Esea Reauthorization: Boosting Quality in The Teaching Profession

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: BOOSTING
QUALITY IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. HOUSE
OF
REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 11, 2007
Serial No. 11034

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
(
Available on the Internet:
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2008
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR

GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Chairman
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey
Robert C. Bobby Scott, Virginia
Lynn C. Woolsey, California
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Carolyn McCarthy, New York
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio
David Wu, Oregon
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Susan A. Davis, California
Danny K. Davis, Illinois
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Timothy H. Bishop, New York
Linda T. Sanchez, California
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania
David Loebsack, Iowa
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania
John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky
Phil Hare, Illinois
Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Howard P. Buck McKeon, California,

Ranking Minority Member
Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
Judy Biggert, Illinois
Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
Ric Keller, Florida
Joe Wilson, South Carolina
John Kline, Minnesota
Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Kenny Marchant, Texas
Tom Price, Georgia
Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
John R. Randy Kuhl, Jr., New York
Rob Bishop, Utah
David Davis, Tennessee
Timothy Walberg, Michigan
Dean Heller, Nevada
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director

Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director
(II)
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C O N T E N T S
Page
Hearing held on May 11, 2007 ...............................................................................

Statement of Members:
Altmire, Hon. Jason, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Pennsylvania, prepared statement of ..........................................................
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. Buck, Senior Republican Member, Committee
on Education and Labor ...............................................................................
Prepared statement of ...............................................................................
Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor .........
Additional submissions:
Prepared Statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E.
Ducommun Professor, Stanford University School of Education
Letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA),
dated May 10, 2007 ........................................................................
Letter from the National Writing Project, dated May 11, 2007 .....
Statement of Witnesses:
Bibeau, Joan, Education Minnesota ...............................................................
Burke, Dr. Joseph P., superintendent of schools, Springfield, MA ..............
Dale, Dr. Jack D., superintendent, Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax, VA ...........................................................................................................
Klein, Joel I., chancellor, New York City Department of Education ...........
McLean, Valdine, chemistry, physics, and biology teacher, Pershing County High School, Lovelock, NV ......................................................................
Podesta, John D., president and chief executive officer, Center for American Progress .................................................................................................
Ritter, Gary W., associate professor, endowed chair in education policy,
Department of Education Reform, College of Education and Health
Professions, University of Arkansas ............................................................
Sanford, Dr. Jarvis, principal, Dodge Renaissance Academy .......................
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ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: BOOSTING

QUALITY IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION
Friday, May 11, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:33 a.m., in Room 2175,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. George Miller [chairman of
the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Kildee, Payne, Scott, Tierney,
Kucinich, Holt, Susan Davis, Danny Davis of Illinois, Bishop of
New York, Sarbanes, Sestak, Loebsack, Hirono, Hare, Clarke,
Courtney, Shea-Porter, McKeon, Petri, Castle, Ehlers, Keller, Price,
Kuhl, Bishop of Utah, David Davis of Tennessee, Walberg, and
Heller.
Staff Present: Aaron Albright, Press Secretary; Tylease Alli,
Hearing Clerk; Alice Cain, Senior Education Policy Advisor (K-12);
Adrienne Dunbar, Legislative Fellow, Education; Amy Elverum,
Legislative Fellow, Education; Denis Forte, Director of Education
Policy; Lloyd Horwich, Policy Advisor for Subcommittee on Early
Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education; Lamont Ivey,
Staff Assistant, Education; Brian Kennedy, General Counsel; AnnFrances, Lambert, Administrative Assistant to Director of Education Policy; Jill Morningstar, Education Policy Advisor; Ricardo
Martinez, Policy Advisor for Subcommittee on Higher Education
Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness; Joe Novotny, Chief Clerk;
Lisette Partelow, Staff Assistant, Education; Daniel Weiss, Special
Assistant to the Chairman; Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director; James
Bergeron, Minority Deputy Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Robert Borden, Minority General Counsel; Kathryn
Bruns, Minority Legislative Assistant; Taylor Hansen, Minority
Legislative Assistant; Linda Stevens, Minority Chief Clerk; Assistant to the General Counsel; and Brad Thomas, Minority Professional Staff Member.
Chairman MILLER. Good morning. The Committee on Education
and Labor will come to order for this mornings hearing. And I
want to say how much I look forward to this hearing focusing on
one of the most important issues in education today, and that is
teacher quality.
A fundamental goal of No Child Left Behind was to close the
achievement gap. One of the best ways we can close the achieve(1)
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ment gap is to close the teacher quality gap. We must ensure that
every child in every classroom is taught by an outstanding teacher.
No Child Left Behind took important steps for setting some of
these basic criteria for determining who is qualified to teach. It requires teachers to be certified, to have a bachelors degree and
know something about the subject they teach.
The law set a deadline, the 2005-2006 school year, for all States
to ensure that teachers meet the criteria. Unfortunately, no States
met the deadline and it has since been extended by a year; and as
a result, too many children are still taught by teachers who are not
certified and who do not have the expertise in the subject matter
that they are teaching, and it is inexcusable.
Even more troubling is the fact that for too many low-income
children the best teachers are often across town, a world away from
the students who need them the most. For example, nearly threequarters of the math classes in high-poverty middle schools are
taught by teachers who lack a major, even a minor in math. It is
these students who most need a leg up in life that a good education
can provide.
And with that I am going to ask unanimous consent to revise
and extend my remarks. I know we have many members who are
here. We had a big change in schedule yesterday, and I want to
make sure that they get the opportunity to hear the witnesses.
I will put the rest of my remarks in the record at this time.
Thank you. And I recognize Mr. McKeon, the senior Republican on
the committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. George Miller, Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor
Good morning. Im looking forward to todays hearing because it focuses on one
of the most important issues in education today: teacher quality.
We all remember the difference that wonderful teachers have made in our lives
and I want to thank our teachers here today for their dedication and commitment
to taking on the overwhelming demands of their profession.
We ask teachers to perform miracles every day in our under-funded and overcrowded system. We owe them and their students more than rhetoric; we need to
show our commitment to encouraging talented people to enter the field and stay
there.
Report after report has shown that the single most important factor in determining a childs success in school is the quality of his or her teacher. Unfortunately,
the data is equally clear that low-income and minority students are much less likely
than their peers to be taught by well-qualified teachers.
A fundamental goal of No Child Left Behind is to close the achievement gap. One
of the very best ways we can close the achievement gap is to close the teacher quality gap. We must ensure that every child, in every classroom, is taught by an outstanding teacher.
No Child Left Behind took an important first step by setting some very basic criteria for determining who is qualified to teach. It requires teachers to be certified,
have a Bachelors degree, and know something about the subject they teach.
The law set a deadlinethe 2005-2006 school yearfor all states to ensure that
their teachers meet this criteria. Unfortunately, no states met the deadline and it
has since been extended by a year.
Too many children are still taught by teachers who are not certified or who do
not have expertise in the subject they are teaching. This is inexcusable.
Even more troubling is the fact that for too many low-income children the best
teachers are often across town and a world away from the students who need them
most. For example, nearly three-quarters of math classes in high-poverty middle
schools are taught by teachers who lack a majoror even a minorin math. It is
these students who most need the leg up in life that a good education can provide.
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We all remember a teacher who made us proud of ourselves for what we accomplished and helped us face our future with hope and confidence. Imagine if every
one of our teachers over the years had given us that same strength.
Over the next decade, we will need to hire more than two million new teachers
to serve in our public schools. Yet today, we have no national plan for attracting
outstanding students into the teaching profession, or keeping them there.
There are many reasons why people decline to enter the teaching profession or
decide to leavelow pay, lack of meaningful professional development, lack of respect, unsuitable working conditions, or little opportunity for advancement.
By failing to address this problem, Congress is shortchanging our children and
costing taxpayers an estimated $2.2 billion annually to replace teachers who have
left the profession. We need to act immediately to ensure that we have an adequate
supply of outstanding teachers for the next generation of students.
This week 43 of my colleagues and I introduced the TEACH Act of 2007 to help
increase our supply of excellent teachers and principals. It would double the federal
investment in teacher quality so that all children will be taught by high-quality
teachers and all teachers will have the supports they need to do their job well.
Among its many provisions, the TEACH Act addresses the teacher shortage crisis
in math, science, foreign language, special education and English language instruction through incentives, including upfront tuition assistance and loan forgiveness.
The bill also establishes state-of-the-art induction programs for new teachers so
they will have the support they need to succeed. It helps school districts establish
career ladders for teachers who expand their knowledge and skills and take on new
professional and leadership roles such as mentor or master teacher.
The TEACH Act also ensures children have teachers with expertise in the subjects they teach. It provides financial incentives, including performance pay, to support outstanding teachers and principals who commit to spending four years in the
hardest-to-staff schools, with extra incentives for teachers of shortage subjects.
It also enforces NCLBs teacher equity provisions by making ESEA funding contingent on states compliance with their plans to make sure poor and minority children have equitable access to high-quality teachers.
Finally, the TEACH Act identifies and rewards our best teachers using 21st century data, tools and assessments. This includes holding schools of teacher education
accountable for results by requiring states receiving Title II Teacher Quality grants
to track the quality and results of the graduates of teacher education programs in
the state and makes continued funding contingent on their progress.
Nothing we will do this year on this committee is more important that ensuring
that we live up to the promise at the core of No Child Left Behindthe promise
of a qualified teacher for every child.
We must dedicate the necessary resources, demand the necessary results, and
stay with it to the end to make sure every child in America has a teacher we can
all be proud of. We must also work to ensure that every teacher in America can
say they are proud of us for the support we give them.
I appreciate all each of you are doing to make this a reality and am looking forward to hearing more about what Congress can do to help through the ESEA reauthorization.
Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening todays

hearing. And I thank the witnesses for joining us here today and
welcome each of you.
The subject of teacher quality is a priority for me, this committee
and this Congress. As we move forward with the reauthorization
of No Child Left Behind, we must be mindful that we have 3.2 million teachers serving in our Nations classrooms, working with our
children to help shape their futures. Through No Child Left Behind
we placed upon ourselves the responsibility to ensure that the children in those classrooms are receiving the best education possible
and from highly qualified, effective teachers.
About a year ago, unfortunately, the Department of Education
announced that no State would meet No Child Left Behinds requirement of having highly qualified teachers in every classroom by
the end of 2005-2006. And while many States submitted revised
plans to achieving that goal, it is my belief that it will take a bold-
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4
er approach to develop and retain the most capable teachers in our
schools. The foundation for this approach is ensuring that resources are in place to make it happen.
During the No Child Left Behind era, Congress and President
Bush have been working to address the subject of teacher quality
by providing historic increases in teacher development funding to
help States put the best-trained teachers in every classroom. In
fact, since NCLB was first enacted, we have seen a 35 percent increase in funding for the teacher and principal training and recruitment fund, a formula grant program supporting activities to
improve elementary and secondary teacher quality.
Another key part of our effort must be innovation. On this front,
States and schools have received more than $100 million in recent
years to design and implement their own unique performancebased compensation standards through the Teacher Incentive
Fund. Testimony from several of our witnesses today will show
that performance pay for teachers can boost the quality of the
teaching force and improve student achievement.
I am sorry to say that the omnibus spending measure passed by
Congress earlier this year virtually eliminated all funding for these
programs leaving many States and local school districts to question
whether they can fully implement the teacher recognition pay systems they have designed over the past several years. To ensure
that the teacher incentive fund becomes a permanent part of our
national effort to boost teacher quality, our committee colleague,
Congressman Tom Price, introduced the Teacher Incentive Fund
Act legislation that would authorize locally designed performance
pay programs. The Teacher Incentive Fund Act enjoys broad bipartisan support, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in ensuring it plays a prominent role in the No Child Left Behind reauthorization process.
Coupled with advancing this important legislation, Congress
must also work to break down burdensome barriers currently in
place through overly cumbersome collective bargaining agreements.
Quite often these agreements include onerous bureaucratic hurdles
for school districts that have nothing to do with teacher quality or
student achievement. Removing these hurdles would provide principals and other education leaders more freedom to reward good
teachers, remove poor ones and generally create a staff that is responsive to their schools needs. If we are truly serious about placing high-quality teachers in every American classroom, then this
committee must explore ways to include proposals addressing collective bargaining agreements in the reauthorization process.
For example, quite often restructuring a school into a charter
school or making other wholesale changes to a school staff and curriculum requires a waiver from some of the work rules contained
in collective bargaining agreements. Allowing school districts to
waive those rules for schools in the restructuring process is a policy
change that deserves serious consideration.
Mr. Chairman, our Nations teachers and principals are on the
front lines in the effort to close the achievement gap in our schools.
During this reauthorization process, we must push for innovative
ways to reward these men and women for their successes inside the
classroom. I look forward to hearing the testimony of each of our
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witnesses today, and I would like to thank each of you for joining
us here today. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Howard P. Buck McKeon, Senior Republican
Member, Committee on Education and Labor
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening todays hearing, and I thank the witnesses for joining us and welcome them.
The subject of teacher quality is a priority for me, this Committee, and this Congress. As we move forward with the reauthorization of NCLB, we must be mindful
that we have 3.2 million teachers serving in our nations classroomsworking with
our children to help shape their futures. Through No Child Left Behind, we placed
upon ourselves the responsibility to ensure that the children in those classrooms are
receiving the best education possibleand from highly qualified teachers.
About a year ago, unfortunately, the Department of Education announced that no
state would meet No Child Left Behinds requirement of having highly qualified
teachers in every classroom by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. And while
many states submitted revised plans to achieving this goal, it is my belief that it
will take a bolder approach to develop and retain the most capable teachers in our
schools.
The foundation for this approach is ensuring that resources are in place to make
it happen. During the No Child Left Behind era, Congress and President Bush have
been working to address the subject of teacher quality by providing historic increases in teacher development funding to help states put the best-trained teachers
in every classroom. In fact, since NCLB was first enacted, we have seen a 35 percent increase in funding for the Teacher and Principal Training and Recruitment
Funda formula grant program supporting activities to improve the elementary
and secondary teacher quality.
Another key part of our effort must be innovation. On this front, states and
schools have received more than $100 million in recent years to design and implement their own unique performance-based compensation standards through the
Teacher Incentive Fund. Testimony from several of our witnesses today will show
that performance pay for teachers can boost the quality of the teaching force and
improve student achievement. I am sorry to say that the omnibus spending measure
passed by Congress earlier this year virtually eliminated all funding for these programs, leaving many states and local school districts to question whether they can
fully implement the teacher recognition pay systems theyve designed over the past
several years.
To ensure that the Teacher Incentive Fund becomes a permanent part of our national effort to boost teacher quality, our Committee colleague, Congressman Tom
Price, introduced the Teacher Incentive Fund Actlegislation that would authorize
locally-designed performance pay programs. The Teacher Incentive Fund Act enjoys
broad, bipartisan support, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in ensuring it
plays a prominent role in the No Child Left Behind reauthorization process.
Coupled with advancing this important legislation, Congress also must work to
break down burdensome barriers currently in place through overly-cumbersome collective bargaining agreements. Quite often, these agreements include onerous bureaucratic hurdles for school districts that have nothing to do with teacher quality
or student achievement. Removing these hurdles would provide principals and other
education leaders more freedom to reward good teachers, remove poor ones, and
generally create a staff that is responsive to their schools needs.
If we are truly serious about placing high-quality teachers in every American
classroom, then this Committee must explore ways to include proposals addressing
collective bargaining agreements in the reauthorization process. For example, quite
often, restructuring a school into a charter school or making other wholesale
changes to a schools staff and curriculum requires a waiver from some of the work
rules contained in collective bargaining agreements. Allowing school districts to
waive those rules for schools in the restructuring phase is a policy change that deserves serious consideration.
Mr. Chairman, our nations teachers and principals are on the frontlines in the
effort to close the achievement gap in our schools. During this reauthorization process, we must push for innovative ways to reward these men and women for their
successes inside the classroom. I look forward to hearing the testimony of each of
our witnesses and would like to thank each of you for joining us here today.
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Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much.
We have the honor of having a great panel this morning to help
us learn about this issue and, hopefully, provide some suggestions
for our reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. I consider this the
centerpiece of the changes that we need to make to see this law
successfully reauthorized, to provide for the distribution of highly
qualified teachers, to improve the skills of new teachers and current teachers and, hopefully, to end the unfortunate loss of talent
through the very high turnover in people leaving the field after a
couple of years.
We are joined this morning, first, by John Podesta, who is President and CEO for the Center for American Progress, a progressive
think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through
ideas and action. He served as Chief of Staff to President Clinton
from 1998 to 2001 and is currently a visiting professor of law at
Georgetown University Law Center.
And next we are joined by Chancellor Joel Klein, who became
New York City Schools Chancellor in 2002 when he went ahead
and instituted a comprehensive public school reform program, Children First. Previously, he was the Chairman and CEO of
Bertelsmann, Incorporated, and the Chief Liaison Officer of
Bertelsmann, AG. Prior to Bertelsmann, he served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the U.S. Antitrust Division after serving 2 years as Deputy Counsel to President Clinton.
Next is Jarvis Sanford, who is the principal of the Dodge Renaissance Academygood to see you again; it was only a week ago, I
believe; thank you for being with usa public school in Chicago.
Sanford has a distinguished educational background that includes
a B.A. from Morehouse and a Doctorate of Education from Northern Illinois University, and he is a graduate of the New Leaders
for New Schools principal training program.
The accomplishments that bring him here today, however, come
during his 3-year tenure at Dodge. In 2005, 26 percent of the students scored at or above national norms. One year later 62 percent
of the students achieved this level representing a 36 percent gain
in 1 year, the largest gain in the State of Illinois.
And I think Mr. Davis had something he wanted to say about
those tremendous results.
Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. The only thing I
would really say is that when we describe the community where
the Dodge School is located, it is one of the low income, or one of
the poorest communities in urban America, which makes the accomplishments of Dr. Sanford and his staff even more outstanding
when you consider the impediments that exist in that community.
And we are certainly pleased that he is here and look forward
to his testimony.
Next is Ms. Valdine McLean, who is a science teacher from Pershing County in Lovelock, Nevada; and Mr. Heller is going to make
the introduction.
Mr. HELLER. Thank you Mr. Chairman. It is my pleasure to introduce Valdine McLean as an exceptional high school teacher at
Pershing County High School in Lovelock, Nevada. Ms. McLean
teaches physics, chemistry, biology leadership classes to students in
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grades 9 through 12. She was the first teacher in her school to use
computers in her classroom, has created a technology-rich environment that has proven to be particularly effective for English language learners and special needs students.
She has served as a State President in the Nevada State Science
Teachers Association, and worked extensively with the writing and
revision of the State Science Standards Committee. Her awards include Pershing County Teacher of the Year in 2000, Nevada Teacher of the Year 2001, Horace Mann Teaching Excellence Award 2001
and NEA Foundation for Improving Education and Teaching Excellence Awards 2001.
So I am proud to have a fellow Nevadan here. I know the chairman of the school board, Todd Plimpton, is pleased to have her
here also. Her influence is not only in the classroom, but on the
field also, as her husband is the football coach for the high school.
Thank you.
Chairman MILLER. Thank you. And welcome.
Next is Mr. Jack Dale, who is the Superintendent of Fairfax
County Public Schools. Previously he served as Superintendent for
Frederick County, Maryland Public Schools, where in his fourth
year he was named Maryland Superintendent of the Year. He has
been a teacher of mathematics, Assistant Principal, Director of Instruction and Associate Superintendent.
Welcome.
And Joan Bibeau, who is the elementary school teacher on Leech
Lake Indian Reservation in rural, northern Minnesota. She is a 34year veteran teacher, an enrolled member of the White Earth Bank
of Ojibwe Tribe, and she was awarded the Minnesota Indian Education Association Teacher of the Year in 2006.
Dr. Joseph Burke has been the Superintendent of Schools in
Springfield, Massachusetts, since 2001. Prior to Springfield, he
spent his entire career in Miami-Dade County, Floridas public
school system and worked most recently as District Director for
Math and Science.
Dr. Gary Ritter is Associate Professor of Education and Public
Policy and Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Public Policy
Director Program at the University of Arkansas. He is also the Director of the Office of Education Policy at the university.
And Congresswoman Clarke, is she here? She wanted to make a
comment about the Chancellor. Did you want to say something
about Chancellor Klein?
Ms. CLARKE. Yes, I do.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to our
distinguished panelists and my colleagues. I wanted to thank
Chancellor Klein for taking the time out of his very busy schedule
to join the committee here in Washington today.
As many of you may be aware, the reauthorization of No Child
Left Behind Act will have a tremendous impact on our home, New
York City. The New York City school system that you oversee,
Chancellor Klein, has over 1,400 schools with over 1 million students. It is the largest school system in the United States, with
136,000 employees and an operating budget of $15 billion. The New
York City school system, of which I am a proud graduate, is larger
than the school system of at least eight States.
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Chancellor Klein has played a key role in many of the citys recent education successes, but there is still a long way to go. So it
is my hope that we can work together as educators and legislators,
as public servants, driving to help Americas children to develop a
balanced approach that improves teacher quality, and also recognizes that the institutional knowledge of our best public school
teachers are a key resource in improving overall quality.
As we focus on teacher recruitment initiatives and incentives, we
also understand the vital importance of those excellent teachers in
schools across America who are already providing a high-quality
educational experience to our children.
Again, Chancellor Klein, thank you for coming today. It is my
pleasure to introduce you to this body and the committee looks forward to what I anticipate will be a thoughtful, yet lively conversation.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Chancellor.
Chairman MILLER. Thank you.
Mr. Podesta, we will begin with you. Welcome to the committee
and thank you so much for your time.
STATEMENT OF JOHN D. PODESTA, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS
Mr. PODESTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the

