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November 9, 2011

Response: Are Teachers Overpaid?

Filed under: funding,Public education,teachers — Tags: , — Mandy @ 10:31 am

Last week, The Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine and Andrew Biggs addressed why they feel that teachers are overpaid. Since teachers are more likely to hold another job to pay the bills than any other profession in America (according to a study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS study), I disagree.  

Below you’ll find some of my responses to Richwine and Biggs:

 “A teacher who receives a given salary for nine months of work is clearly better compensated than someone who earns the same salary for a full year’s work.”

  • Response: The Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) found that American teachers spend more hours per year working than do teachers in any other country (Education at a Glance 2011 - OECD).  On paper, teachers work about 7.5 hour days with 30 minute lunch breaks, teach for 180 days, and work for 195 days. However, the reality is that teachers have homework. According to the BLS study, 79 % of American public school teachers begin their workday at 7am and 51% conduct another full day’s worth of work over the weekend. Teachers get 10 weeks off in the summer, in addition to holiday breaks, but this time is often used for professional development workshops, setting up classrooms, adjusting to a change in assignment or grade level, and once again, planning.

“After full accounting, benefits for teachers are shown to be significantly more generous than those paid to employees of large private-sector establishments.”

  • Response: Comparing benefits is complex since each state handles (each district as a matter of fact) perks very differently. However, the report did not take these differences into consideration when comparing private and teacher benefits.

“Public school teachers earn less in wages…than non-teachers with the same level of education….The wage gap disappears when both groups are matched on cognitive ability rather than on years of education.”

  • Response: Just as in business, where the ability to communicate and network is as valuable as academic ability, effective teachers have abilities that go beyond the SAT scores used by this report. However, testing out this theory would require increasing, not decreasing, teacher salaries. Research into shortages of STEM teachers, for instance, shows that students with higher SAT scores and GPAs head into the higher-paying, private sector jobs available.

“Reducing teacher compensation…could be put toward classroom materials…”

  • Response: According to last year’s study by the National School Supply and Equipment Association (NSSEA), “public school teachers in the United States spend more than $1.33 billion on school supplies and instructional materials” (NSSEA – Publications: Industry Reports). On average, teachers spend $552 on supplies per year (currently less with the suffering economy), assuming that the average PTA is spending $936 per class. Teacher spending can actually triple in cases where the PTA does not spend as much.  As someone who worked at a school (that didn’t have paper for a period of time) and at a teacher resource store, I have witnessed teachers not even think twice about paying out of pocket to compensate for a lack of resources. Reducing teacher salaries would decrease classroom supplies, since teachers are often the ones that pay for them.

In conclusion, America has grown more and more focused on international tests that compare our students to those of other industrialized countries. We are inspired by these countries’ high math scores, work ethic, and use of technology.  This inspiration has spurred reforms such as holding our teachers more accountable, but we have yet to be inspired by their treatment of teachers. According to the OECD’s study, teachers in other industrialized countries make an average of 117% more than American public school teachers and, in Korea, teachers make a whopping 221% more.

If we even have to address whether our teachers are being overpaid, we have failed (at the perception of what the job is and should be) and are far from where we need to be. –Mandy Newport





November 7, 2011

Filling the teacher gap

Filed under: Teacher evaluation,teachers — Tags: , — Patte Barth @ 11:14 am

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





October 31, 2011

Merit pay revisited- Is Denver’s pay for performance a model plan?

Filed under: Growth Models,Pay for Performance,teachers — Tags: , , — Mandy @ 4:19 pm

Although it remains a controversial issue, merit pay has long since evolved from the days when test scores were the single factor in determining whether a teacher would get paid for performance.  Nowadays a number of school districts across the country have developed multi-pronged plans aimed at equitably rewarding teachers for their accomplishments.  Nonetheless, the question still remains: Is there actually a way to fairly reward a professional who deals with the advancement of human capital?  No plan is perfect, but one district might have come close.

In 2009, The Center took a look at merit pay and made mention of Denver’s ProComp Pay for Performance plan.  Now, a three year study, conducted by Dan Goldhaber and Joe Walch of the Center for Education Data and Research, has come out.  The study was conducted between the fall of 2006 and spring of 2010 on Denver’s ProComp plan. Denver Public Schools (DPS) requires all teachers who were hired in 2006 or later to be a part of the ProComp plan and gives veteran teachers the choice whether to opt in or not.  ProComp offers teachers four opportunities to receive bonuses, which include:

  1. Knowledge and Skills: Teachers may earn pay for completing one professional development unit per year (and can bank extra PDU’s), getting advanced  degrees and licenses, and can even receive tuition and student loan reimbursement (50 to 65 percent received this pay)
  2. Comprehensive Professional Evaluation: Based on principal evaluations, which are every 1 to 3 years (5 to 14 percent received this pay)
  3. Market Incentives: Aimed at teachers who work in hard-to-serve schools and/0r in hard-to-staff subject areas, as reviewed by school demographics and market supply (35 to 65 percent received this pay)
  4. Student Growth: Teachers set up student growth objectives, based on what they expect students to learn, which are approved by the principal (example: I expect x number of students to  exceed expectations in Reading on the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP).) (70 to 80 percent received this pay)

The study suggests that the ProComp plan made teachers feel more supported and in turn, allowed them to more consistently meet their goals (Robles 2011).  In fact, between 2006 and 2010, 15 percent of the non-ProComp teachers even switched over to join the plan after seeing the positive results ProComp had on their schools and colleagues.  Not only has ProComp made the teaching profession more attractive, Goldhaber and Walch conclude that:

  • There were significant learning gains across grades and subjects;
  • The benefits of tracking data and evaluating educators spread from ProComp teachers to the entire district;
  • There was an expectation that the program would cause a negative atmosphere between team members but the opposite actually occurred and role models were bred;
  • ProComp teachers’ students had larger than expected gains on the state assessment.

