Is there only one right way in education?

The last few months we have been working in Utah to help them develop a way to recognize great teachers. Some of their more forward thinking legislators put forth a modest bill to provide $275,000 to teachers who complete our Distinguished Teacher program. That program recognizes teachers based on student achievement through value add analysis (40%), live observation (30%), subject matter mastery (15%) and principal evaluation (15%).

The bill was defeated in the last few hours of the Utah session as the House succumbed to UEA pressures. The union did not want a performance pay plan that has a student achievement component in it. They did want bonuses for National Board Teachers but that bill did not even make it to the floor.

In the sad arena that is education politics, had they offered a compromise right from the start, the $275,000 could have been made available to both National Board and Distinguished Teachers. Legislators would then be able to determine which program worked better for Utah schools or have two choices for recognizing great teachers.

But I continue to see that NEA affiliates will not compromise whether it is alternative certification or performance pay. In Utah they were happier to see both bills fail rather than both potentially split the win if it meant that we might have a little victory for student achievement performance pay plans.

Interesting - - I am sure the 140 teachers who could have received $3,000 a year extra for their great work would certainly disagree with the union making a political point with their money.

News stories:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695259898,00.html
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8485854
http://deseretnews.com/article/1%2C5143%2C695258534%2C00.html

2008: Education Changes Ahead

My safe prediction for 2008 is that it will be a wild year for education. It is a safe prediction because more people are getting involved, more people are becoming disillusioned, more state legislators are finding their voice and there is so much more data available to help drive change. Our schedules for January are pretty busy - so we know we will be helping drive more change.
For the new year, I resolve to blog a minimum of twice per week. There are so many more issues out there and so much to think about and I have no excuse not to.

I will start with a quick recap of my first bold prediction that states would be in some serious pain this year with declining tax revenues. Now from Florida, we hear that lawmakers are questioning bonuses for National Board teachers. Florida lawmakers want to ensure that they are getting a solid return for their very large investment. I expect that we will go down there and let them know more about our Distinguished Teacher program that rewards teachers based on results.

It was funny to hear lawmakers initially say that they were not going to touch education when they needed to make budget cuts. I think we will see more lawmakers looking to find ways to cut everything as budgets get lean and Florida may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Distinguished Teachers

There is an outstanding paper about pay for performance written by Joan Baratz-Snowden, formerly of AFT and who now sits on our board of directors. She clearly states the issues with current pay programs for teachers in saying; “it has not produced competitive salaries in the current job market, it does not respond to market forces, and the evidence linking teacher education and experience to improved student performance is weak.”

She has nailed it. But she also nails current pay for performance plans, with the exception of Denver, as weak and struggling. Reading this paper you should be able to see why we asked her help us.

We are currently creating the Distinguished Teacher program for veteran teachers that can be a part of a pay for performance program. Like many things at ABCTE, this has undergone extensive changes by listening to people, like Joan, who were very critical of the first iterations. The program now includes a live observation by trained veteran teachers using UVA’s CLASS observation system, recommendation letters from the school, scoring at the distinguished level on our subject matter exams and demonstration of student achievement through value added analysis.

As Joan points out, development of a solid program takes time. Having constructive criticism instead of political posturing has helped us create a much better program. People criticized Joan for joining our board but working together from the inside gets things done a lot faster than working against someone from the outside.