committee. I am outgunned by this outstanding group of professional educators, but at least there is one other lawyer sitting here
with me, so I will try to hold my own.
Let me offer just a bit of context, and then I want to offer three
specific recommendations for improving teacher and principal quality in our schools.
To start, I think it critical to recognize that the deficiencies in
our public education system pose long-term threats to the wellbeing of our people and our economy. The U.S. suffers from twin
achievement gaps. There are large disparities in educational attainment and readiness within our country, particularly between
low-income and racial and ethnic minorities and others; and at the
same time, American students as a whole are falling behind their
counterparts in other developed nations.
I can go through a lot of statistics, but the committee knows
them well. Our Nation just can no longer tolerate the status quo
of undereducated children and declining economic competitiveness
in the world.
Second, nothing matters, I think, more in improving the educational opportunities of our students than finding and retaining
highly qualified teachers and principals. A 2006 report by Dan
Goldhaber for the Center for American Progress found that a very
good teacher, as opposed to a very bad one, can make as much as
a full years difference in learning growth for students. Furthermore, the effective increases in teacher quality swamps the impact
of other educational investments, such as reductions in class size.
Unfortunately, I think we are not doing enough to recruit and retain the best teachers available; and I would note that shortage of
qualified effective teachers also has a disproportionate impact on
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9
low-income and minority students. They are about twice as likely
to be assigned inexperienced students in our country today.
Congress, I think, has a real window of opportunity to address
the challenge of teacher quality with the unprecedented number of
teachers who are expected to retire and the recruitment challenge
that comes with that. According to the National Commission on
Teaching in Americas Future, 2 million teachers will leave their
jobs within the next decade. The country has a huge recruitment
challenge. So it is imperative, I think, that we experiment with innovative initiatives that will increase the supply of quality teachers
and principals.
The TEACH Act, introduced by the chairman and Senator Kennedy on the Senate side, I think would do just that. It puts Federal
money and commitment behind the programs designed to experiment with better ways of identifying, preparing and compensating
teachers and principals.
Developing a better teacher workforce will require three key
steps: improving the quality and use of data and decision-making,
creating more competitive compensation structures for teachers,
and relying more on teachers as resources for innovation and identifying and correcting problems.
I have a bit of time. Let me speak briefly about each of these
areas. And I direct you to my written testimony for a more detailed
analysis.
With respect to better data, I would say that without reliable information we simply cannot evaluate results or properly assess
school performance. Better data is also useful for measuring the effectiveness of preparation programs for teachers and principals, developing more sophisticated career advancement systems, more equitably deploying the teacher workforce.
States and local districts are experimenting with this across the
country. I would point you to Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example,
which uses value-added data to identify highly effective teachers
and then provides them with economic incentives to teach in the
highest-needs schools.
With respect to competitive compensation, we need to acknowledge that job structure and financial rewards are key motivators
for employees in any profession. Accounting for educational attainment, teachers are drastically underpaid compared to those of similar backgrounds in other professions. We cannot expect the best
unless we are willing to pay for the best. States and districts need
to reform pay and performance structures to improve starting salaries to attract talented mid-careerists and young people committed
to a career in education.
Similarly, if a teacher or principal is taking on more challenging
subjects, teaching in tougher schools or delivering positive results,
we should create rewards for them, as the TEACH Act would do.
And as we make starting salaries more competitive and increase
incentives for retention, we should keep in mind that we need to
respond to poor performance by fairly and effectively removing ineffective educators.
Finally, with respect to teachers as go-to resources, the President
and the Congress need to act on the premise that teachers and
principals are public educations most valuable assets. Policy-
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makers should seek direct input from teachers on issues such as
quality of development programs, school conditions and administrative reports.
We recently at the center had Governor OMalley, who is planning to build on his successful initiatives with CitiStat in Baltimore, to track student performance and to carry out surveys among
teachers every 2 years to identify problems, to evaluate effectiveness of educational initiatives, to track progress and results and to
effectively and efficiently direct resources based on need.
We should consider implementing a similar program, I think, at
the national level.
With that, I am out of time, so let me turn it over to Joel.
[The statement of Mr. Podesta follows:]
Prepared Statement of John D. Podesta, President and Chief Executive
Officer, Center for American Progress
Chairman Miller and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to
testify today. I am John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American Progress. I am also a Visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown
University Law Center.
I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to discuss the growing problem
of recruitment and retention of highly effective teachers and principals in our nations schools. As the Committee considers the reauthorization of the No Child Left
Behind Act, it is important to consider ways to strengthen our education system
especially how to attract, train, equitably distribute, and retain the most effective
teachers and principals, the very problems that the Teacher Excellence for All Children Act addresses.
This is Teacher Appreciation Week, and we should stop and consider how important effective teachers are to our education system. We appropriately spend a lot
of time discussing what is wrong with the American education system, but it is also
important to remember that across our country legions of dedicated teachers are
doing nothing short of performing miracles in our schools. Teachers are the backbone of high-quality public education and strengthening the teacher workforce can
lay the foundation for fruitful investments in other areas of public education. Research demonstrates that the single most important factor determining how much
students learn is the quality of their teachers. Teacher salaries and benefits are by
far the largest education expenditure, but they are also the most critical resource
for student learning. A very good teacher as opposed to a very bad one can make
as much as one full years difference in the achievement growth of students.1 Studies also show that high-quality leadership directly affects school performance, as
well as improves the working environment for teachers. Unfortunately, education
leaders and public policymakers often fail to treat teachers and principals as our
most valuable resources, and our current policies are not effectively addressing their
needs.
Not only are we failing to attract new teachers to the field; we are also failing
to retain them. One-third of new teachers leave within the first three years of teaching, and half are gone by the fifth.2 In high-poverty schools with poor working conditions, rates of overall teacher attrition are disastrously high. Between 2000 and
2001, one out of five teachers in the nations high-poverty schools either left to teach
in another school or dropped out of teaching altogether.3
Shortages of highly effective teachers have a disproportionate effect on low-income
and minority students; they are about twice as likely to be assigned to inexperienced
teachers4 who on average make far smaller annual learning gains than more experienced teachers.5 As a result, low-income, African American, and Latino children consistently get less than their fair share of good teachers.
The impact of a lack of quality teachers is felt daily by our nations students. Due
to shortages of highly effective teachers, shortages of teachers in certain subject
areas, and ineffective administrative practices in many schools, large numbers of
secondary teachers are assigned to teach classes outside of their areas of preparation. For example, 37 percent of students in grades 7-12 are taught by a teacher
who lacks a college major and state certification in the subject being taught.6 Rates
of out-of-field teaching are especially high in middle schools, high-poverty schools,
and shortage areas such as mathematics. Chancellor Joel Klein will speak more to
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this problem, but the bottom line is that the lack of retention and the distribution
of qualified teachers are highly inequitable.
The current situation of teacher quality and effectiveness is deplorable, but the
problem is not insurmountable. We have a window of opportunity to effect change
in our public school system with the unprecedented number of teachers who will
soon reach retirement age. According to the National Commission on Teaching and
Americas Future, 2 million teachers will leave their jobs within the next decade.
Replacing so many teachers is a daunting task, but it also presents us with an opportunity to overhaul the current system. With such a large number of teachers
leaving in the next decade, efforts to attract new candidates must be renewed. Simply put, it is imperative that we experiment with innovative initiatives that will increase the supply of quality teachers and principals.
The TEACH Act proposal introduced by Chairman Miller and Senator Kennedy
would put money behind programs designed to experiment with new ways of preparing and compensating teachers as well as principals. This legislation would help
address the problem of teacher and principal quality by taking several of the necessary steps to equip each classroom with a highly qualified teacher and each school
with a properly trained principal. We should implement its recommendations and
also seize the opportunity for change by moving forward with bold new ideas to address the challenge of employing an effective teacher workforce in our schools. The
three ideas I would like to discuss with you today are: collecting and using data for
decision-making, offering more competitive compensation for our teachers and principals, and using our teacher workforce as a go-to resource.
We need to increase the amount and improve the quality of information we gather
about
Americas teacher workforce and at the same time encourage the use of such data
for greater accountability and smarter decision-making. The Center for American
Progress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently worked together to examine
state-by-state educational effectiveness. One of the major findings in our joint report
titled Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness was that Americas K-12 schools are failing their students and putting
Americas future economic competitiveness at risk. In completing this report, however, we also found that state education systems suffer from a severe lack of meaningful data on performance.7
Without reliable information, we simply cannot evaluate results or properly assess
school performance, so the lack of meaningful, reliable data on our nations schools
is alarming. Improved data with respect to teacher and principal performance can
be used to improve instruction and to help rectify inequities in student opportunities
for learning. Better data can also help measure the effectiveness of preparation programs for teachers and principals, lead to the development of more sophisticated career advancement systems, and more effective and equitable deployment of our
teacher workforce. Furthermore, data can help build the case for larger investments
in professional development programs for both teachers and principals.
Data systems being pioneered in a few states offer an important new opportunity
to produce information about the performance of individual classroom teachers and
school principals measured in terms of how much progress students and schools are
making academically.
To offer some examples: Chattanooga, Tennessee uses value-added data to identify highly effective teachers and then provides them with economic incentives to
teach in the highest-need schools.8 Meanwhile, in Maryland, Gov. Martin OMalley
is encouraging school districts to implement his data-tracking system, CitiStat, to
collect and track information on student performance. When student and teacher
data are linked, these data collection programs can be used to identify teachers
weaknesses so professional development can be provided in those areas, and to identify teachers strengths so they can be used as a resource for other teachers in need
of mentoring in those areas.
Informational gaps on Americas teacher workforce must be identified and systematically addressed. Otherwise, problems and underperformance may be missed and
allowed to persist. The federal government is uniquely positioned to lead in this
data-gathering revolution and should adopt measures that encourage adequate data
collection. Additional expenditures may be required to fill in information gaps, but
this should be regarded as an investment that will pay off in the long run.9
In order to attract and retain highly effective teachers and principals, we also
need to make targeted investments to incentivize change in our public education
system. We need to begin by acknowledging that job structure and financial rewards
are important motivators for employees no matter what their profession. Currently,
too little attention is paid to creating the financial incentives necessary to recruit
and retain an effective teacher workforce. We need to change that by offering com-
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petitive compensation that recognizes and rewards different roles, responsibilities,
and results.
In the Leaders and Laggards report, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the
Center for American Progress agreed that states and districts need to reform pay
and performance structures to improve starting salaries. Offering competitive salaries and up-front tuition assistance can help attract talented mid-careerists and
young people committed to a career in education.
Our teacher workforce should also receive greater compensation for positive results and a willingness to take on more responsibilities. If a teacher or a principal
is taking on more challenging subjects, teaching in tougher schools, or delivering
positive results, we should create rewards for them.
In the classroom, teachers often find too few opportunities to engage in ongoing
professional development that is closely aligned with what they teach. That is why
we need new avenues of advancement that offer expert teachers the opportunity to
pursue a variety of positions throughout their careers without having to leave classroom teaching altogether. These efforts can be particularly helpful in high-poverty
schools where new teachers often need additional support and experienced teachers
need incentives to stay. Commensurate with the responsibilities of mentor teaching,
master teaching, and any other advanced categories that are created, there should
be significant increases in compensation as well.
Compensation systems that recognize the value of our teacher workforce coupled
with career advancement systems that more effectively reward good performance,
draw effective educators to high-need schools, and respond to poor performance, including fairly and effectively removing ineffective educators, will make larger investments in teacher and principal salaries more politically viable and maximize the returns on such investments. To effectively determine advancements, expanded compensation for teachers and principals should be coupled with a meaningful evaluation system for them. This would serve a two-fold purpose as it would help determine pay based on performance, while at the same time add hard data to help
measure education performance and effectiveness.
The president and the Congress need to act on the premise that teachers and
principals are public educations most valuable assets. We need to start treating
them as our most valuable resource and include them in the decision-making process. To do so, we first need to seek direct input from them on issues such the quality
of development programs, school conditions, administrative support, and other
issues.10 Moreover, they must be consulted as compensation systems are redesigned.
In Maryland, Gov. Martin OMalley plans to carry out a survey among school
teachers every two years called the Teacher Working Conditions Survey to quickly
identify and address areas pertaining to the quality of school leadership, administrative support, professional development, and facility conditions. 11 The survey information will be used to identify problem areas, evaluate the effectiveness of education initiatives, track progress and results, and efficiently direct resources based
on need.12 As our most valuable resources within the school system, it is imperative
that teachers and principals get a say in what happens within the classroom. Therefore, we should consider implementing similar surveys in schools nation-wide.
We have an opportunity to implement highly transformative measures. With so
many teachers leaving the classroom in the next decade, there is an increased sense
of urgency to recruit the next generation of teachers and principals and to experiment with more innovative programs. Our nations future depends on our efforts to
find alternatives to the current system and to attract and retain highly effective
teachers and principals.
The TEACH Acts several programs can help improve recruitment, preparation,
distribution, and retention of a highly effective teacher workforce. I strongly encourage the Committee to move this bill forward and also to consider the other issues
I discussed with you today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee for inviting me today.
Id be happy to take any questions you may have.
ENDNOTES
1 Dan
Goldhaber. Teacher Pay Reforms: ThePolitical Implications of Recent Research (December 2006), Center for American Progress, at 1.
2 Richard M. Ingersoll, Why Do High-Poverty Schools Have Difficulty Staffing their Classrooms with Qualified Teachers? Center for American Progress and the Institute for Americas
Future (2004), available at http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/ingersoll-final.pdf (last viewed
May 7, 2007).
3 Richard M. Ingersoll, Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?, Center for the Study of Teaching
and Policy, University of Washington (2003), at 15; Richard M. Ingersoll, Why Do High Poverty
Schools Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with High Quality Teachers?, Center for
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American Progress (2004) available at http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/ingersoll-final.pdf
(last viewed May 7, 2007).
4 National Center for Education Statistics, Monitoring School Quality: An Indicators Report,
December 2000, at 13-14.
5 Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, How to Improve the Supply of High-Quality Teachers,
Brookings Papers on Education Policy: 2004, at 16.
6 Education Week, Quality Counts 2003, Editorial Projects in Education, Jan. 9, 2003, available at http://counts.edweek.org/sreports/qc03/templates/article.cfm?slug=17divide.h22 (last
viewed May 6, 2007).
7 Center for American Progress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Leaders and Laggards:
A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness, at 7 (February 2007), available at
http://www.uschamber.com/icw/reportcard/majorfindings.htm (last viewed May 7, 2007).
8 Kevin Cary, The Real Value of Teachers, The Education Trust, Winter 2004. available at
http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/5704CBA6-CE12-46D0-A852-D2E2B4638885/0/
Spring04.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007).
9 Teresita Perez and Reece Rushing, The CitiStat Model: How Data-Driven Government Can
Increase Efficiency & Effectiveness (April 2007) at 10, available at http://
www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/citistatreport.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007).
10 OMalley and Brown, New Ideas to Improve Teacher Working Conditions, 2006, available
at http://omalley.3cdn.net/9debebb3ca354efd5431m6b9q13.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007).
11 OMalley and Brown, New Ideas to Improve Teacher Working Conditions, 2006, available
at http://omalley.3cdn.net/9debebb3ca354efd5431m6b9q13.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007).
12 Teresita Perez and Reece Rushing, The CitiStat Model: How Data-Driven Government Can
Increase Efficiency & Effectiveness (April 2007) at 9, available at http://
www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/citistatreport.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007).
Chairman MILLER. Mr. Klein.

