. Papay
New teachers frequently voice worry about living on a teacher's salary but, according to Moore Johnson and Papay, many teachers are more annoyed that they can do little to influence the amount of their salary because of the rigid single-salary pay scale most school districts still operate under. Moore and Papay describe the contours of traditional pay plans and discuss the unrealized potential of merit-based pay, which surges up in popularity periodically. Most merit-based plans have in the past rested on the assumption that teachers will improve their practice for monetary incentives rather than connected monetary incentives to teachers' own efforts to advance their careers or to goals for improving a school district. The authors lay out the basics of a career-based teacher pay plan they have developed that includes three components: (1) a set of four tiers corresponding to different levels of career growth (with correspondingly higher pay); (2) a fund that allocates resources for teacher learning; and (3) a process for schools to lay out short-term financial incentives for special situations.
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Morgaen L. Donaldson
Too often, teacher evaluations haven't provided enough information to spur improvement in teaching. The vast majority of teachers in any school, district, or state are rated above—sometimes well above—average. The feedback that teachers do receive is often not specific enough to help them improve. In this article, Morgaen Donaldson explores some of the reasons behind these unhelpful, sometimes overly positive evaluations. She also tells of three school systems that have made concrete changes to their evaluation systems in an attempt to make them more useful.
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Elena Silva
New staffing models illustrate how schools can arrange people and organize time in ways that make teaching both more attractive and more effective. The school design model of Generation Schools in Brooklyn, New York, incorporates promising strategies for reforming teachers' work at an operating cost no greater than that of a typical public school. The school extends student time to 200 days—20 more days than the national average. But because of two three-week breaks that teachers receive, it doesn't extend teacher time or pay. New staffing and scheduling models not only draw more effective workers into the education system, but also improve teacher effectiveness from within.
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Joseph Semadeni
Fourth grade teacher Joseph Semadini describes a model of professional development piloted at his rural Wyoming school that is tailored to teachers' expressed individual needs, worked into the school day, and coordinated by teacher leaders themselves. The Fusion model—the title alludes to the practice of releasing great energy by combining atoms—releases teachers' energy to improve problem areas in instruction by allowing each teacher to pick several instructional strategies they hope to master, learning about and practicing them in teacher-led study groups, and watching a master teacher in their school implement the strategy through a lesson. Teachers commit to trying the strategy in their own classrooms, being observed, and receiving feedback on how faithfully they've done the key practice. Teachers even receive a small stipend for each practice they master. Semadini describes how, logistically, Lincoln County School District has put Fusion in place and kept it running for seven years, with great success.
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Celine Coggins, Sarah Zuckerman and Lee Anne McKelvey
Young teacher applicants to the Teach Plus Policy Fellows Program indicate that contrary to the opinions of those who believe they are in teaching only for the short term, they actually want to find a way to continue teaching. Their description of the profession they seek—one that makes a difference, challenges them, engages them as leaders, and promotes social justice—provides clear indications about how school leaders can engage this generation of teachers more intentionally and keep them in the field. However, administrators need to look at some damaging assumptions—about why people teach, where they will teach, and how long they will teach—because they exacerbate high attrition and undermine our potential to improve the retention and distribution of strong teachers in urban areas.
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Susan G. Hanson
One consequence of the proliferation of new teacher programs in U.S. schools districts is the chance for many veteran teachers to serve as mentors for novices. Most studies of new teacher programs have focused on how mentoring benefits new teachers, but the opportunity to act as a full-time mentor also supports the professional growth of the teachers who fill this role. Hanson presents insights gleaned from interviews she conducted with 21 teachers who served as full-time mentors in two urban school districts and received training through the New Teachers Center. The teachers describe how serving as a mentor helped them grow as educators in three key areas: (1) shifting their perspective from that of a classroom teacher to that of an educator with a broader view of the education situation; (2) deepening their understanding of professional development through collaborating with other mentors in weekly mentor forums; and (3) enhancing their leadership strengths. The impact mentoring had on these 21 mentors' growth, Hanson asserts, indicates that the full-release mentoring model has promise for enhancing the teaching profession as a whole.
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Jane L. David
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Robert J. Marzano
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William M. Ferriter
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Thomas R. Hoerr
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Jean M. Williams, Carolyn McKinney, Rebecca Garland and Bryan Goodwin
In the majority of states, school districts are allowed to develop their own systems for evaluating teacher performance. The result is often an uneven patchwork of measures that yield little meaningful information. In 2007, the North Carolina Board of Education recognized the need to develop a, statewide system to ensure consistent, standards-aligned, useful teacher evaluation. In this article, the authors describe the teacher performance standards and evaluation process that are now mandated throughout the state. Initial reports from teachers and principals indicate that the new system has helped teachers become more aware of what they need to do to improve instruction.
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Heather Lattimer, Mary McBride and Diana Combs
Research has shown that professional isolation is a major reason for new teacher attrition. New teachers often come to the profession with enthusiasm and good ideas, but they are not always welcomed as full professional partners. This article offers an example of a professional partnership that enhanced the new teacher's sense of efficacy and gave the veteran opportunities to learn from a younger professional. In an interview, both partner teachers share what they learned from the experience and offer suggestion for making such partnerships work.
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Jessica Singer Early and Ruth Shagoury
Urban school districts throughout the United States are desperate to find and keep well-prepared, committed teachers. But beginning teachers typically leave low-income school settings for more affluent ones or, worse, leave the profession entirely. Education leaders need to look closely at how urban schools can better retain teachers, largely because the U.S. teaching force is increasingly becoming more populated with inexperienced teachers. To investigate what factors affect new teacher's teaching lives—and how schools might support them better—the authors interviewed 10 new teachers—five in Phoenix, Arizona, and five in Portland, Oregon—asking what challenges they faced and what proved to be their main supports or obstacles in their first teaching years. Two major themes merged: the significance of school leaders and the positive influence of other new teachers.
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Teresa Preston
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