Baby boomers comprise half of the current teaching force. Over the next ten years, schools will lose all of them to retirement.  That’s a lot of teachers to replace.  Yet at present, about half of new teachers leave the profession before their first five years are up.  If nothing changes, the nation’s schools could well find themselves scrambling to put adults in our classrooms at the same time they’re trying to guarantee every student is taught to higher standards by a highly effective teacher.

The National Association of State Boards of Education offers its answer to the conundrum in their new report, Gearing up: Creating a systemic approach to teacher effectiveness. The current teacher policy discussion is dominated by a push for greater teacher accountability including calls to make it easier to dismiss ineffective teachers. So it’s refreshing to see NASBE address the issue from recruitment to preparation to retention. Evaluation is also key. But while a lot of proposed evaluation plans can seem like punishment to teachers, the emphasis here is on evaluation as a tool for continuous improvement.

 The more notable recommendations include:

• “Significant” exposure to clinical experiences, or what many of us know as student teaching.  NASBE cites several good examples of intensive programs, such as Professional Development Schools and Teacher Residencies. Understanding that these can be costly, they encourage schools and universities to at minimum make sure teacher candidates are paired with highly effective mentors or cooperating teachers, and that the experiences are integrated into teachers’ preparation from the very beginning.
• Rigorous and comprehensive assessments that new teachers must pass to complete the program. The assessments must certify that teachers are able to teach students to be college and career-ready.
• Multi-year induction programs. In order to reduce the high attrition rate of new teachers, NASBE urges districts to develop a multi-year induction process that will provide support for teaching novices as they adjust to the classroom. We would add that schools should also rethink assignment policies that allow veteran teachers to claim the cushiest teaching spots, leaving inexperienced teachers with the most challenging classrooms — a match up that serves neither the fledgling teacher nor her students.
• Evaluation systems designed for the purpose of improving instruction. As we have written many times, the value of value-added data is its power to isolate the effect of programs and practices so that educators can learn from what’s working and correct what isn’t.  This message seems to get lost when teachers don’t trust the data, how it will be used, and who’s using it.  Taking a lesson from our friends at the Data Quality Campaign, it’s better to use data as a flashlight than a hammer.

 NASBE has found real-life examples of each of the recommendations that make for good reading.  A pdf of the executive summary can be downloaded here.

Also check out the Center’s reports on teacher recruitment and building better evaluation systems.  – Patte Barth