STATEMENT OF JOEL I. KLEIN, CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. KLEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. McKeon, members of

the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Ms. Clarke, thank you for your kind words and your distinguished service to our city.
You know, Mr. Chairman, I told John when I sat downI said,
this reminds me of the Clinton White House. He always got to
speak before I did. But there is one major difference. This is the
first time I have ever agreed with everything he said, actually, so
it is good to see you have matured so well, John.
Mr. Chairman, you said it at the outset, and I think this is a serious matter, we all know the recent report out of the Aspen Commission, which pointed out that teacher quality is the single most
important ingredient in a childs education. And tragically, in
America today, teacher quality is unevenly distributed in our
schools. Students with the greatest needs tend to have access to
the least qualified and least effective teachers; and if we dont address that issue head on, we are not going to succeed in transforming education in America.
Let me give you some examples in my city. People talk about, for
example, high turnover of teachers. In some schools we have a perpetual turnover of teachers. In other schools, we have absolute stability. In some schools, the average teacher salary will be $20,000
more on average than in another school. In some schools, if I get
a vacancy, 200, 300, 400 people apply to teach there. In other
schools, every year I am running through 20, 30, 40 new teachers.
And as long as we continue with the current structures and the
current incentives, we are going to continue to get the current results.
What I am excited about is the TEACH Act that you and Senator
Kennedy have put forward. And I think we ought to take it to the
highest positive levels.
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I will give you three examples from New York City. Working
with our union, we have negotiated a $10,000 pay differential for
what we call lead teachers. They go in a pair to high-needs schools.
I designate the teacher, I designate the schoolsover 200 now
working in New York City. They build capacity, they attract other
talent, they begin to create the desired kind of positive conditions.
The second thing we did is, we gave a $15,000 signing bonus to
math, science teachers who commit to go for 3 years to a highneeds school. As a result of that, in 2 months we got over 100 new
teachers to come to New York from other school districts in order
to go to high-needs schools. We are now working with NYU and
CUNY. We have put together a lot of scholarship money for kids
in math and science to train and then again commit to go to highneeds schools.
And I think it is absolutely essential, as John and others have
said, that we put in place meaningful pay-for-performance programs in high-needs schools. If we dont do that, we are not going
to be able to generate the incentives we need to make sure we get
the talent.
Let me give you, to me, the proudest example, and see if I can
convince Dr. Sanford to come to New York with this.
We just negotiated a contract with our administrators union.
Chairman MILLER. He is a free agent.
Mr. KLEIN. Wherever I go, I am always looking for great principals. Those are the people who change schools. Under our new
principals contractand this was a big breakthrough for everybody, a principal in New York basically can make as much as
$150,000 and then another $50,000, $25,000 to go to a high-needs
school for 3 years to do turnaround work, and another $25,000 on
a pay-for-performance basis.
Chairman MILLER. Youre getting his attention.
Mr. KLEIN. I know. Plus I have a little discretionary money we
can throw in too.
But that is the kind of results you want to reward.
As a result of these programs in New York, what we are doing
for the first time is really beginning to create the conditions which
will attract talent, reward talent and keep talent in high-needs
schools.
NCLB can mandate that we get a highly qualified teacher in
each classroom, but if the law of supply and demand doesnt allow
that, then the mandate is going to be an unfulfilled mandate. And
if the Federal Government wants to change the facts on the ground
in urban education, I would suggest you put significant amounts of
dollars in meaningful incentives to attract talent.
And let me assure you this is not a zero-sum game. In my highperforming schools, I will continue to have high-quality teachers.
But the fact of the matter is, if you pay people the same and they
have a choice between working with kids who come to school with
all the privileges and working with kids who come to school with
all the challenges, most people, most people are going to choose to
work with the kids with all the privileges. And that is why we have
this enormous inequity in the distribution of the most vital resource in urban education, and that is teachers and principals.
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So I hope in this reauthorization, Mr. Chairman, that your leadership, the leadership of Mr. McKeon and the entire Congress gets
behind a meaningful incentive-driven, pay-for-performance set of
programs so that we can finally give the kids, 53 years after
Brown, an equal educational opportunity. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Klein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joel I. Klein, Chancellor, New York City
Department of Education
Good morning. Thank you Chairman Miller and Congressman McKeon for inviting me to testify today. Also thank you to Congresswoman Yvette Clarke for all her
help in representing New York City.
This morning, I will discuss some of the innovative ways were promoting teacher
excellence in New York City. But first, Id like to reiterate a point I made when I
testified before this committee last summer.
The law that were discussing today, No Child Left Behind, might not be perfect,
but it is very valuable. It forces us to focus on student performance and recognizes
that the achievement gapthe gap that separates our African-American and Latino
students from their white peersis the chief problem in American schooling. This
law puts muscle behind the attempt to close that gap. It requires us to report student performance in grades three through eight by race and poverty status. We can
no longer mask the deficiencies of some students with outsized gains by others.
Now, NCLB can be improved and I have proposed ways to do that. But to criticize
the heart of No Child Left Behind is to refuse to take responsibility for student performance and especially for the achievement gapthe most serious civil rights, social, and economic crisis facing America today. We should learn from our experiences and make a good thing better, but we should not consider diluting or destroying a law that forces us to confront our problems head on. We must not yield to
the critics of NCLB because, I believe, their complaints are missing the laws broader significance.
Now, to the topic at hand.
We know how important good teachers are. Research shows that an average student lucky enough to have three teachers in a row in the top 25 percent of all our
teachers will improve, rising from the 50th to the 60th percentile. But a student
with three teachers in a row in the bottom 25 percent will fall from the 50th to the
40th percentile. The difference between those two outcomes is enormous, especially
when you consider 13 years of education.
Its clear that one of the best ways to raise student performance is to increase
the number of effective teachers and reduce the number of ineffective teachers.
Thankfully, the large majority of teachers are hard-working, competent, and committed. Our challenge is to make sure that all students are taught by successful
teachers.
One way were meeting that challenge under Mayor Bloombergs leadership in
New York City is by recruiting and retaining more excellent teachers, especially in
hard-to-staff subjects and high-needs schools.
We used to lose great teachers simply because we couldnt pay them competitively. So weve raised starting teacher salaries by 43% since 2002, bringing teacher
salaries much closer to salaries in nearby high-income districts.
Weve created two new programs specifically to address our shortage of math and
science teachersa problem facing cities nationwide. The Housing Incentive Program gives bonuses of up to $15,000 to experienced shortage-area teachers who commit to spending three years in one of our high-needs schools. This incentive has already brought about 100 teachers to New York City.
The second program, the Partnership for Teacher Excellence, is a new approach
to teacher preparation that trains math and science teachers by giving them on-theground experience in our schools. These students receive tuition assistance at the
City University of New York or New York University in exchange for a commitment
to teach in a high-needs school. The first graduates of this program will start teaching in our classrooms this fall.
We also created the Lead Teacher program last year to reward excellent teachers
and encourage them to remain in our schools to help their peers. Lead Teachers
earn an additional $10,000 a year to mentor and coach other teachers while also
teaching students. They work in the schools that need their experience the most
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those that are struggling to meet their academic goals. About 200 Lead Teachers
are working in our highest-need schools this year.
Id like to commend Chairman Miller for proposing the TEACH ACT, which would
provide incentive pay to teachers in high need areas. This would complement existing New York City efforts to attract top-quality teachers to our high-needs schools.
I would urge Congress go further and provide pay for performanceespecially for
teachers in struggling schoolsbased on state or city value-added accountability
systems approved by the Secretary of Education. We must reward teachers who
make great progress with our struggling students. Not every challenge is the same
in life; thats also true in education and Congress should recognize it as such.
We recently created this type of incentive for our principals, through negotiations
with the Council for School Supervisors and Administrators. The new contract permits the Chancellor to create Executive Principal positions, allowing the Department of Education to raise by $25,000 the salaries of high-performing principals
who voluntarily agree to lead high-needs schools for at least three years. It also allows the Chancellor to pay principals performance-based bonuses of up to $25,000.
Similar incentives for our teachers would go a long way toward attracting and retaining top-quality teachers in our highest needs schools.
Were already seeing impressive results from these initiatives and our other recruitment efforts. We are receiving about five applications for every teacher we hire,
meaning that our schools are more selective than ever before.
Ive spoken so far about how weve improved the quality of the new teachers we
hire. Were also taking an important step to improve the quality of the teachers
weve already hired. We intend to make tenure a well-deserved honor, not a routine
right. Today tenure is nearly automatic. About 99% of teachers who serve for three
years in our system receive tenure as a matter of course. This is the default position. We want as many teachers as possible to become tenured, but we want them
to earn it on the merits. This is so important because once a teacher has tenure,
he or she basically enjoys lifetime job security.
Under our new tenure proposal, principals will receive a new set of supports and
tools to ensure that this incredibly important decision is made in a rigorous,
thoughtful, and fact-based manner. For example, this spring, we launched something called the Tenure Notification System, which notifies principals when their
teachers probationary periods are nearing a close.
Not everyone is going to be a good teacher, and its up to principals to carefully
assess each candidate and determine whether he or she deserves the substantial job
protection afforded by tenure. We want to ensure that all of our children have great
teachers; we cannot afford to let ineffective teachers remain in our system. This new
Tenure Notification System will help principals consider whether teachers who are
eligible for tenure deserve it.
Under our new tenure review system, we also intend to take teacher impact on
student performance into account. Using student outcomes as a measure of teacher
quality is controversial in some quarters, but if we are really going to change things,
we need to acknowledge candidly that results matter: research shows that past
teaching success is the single best predictor of future success. Its not right to hold
students accountable for high achievement without also holding adults accountable
for their own performance.
We are working with the United Federation of Teachers to create a new peer
intervention program for struggling teachers. Where this remediation fails, we will
help principals remove the lowest performers.
And we are giving our educators new tools to help them improve the work they
do every day by measuring and analyzing how well students are learning.
We are providing all schools with periodic assessments, which are diagnostic tools
aligned with curriculum that teachers will use over the course of the year to learn
about their students strengths and weaknesses. This will help educators adjust instruction to each students individual needs in time to make an immediate difference. To help make all of this new information available in a timely way, we are
launching a powerful new data and knowledge management system called the
Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS). ARIS will put critical informationabout results on periodic assessments, end of year standardized exams, and
other resultsat the fingertips of principals, teachers, and parents.
Unfortunately, by focusing exclusively on credentials in defining a highly qualified teacher, NCLB abandons teacher quality at the classroom door. We need to ensure that we hire qualified teachers, but we also need to ask whether those teachers
are actually helping students learn.
When I testified before this committee last year, I told you that in an age of technology, educators no longer have to guess what a students problem is and experiment until they find the right solution. Well, schools no longer have to guess about
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teacher quality, either. It is something we can and should measure. I hope the next
version of NCLB will motivate schools to do this, just as were doing it in New York
City.
Thank you. I welcome your questions.
Chairman MILLER. Dr. Sanford.

STATEMENT OF DR. JARVIS SANFORD, PRINCIPAL, DODGE
RENAISSANCE ACADEMY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,

thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today.
Mr. Davis, thank you for those kind words and for the work that
you do in Chicago.
Research supports what common sense tells us, the two most important variables affecting student learning are the quality of the
teachers and the quality of the school leader. And this means that
the most urgent challenge in an effort to improve student achievement across the country is a problem of human capital. Both of the
two presenters before me were keenly aware of that and testified
as such.
And how do we develop the teachers and how do we develop the
leaders who will make sure this is possible? One, teacher recruitment. On teacher recruitment two things are clear. First, the traditional approaches on teacher training are not providing either the
quantity or quality of teachers and principals we will need in order
to transform American education.
And second, we know that there are programs around the country that are recruiting and training principals who are having a
profound impact on student achievement. And I would like to
spend my time here helping to share with you exactly the results
at Dodge Renaissance Academy, where I am the principal.
Dodge is over 95 percent low income. However, I am proud, even
more so, to share the statistic that we were able to achieve the
highest gains in the State of Illinois on the Illinois Standards
Achievement Test. Dodge scores skyrocketed from 26 percent of
students at or above national norms to 62 percent in 2006, a 36
percent gain in just 1 year. And when individuals ask how we accomplished this, I say that it is all because of good teachers and
good leadership; and I attribute much of that success, really, to the
Academy of Urban School Leadership and New Leaders for New
Schools.
The Academy of Urban School Leadership has been changing,
really, the reality of underperforming and underserved schools in
Chicago for the past 6 years, and is one of only three not-for-profit
urban teacher residency programs in our country. AUSLs teacher
preparation program is a model that is modeled after the medical
professions requirement of a clinical residency.
The program requires that a teacher candidate spend a full
school years apprenticeship with a mentor teacher in one of the
urban teaching academies like Dodge. During that year residents
earn a masters degree and State certification. But here is the key.
Theory and practice are woven together as course workers specifically design to equip the residents in order to teach in low-performing schools.
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AUSL also provides continuing professional development in an
effort to help its graduates through instructional workshops, networking opportunities and coaching. And their field coaches are
strategically aligned and provide graduates with intensive support
during the first 2 years in the classroom.
I particularly appreciate the value of this type of training models. And it is because I, too, was trained in a residency model program as part of my principal program with New Leaders for New
Schools. I was honored in an effort to be selected from over 250 applicants as one of 14 New Leaders in order to join my cohort in
Chicago.
As a part of the New Leaders training model, all fellows really
engage in highly rigorous coursework that focuses on instructional
and organizational leadership and then spend a year in a full-time,
paid residency with an outstanding mentor principal in an urban
public school.
I think New Leaders, both for new schools and AUSL, have three
implications for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind; and
the first and most important is that we should continue to support
growing teacher and principal training programs that are successful, because we know that developing outstanding teachers and
principals is the only way to reach our goal that no child gets left
behind.
And the second issue is that we should hold the adults accountable not only for the results, but also hold them accountable just
as we do our students. And this means we should track the success
of teachers and principals as they go out into the world and connect
these results back into the teacher and principal training programs
that prepared them. And this will help us to determine which programs are really turning out great teachers and which are not preparing our teachers for urban schools.
Third, we will recruit and develop these outstanding teachers
and principals we need in order to make sure we get them to the
schools that need them the most. We must provide, as Mr. Klein
just indicated, incentives for our best teachers and principals, who
work in the hardest-to-staff schools that are struggling the most.
In addition, I think teacher and principal training programs are
an important lesson that low-performing schools should not and
will not continue in the future.
I welcome any and all of you to visit Dodge, and to visit the
Academy of Urban School Leadership and to visit New Leaders for
New Schools, to experience the models in action. And I believe you
will have an incredible opportunity to really support these programs that are achieving outstanding results and truly guarantee
that no child is left behind. Thank you.
[The statement of Dr. Sanford follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Jarvis Sanford, Principal, Dodge Renaissance
Academy
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to
testify before you today concerning the vital importance of the reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, perhaps better known as the No Child
Left Behind Act.
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Background
As context for my testimony today, a brief overview of my credentials is warranted. My education background is a Bachelor of Science degree from Morehouse
in Atlanta; an MBA and a Doctor of Education degree, both from Northern Illinois
University; and a graduate of the premiere principal training program, New Leaders
for New Schools in Chicago. I am completing my third year as Principal of the
Dodge Renaissance Academy, an elementary school on the west side of Chicago; my
student population, about 450 students, is above ninety-five percent low-income.
Overview
High-performing public schools are an integral component of the core stability
that is fundamental to a strong democratic, civil, and prosperous society. We must
elevate the achievement of the worst-performing schools to be able to realize the full
potential of our children and our country. We cannot have a healthy, vibrant America while so many of our children are truly left behind with no real options or tools
to develop anything good for their future.
It is imperative that we recognize that the children in our low-income, urban public schools give us a reality that requires specific and rigorous preparation to reach
and then teach them to achieve. The life issues, the community realities, the confusion of the world outside of each of these schools follow these students when they
walk through our doors. All the harshness of their world winds its way into the
classrooms.
Teacher and Principal Quality: Whats Working
Research supports what common sense tells us: the two most important variables
affecting student learning are the quality of the teacher and the quality of the
school leader. This means the most urgent challenge to improving student achievement across the country is a problem of human capital: how do we develop the
teachers that we have, how do we attract the nations best and brightest to become
teachers and school leaders, and how do we retain these outstanding teachers and
principals once we have them?
On teacher recruitment two things are clear: first, the traditional approaches to
teacher training are not providing the quantity or quality of teachers and principals
we will need to transform American education; second, we know that there are programs around the country that are recruiting and training high quality teachers and
principals that are having a profound impact on student achievement. I would like
to spend my time today talking about two of those programs, about how they have
made possible our achievement results at Dodge, about how Dodge benefited from
the tough love of a true turnaround, and about what implications these programs
might have for the reauthorization of NCLB.
As I mentioned a minute ago, my school, Dodge, is over ninety-five percent lowincome. However I am proud to share an even more important statistic from Dodge:
This year we achieved the highest gains in the State of Illinois on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. Dodges scores skyrocketed from 26% of students at-or-above
national norms in 2005 to 62% in 2006, a 36% gain in just one year.
When people ask us how we accomplished this I say that it is all about good
teachers and good leadership, and I attribute much of that success to the Academy
of Urban School Leadership, the organization that trains and supports our teachers,
and to New Leaders for New Schools, the organization that recruited, trained and
supported me as a principal.
Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL)
AUSL has been changing the reality of underperforming and underserved schools
in Chicago for the past six years and is one of only three not-for-profit Urban Teacher Residency programs in our country. AUSLs teacher preparation program is modeled after the medical professions requirement of a clinical residency. The program
requires that a teacher candidate spend a full school years apprenticeship with a
mentor teacher in one of their urban teaching academies like Dodge. During that
year, the Residents also earn their Masters degree and state certification. Theory
and practice are continually woven together as coursework is specifically designed
to equip the Residents to teach in low-performing urban schools.
AUSL provides continuing professional development to its graduates through instructional workshops, networking opportunities, and coaching. Their Field Coaches
provide graduates with intensive support during the first two years in the classroom, and three additional years of on-call support. AUSL currently has 153 graduates teaching in Chicago and boasts a ninety-five percent retention rate compared
to a district wide average of barely 50 percent.
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New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS)
I particularly appreciate the value of this type of training model because I too was
trained in a residency based model as part of my principal training program with
New Leaders for New Schools. I was honored to be selected from over 250 applicants
as one of 14 New Leaders to join my cohort in Chicago. As part of the New Leaders
training model, all fellows engage in highly rigorous coursework that focuses on instructional and organizational leadership, and then spend a year in a full time paid
residency with an outstanding mentor principal in an urban public school.
This combination of rigorous coursework, on the ground experience working alongside outstanding principals, the built in support of a cohort of fellow principals plus
an organization that provides ongoing coaching and mentoring have been critical to
my own professional growth and the success of my school. In a time when it is difficult to earn a job as a principal, in Chicago we now have parents, community
members and kids pleading to get a New Leaders principal for their school because
they have seen the results that New Leaders principals have generated across the
city. New Leaders is currently partnering with 9 cities around the country and New
Leaders principals are changing the educational opportunities of more than 200,000
of Americas children every day.
We know there are other innovative teacher and principal training programs
throughout the country that are having incredible successes attracting the best and
the brightest into education. Teach For America alone has placed more than 15,000
teachers in the most underserved classrooms in the country and consistently draws
applications from more than 10% of the graduating classes of Ivy League colleges.
These programs and others prove that it is possible to attract the best people to be
educators, and that if we train them well and support them well they can produce
the dramatic kind of results that we have seen at Dodge.
Teacher and Principal Quality: Implications For Reauthorization
I think New Leaders for New Schools and AUSL have three implications for the
reauthorization of NCLB, the first and most important is that we should continue
to support growing teacher and principal training programs that are successful because we know that developing outstanding teachers and principals is the only way
to reach our goal that no child gets left behind.
The second is that we should hold the adults accountable for results the way that
we are holding students accountable for results. This means we should track the
success of teachers and principals as they go out into the world and connect these
results back to the teacher and principal training programs that prepared them.
This will help us determine which programs are really turning out great teachers
and leaders, and which ones are just diploma mills that do not prepare teachers for
the real work of instruction. Programs that have high levels of success training effective educators should receive more funding to expand their practices, while education schools or training programs that achieve little or no results should be held
accountable the way our worst performing schools are held accountable-they should
lose the ability to certify teachers or they should lose federal funding.
Third, when we recruit and develop these outstanding teachers and principals we
need to make sure we get them to the schools that need them most. We must provide incentives for our best teachers and principals to work in the hardest to staff
schools that struggle the most. To keep and attract these educators we will need
to build diverse and challenging career paths for teachers and school leaders that
will allow them to expand and share their skills with others as they become masters
of their craft. This means allowing teachers to grow into positions as master teachers or staff developers where they can lead apprentice teachers in developing their
skills.
Restructuring Failed Schools
In addition to teacher and principal training and recruitment, I think there is one
other important lesson from our success at Dodge: our lowest performing schools require our most serious interventions. In addition to the superior teacher-preparation
model, AUSL also focuses on transforming chronically failing schools into schools of
excellence by closing schools that fail to meet NCLB guidelines and creating NCLB
Turnaround Schools. Students leave in June and return two months later in September to a school of all new teachers, a new principal, a new curriculum, and improved facilities. Dodge was the beneficiary of just such a turnaround. We were able
to capitalize on this drastic change to dramatically change the culture, expectations
and results at Dodge and we believe that our success demonstrates that schools
with dramatic needs require dramatic interventions. We should expect more from
low performing schools and if they dont succeed we should shut them down and
open new schools rather than tinkering around the edges with superficial changes:
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too many districts allow their lowest performing schools to just rearrange the deck
chairs on the Titanic rather than demand that they build a whole new ship.
It is critical to minimize the wiggle room that enables districts to embrace
delays, or to proceed with an incremental change when whole-school change is warranted: chronically underperforming schools should be closed and restarted in order
to ensure success for the children we are failing to serve right now.
Too many underperforming and underserved urban schools.
Too many lives undeveloped.
Too many fascinating, important futures unexplored.
I welcome any and all of you to visit Dodge, to visit the Academy of Urban School
Leadership, to visit New Leaders for New Schools and to experience the models in
action. I believe that you have an incredible opportunity to support these programs
that are achieving outstanding results and truly guarantee that No Child gets Left
Behind.
Thank you very much for your time and action.
Chairman MILLER. Ms. McLean.