Skeptics argue that these rewards focus more on classroom instruction than student test achievement and that ProComp is inconsistent with the value-added approach. Goldhaber and Walch point out that, “whether this is good or bad is clearly a normative question” but that “overall, ProComp has had a positive effect.”  They also suggest that states might want to consider investing in similar programs, especially for their Race to the Top objectives. Yesenia Robles of the Denver Post notes that ProComp has helped propel infrastructure reforms to change recruitment practices and enhance methods of data gathering.  She goes on to point out that the difference between non-ProComp and ProComp teachers’ student growth objectives are comparable to the difference between a first and second year teacher’s.   Her article, DPS Teacher-Pay System Likely Boosting Student Achievement, Study Finds, also points out that Denver Public Schools has retained 160 more teachers per year since 2006 and that 80 percent of all DPS teachers currently participate in the program.   Robles notes that, “The ProComp system is already in the process of changing with the implementation of the district’s evaluation-and-support system, known as LEAP, now being tested in 94 percent of DPS schools.”  Right now it is still too early to tell if ProComp can survive these alterations. 

ProComp is an even-handed, well-formed pay for performance plan that other districts can use as a model and will hopefully emulate.  The research shows that ProComp was not only received well by DPS teachers but most significantly, student success consistently progressed. –M. Newport

(To see whether similar pay for performance plans have been successful, check out this ECS report.)





September 2, 2011

Can standardized tests be useful?

Filed under: teachers,Testing — Tags: , , — Jim Hull @ 1:38 pm

Standardized tests are not always popular with teachers. As a matter of fact, just one in four teachers nationwide see standardized tests as a very important measure of student achievement. Ama Nyamekye, a former New York City teacher, was one of those teachers who did not see much use in standardized tests when she first entered the classroom. As a matter of fact, before she even entered the classroom she railed against standardized tests with other educators who felt they were an attack on teachers, particularly those working in poor public schools.

However, in this week’s EdWeek (login required) she tells her story of how she now sees the value of standardized tests after getting some advice from her principal at her school in the South Bronx, which is one of America’s poorest communities. The principal asked her one simple question: “How do you know the kids are really getting it?” Ama couldn’t confidently answer the question. She thought she was a good teacher and her students performed well on the assignments and exams she prepared, but she needed more information to accurately answer the question.

To do so she turned to, you guessed it, standardized tests. Specifically, the New York State Comprehensive English Regents Exam. She administered it to her students, and what she found changed her view of the value of standardized tests. She states that:

“I discovered holes in my curriculum. I once dismissed standardized testing for its narrow focus on discrete set of skills, but I learned that my self-made assignments were more problematic. It turned out they were skewed in my favor.”

And that is why there is a need for standardized tests. The tests are not an attack on teachers or anyone else. They are to provide teachers, administrators, and parents information about how students are doing. Yes, how students perform on teacher designed assignments and exams provide information as well, but as in Ama’s case, they are not always the most accurate measure of what students are learning. Ama realized after reviewing her standardized test scores that she had designed her assignments and exams based around what she felt she effectively taught and not around what students needed to learn. This didn’t make Ama a bad teacher, it made her human. As humans, sometimes we need an external measure to give us some objective feedback on how well we are actually doing. That is why standardized tests are useful.

Unfortunately, far too many teachers and many others still do not realize Ama’s point. True, standardized tests are not perfect and can’t possibly evaluate all of what a student knows. But neither can any other measure. So the concern shouldn’t be about students taking standardized tests, but how best to use the data from those tests to improve student performance. – Jim Hull

For more information on standardized testing check out the Center’s Guide to Standardized Testing. And for information on how to use all types of education data more effectively, check out the Center’s Data-First.com.





August 4, 2011

Class size or student achievement?

Filed under: Reading,teachers,Uncategorized — Tags: , , — rstandrie @ 4:22 pm

I’ll admit I’m biased in favor of small class sizes. In elementary school, I was overlooked and unhappy in classes of 25-30 children. Though I was a fairly good student, I woke up with stomachaches at the thought of going to school, and that didn’t stop until I switched to a very small school in fourth grade. The teacher I had that year, Mrs. Wasser, did wonders for my interest in school and my confidence in my abilities, especially in math.

A new study by a Michigan State professor, “Teacher Effects in Early Grades: Evidence from a Randomized Study,” has pointed out that the good teacher I had may have had as much effect in my improvement as the small class size. It examined a group of students who participated in the Tennessee STAR study and found that students who had consistently good teachers K-2 (that is, teachers who were at 85 percentile of teacher effectiveness distribution) had up to one-third of a year’s growth in reading achievement. This effect was comparable to the cumulative effect of small classes in the early grades.

It’s important to note that a teacher at the 85th percentile of effectiveness is a very good teacher. And having a good teacher three years in a row would a stellar start in education for anyone. But I think this study points out that a good education will never be due to one single factor — and that there’s more research to be done about how class size and teacher effectiveness interact.

But if both class size and good teachers can have a significant impact on student learning, frankly, I think that’s a good thing. Read our guides on what makes a good teacher and on class size for more information about both these topics.

Oh, and one more thing: Thank you, Mrs. Wasser.

–Rebecca St. Andrie





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