STATEMENT OF VALDINE McLEAN, SCIENCE TEACHER,
PERSHING COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL, LOVELOCK, NV
Ms. MCLEAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Heller, for your introduction.
I have taught for 18 years in both inner city and rural schools.
I currently teach physics, chemistry and biology to students in
grades 10 through 12 at Pershing County High School in Lovelock,
Nevada. I am National Board Certified and have a Presidential
Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. Currently, I
am President of the Pershing County Classroom Teachers Association. I am honored to offer my insights on how performance pay
can boost quality in the teaching profession.
As a member of the Virtual Teachers Leaders Network, I am
part of a team of 17 other accomplished teachers from across the
Nation who authored the recent report, Paying Teachers for Performance: Designing a System That Students Deserve. My
TeacherSolutions colleagues are also award winners. We are
NBCTs, Milken winners, national, State and district teachers of
the year and Carnegie Fellows. We wrote this report because, all
too often, accomplished teachers are left out of the debates about
our profession and the students in communities we serve.
Performance pay is the first of many teaching issues that we
hope we can tackle through our collective voices at Teacher Leaders Network and with our TeacherSolutions module. We worked in
the spring of 2006 through the use of technology. We had meetings
over Illuminate, an Internet program in which we could listen and
talk with national experts and read the research on performanceand merit-based plans in which some are in existence around the
country and others are comprehensive ideas.
Through our work in promoting performance pay for teachers
three critical points surfaced:
One, make sure the base pay is right and competitive. Teachers
should be able to work in the communities and live in those communities;
Two, do not place a cap on participation so all teachers have a
chance to grow and lead; and
Three, involve teachers in designing whatever system you create.
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Our report does not offer a prescriptive formula, but a comprehensive framework that proposes to pay teachers more when
they help students more over time, using credible classroom data;
Work in small teams to improve student achievement;
Gain relevant knowledge, like what is needed to serve a growing
number of second language learners;
Teach in high-priority schools, subject and assignments;
Demonstrate their expertise, for example, when they earn National Board Certification; and
Serve as mentor coaches and teacher educators for after-school
programs.
Our own investigation into performance pay issues have led to us
to conclude that we need to measure teacher effectiveness in multiple ways. Why? Because there are many influences on student
learning.
Identifying effective teachers requires evaluating their teacher
practices, assessing their performance and examining the different
ways they get academic results for students. Only about one in
three students can have a value-added test score ascribed to them.
Many of the tests are not very good, especially in terms of measuring 21st century learning.
And large test companies routinely have to invalidate scores because of technical errors. They do not measure much of what I
teach, like when I offer daily laboratory exercises for my students
from coaching them to extract DNA, to investigating water quality
of a 200-mile stretch of the Humboldt River.
We need to focus on rewards on teachers spreading their expertise to others, not creating unhealthy competition among colleagues. Because understanding that science is not always easily
accessible to my diverse students, I frequently develop cooperative
projects with my colleagues in art, shop, English and computer
science. Together with my colleagues, I have developed into the
teacher that I need to be.
We need to reward teachers who earn National Board Certification. The process helped me learn to be the teacher I need to be.
And now I mentor colleagues in my district to help them to be successful, too, in achieving their certification.
As the first teacher in my school to use computers and technology in the classroom, I discovered a powerful tool to help reach
my English language learners and special needs students. I then,
in turn, gave workshops to my colleagues in the entire school district to pass on my new knowledge and skills to help other educators be more effective.
How performance pay plans can boost the quality in teaching:
Aspiring teachers rarely go into teaching for money. However,
once hired, they quickly see who does what and for how much.
There is a great disparity in pay. Experience does not equate with
quality and, likewise, the pay. The talented teachers shouldnt have
to wait 25 years to earn a reasonable salary that a talented engineer might earn in the private sector in 8 years.
Not much skill, if any at all, is required to have students do book
work in class. It is like managing cattle. However, it takes great
skill and effort to lead a pumpkin catapult contest every fall involving more than half the student body, as well as parents, business
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people and others from throughout the community and the region.
This hands-on project nurtures skills and cooperation, teamwork
and friendly competition, the 21st century skills we need, as well
as providing motivation for seniors to take a challenging science
elective instead of free period or study hall. This type of plan, a
good plan that rewards people with skill can keep effective people
as teachers in the classroom.
In order to lead and earn more money, teachers are forced to become administrators where their teaching expertise is often not
used. Cant we encourage our best to stay in teaching by offering
them chances to work with teacher education students, mentor
novices, train colleagues while still teaching children part time?
Our best surgeons perform an operation one day and prepare future doctors the next. Why cant our pay systems do the same for
teachers? A country needs world-class learners with the global
skills necessary to take this great nation into the 22nd century.
I highly encourage you to read our full report. We do not have
all the answers, but we do have teacher solutions from some of the
Nations most accomplished teachers, and I am just one of many.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. McLean follows:]
Prepared Statement of Valdine McLean, Chemistry, Physics, and Biology
Teacher, Pershing County High School, Lovelock, NV
Boosting Quality in the Teaching Profession through Performance Pay Plans
Thank you Mr. Chairman. My name is Valdine McLean and I have taught for 18
yearsin both inner-city and rural schools. I currently teach physics, chemistry,
and biology to students in grades 1012 at Pershing County High School in
Lovelock, Nevada. I am a National Board Certified Teacher and have earned a Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. Currently I am the
President of Pershing County Classroom Teachers Association. I am honored to offer
my insights on why and how performance pay can boost quality in the teaching profession.
As member of the virtual Teacher Leaders Network I am part of team of 17 other
accomplished teachers from across the nation who authored the recent report, Paying Teachers for Performance: Designing a System That Students Deserve. My
TeacherSolutions colleagues are also award winnersNBCTs, Milken winners, national, state, and district teachers of the year, and Carnegie Fellows. We wrote this
report because all too often accomplished teachers are left out of the debates about
our profession and the students and communities we serve. Policymakers hear from
administrators, business leaders, researchers, policy analysts, and top-level union
officials.
Performance pay is the first of many teaching issues that we hope we can tackle
through our collective voices at Teacher Leaders Network and with our
TeacherSolutions module. We worked in the Spring of 2006 through the use of technology. We had meetings over Illuminate, (an Internet program in which we could
listen and talk with national experts and read the research of performance and
merit based plans in which some are in existence around the country and others
that are comprehensive ideas.)
Through our work in promoting performance pay for teachers, three critical points
surfaced:
1. Make sure the base pay is right and competitive;
2. Do not place a cap on participationso all teachers have a chance to grow and
lead; and
3. Involve teachers in designing whatever system you create.
Our report does not offer a prescriptive formula, but a comprehensive framework
that proposes to pay teachers more when they:
1. Help students learn more over time, using credible classroom data;
2. Work in small teams to improve student achievement;
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3. Gain relevant knowledge like what is needed to serve growing numbers of second language learners;
4. Teach in high priority schools, subjects, and assignments
5. Demonstrate their expertisee.g., when they earn National Board Certification; and
6. Serve as mentors, coaches, and teacher educatorsand lead much needed afterschool and parent education programs.
Our own investigation into performance pay issues has led us to conclude that we
need to measure teacher effectiveness in multiple ways.
Why? Because there are many influences on student learning, identifying effective
teachers requires evaluating their teaching practices, assessing their performance,
and examining the different ways they get academic results for their students. Only
about 1 in 3 teachers can have a valued-added test score ascribed to them. And
many of the tests are not very good (especially in terms of measuring 21st century
learning)and large test companies routinely have to invalidate scores because of
technical errors. They do not measure much of what I teachlike when I offer daily
laboratory experiences for my students, from coaching them how to extract DNA,
to investigating the water quality of a 200 mile stretch of the Humboldt River.
We need to focus rewards on teachers spreading their expertise to others, not creating unhealthy competition among colleagues.
Because understanding that science is not always easily accessible to my diverse students, I frequently develop cooperative projects with colleagues in art,
shop, English, and computer science. Together with my colleagues, Ive developed
into the teacher I need to be.
We need to reward teachers who earn National Board Certification. The process
helped me learn to be the teacher I need to be, and now I mentor colleagues in my
district to help them be successful too in achieving their certification.
As the first teacher in my school to use computers and technology in the classroom, I discovered a powerful tool to helped me reach English language learners and
special needs students. I then in turn, gave workshops to my colleagues in the entire school district to pass on my new knowledge and skills to help other educators
be effective.
How Performance Pay Plans can Boost the Quality in Teaching
Aspiring teachers rarely go into teaching for the money, however, once hired, they
quickly see who does what for how much. There is great disparity in pay. Experience does not equate with quality, and likewise the pay. The talented teacher
shouldnt have to wait 25 years to earn a reasonable salary that a talented engineer
might earn in the private sector in eight years. If any company stifled its employees
in such a fashion, it would go out of business.
Not much skill if any at all is required to have students do bookwork in class,
its like managing cattle. However, it takes a great skill and effort to lead a pumpkin catapult contest every fall involving more than half of the student body, as well
as parents, businesspeople, and others from throughout the community and the region. This hands-on project nurtures skills in cooperation, teamwork, and friendly
competition, as well as providing motivation for seniors to take a challenging science
elective instead of a free period or study hall. A plan that rewards those with skill,
can keep effective people as teachers in the classroom.
In order to lead and earn more money, teachers are forced to become administrators where their teaching expertise is often not used. Cant we encourage our best
to stay in teaching by offering them chances to work with teacher education students, mentor novices, train colleagues while still teaching children part of the time?
Our best surgeons perform an operation one day and prepare future doctors the
next. Why cant our pay systems do the same for teachers?
Our country needs world class learners with the global skills necessary to take
this great nation into the 22nd century. I highly encourage you to read our full report. We do not have all the answersbut we do have TeacherSolutions from some
of the nations most accomplished teachers.
Chairman MILLER. Dr. Dale.

STATEMENT OF DR. JACK D. DALE, SUPERINTENDENT,
FAIRFAX COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, FALLS CHURCH, VA
Mr. DALE. I want to thank you, Chairman Miller, for the opportunity to come testify and, with Joel Klein, to recruit. And I am
hoping at the end of the testimony here I will have two contracts.
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I do want to commend you for this series of hearings that you
are holding on No Child Left Behind, because I do believe that they
are the most important, at least in my over-30-year career in education.
Recruitment and retention of the brightest minds in our Nation
to become teachers who are our next generation of leaders and scientists and educators and entrepreneurs is our greatest challenge
in the context of strengthening our democracy, growing our Nation
and being an able competitor in the global economy. And truly, the
little red school house and those we teach must be our national priority.
And so it is both an honor and a privilege to attend this hearing
this morning to share with you the concept of teacher leadership
that I started when I was a Superintendent in Maryland, and I am
now implementing in Fairfax.
Across our Nation teacher workforce solutions tend to be on the
margins. We pay additional stipends, we pay additional per diem
rates of pay, workshop rates of pay, curriculum rates of pay and
the list goes on. And when I was negotiating in the State of Washington in labor contracts I did some of those, so I know that they
are there.
But we work on the margins simply because we have not created
a compelling vision of a compensation system built on teachers as
the leaders in our schools. Even the No Child Left Behind approach
on teacher quality takes a narrow view by focusing almost exclusively on credentials and other paper qualifications and not on the
art and success of teaching.
Our systems will never change unless we create a focused effort
to do so. So I believe we must stop working on the edges of this
issue and restructure the teacher and work compensation system
that is part of our Nation.
Today, I wish to share the new system we are creating in Fairfax
County. At the core of our redesign we recognize that many adults,
not just single-career people, but many adults aspire to have multiple careers inside and outside of education, and maybe even some
of the members of the committee as I hear. We recognize that people enter the profession to work with kids. Typically, teachers do
not aspire to become administrators, yet they want to have a voice
in the decisions that impact their classrooms, their working conditions and the education of todays youth.
We expect teachers to teach, perform leadership functions, participate in school improvement decisions, participate in grade level
and content area analysis of successful practices, coach, mentor,
monitor progress, involve parents in the classroom and school activities. The list of these expectations and pressures and demands
is lengthy, and are all issued under the same belief and passion of
leaving no child behind.
Within the redesigned work compensation system in the future
we must recognize, I think, five realities:
First is, teaching is a full-time job, it is a full-time profession. It
can no longer be viewed under the hourly employment paradigm
of so many hours per day or even so many days per year. It is fulltime.
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Teachers no longer just teach. they perform a multitude of duties beyond their interaction with kids in the classroom.
There are also multiple careers within the teaching profession,
none of which requires the title of administrator or principal.
Educators must be competitively compensatednot some teachers, but all teachers.
We must look within a school systems current resources to make
most of these changes, and that is a challenge. And only additional
resources, I think, can come about through creative innovations
and, potentially, through congressional or State legislative action.
We must recognize the importance of teachers as key leaders and
decision-makers in their schools. The new rules I propose are based
on 12-month contracts instead of the current 10-or-so-month contract. The proposed teacher roles are in addition to the normal 180
days that they meet with students and include the following different types of roles.
One is what I would call a School Improvement Teacher Leader.
This includes working with the school leadership and the principal
and assistant principal in shared leadership responsibilities in analyzing school performance, program changes, staff development
needs, et cetera.
A second role is what we would call Feeder or Cluster Improvement Teacher Leader that focuses on the connections and collaborations in schools that are in the K-12 hierarchy of grades that our
students progress through. Particularly in this area, we focus on
content alignment and performance expectations.
The third area is Instructional Improvement Teacher Leader. It
includes instructional innovation, curricular mapping, developing
strong teams of teacher leaders or teaching capacity within the
classroom, and each of them refining their instructional skills.
A fourth area is what I would call New Teacher Trainer/Mentor.
This is dealing with our new teachers that prior to the start of
school need extensive training, and during the first several years
of teaching, need lots of support in mentoring and coaching.
A fifth area is not uncommon, so I call it Extended Student
Learning. It focuses on tutoring and nurturing students who are
performing below grade level or who need even some preteaching
of the content before they start the school year. Such work could
be done after school, during school breaks or any time, as necessary, to have the kids be successful.
The sixth area is Student Transition Leadership. It includes
analysis and coordination of support services for kids as they go
through the grade level. We currently devote a great deal of money
to these functions, but rarely on a piecemeal basis. And rarely do
we strategically group them in the manner I have described to comprehensively compensate teachers.
And I will invite any questions at the end.
Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
[The statement of Dr. Dale follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Jack D. Dale, Superintendent, Fairfax County
Public Schools, Fairfax, VA
Across the nation our teacher workforce solutions tend to be on the margins. We
negotiate additional stipends, per diem rates of pay, workshop rates of pay, curriculum rates of pay, and other methods of adding bits of time and compensation.
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Some states and policy makers are now revisiting merit pay, or performance pay,
each of which remains on the margin. We work on the margins simply because we
have not created a compelling vision of a new teacher compensation system, a system based on the real, day-to-day, month-to-month and annual work requirements
of our nations teachers.
We must stop working on the edges of this issue and restructure the teacher
work/compensation system. Our current systems will never change unless we recognize the teaching profession has changed drastically. We must create a new paradigm of teaching and the resources must follow that paradigm.
Our redesign must also recognize that many adults now wish to have multiple careers inside and outside of education. We must recognize that people enter the profession to work with children. Teachers typically do not aspire to become administrators, yet they do seek an active voice in the decisions impacting their classrooms
and their working conditions.
First, lets look at the current job expectations. We now ask teachers to perform
a multitude of duties outside the classroom. Schools now require a leadership structure that includes people inside and outside the schoolhouse. We expect teachers to
teach, perform leadership functions, participate in school improvement decisions,
monitor progress, and involve parents in classroom activities. The list of expectations, pressures and demands is lengthy, and all are issued in the name of either
leaving no child behind, or in creating world class school systems. It is time to
redesign the work/compensation structure of our teaching workforce.
The work/compensation system of the future must recognize five current realities:
1. Teaching is a full-time profession and can no longer be viewed under an hourly employment paradigm of so many hours per day and so many days per year.
2. Teachers no longer just teach. They must perform a multitude of duties in
and out of the classroom to be successful.
3. There are multiple careers within the teaching profession, none of which need
include the title of administrator.
4. Education must be attractive to large numbers of potential teachersfresh
from college as well as career changers.
5. We must look within a school systems current resource pool (over time) to
make changes. Significant additional resources are not universally available.
Finally, to recognize the multiple set of professional expectations, professional
roles and professional salaries, we must recognize that the specific work year (and
day) will vary within schools and across school systems. Just as we now recognize
that no one instructional approach works for all children, we must recognize that
no one job description encompasses the set of duties for all teachers, nor does one
work calendar address the variety of necessary roles and functions in any school.
We must rethink current roles and responsibilities in education and design a system
that will work in the high stakes, high standards for all students environment.
The New Teacher Workforce Model
The proposed teacher work/compensation model is based on teachers opting and
being selected into one of many role options. The options include not only the current set of responsibilitiesthe Traditional Rolebut also, an additional set of role
options that will form the core of the redesigned school system. The role options are
designed around the core functions of any school. All schools must provide leadership to the entire school community. This function has moved beyond the confines
of the principals office and typically includes a leadership team comprised of teachers and community members as well as the principal. In addition to school leadership, there must be coordination between school levelselementary, middle and
high schools. Both of these leadership functions must occur outside the 180-day
school year and are best addressed before the school year starts.
Training and mentoring of new staff is another necessary leadership function, especially with the highly qualified staff requirements. This function begins before the
school year starts but must also be ongoing throughout the year. The work calendar
for this function is different than the calendar for the other school and feeder leadership functions.
The new teacher leadership functions are all in addition to the normal 180-day
teaching duties. Each recognizes the importance of teachers as key leaders and decision makers for their schools. Because the time demands are different, each will require a different work calendar, but all new roles are based on 12-month contracts
instead of the current 10-month contract. The proposed teacher roles are in addition
to their normal 180 days with students and include the following:
School Improvement Teacher Leaderincludes school leadership responsibilities, shared with the principal including analysis of school performance, program
changes and staff development needs.
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Feeder/Cluster Improvement Teacher Leaderfocuses on connections and collaboration with schools within a K-12 cluster that students would attend during
their school years, particularly content alignment and performance expectations.
Instructional Improvement Teacher Leaderincludes instructional innovation,
curriculum mapping, developing strong teams of teachers and refining instructional
skills.
New Teacher Trainer/Mentorfocuses on training new teachers prior to the
start of school and mentoring new staff during the first several school years.
Extended Student Learningfocuses on tutoring and nurturing students performing below grade level, or who need some pre-teaching of content. Such work
would be done after school, during school breaks, as needed to leave no child behind.
Student Transition Leadershipincludes analysis and coordination of support
services for children needing social/transition skills, it would also include system
guidance as students craft learning plans.
Traditional Role180 school days plus the typical additional 5 to 15 contracted
days; this includes normal duties that are essentially the same as current teaching
duties.
Many of these functions are already being addressed in many schools. We currently devote a great deal of money to many of these functions, but we do so on
a piecemeal basis. Rarely do we group them in a manner that creates a comprehensive teacher work and compensation system. We must create such a system
if we wish to become more intentional about leaving no child behindif we expect
and allow professionals to engage in all the necessary roles and responsibilities for
sustaining high-performing schools, if we recognize that distributed, aligned leadership is a must in our ever-changing society, and, if we hope to compensate professional teachers for the full-time set of duties that are now part of the profession.
The new model assumes a portion of the staff will be willing to assume additional
responsibilities for which they will receive a 12-month contract, representing additional compensation. This also assumes there is enough staff to create a 12:1 ratio
for such assistance would address the area of greatest needextended student
learning. Flexible scheduling of the added time is necessary to meet the needs of
the students needing help. This means that not all teachers will be working the
same hoursa paradigm shift for management.
Other rolesschool and cluster leadershipwill likewise require different work
calendars. These staff members would presumably do much of their work prior to
the start of each school year as their focus must be planning for and leading the
entire school or set of schools in a cluster. Mentoring the new staff would probably
be scheduled before the school year, as well as during the school year. Again, this
would have to be flexible based on the needs of the new staff.
This is a very different approach from many new compensation models that focus
on adding stipends/per diem for added knowledge, skills or responsibilities. The
choice of model belongs to each jurisdiction. This model does make a significant departure from many old models, as well as those being explored in many places in
our nation.
Fairfax County Public Schools: Good to Great Opportunities for Teacher Leaders
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) recently issued a unique grant initiative for
school-based staff to create a cadre of teacher leaders and advance the professionalism of teaching. The purpose of this pilot initiative is to provide schools with
flexibility and funding for extended-year teacher contracts so that schools may create solutions to increase student achievement and ensure students reach their highest potential. It is designed to improve school-based instructional activities, thereby
raising student achievement. Specific goals of the initiative include:
Increased numbers of students achieving NCLB standards as well as School
Board adopted goals covering Academic Achievement, Essential Life Skills and Responsible Citizenship.
Support for innovative and exemplary approaches to develop and utilize teachers as leaders in meeting the instructional needs of students.
Support for the tenets of Professional Learning Communities.
Support to strengthen the link between Professional Learning Communities and
improved student achievement, life skills, and citizenship.
Improvement of the efficiency, cost, and time of teacher training and use at the
school and/or pyramid level.
Sixty-two schools representing a wide range of elementary, middle, and high
schools responded to the Teacher Leadership Request For Proposal (RFP). All
schools and centers had the opportunity to apply for the grant. Schools responding
to the RFP were distributed across all clusters with Cluster III submitting slightly
more proposals (21% of all proposals) than other clusters (7% to 15% of all pro-
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posals). The largest percentage of proposals came from elementary schools: 68% of
the proposals were from elementary schools, 13% were from middle schools, 16%
were from high schools, and 3% were from secondary schools. From the proposals,
twenty-two schools were selected as grantees or Teacher Leadership initiative sites.
Schools presented individualized pilot projects with extended-year teacher contracts to meet the unique needs of their staff and student population. Nearly all
schools (91%) proposed initiating a curriculum development project. These projects
included general curriculum development projects (64%) and specific curriculum development projects such as integrating arts and technology into the curriculum (1%),
remediation programs for at-risk or struggling students (18%), enrichment programs
for advanced learners (14%), and summer school programs (18%). Nearly half of the
schools (45%) proposed school-based staff development activities as a component of
the Teacher Leadership initiative. Schools also proposed activities targeted to the
needs of their individual school communities, including the review and use of data
to inform instruction and staff development (23%), development of common assessments across grade levels (18%), involvement of the community in the school (18%),
resource development (9%), and support to increase enrollment in advanced level
courses (9%).
Through the RFP process, FCPS gained invaluable insight into the ideas and
plans generated by schools. The following sections provide a brief overview of the
challenges and issues that surfaced through the two year development of the Teacher Leadership initiative.
Challenges in Revamping the Teaching Professionthe Paradigm Shift
Change always brings challenges. The most significant challenge was to fully understand the philosophical change that underlies the structural issues. While teaching has traditionally been viewed as a profession, the reality is that teacher work
days and work year are really not viewed from a professional perspective. Neither
is teacher compensation viewed from a professional perspective. Decades of discourse on teaching, the evolution of collective bargaining, and the ongoing policy debate in districts across the nation have lead us all to a paradigm of teacher work
and compensation that is very piecemeal in its approach. We regularly talk about
the teacher work day, the number of days in the work year, the daily rate of pay,
the additional piecemeal pay for additional duties, etc. All of these are examples
of how well ingrained the paradigm of a piecemeal work and compensation system
is within education. This is true in union and non-union environments. In all cases,
conversations about teacher work invariably deal with numbers of work days, work
hours and rates of pay for particular sets of duties.
The first challenge is to completely re-think the teaching profession. Is it possible
to view the teaching profession as a set of duties and responsibilities that are fully
compensated for with one salary? If it is possible to conceive of such a set of professional responsibilities for which a given compensation is appropriate, what are all
the natural changes in the school system? Let us explore a few of the key issues
that any school system must address if/when the new paradigm is embraced. For
the sake of organization clarity, let us examine these issues within the traditional
organizational structure found in any school system.
Human Resources/Personnel
The major challenge for HR is determining how to create, support and monitor
the new contract for those teachers moving to full-time employment status. While
most school systems do have teaching contracts of varying lengths, many have simply used additional per diem contracts to add additional days of work to selected
teachers. Annual extensions of the basic contract could be used in this circumstance,
but that methodology does not have the impact on the revamping the teaching profession being proposed here. There are substantive benefits for changing the work
and compensation structure that go well beyond tweaks on the edges. The most
significant is the permanent change in the profession that is contemplated in this
proposal. Nevertheless, even this proposed permanent change in teacher work and
compensation results in a host of issues within HR/Personnel. The issues that must
be addressed include:
1. Time and attendance record keepinghow to determine days worked, days off,
sick leave accrual, vacation or non-work days, eligibility for workmans compensation.
2. Continuing contract rightsfor normal teacher contract or for the full-time
contract.
3. Flexible length days during year vs. required time each day.
4. Teachers with different contracts within the same building.
5. Employment decisions for those not choosing full-time positions.
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6. Decisions on contract length in subsequent yearsmanagement decisions as
well as employee decisions.
Budget Planning
There are two major issues for the budget office. One is to determine the savings
if we no longer utilize stipends, per diem pay, or any other compensation strategies
for the work that is now subsumed in the full-time contract. Additionally, many
school districts currently pay for teachers attending workshops during non-school
days as well as paying for substitutes when teachers are released to attend training
during the school day. Depending on how these are scheduledpotentially during
the extended contract timethere is a potential for substantial savings.
The second issue is determining the gross cost for the longer contract. Multiple
methodologies are possible. One can simply calculate average salaries for regular
and full-time contracts, and multiply that difference by the number of expected fulltime contracts. One can also determine the actual pay difference on a person by person basis after the staff selection has occurred. So, in summary, the budget issues
include:
1. Calculating potential savings from: stipends, per diem, reduced substitute demand, and other compensation that would not be necessary.
2. Added cost for full-time contracts.
3. Added employer costsretirement, social security, benefits (life insurance).
4. Change in overhead costs to administer full-time contract vs. regular contract
plus added pay for added duties.
5. Developing a multi-year budget for phase-in period.
Unions and Employee Groups
There are major issues to address when you are altering wages and hours, not
to mention working conditions. Depending upon retained management rights in a
union environment, a district may have the latitude to create longer employment
contracts for teachers and have those contracts specified for a different set of teaching dutiesteacher leadership duties. Even in right to work environments, there
are a host of management policies that probably define the flexibility of districts to
create full-time contracts. At the very least, there are clearly a set of past practices
that create the current norms or employment culture within a district. Changing the
teacher contract in any environment is challenging, simply because it is a change.
Prior to any logistical changes to HR and Budget, there must be extensive conversations with key stakeholdersSchool Board, principals, teachers, parents, employees who are not teachers, etc. The notion that the teaching profession has profoundly changed over the past decade(s) resonates with all of these groups. Teachers
will especially agree that their jobs have changed drastically and will begin to help
determine the pros and cons of making changes to a full-time contract. Besides the
obvious discussions with stakeholders, some of the issues for unions include:
1. Right/expectation to negotiate pay, length of contract, etc.
2. The splitting of members into those with full-time contracts vs. those with regular contracts.
3. Adding time (number of days) vs. a long standing desire to reduce the time demands on teacherslimit length of work day, limit meetings, increase planning
time during the school day, etc.
4. Union leadership, Board of Directors and members view of additional compensation for additional timeis there alignment?
5. Where multiple associations exist, there is the issue of how the other association are positioning themselvescompetition for membership.
6. Process for selecting those with full-time contracts.
Principals and the Schools
The most important element in this new paradigm is school. The whole purpose
is to ensure schools have significant time to address the needs of the students and
the community. As noted in the stated goals of this initiative, it is to provide significant additional time for teachers to address student achievement needs and to do
so in the environment of a professional learning community. To that end, significant
planning must be done at the school level. That planning must be done with the
school leadership team and in alignment with the goals of the school and school district. Since this is such a significant increase in teacher time, it is not unusual for
such planning to take an entire year. As a school creates a plan to utilize full-time
teaching positions, the issues to address include:
1. A purposeful school improvement plan must exist. Such a plan must specify the
expectations, duties and functions that are needed in the school.
2. The plan can (and perhaps should) be multi-year to allow significant culture
changes, necessary modifications to school plan, resource acquisition.
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3. Clear job descriptions must be developed for each type of full-time position
needed to support the school plan.
4. A master calendar must reflect the common working days for the appropriate
teams of full-time teachers. This calendar must encompass scheduling the appropriate time for the teachers to fulfill the jobs expectations specified in the school
plan.
5. Some duties may include time after the regular day (for example, student tutoring or enrichment) in lieu of added days.
6. The process for selecting staff to fill each of the full-time jobs.
7. In concert with HR, the clear identification of which of the current supplemental payments would now be subsumed into the full-time contract. Some of these
will be requiredno longer will stipends be given to team leaders, department
chairs, etc.
8. A clear delineation of duties for full-time teachers vs. regular contract teachers
must be articulated and adhered to during the implementation phase.
9. While some of the additional time will be used for prep time the major added
time should be devoted to working with other adults on the school initiatives.
10. Not every school has the culture that is compatible with this change.
District and Community
There is usually a positive response from parents when we acknowledge the significant changes in the demand on teachers. School Board members likewise understand the significant challenges teachers face in the classroom, in preparation for
the classroom and in time demands for a variety of other issues. In fact, there is
usually a strong push from unions and teacher spokespersons to the School Board
to reduce time demands. This paradigm shift has the potential to help the school
board respond to the time issues by significantly increasing compensation while recognizing the added duties that would go with the added salary. And, in many cases,
teachers are already performing some of the added duties and this allows school
boards and the community to give recognition for that work. Some of the public policy issues include:
1. Added compensation (and time) for (potentially) only one group of employees.
This can be viewed positivelysupporting teachersor negatively by other employees.
2. Are there related time and compensation issues with other employee groups?
3. Supports a school-based leadership paradigm.
4. Provides an opportunity to mesh summer curriculum work and other extended
time needs with full-time contracts.
5. Significantly increases teacher pay and gives district greater competitive advantage for recruitment and retention. Full-time contract is also potentially more
attractive to career changers.
Summary
As a leading innovator of education practices and reform, Fairfax County Public
Schools is moving to advance the professionalism of teachers and the education
field. The Teacher Leadership initiative provides FCPS Leadership Team members
a unique opportunity to cultivate talent from within the school division, create philosophical shifts that ensure only effective programs and practices are implemented
to meet the needs of a changing student population, and share evidence of successful
practices with the national education community.
Chairman MILLER. Ms. Bibeau.

STATEMENT OF JOAN BIBEAU, TEACHER, EAGLEVIEW
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, GRAND RAPIDS, MINNESOTA
Ms. BIBEAU. Chairman Miller, Mr. McKeon and members of the

committee, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to testify before the committee today.
I offer my experience as a veteran classroom teacher and as a
member of Education Minnesota, an affiliate of both the AFT and
NEA. I am a teacher of 34 years and an enrolled member of the
White Earth Band of Ojibwe. I was awarded the Minnesota Indian
Education Association Teacher of the Year Award in 2006.
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I have often been asked how did I succeed in becoming a teacher
and making it my profession. The answer is that there were two
major influences. One was my parents and the other is my recruitment into the Northern Plains Indian Teacher Corps.
Let me share the views of many of my colleagues and myself
about NCLB. We often feel as though the rules were made without
regard to the actual needs of our students and the realities of our
work as teachers. If I had one suggestion for the committee it
would be this. Improve the law so that it recognizes the actual
world we teach in, and then provide educators with the tools and
resources we know that are essential to help our students succeed.
Allow me to provide a snapshot of the environment where I live
and teach. My home is in rural northern Minnesota in Itasca County with a population of 44,000. Our county encompasses three
small, remote communities on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.
I teach preschool and kindergarten at Eagleview Elementary.
The student population is 64 percent American Indian and has a
60 percent graduation rate. We are a Title I school with a poverty
rate of 82 percent.
The challenge for NCLB and educators is to support and educate
all children, especially those who are struggling academically. We
certainly need the best teachers we can find for our student population in northern Minnesota, but I dont see the evidence that
NCLB is particularly helpful in this regard.
In Minnesota, nearly all teachers already meet the Federal requirements to be considered highly qualified when they enter the
profession because of Minnesotas high standards for licensure.
Funding is a significant challenge in my district. We hire good
teachers, but we cant afford to keep them. Our student enrollment
is declining as in many Minnesota districts. As a result, many of
our teachers, including me, have been laid off multiple times for
budgetary reasons.
The solution to improving high teacher quality is not to make the
highly qualified requirements stricter or to make teachers jump
through more hoops to prove their qualifications. What is really
needed to ensure high quality teaching is the presence of professional supports that will allow us to keep the good teachers we
have. States and schools should provide all teachers with professional pay, school-based professional development and adequate
working conditions in order to attract and retain qualified teaches,
especially in hard-to-staff schools.
Legislation such as Chairman Millers TEACH Act and the
Teacher Center Act recognize the importance of these issues and
create partnerships with local school districts to meet these challenges.
In closing, I want to highlight the importance of improving teacher and learning conditions in schools as a strategy for recruiting
and retaining excellent teachers. A recent study by the California
State University found that teaching and learning environments
was even more significant than salary in the teachers decision on
whether to stay or leave the profession.
I encourage the committee to look at the issue of teacher quality
through the eyes of experienced, highly qualified teachers like myself and ask us what actually works in the classroom and what we
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need to be great teachers who can produce great results for all our
students. We are more than happy to assist you.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify today.
[The statement of Ms. Bibeau follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joan Bibeau, Education Minnesota
Chairman Miller: Im very pleased to have this opportunity to testify before the
Committee. I bring to you today my experience not only as a veteran classroom
teacher, but also as a member of Education Minnesota, an affiliate of both the
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association
(NEA).
To get to Washington, D.C. from my home in northern Minnesota this week
meant a one-hour drive to Hibbing, then a 7 a.m. flight to Minneapolis and another
flight to D.C. Our county has not had airline service for two years. It took the better
part of a day to get here. But I was willing to make this journey because I believe
it is very important for members of Congress to hear from practicing teachers as
you consider the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
First I want to tell you something about myself. I am a teacher of 34 years and
an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Ive been asked: How did
you succeed in becoming a teacher? The answer is that there were two major influencesmy parents and my recruitment into the Northern Plains Indian Teacher
Corps. I have earned Minnesota teaching licensure in Early Childhood, Early Childhood Family Education, Early Childhood Special Education, Kindergarten, and first
through sixth grade. I earned my Masters Degree in Elementary Education in 1984
from the University of North Dakota. I was awarded the Minnesota Indian Education Association Teacher of the Year Award in 2006.
Here is my view of NCLB, and the view of many other teachers: It often seems
as though the rules were made without regard to the actual needs of our students
and the realities of our work as teachers. If I had one suggestion for the Committee,
it would be this: Improve the law so that it recognizes the actual world we teach
in and then provide educators with the tools and resources we know are essential
to helping our students succeed.
Let me share with you some of the realities that will help describe where I live
and teach. My home is in rural northern Minnesota in Itasca County, with a population of 44,000. Our county encompasses three small remote communities on the
Leech Lake Indian Reservation. I teach preschool and kindergarten at Eagleview Elementary on the Leech Lake Reservation. This community is 64 percent American
Indian and has a 60 percent graduation rate. The median household income is
$11,875 and half of our population is living below the poverty line. We are a Title
I school, with 82 percent of our students receiving free or reduced price lunch. Many
of our families do not have reliable transportation, telephone service, or adequate
housing. They need to travel great distances for health care, employment (unemployment is 30.9 percent), and access to stores.
The challenge for NCLB and educators is to support and educate ALL children,
especially those who are struggling academically. We certainly need the best teachers we can find for our student population in northern Minnesota. But I dont see
the evidence that NCLB is particularly helpful in this regard.
In Minnesota, nearly all teachers already meet the federal requirements to be considered highly qualified when they enter the profession because the state Board
of Teaching has established high standards for teacher preparation and licensure.
My districts biggest challenge is funding. We hire good teachers, and we cant afford to keep them because our student enrollment is declining, as it is in many
northern Minnesota districts. As a result, many of our teachersincluding me
have been laid off multiple times for budgetary reasons. Most of our new teachers
start out in part-time positions or as substitute teachers, waiting for a full-time
opening.
Three districts in my region have had major budget deficits and have had to dramatically cut staff and educational opportunities. We now have large class sizes and
are continuing to cut critical services for students at all levels.
Appropriate licensure is also a problem under these conditions. To meet students
educational needs with the staff we have, some teachers are provisionally licensed
to teach outside their current instructional areaespecially in areas of unique student needswhile they complete the necessary coursework. For this reason, it is essential that NCLB retain the current highly qualified teacher definition and the
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flexibility to allow rural teachers like me to demonstrate, via the HOUSSE provisions, subject matter competence in the multiple subjects we are required to teach.
The solution is not to make the highly qualified requirements stricter or to
make teachers jump through more hoops to prove their qualifications. Whats really
needed to ensure high-quality teaching is funding that allows us to keep the good
teachers we have. States and communities should provide all teachers with professional pay and adequate working conditions in order to attract and retain qualified
individuals in the teaching profession. Also, the federal government should provide
incentives to attract and retain teachers in hard-to-staff schools and subjects, as you
have proposed with the TEACH Act, Chairman. Miller.
In the area of professional development, we need more resources in programs that
we know work to help teachers do their jobs, including mentoring and induction,
systemic school-based professional development, and incorporating research-based
programs and curricular supports for teachers and paraprofessionals. For example,
my local union has included in our contract with the school district a mentoring program to support and retain new teachers. Each new teacher has a mentor, is able
to observe an experienced teacher, and receives two additional workshop days. Programs like these have been shown to reduce teacher turnover and improve student
outcomes and I encourage you to think about these kinds of initiatives as you make
improvements to NCLB.
Additionally, Minnesota requires all school districts to set aside 2 percent of their
revenue for professional development that is determined by teacher-led committees
at the district and school site level. My state-level union, Education Minnesota, has
a statewide training program to educate our members about this law and help them
advocate for quality professional development. However, many of our school districts
are facing budget crises, and all too often, some or all of this professional development money is used elsewhere. For example, our district teachers sacrificed the 2
percent set aside for staff development to the general budget this year.
The federal government could contribute greatly to improving teacher quality if
it would support bills such as the Teacher Center Act, introduced last year by
Chairman Miller to fund first-rate professional development programs.
In the higher education arena, Education Minnesota is beginning a collaborative
effort with the state Department of Education, colleges and universities, and other
professional groups to support professional learning for teachers at all stages of
their careers. We held an Induction Institute in St. Paul this past week to train
teams of local educators to set up high-quality induction programs in their district.
It would be wonderful if the federal and state governments would make this kind
of professional development partnership a funding priority.
Improving all of these other programs wont matter unless we also improve teaching and learning conditions in schools. This includes providing smaller class sizes,
ensuring that schools are safe and orderly, and maintaining adequate facilities and
materials to reduce teacher turnover and make it possible for teachers to do their
best work.
A recent study by California State Universitys Center for Teacher Quality found
that the teaching and learning environment was even more significant than salary
in teachers decisions on whether to stay in the profession or leave. The study pointed to such things as adequate time for planning and professional development, reliable assistance from the district office, the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and have a meaningful role in school decision-making, and adequate facilities and equipment. These factors also apply to our schools in Minnesota. (The
CSUs Center for Teacher Quality study can be accessed at: http://
www.calstate.edu/teacherquality/documents/possibledream.pdf.)
The federal government can help remedy these problems by supporting programs
and policies that support teachers as they work to ensure that all students meet
high academic standards. These include:
Financial Incentives: The federal government should fund programs that provide financial incentives for qualified individuals to enter the teaching profession,
and for collaboration among school districts, teacher unions, and institutions of
higher education for the development of programs that would facilitate the recruitment and retention of a qualified diverse group of teacher candidates.
Mentoring and Induction: All newly hired teachers should receive quality induction and mentoring services from trained veteran teachers to ensure a successful experience in the first years and decrease the turnover of new teachers. Incentive
grants to districts to develop peer assistance programs that focus on the improvement of staff knowledge and skills should be available to help struggling teachers
improve professional practice, retain promising teachers, and build professional
knowledge to improve student success.
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Chairman Millers TEACH Act recognizes the importance of giving teachers across
the nation access to high-level, ongoing, high-quality professional development programs that are designed and delivered by expert practicing teachers, as well as to
mentoring with modeling, demonstration, weekly coaching, training, and stipends
for mentors. Congress should incorporate these ideas into ESEA reauthorization.
Professional Development: Teachers must be intimately involved in every phase
of their ongoing training, with high-quality professional development programs focusing on pedagogy and helping teachers develop the deep understanding of how
students learn. The information needs to be timely, research-based, and relevant
information that one can use immediately upon returning to the classroom. These
programs should be developed in a collaborative fashion between school districts
leaders and the local teachers to ensure that teachersand other educatorsreceive
professional development that is directly linked to their and their students needs
and tied to the schools and districts curriculum and instructional needs and strategies.
Chairman Millers Teacher Centers Act would give all teachers opportunities for
ongoing, high quality intensive professional development that is available at the
school site.
Teacher Leaders: Teachers who earn advanced certification by passing the demanding performance-based assessments of the National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards, who agree to teach in hard-to-staff schools, and who take on
additional roles such as mentoring, peer support, and other professional development activities should be paid for their leadership roles.
The federal government should continue to provide support for the National Board
for Professional Teaching Standards to assist more teachers to obtain National
Board Certification. In addition, the federal government could provide financial incentives for board-certified teachers to go to and stay in hard-to-staff schools.
Collaboration: NCLB should include a grant program to states willing to encourage skills- and knowledge-based staffing arrangements in schools. This program
should encourage collaboration between the school administration and the local organization representing teachers and other educators, as well as increased collaboration among teachers and between teachers and other education staff, to promote
innovation in the way teachers and support professionals roles and responsibilities
are defined.
Teaching and Learning Conditions: The TEACH Act acknowledges the importance of teacher working and student learning conditions by calling for a number
of useful assurances such as improved working conditions, reduced class size, incentives for attracting a critical mass of qualified teachers, and school repair, renovation, and modernization.
The federal government also should require states to develop a learning environment index for all schools, and require districts and states to address the problem
areas identified for schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP). Many of the
schools not making AYP do not have adequate facilities, safe conditions, teacher retention incentives, or the necessary financial and professional supports. The learning environment index should identify and measure teaching and learning conditions in each school.
Furthermore, Title II (the Teacher Quality State Grant program) should be
amended to include an independent, targeted class size reduction program. It also
should be amended to allow districts to work with local teacher unions to survey
principals, teachers, and other school staff about their working conditions. Such surveys can be powerful tools to obtain information that can identify improvements
needed in schools throughout the district to help spur student achievement. North
Carolina has been a leader in using teacher working condition surveys. Other states
that have utilized this tool include Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, Ohio, and Mississippi.
Additional information on teacher working conditions surveys can be obtained from
the Center on Teacher Quality at: http://www.teachingquality.org/twc/
whereweare.htm
Compensation: To attract, retain, and support the highest quality teachers,
paraprofessionals, and other school employees, schools must have a healthy environment, supportive climate, and working conditions that support success and provide
professional compensation and benefits. All educatorsincluding both teachers and
paraprofessionalsrequire an adequate compensation system with competitive base
pay and benefits for all.
Teachers also should be provided with opportunities to improve their salary
through the performance of additional responsibilities. Many teachers possess a
high degree of teaching knowledge and skills. They know and do what is required
to make sure all students reach high academic standards. Now we need to make
sure that these and other accomplished teachers are utilized as teacher leaders who
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support effective practices in their schools, communities, and states. To attract and
retain qualified teachers in hard-to-staff schools, we need to provide teachers an
array of financial incentives by giving them different professional opportunities.
Furthermore, the federal government should reward states that set a reasonable
minimum starting salary for teachers and a living wage for support professionals
working in school districts that accept federal funds. For example, the nation and
the states could demonstrate their commitment to educators by ensuring that no
teacher in America makes less than $40,000 and no public school worker makes less
than $25,000 or a living wage.
To sum up, I encourage the Committee to look at teacher quality not just in the
policy arenaand not just in terms of rules and requirementsbut also through the
eyes of experienced, highly qualified teachers. Ask us what should be done and then
listen to what we say about what actually works in the classroom. Also, we urge
you to hear our ideas about what we need to be great teachers who can help our
students achieve at high levels. We are more than happy to assist you.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify today.
Chairman MILLER. Dr. Ritter.

STATEMENT OF DR. GARY W. RITTER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR,
ENDOWED CHAIR IN EDUCATION POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF
ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE, AR
Mr. RITTER. Thank you, Chairman Miller, Mr. McKeon and members of the committee.
My testimony here will focus on how to use teacher compensation
as a policy lever to encourage the most qualified teachers to enter
classrooms across the country and work to improve achievement of
all students, especially that of needy students. There are a variety
of ways that school leaders might attempt to do this. I will focus
on performance pay which might be awarded to teachers who are
particularly effective at the ultimate objective of our schools. Nurturing student learning and performance pay is particularly important, I would argue, in drawing teachers into the field.
Despite the conventional wisdom, starting salaries today for
teachers are quite competitive and growing even more so. The key
compensation problem many argue is that we underpay effective
teachers as they move throughout their career, and this is the reason that many of them leave.
So what is performance pay and what do we know about the impact of performance pay on teacher quality and on student performance? And you have heard a lot about that this morning. Essentially performance pay plans pay some fraction of a teachers salary
on objective measures of student achievement; and a well-crafted
plan that connects teacher pay to student performance could positively impact classrooms across the country in two ways.
In the short term, teachers currently in the classroom may be
motivated to work more effectively, try more innovative ways on
enhancing student learning due to the very direct connection between performance rewards and student learning. In the longer
term, the impact of performance pay may be even greater by affecting the overall composition of the teaching force.
If performance pay were implemented in a widespread manner,
talented individuals motivated by high achievement recognition
might be more likely to consider teaching as a viable career option.
Instead, in the current context of the single salary schedule, the
teaching profession may well be attractive to individuals who are
not comfortable with evaluation of their teaching effectiveness. Of
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course, this is not the case with most or all teachers, but it may
be attractive to those types and we do not want this to be the case.
Indeed, colleges of education are currently unable to attract the
most talented students. The evidence shows that the SAT and ACT
scores of undergraduate education majors are typically lower than
the scores of their peers in other fields. Thus, it is important that
we implement innovative strategies to draw our brightest young
people into this field as many have said on this panel earlier today.
It is quite possible that one of the barriers that is keeping talented
individuals out of the field is the fact that there is little recognition, monetary or otherwise, for effective job performance.
So is there any empirical support for the potential effectiveness
of performance pay plans implemented in actual schools across the
country? And, yes, there is. Three recent studies highlight this evidence. Firstand most of this is highlighted in the written testimony in front of youMichael J. Podgursky and Matthew Springer
reviewed eight teacher performance pay programs implemented
throughout the United States since the 1990s. Six of these showed
a positive correlation between incentives and student performance.
Second, David Figlio and Lawrence Kenny published a comprehensive study in 2006 on the effects of teacher incentives on
student performance throughout the Nation. Figlio and Kenny conclude that students in schools where teachers are offered individual
financial rewards for effective teaching have students who perform
better on standardized tests and learn more.
Finally, along with several colleagues at the University of Arkansas, I recently conducted a study of a teacher performance pay plan
implemented in several schools in the Little Rock school district.
We found that students in the performance-pay schools showed an
improvement of nearly 7 percentile points as compared to their
peers in similar schools. Moreover, teachers in a performance-pay
plan, counter to the conventional wisdom, reported no loss in teacher collaboration, reported that they were more satisfied with their
salaries than were comparison teachers, and that their work environment had, in fact, become more positive over the past year rather than deteriorated.
So how should performance-pay plans be constructed if we were
to attempt them? Well, one of the rare places of consensus in educational research is that good teaching matters. And indeed, some
teachers consistently induce greater student learning gains than do
their peers. Clearly, these are the teachers that school leaders
should want to reward, retain and attract. Accordingly, performance-pay plans should be focused on student achievement so that
these effective teachers are recognized. In this way, our system will
encourage teachers to engage in behaviors that lead to greater student learning and we will discourage teachers whose efforts do not
lead to improved student learning.
Perhaps the easiest and most objective way to fairly measure
student learning is student performance on well-designed achievement tests that are fairly aligned to the schools States learning
standards. All of this presumes that we have assessments that we
are comfortable with and are well aligned and are well designed.
The Teacher Incentive Fund program, the Federal effort which
supports efforts locally to develop and implement performance-
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based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-needs
schools provides guidelines within which these systems are to be
constructed. And this seems an appropriate vehicle for Federal policymakers to encourage performance pay for teachers and thus induce improvements in teacher quality and student achievement.
Finally, if performance pay is effective, why hasnt it been implemented more widely in the past? Instead of the performance-pay
schedule we operate under generally, the single salary schedule
which pays teachers mostly on the basis of seniority and degree,
and this operates within the vast majority of school districts
around the Nation.
This salary schedule offers no incentive to work toward enhanced
student performance. A teacher in her 10th year with a masters
degree who is extraordinarily effective in engaging students and
nurturing student learning receives a salary that is identical to
that of her peer with the same level of education and experience
who no longer works hard to energize students and is simply there
for the paycheck. This is simply not equitable.
However, it is not surprising that this uniform salary schedule
remains intact in most districts. Teacher groups are powerful and
leaders of these groups intend to represent all teachers. Such
groups are not likely to encourage a salary structure that highlights some teachers over others, and this limits the ability of administrators to use salary as a strategy to encourage better teaching. As a result, the single-salary schedule which is used generally
in the name of equity for teachers may in fact lead to less equity
and less effective teaching for our students. And this is clearly inequitable as the students who are most likely to suffer from ineffective teaching are those attending and studying in our most disadvantaged schools.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Ritter follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gary W. Ritter, Associate Professor, Endowed Chair
in Education Policy, Department of Education Reform, College of Education and Health Professions, University of Arkansas
My testimony here will focus on how to use teacher compensation as a policy tool,
or lever, to encourage the most qualified teachers to enter classrooms across the
country and work to improve student achievement of all students, and particularly
of needy students. There are a variety of ways that school leaders might use teacher
compensation policy as part of a strategy to increase teacher quality in targeted
areas. Additional compensation could be offered to teachers able to teach hard-tostaff subjects such as middle school and secondary mathematics, secondary science,
or special education. Extra pay might also be offered to teachers willing to serve
in economically disadvantaged areas or otherwise hard-to-staff geographic regions.
Finally, performance pay might be awarded to teachers who are particularly effective at the ultimate objective of our schools: nurturing student learning and student
achievement. The sections that follow will focus on the potential of performance pay
for enhancing teacher quality and thus increasing student performance.
What is the Impact of Performance Pay on Teacher Quality and Student Achievement?
Essentially, performance pay plans refer to teacher compensation strategies that
base a portion of a teachers total compensation on some evaluation of the teachers
performance, which is generally basedat least in parton objective measures of
student achievement. A well-crafted plan that connects teacher compensation to student performance could positively influence classrooms across the United States in
two ways.
In the short term, teachers currently in the classroom may be motivated to focus
their work more effectively on enhancing student learning due to the performance
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rewards directly connected to student achievement. In the longer term, the impact
of a performance pay plan may be even greater by affecting the overall composition
of the teaching force. The type of salary schedule currently employed in most schools
across the country relies on no connection between pay and performance; thus, the
teaching profession today may well be attractive to individuals who are not comfortable with any evaluation of their teaching effectiveness. Alternatively, if performance pay were implemented in a widespread manner, talented individuals motivated by high achievement and recognition might be more likely to consider teaching as a viable career option.
Unfortunately, there is evidence that a change in the composition of the teaching
corps is needed because colleges of education are currently unable to attract the
most talented students. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics and
numerous other sources show that the SAT and ACT scores of undergraduate education majors are typically lower than the scores of their peers in other fields. Thus,
it is important that we implement innovative strategies to draw our brightest young
people into this field. It is quite possible that one of the barriers keeping some talented individuals out of the field is the fact that there is currently little recognition,
monetary or otherwise, for effective job performance.
Thus, there is a reasonable theoretical justification for the concept of performance
pay and empirical evidence that our current system of pay does not appear attractive to the most talented college students. But, is there any empirical support for
the potential effectiveness of performance pay plans implemented in actual schools?
As a matter of fact, yes. Three recent studies highlight this evidence.
First, in their examination of the literature on teacher incentive programs,
Teacher Performance Pay: A Review, Michael J. Podgursky and Matthew G.
Springer1 note that the current literature on teacher incentive plans is slender and
typically focused on short-run motivational effects. This small, but growing body of
work is quite diverse in its methodologies, target populations, and types of programs. In their review of the evaluations of eight teacher performance pay programs
implemented throughout the United States since the 1990s, Podgursky and Springer
find that six programs revealed a positive correlation between incentives and student performance. Overall, the authors argue that recent research on incentive pay
has consistently found positive effects, but much more robust research must be undertaken in order to proscribe how programs should best be designed. That is, how
large should bonuses be, and how should programs mix individual with group incentives?
Second, David N. Figlio and Lawrence Kenny2 published a comprehensive study
in 2006 on the effects of teacher incentives on student performance throughout the
United States. The authors used data from the National Education Longitudinal
Survey supplemented with data from their own survey conducted in 2000 exploring
the use of performance incentives. Figlio and Kenny conclude that students in
schools that offer teachers individual financial rewards for effective teaching perform better on standardized tests. While the authors do not view performance pay
as a silver bullet for improving student performance, they see incentives as one
way to attract more highly-skilled applicants into the teaching profession.
Finally, along with several colleagues at the University of Arkansas, I recently
conducted a study of a teacher performance bonus program implemented at several
schools in the Little Rock School District. Based on data reported by the District
as well as data collected from the surveys of teachers, we find that students in the
performance pay schools in 2005-06 showed an improvement of nearly 7 percentile
points as compared to their peers in comparison schools. Moreover, teachers in the
performance pay program reported no loss in teacher collaboration, that they were
more satisfied with their salaries than comparison teachers, and that their work environment became more positive than the environment in comparison schools.
How Should Performance Pay Plans be Constructed?
One of the rare places of consensus in educational research is that good teaching
matters. However, there is less agreement on the characteristics of excellent teachers. That is, the research is not clear on the extent, if any, to which teacher certification leads to greater student performance. Similarly, while much of the research
points to the conclusion that brand new teachers do get better after a couple of
1 October 24, 2006, working paper submitted to the National Center on Performance Incentives,
http://www.performanceincentives.org/ncpipublications/PodgurskyandSpringerTeacherPerformancePay.pdf
2 David N. Figlio and Lawrence Kenny, NBER Working Paper Series, Individual Teacher Incentives and Student Performance, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper
12627, http://www.nber.org/papers/w12627
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years of teaching experience, there is debate over how long these experience premiums persist. Further, although many teachers across the country work to earn
post-graduate degreesand get paid higher salaries for these degreesthere is not
much evidence to suggest that these additional degrees contribute to enhanced student learning.
In short, its difficult to identify a good teacher based on credentials, but some
teachers consistently induce greater student learning gains than do their peers.
Clearly, these are the teachers that school leaders should want to reward and retain. Therefore, performance pay plans should be constructed in such a way that
these effective teachers are recognized. In this way, with the focus on student
achievement, we will encourage teachers to engage in behaviors that lead to higher
student achievement and we will discourage teachers whose efforts do not lead to
improved student performance.
Since effective teaching and student learning are the fundamental goals of teachers, a performance pay plan should primarily be focused on student achievement.
One way to fairly and objectively measure student learning is student performance
on well-designed achievement tests that are aligned to the schools (or states) learning standards. Consequently, it follows that teacher performance in performance pay
plans be measured by student achievement on well-designed and well-aligned assessments.
If Performance Pay is Effective, How Can Federal Policymakers Encourage It?
Many researchers and analysts advocate strongly that teacher pay be connected,
at least to some extent, to student performance. However, there is no single best
method to achieve this goal. Even among existing performance pay plans, there exists a great deal of variety with respect to the details of the plans. While some plans
focus on individual teacher performance and individual rewards, others rely on
school-wide performance and school-wide rewards. While some plans base teacher
performance ratings on student achievement on national norm-referenced exams,
other plans rely on the results of state-developed, criterion-referenced assessments.
While some plans base rewards on one year of academic improvements, others rely
on academic results over multiple years.
Indeed, there is no optimal plan, but there are general guidelines that should be
followed for a plan to have a chance to succeed. In this situation, the proper federal
role may be to encourage, via grant-funding options, states and localities to develop
their own performance pay plans based on local preferences and assessments. In
fact, we can also be quite sure that any performance pay plan that is not supported
by a majority of educators within a school is likely to face serious obstacles and will
not be optimally effective.
Thus, the Teacher Incentive Fund program, which supports efforts to develop and
implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in highneed schools, and provides guidelines within which these systems must be constructed, seems an appropriate vehicle for federal policymakers to encourage improvements in teacher quality and student achievement.
If Performance Pay is Effective, Why has it Not Been Implemented More Widely?
The single salary schedule (or lock-step schedule), which pays teachers solely on
the basis of seniority and educational attainment (degree level), operates within the
vast majority of school districts around the nation. Thus, most school leaders are
not choosing to use teacher compensation as a policy lever to encourage good teaching. In fact, there are no incentives in the current salary schedule for teachers to
work toward enhanced student performance. A teacher in her 10th year with a Masters Degree who is extraordinarily effective at engaging students and nurturing student learning receives a salary that is identical to that of her peer with the same
level of education and experience who no longer works hard to energize students
and is simply there for the paycheck.
However, it is no surprise that this uniform salary schedule remains intact in
most districtsteacher groups are powerful and leaders of these groups intend to
represent all teachers (not students). Thus, teacher group leaders are not likely to
encourage a salary structure that highlights some teachers over others. This is understandable, however, it limits the ability of administrators to use salary as a
strategy to encourage better teaching. In the end, if this single-salary schedule limits the ability of school leaders to enhance teacher qualityand many have made
this claim vehemently and effectivelythen the single salary schedule used in the
name of equity for teachers may in fact lead to less effective teaching for our students. This is clearly inequitable as the students most likely to suffer from ineffective teaching are those attending school in our most disadvantaged schools.
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Chairman MILLER. Dr. Burke.
STATEMENT OF DR. JOSEPH P. BURKE, SUPERINTENDENT OF
SCHOOLS, SPRINGFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS, SPRINGFIELD, MA
Mr. BURKE. Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Chairman, Mr.
McKeon andmembers of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
No Child Left Behind is landmark legislation, no doubt. It has
sparked impassioned debate about the depth and breadth of its
mandate, the range of the impact of testing and accountability and
the punitive effects on district schools and staffs in many of the
States.
The passions of the debate were predictable. NCLB definitely
challenged the public will to educate all of our children to levels of
proficiency once obtained by more privileged student populations.
The insistence that students of all colors and ethnic groups, all income levels and all language groups must be educated to a uniform
set of academic standards is laudable.
Embedded in the goals and intended outcomes of NCLB is a principle dearly held by my colleagues in Springfield. The principle is,
there is no excellence without equity. We cannot consider the education system in America to be excellent unless we are attaining
equitable outcomes for all childrenpoor children, children of color
and children whose first language is not English. NCLB represents
a systemic commitment to accomplish this.
I would like to express my thanks to Congressman Miller for the
TEACH Act and to Congressman Price for the Teacher Incentive
Fund. The TIF provides unique opportunities for school districts to
reward excellence in teaching based on actual results in student
achievement. The stability and continuity of this program are critical to advancing the efforts to improve teacher effectiveness.
The teacher quality provisions currently in NCLB focus on
knowledge and credentials. However, there are no explicit provisions regarding results with students. This seems to be a glaring
omission when the emphasis of NCLB accountability provisions are
on results and student achievement. Since student achievement is
the primary driver of AYP and the overarching goal of public policy, shouldnt teacher quality be connected to student achievement
results in a sensible and responsible manner?
The Teacher Incentive Fund creates the opportunity for highly
motivated and courageous school reformers to change tightly held
traditions in education. In fact, the TIF could serve as a catalyst
for reforms in Springfield and in other school districts. Working in
collaboration with our local teachers union, we have created ways
to measure teacher performance based on a teachers ability to improve student achievement. We recently incorporated a way to recognize teacher effectiveness in our new contract by adding two new
positions, an Instructional Leadership Specialist and a Teacher
Leader, that have student achievement results as a required criterion for appointment. Teachers who are selected for appointment
to these positions must have demonstrated more than a years
growth in student achievement on a value-added measure.
Additional criteria include demonstration of best practices, exemplary performance on teacher behaviors and excellent attendance.
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However, the inclusion of student results for these highest paid
teaching positions recognize that teacher quality has to include and
be connected to student learning. It alters the equation in favor of
student outcomes.
Our long-term goal is to appoint highly successful teachers to
these positions and empower teachers to lead a transformation in
the acceleration of student learning. Building high-powered teams
of leaders, redeployed to serve schools with the greatest needs, is
intended to produce the kind of learning necessary for our students
to succeed in the 21st century.
This Springfield model intentionally rewards qualitative results
with students. Our goal is to attract and retain the highest quality
teachers and provide them with interesting, exciting and challenging career paths for which they will be amply compensated.
Additionally, the district and the union have agreed to differential
compensation for critical shortage teachers certified in math,
science, special education and English language learning.
Having successfully negotiated those items, we recently concluded a far-reaching agreement with the teachers union on the
new Commonwealth pilot schools. In this agreement, pilot school
faculties are freed up from most labor contract provisions and local
district requirements in lieu of commitments to obtain substantial
achievement improvements.
Teacher quality in urban districts takes on particularly significant and urgent dimensions in high minority and high probability
schools provisionally located in urban districts of larger numbers of
novice teachers and lower percentages of fully credentialed teachers than schools in other communities. The work of Sanders demonstrates that quality teachers have the greatest impact on low
achievement and high probability achievement.
Springfield is aggressively pursuing an approach where the definition of highly qualified includes demonstrated results with students. Our ability to place highly effective teachers in schools with
the most needy students may give our thousands of low-income students a fighting chance to reach the high level of achievement that
they need and that they deserve.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Burke follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Joseph P. Burke, Superintendent of Schools,
Springfield, MA
No Child Left Behind is landmark legislation in the history of public education.
It has sparked impassioned debate about the depth and breadth of its mandate, the
range of the impact of testing and accountability, and the punitive effects on districts, schools and staffs in many of the states. The passions of the debate were predictable. NCLB has inexorably and definitively challenged the public will to educate
ALL of our children to levels of proficiency once obtained by more privileged subsections of our student population. The unique insistence that students of all colors
and ethnic groups, all income levels, and all language groups must be educated to
a uniform set of academic standards is laudable and historic. It is my belief that
embedded in the goals and intended outcomes of NCLB is a principle dearly held
by me and my colleagues in Springfield, Massachusetts. The principle is There is
no Excellence without Equity. We cannot consider the education system in America
to be excellent unless we are attaining equitable outcomes for all childrenpoor
children, children of color, children whose first language is not English.
NCLB represents a systemic commitment to rally the political will to educate ALL
children to high standards. However, we are not yet thereneither in experiencing
the public will for the success of all children, nor in experiencing the tangible re-
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sults of significant closing of the achievement gap. It will take more time. But it
will also take more focused effort, more transformational work at the state, district
and school level, and more targeted resources aimed at improving the quality of
teaching and the conditions in which teachers work. NCLB must be reauthorized
and soon.
At the outset of my comments on the teacher quality issues of NCLB, I want to
express both my thanks and gratitude to Congressman Price for his thoughtful legislation on the Teacher Incentive Fund. The program provides unique opportunities
for school districts to reward excellence in teaching based on actual results in student achievement.
The teacher quality provisions of NCLB currently focus on knowledge and credentials. Knowledge of content is implied in the highly qualified provisions, and the expectations of licensing credentials is evident. However, there are no explicit provisions regarding results with students. This seems to be a glaring omission when so
much of the emphasis of NCLB accountability provisions are on results in student
achievement. As student achievement is the primary driver of AYP and the overarching goal of public policy, shouldnt teacher quality (and by extension, administrator quality) be connected to student achievement results in a sensible and responsible manner? I believe it should.
There is broad acknowledgement in the education profession that the quality of
instruction has huge impact on the amount of student learning. Indeed, this has
been at the center of agreements to steadily raise the professional compensation of
teachers connected to our growing knowledge about the complexity of the teachinglearning process and its challenges. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education recognized the significance of teacher quality and its connection to student results
through the Teacher Incentive Fund grants. This major grant program holds great
promise for examining the teacher quality issue from the meaningful perspective of
student results, and deserves careful attention and support.
Springfield Public Schools recently incorporated into its new contract with the
teachers union two new positions for which teachers must apply that have student
achievement results as a required criteria for appointment. Teachers who are selected for appointment to these positions must have demonstrated more than a
years growth in student achievement on a value-added measure. Additional criteria
include demonstration of best practices, exemplary performance on generic teaching
behaviors, and excellent attendance. However, the inclusion of student results for
these highest paid teaching positions recognizes that the highest quality of teaching
is directly connected to student learning. It alters the equation in favor of student
outcomes. It is our hope in Springfield to be successful applicants for a TIF award
that would enhance our capacity to implement our model of rewarding and
incentivising teachers for results in student learning. Our long-term goal is to appoint highly successful teachers to these new positions, and empower teachers to
lead a powerful transformation in the way student learning is accelerated in Springfield. Building high-powered teams of teachers, redeployed to serve our schools with
the greatest needs, is intended to produce ever-increasing numbers of students
reaching proficiency and mastering the knowledge and skills necessary for success
in the new creative economy of the 21st century.
The Springfield model intentionally rewards qualitative results with students and
a high quality of technical work in utilizing best practices. A significant goal is to
attract and retain the highest quality teachers and provide them with interesting,
exciting and challenging career paths for which they will be amply compensated.
Additionally, the district and the union have agreed to differential compensation for
designated critical shortage teachers certified in mathematics, science, special education, and English language learning (ELL).
High minority/high poverty schools, principally located in urban districts like
Springfield, have larger numbers of novice teachers and lower percentages of fully
credentialed teachers than schools with higher income student populations. (How
and Why Do Teacher Credentials Matter for Student Achievement by Clotfelter,
Ladd and VigdorMarch 2007)
In a recent report from the Education Trust (Teaching Inequality: How poor
and minority students are shortchanged on Teacher Quality by Peske and
HaycockJune 2006) it was reported that in Wisconsin, as mirrored in the national
data collected, minority students/students in poverty are disproportionately assigned
to novice teachers. In the highest minority schools 1 in 4 teachers compared to 1
in 10 in low-minority schools had fewer than three years of teaching experience.
In a recent research brief (Tennessees Most Effective Teachers: Are they assigned to the schools that need them the most?March 2007) from the Tennessee
Department of Education, they found that across schools in TN:
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- Highpoverty schools and high-minority schools have a larger percentage of beginning teachers than low-poverty schools and low-minority schools, and
- High-poverty schools and high-minority schools have a smaller percentage of
teachers with masters degrees than low-poverty schools and low-minority schools.
The variation in teachers impact on children is probably clearest in the research
of the statisticians and economists who are studying the relationship between individual teachers and the growth students achieve in their classrooms during the
school year. This approach is called value-added measurement. William L. Sanders, who founded the Value-Added Research and Assessment Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, found that, on average, low-achieving students gained
about 14 points each year on the Tennessee state test when taught by the least effective teachers, but more than 53 points when taught by the most effective teachers. Teachers made a difference for middle- and high-achieving students as well
* * * we need to move to a more direct measure of teacher quality. What really
matters is teachers effectiveness at growing students knowledge. With annual assessments, it is possible to determine how much students have grown during their
year in an individual teachers classroom. By controlling for external variables, we
can isolate the individual teachers contribution, or value-added. This method looks
at what was taught in a classroom, but doesnt disadvantage teachers who take the
toughest assignments.
Springfield is aggressively pursuing an approach that recognizes the fullest definition of highly qualified to include demonstrated results with students. We are hopeful of TIF support for this work, but have planned budgets to implement without
such support in a slower fashion. Our ability to place highly effective teachers in
schools with students who have the greatest needs may give our thousands of low
income students a fighting chance to reach the high levels of achievement that they
needand that they deserve.
The overall context for the reauthorization of NCLB should be nothing less than
a sacred social contract between the public education institutions of this nation and
the communities they serve. We must mutually elevate the aspirations for what our
youngest citizens must have in their schooling and must acquire as outcomes. The
precipitous and persistent drop-off in the status of U.S. students compared to their
international peers on PISA and TIMSS is appalling, unacceptable and fear-provoking to all of us who care about our nations capacity to compete in a global economy. While many other nations are deadly serious about their education outcomes
advancing their position in the global economy, we quibble over local control versus
national standards, and that testing and accountability systems place too much
pressure on students. A rededication to placing U.S. education number 1 in the
world is critical to our economic and political future as a world leader. Our children
deserve no lessour citizens must have public policy that places excellence and equity as centerpieces of education outcomes.

I am going to pass at this time and recognize two members, beginning with Mr. Tierney and Mr. Hare, and then we will go back
to the regular order.
Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you all for your testimony.
I particularly want to focus on evaluation of teacher performance.
While I think it is a concept that everybody would agree with is
important, I think that how it is done is somewhat critical, but Ms.
McLean, you touched on the idea about not just focusing on test results of students and the impact that might have. I think we have
had considerable difficulty in just testing the students, but if a
teacher is going to be evaluated on how a class performs, what happens to the effect that cohorts are different from year to year and
the teacher has or may not have the tools that are necessary, given
what environment he or she is teaching in. What arehow do we
account or adjust for all of those factor when we are trying to
evaluate the achievement increases in a student population in a
given year, how do we factor that in?
Ms. McLean, if you would comment first, then Mr. Podesta perhaps.
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Ms. MCLEAN. For me, how you are counted in, I dont know. That
is a good question. It is a multiple measure.
The Nebraska model that they have, the teachers do the classroom assessments and it is statistic-wise and it is valid, and they
are trained at the State level and they have no problem with that.
When you are using standardized tests, like nationally, AP level
teachers, their kids are going to do great because that is where
they are at. The resource kids, the ESL second language, their kids
arent. When you look at growth model tests, the AP level kids are
not going to make that teacher look good because they are already
performing at their max. Not much growth. But the low-level kids,
if you have an effective teacher, they are going to make that teacher look great because when you are at the bottom, you have a long
way to go.
So you have to use rubrics in measuring teaching performance,
their ability to use all kinds of different methods and tools to reach
their kids. You have to look at where their kids are going. Some
of it is very complex, too.
How I know I am effective is really actually 3 or 4 years after
they leave the system and they are reported back to me by their
parents or their success in college or they will come back, you
know, one girl will go away, and she was going to go be a model
and she goes, guess what I am doing? I am a wildlife biologist
studying owls because of you.
So some of those things, you know, the true effectiveness sometimes you dont know.
Mr. TIERNEY. I guess that is the problem.
Mr. Podesta, if you would answer the same question, but when
I looked at the Aspen information, they want to talk about pitting
teachers against teachers. They want to take the top 75 percent
and move them along and that another 25 percent and drop them
off. That is disturbing to me that you pit them against each other
as opposed to pit them against a standard. Who could perform well,
could perform well?
Mr. PODESTA. Let me make four brief points.
First, as I mentioned in my testimony and in my opening statement, first of all, you need some data and you need better data systems in order to know who is actuallyhow these students are performing and track that over time.
I think in terms of evaluation, they have to be fair and transparent. So that both the teachers understand that the evaluation
system, the principals understand the evaluation system, and there
is a level of fairness built in.
How do you achieve that with this complex number of factors?
I think that teacher input, as I mentioned at the back end of my
statement, is really critical, and I think the systems that have
worked the best around the country, if you look at the experiments,
have used the input of teachers and their representatives in building systems that are fair, are transparent and measure real stuff.
And then with respect to the kind of 75-25, that seems a little
bit arbitrary to me, and I think that the question is that you want
a system in which the low performers, the consistent underperformers either get the professional development they need or they
get out of teaching.
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So there needs to be, again, fairness in that system, but I think
we have to focus on taking the people who dont perform getting
them out and rewarding the people who do perform and giving the
people the professional development tools that they need to make
sure that they are achieving the kind of results that we expect.
Mr. TIERNEY. So Mr. Klein, when we take out of this, when we
put more emphasis on peer review and evaluation than we would
on trying to look at the students achievement as measured by
some sort of standardized test.
Mr. KLINE. Not what I would take out of it. I think a review
mechanism, whether it is peer or supervisory review is important,
but I think whatever imperfections there are in a test, and there
are, the test can be used as a benchmark against which you can
see real differences. I study this all the time, Mr. Tierney, and I
will look at two teachers, and I will look at thosewhere their kids
came in in the fourth grade and where they left.
Now, if there is a point or two points difference, I agree that is
immaterial. But when there is 12 and 14 points difference on these
tests, that is the power of teaching.
And the same thing can apply to AP teachers. You look at the
scores of the kids who are in AP, you look at what they did in prior
years, and you can develop growth models. We are doing this in
New York City.
So in the end, you want a mixture of factors, but the key factor
has got to bebecause it is a key factor in NCLBthe key factor
has got to be an effective measurement of student performance on
standardized tests. I will be the first to admit we need to do a better job on standardized tests.
In my city, when a kid gets a level one, it is not because of the
test, it is because the kid cant read and, we have got to put an
end to that, and we have got to be honest about it.
Mr. Heller.
Mr. HELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank all of the panels for being here today. I certainly
appreciate your input.
Ms. McLean, you said something about a full report on the performance pay. Where can I get a copy of that? Or if you can have
a copy of that sent to my office, I would appreciate it.
I had and have had spirited discussions with your chairman of
your Pershing County School Board over No Child Left Behind. I
am not sure where those discussions will go, but I am sure we will
have more of them.
You said in your testimony that aspiring teachers rarely go into
the teaching for the money. However, once hired, they quickly see
who does what and for how much.
Is that what is driving performance pay?
Ms. MCLEAN. I think so. A little bit. Just personally, I know
what I do and I know a couple colleagues that show up for the 9to-5 part of the job, and they are making 15,000 more than I am
a year, because of their experience. And some days when you get
really frustrated, it is like why am I busting my head. It is way
easier to pull out a book for the kids than to pull out the labs, mix
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the chemicals, and come in an hour or so earlier than the rest of
my colleagues because mine is a hands-on type of delivery.
That is driving it. I mean, there is an equity there.
I think another thing is you have a choice in college. You got to
make ends meet. The housing market is incredible around the
country. Teachers are being left out of the middle class, are not
being able to buy their home, not being able to have the American
dream. Teachers have to live in other communities and commute
to work in other places. You know, I am talking west coast like San
Francisco, Oakland, those colleagues there. They cant afford to live
where they work. They have to commute hours in.
I worked in Tracy public schools in California, and that was my
drive back to Nevada. I was born in Nevada. But my husband and
I were ready to have a family and we would have to commute an
hour and a half to get into a $100,000 home because the $100,000
homes in Tracy were the ones with the bars on the windows where
most challenging students live, and that was the drive for us to
move to Nevada where we could afford property and income and
teach in a community that was a lot safer.
So I think just the sheer economics of the teaching profession
I dont know if I would have chosen to go in it nowadays because
you hear all of the negative media. I wish I had time to do ed-op
pieces for the Reno Gazette Journal because I see a lot of editorials
that come in that people are really ignorant and unaware of what
it takes to be a teacher. And I have to turn away from that and
throw away the papers so I can focus on doing a good job for the
kids that I have.
Mr. HELLER. The concern that I have is for, of course, rural Nevada and rural America and getting high quality teachers into
some of the more remote areas. Does performance pay, in your estimation, help support getting those teachers in?
Ms. MCLEAN. I think so. My husband and I gained great income
when we went to Pershing County from California with the insurance rates and theirthe salary, the base salary was about the
same. But the insurance rates were very low. The cost of living is
a lot lower so we could afford to buy a home there.
We havewe used to have one of the highest pay scales in Nevada. We are about third now in the State. But we have to drive
90 miles for clothing. We do have one food store there. You know,
we are subject to the 2-week day-old bread and very high prices so
we have to travel for our goods and entertainment. So yeah, you
need the pay them more.
And my colleagues in Washoe and Clark County, science teachers
there, they teach chemistry all day. Or they teach physics all day
or biology. I teach all three subjects. So I wear multiple hats. I
have to be multiple certified, and it takes a lot of time.
So you have to reward people who have to put more into the profession. And I think merit pay is a way to help compensate that.
I think merit pay or performance pay, too, will attract the people
who are already in, and if new teachers coming in can see that
they have a chance to make some really decent incomes to move
ahead and to sustain, be into teaching and it becomes attractive to
them.
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And when I received all of the awards in 2001, the first thing I
got pressure from the outside: You need to go be an administrator.
No one is telling Michael Jordan when he got his MVP, you need
to go be a coach. Anybody knows you got to play in the game as
long as you can until your body cant work. Teaching is the same
way.
I love teaching. I have had so many offers to go work for private
companies. I cant imagine being without those kids day in and day
out, that is who I am. So why make me go be somebody else that
I am not trying to be?
I think there needs to be a systemlike here I am very involved
with Teacher Solutions Network. I am very involved with leading
the teachers in my State with standard writing, and why cant I
be compensated that way and still be in the classroom instead of
this drive to push me out?
Mr. Hare.
Mr. HARE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, and thank you all for testifying.
Mr. Podesta, it is nice to see you this morning. I had an opportunity to meet with your brother in my office a couple of days ago,
and he was lobbying hard for your alma matter Knox College,
home of Stephen Colbert, as I well know.
I appreciate your testimony talking about recruitment. And retention of teachers. My daughter, you know, sometimes you cant
see the forest for the trees. She was a music teacher and she had
105 kids in band. And she would come over to our house and literally fall asleep sitting at the table. She said, I dont know how
much longer I can do this, dad. This is not what I thought it was
going to be.
And with student loans and she wasnt exactly, as you said, she
wasnt the highest paid person on the planet. And unfortunately
she left. And I think part of that was, and I have talked to a lot
of educators and they talked about teacher mentoring, and I heard
Dr. Stanford and Dr. Dale talk about it, I would like to know from
your perspective, or from anybody here on the panel, I was told
that we lose tremendous amounts of teachers in the first and second year. But when they get a mentoring programone of the
school districts in my district said that it goes from like 35 percent
down to 5 percent because the teachers actually had somebody that
is with them.
I would just like tomaybe your thoughts or anybody on the
panels thoughts on itand from legislatively, what can we do, from
your perspective, to be able to not just recruit good teachers, but
for people like my daughter who wants to go back and will go back
and teach now because she misses it. She is like you. She doesnt
know what to do with herself now that she is not teaching music.
So what can we do legislatively to not just recruit teachers but
to keep them, and this mentoring program, while I know it is expensive, while it seems we are going to lose a lot of teachers, we
can invest in keeping them.
Mr. PODESTA. Thank you, Mr. Hare. And since my college is
mentioned, I should say my high school, Dr. Sanford sends his students there.
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Mr. HARE. You are taken care of this morning.
Mr. PODESTA. I think that is why I mentioned the TEACH Act
as going at all of this through a kind of system-wide approach. I
think that is what is so powerful about it. It starts with the way
we educate young people and demanding accountability from
schools that are producing people who are available to teach. It creates some funds to create innovation in terms of mentoring people
at the beginning of their careers. We are losing a tremendous number of teachers out of the first 3 or 5 years of teaching. It has the
pay-for-performance elements that have been talked about up and
down the panel. It has some very strong tax benefits for teachers
who are willing to go into hard to place, both discipline, and hard
to place, you know, teaching schools and districts.
So it seems to me you got to do a little bit of all of that if you
want to get the best kind of performance for our kids.
So I think that you have heard a variety of different perspectives
from the input side through the performance side to, you know, to
how you kind of mentor people along the way. How you create a
mentor of teachers.
I think, quite frankly, it is kind of all in that act, and I really
recommend it to the committee, and I hope that it becomes part of
the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind.
Mr. HARE. Dr. Dale.
Mr. DALE. I think we have to look, as he mentioned, from both
sides on the recruitment side, the training side and the colleges.
One of the things that perhaps legislatively could be looked at is
the support for what I would call thewe put together what we
call professional development schools, but it is basically the support
of internships, if you will, for people during their last year or 2
years of college where they are actually in the schools working with
our teachers, but they are learning the art and craft of teaching.
But there are tremendous tuition bills that go with that and all of
the other expenses as you are going through that training process.
So I think that is one area.
The other is, as you mentioned, having the mentoring, coaching
programs at the onset of teaching. We found similar statistics that
you were citing with our program where we have tremendously reduced drop-out rates, if you will, from teachers during their first
few years. That didnt have adequate support and coaching. Our research about why people leave the profession during the first 5
years isthe biggest reason is the culture and the climate that is
in the school and the feeling of support, they will stay or lack of
support they will leave. And so how to help with that is the most
critical.
Ms. MCLEAN. At Tracy public schools, there is a teacher induction program that I went through, and that wasit was a 3-year
program, and it was very, very helpful for me; but one of the things
that drove me from Tracy, besides the economic issue, was the support, the continued support. As the low person in the science department of 13, I was out in the portables. I was one of six teachers
teaching biology. I had one microscope where my colleagues had
one for each student in their labs. They didnt want toyou know,
and it was understandable on equipment because that new teacher
breaks her microscopes taking them out there or bringing them in.
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They cant replace. The budget is very tight not to replace equipment.
So I felt very frustrated in that aspect so much so that I went
back and got my primary credential for California because I
thought well, maybe I am at the wrong level. And they wouldnt
let me dothey didnt want to lose their science teachers so they
wouldnt let me do their summer school, first grade, or anything
like that. So that also drove me out of California to a place where
I was supported.
When I came to Pershing County High School, I walked in as the
only science teacher, and that was nuts 14 years ago.
But one of the things I did, I looked, the textbooks were 1950s.
All of the equipment was disarrayed, and I said you know, this is
going to be difficult to do any job. They said you do a purchase
order. So I went for the pie, and I turned in an $18,000 purchase
order, and they did not blink their eye. I had it in 2 weeks.
So they had the whereabouts and the means to support me to do
my job. And I think that is a real key point. If you dont have the
resources to do your job, especially a young professional when you
are coming in and you are given one ream of paper and say that
is all you have, the rest of it is out of your pocket, it drives you
away. And it almost drove me away.
Mr. HARE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MILLER. Mr. Castle.
Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, No Child Left Behind basically calls for standards
and assessments and the State sets the standards and assessments. Assessments is usually another word for tests. And we hear
from many people, I hear from many people, that the tests inhibit
or impinge on the ability to teach. It doesnt give teachers enough
artistic flare or whatever it may be. On the other hand, I have also
been in districtsI am from Delaware. And in my State where
they have done a wonderful job of taking the standards and taking
the assessments and looking at them carefully and determining
how they should teach and going from there.
I would like to ask Ms. McLean and Ms. Bibeau,
as teachers, your thoughts about the testing component as being
as any kind of a limitation in terms of teachers ability to teach or
an enhancement if you think that way.
Ms. BIBEAU. We just recently completed our spring testing. And
that does not include my grade level, but I watched the teachers
in our building and in our district. And the tests ran for approximately 3 weeks and they had 1 week of preparation prior to that
to help the students become familiar with test taking and the format. And there was great stress among the staff, and it is not tied
to performance base. It is just preparing students and the length
of thethe amount of time it takes away from instruction.
And this week with testing we looked at all of the test results,
and we looked at the heart of the test results as student growth
and what does this mean to us as teachers. And wewe are fortunate we dont have to reflect on am I, you know, is this reflective
we view it is as it reflected need.
But we are not having that additional pressure, and we are making changes, and some of the changes we are seeing in our school
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is a mentoring program, and we are starting a coaching program
that continues that process so that teachers feel supported timely
and
Chairman MILLER. You are going to have to speak into the mike.
People in the back cannot hear you.
Ms. BIBEAU. And I find that the mentoring program is very successful with beginning teachers and the coaching and in-classroom
modeling assist teachers at all levels in the professional development process. And myself, a long-term teacher, was able to access
coaching in classroom modeling to learn about the new educational
research and found that as a very beneficial process to help me improve my classroom instruction.
In my classroom, we dont test. So that wasnt the motivation.
Mr. CASTLE. Thank you.
Ms. McLean.
Ms. MCLEAN. I work on the State level of writing standards and
test items. I am aware of the Delaware model because I worked on
the K-12 Science Assessment Achievement Committee with the National Research Council. Nevada has tried to do a performance base
as well. That Delaware system is wonderful. You have a performance base so at least in the science area, the kids can prove they
can do science.
And we went to Nevada, tried to at least an essay component in
and a performance component. But the bottom line is those things
are very costly in rolling out to the classrooms, and then grading
them, so to speak, evaluating those tests.
So we scaled back down to multiple choice.
I think assessments are good if they assess what you want to assess. If they are assessing critical thinking skills in the science, you
know, the whole part about the kids to innovate, create, think and
observe and evaluate the data, it is very hard to get those questions on a multiple choice item. So I am not afraid of assessments.
We did in Nevada, we have this MAPS testing program, which
is a growth model. We had the kids take all of the science tests off
the computer the first week of school and they just finished a couple weeks ago. And we showed tremendous growth. So we know we
are doing our job.
But the thing is that they do need to be aligned as standards.
Just as testimony to one thing that can happen. We have test item
writing teams on the State, and I participated on those teams, and
they are a great thing. They help you improve what you do in your
own classroom as well. But people get a little bug in their ear, and
so our State pulled back from using the teacher test writing items
and came in and had a testing company and then that gets scary
because they really dont take the time, some of them really dont
take the time to align properly with the standards.
As case in point, we are just still piloting our science exams, our
freshman class, the 2010 will have to pass our science proficiency
to graduate. Prior to that 4 years ago, we have been piloting, piloting. My students were not tested, but we looked at the test exams
because I have been verya part in writing it. This is what a testing company did. We went over each item. I said this is not on our
standard. This is not on our standard. I am a national board cer-
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tified presidential awardee. I cant answer this question. We went
through one of A through G forms on this test.
So with the test director, we called the State test director, you
know, to question the validity of the company and how they aligned
with our State standards. Well, after that conversation, the legislation, now it is again against the Nevada revised statutes to anybody to look at the tests except for the kids. So we cant even be
critical of the process or even evaluate the validity of the tests that
our kids are receiving.
So I am not afraid of tests if they are good tests, and they need
to be good tests, and yes, we have to pay for good tests.
Mr. CASTLE. Dr. Dale, I was going to ask you, with respect to
when you recruit teachers, do youfirst of all, do you have a teacher of America-type teachers or other ways of entering into the profession and do you focusto me, thenot just the pay, but the benefits which are there which are not in the private sector as much
anymore, defined pension, health care, things of that nature, are
these useful tools now in recruiting teachers?
Mr. DALE. When we recruit out on the road, most of the firstyear teachers will look at the salary. Try to convince them that 30
years later you need to be compensated.
Mr. CASTLE. It is very hard to get their attention.
Mr. DALE. And we have probably one of the best programs, medical, retirement, dental, that we have ever seen. But when you are
initially recruiting, it is typically the start of salary where am I
going to come in and what is the cost of living in your school district.
In her testimony, Ms. Bibeau referred to the California State
University Center on Teacher Quality noting that a lot of concern
among teachers was beyond salary, and we have heard some of
that this morning in terms of whether to stay in the profession or
leave. The study points out that things such as adequate time for
planning and professional development and reliable assistance
from the district office, an opportunity to collaborate with colleagues, meaningful role in the school decisions, inadequate facilities and equipment.
One of the things I am quite struck with is from when I traveled
the country the last 5 years talking to teachers. They will say as
a result of No Child Left Behind it was the first time they were
ever asked to participate in a plan for their school. They said we
always had a plan but we were never asked to be part of it. But
now, because there is some jeopardy attached to No Child Left Behind that they have been part of the planning.
This committee is the Education Labor Committee, and very
often, when we have this discussion, it is suggested you cant do
this within current collective bargaining agreements.
I just wondered if Mr. Klein, Mr. Burke, both of you, have suggested you have done this within theyour current collective bargaining agreements.
Mr. Dale, you suggested you had to find a lot of different ways
to categorize your way around the agreement. I just wondered if
you might comment on how this can be done, because very often,
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I think there is a concern that somehow this is going to be arbitrary and teachers are going to lose some of their protections.
Mr. KLEIN. We have been able to do it, and, you know, it has
been, as in all labor negotiations, you give a little, you take a little.
The mayor in New York has increased teacher salaries across the
board 43 percent. And that has obviously helped us facilitate other
issues.
But Chairman Miller, what I think is important is I think the
Federal Government could help this process is by providing the
monetary incentives. If there were Federal dollars, then I think
what would happen, as has often happened, is that the collective
bargaining process would be facilitated in a way to take advantage
of those dollars, and indeed, I think there are other ways by tying
it to Title I for an effective program.
But if we dont get serious about making sure that dollars are
driven where the need is, and one of the things that, quite frankly,
troubles me, we talk about teachers with schools as if these were
homogenous things, and they are not.
So you take a city like mine, we have lots of senior teachers. But
many of the senior teachers who are very qualified are in one set
of schools and many of the senior teachers who, quite frankly, are
not qualifiedand seniority alone does not qualify competence. So
when you talk about mentoring and everythingso when you have
people who are not qualified, they are not mentors. The best mentor you are going to get is your best teacher in your own school
that you can watch and observe.
So to me, where I think the complexity is, the collective bargaining agreement view the teacher fundamentally as fungible
where there is not a kid in America who thinks teachers are fungible. That is where I think you could actually, through the incentives, you can incent changes in the collective bargaining agreement, which would help us build on the things we have done. Without them, we are going to continue in negotiations to try to continue to put as much as possible into making sure we attract highquality teachers to high-need schools.
Mr. BURKE. I would like to agree with Joel on the need for the
incentives. We, through our own devices, we can figure out how to
carry out some dollars to help do that. But if there was a structured program such as the ones that have been proposed, I think
it would be extremely helpful to us.
We started out in our collective bargaining process having a conversation about the fundamental assumption of a teacher is a
teacher is a teacher.
So I asked the teachers union represented across the table, well,
what do you think about the statement a principal is a principal
is a principal.
Oh, no, no, no. The principals are all different. Different leadership styles. They have different abilities. They have different, you
know.
So I basically got into the conversation about the reality that
there are different teachers who have different qualities and different abilities and can get different results with kids.
And that is just the fundamental reality. Teachers know that.
You could go into any school and ask a teacher who the stars are
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in terms of getting the work done. And they can tell you. They can
also tell you the teachers that are not getting the job done because
they know. They live with it every day.
And so we got into some of those more fundamental conversations.
At the end of the bargaining process, we had lots of give and
take, too. We were able to recognize that we needed teacher leaders
that were going to be credible, that had been getting results with
their students, that were real, true professionals in their craft that
everybody recognized we are using the best practices. And those
teachers had to be compensated differently, and in some cases, we
had to actually give them different work to do, mentoring and
coaching other teachers on a regular basis.
And that is essentially what our highest end teachers do. They
are off the salary schedule. They are in a separate set of salary
band. They are the highest band teachers paid in our district. Their
salaries at the top of the salary band bump into the early career
administrators. That was deliberate. We want them to try to keep
those people in the classrooms rather than they have to make a decision to go into administration for compensation.
Chairman MILLER. Just quickly, if I might.
Dr. Sanford, how does this work out on campus in terms of performance pay and how peoplewhat do they feel about the ownership of the idea.
Mr. SANFORD. Currently in Chicago, we have a provision where
there is performance pay. And our teachers are quite pleased with
it. It is very competitive. But I think most of the teachers recognize
that, as he just indicated, those who are doing the higher work, we
actually see, then, the results.
Chairman MILLER. We are looking for that in Congress. I dont
know if we are going to get that.
Mr. Price.
Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chair, although I amI probably
ought to respond to that comment, I wont.
I want to thank the chairman for having this hearing. This is an
extremely important issue.
I am heartened by the testimony I have heard, and Ms. McLean
and Ms. Bibeau, I am moved by your stories, and I commend you
and thank you for staying in the profession.
I represent the 6th District of Georgia, which is northern suburban Atlanta, a wonderful district that doesnt have many Title I
schools, but it does have some. I am struck by the education panels
that I hold at home and the commonality of the stories that I hear
from the teachers, and it runs across the whole spectrum. So I
thank you very much. You have energized me.
I do think that there is remarkable unanimity among the panelists, and I am encouraged by that. We see generalized support for
a pay-for-performance kind of process. And I think that is encouraging. I do think that there are many similarities between the
Teacher Incentive Fund that, along with Mr. McKeon and I and
others have introduced, and the TEACH Act. So I look forward to
working with the chairman and the ranking member and moving
forward on that legislation.
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I would like to concentrate on two areas, and Dr. Burke and Dr.
Ritter, if you wouldnt mind commenting.
I am interested in how you believe are the best ways to gauge
teacher effectiveness. As a physician, when somebody says how do
you find a good physician, much of it is hard and fast numbers.
Much of it is just a gestalt. You just kind of sense that is a good
doc. And in my sense about the teachers that I think back about
that affected my life, it was kind of that way as well.
So how would you gauge effectiveteacher effectiveness, Dr.
Burke.
Mr. BURKE. Thank you, Congressman.
Our model that we are looking at does, in fact, look at a gestalt.
We have a model that has 70 percent of our decision making on
effective teacher has to do with the observation, classroom performance, professional development work that teachers are doing and
what kinds of ratings they actually get on an effectiveness instrument that looks at about 75 behaviors, which is an awful lot. But
that is the anecdote, the evidence of going into classrooms and
looking at what teachers are doing in the interaction and the dynamics and learning.
The other 30 percent is value-added results in terms of student
achievement.
What are teachers actually accomplishing using a value-added
growth model and that comprises 30 percent of the decision making, particularly for these teachers that are going into these new
positions that we have created?
And we think that that kind of model is the best way to look at
it that teachthe act of teaching and the interaction with the
learners is a very, very dynamic process and has to be looked at
very carefully as it is happening.
And then the results need to be calculated into a matrix that
really gives you a total picture of the effect. And I think you can
get good data from growth models that can give you a real good barometer of teacher effectiveness. You match that with the actual instrumentation of looking at the teaching and learning in the classroom, and I think you have something that is workable.
Mr. PRICE. I would love to see that list of the 75 percent.
Mr. RITTER. Thank you for the question.
I would agree that mixed model is the way to go, although my
bias would be to lead toward the majority in student achievement
growth, although allowing, as we have heard on the panel, that
these are imperfect measures of the teachers work. But I dont
think we should let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
If we dont measure growth in some way, as we have heard
throughout the panel, there are teachers who see growth in their
students year after year after year, and we should accept that, recognize that and reward that. And I think it is important to note
there is no one best way to do this. Whether you have 55 percent
on test score growth or 60 or 40. There is no right or wrong way
to do this. We just have to think are the incentives in the right direction or the wrong direction.
For example, it was mentioned earlier that some plans have a
zero-sum game. You know, the top 25 percent of the teachers will
get it. No one else will get something. Clearly that makes sense
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that that is a bad incentive. We could imagine counterproductive
competition because if I am that 25th percent teacher, the person
behind me isnt getting that reward. So that doesnt make sense.
And we can see why that would lead to counterproductive competition. On the other hand, if we created such that there is a criterion
and we all meet it, whoever meets it gets the reward, there is no
reason for me to want to compete with my colleague. In fact, I
would want to work together and try and make him or her also
achieve the award.
And we can also think of using school-wide rewards in addition
to individual awards. That is why I like TIF. Different models
would work in different places, and we need the educator buy-in to
make it work.
Mr. PRICE. I appreciate your responses. I look forward to offering
other questions in writing.
Thank you.
I dont know if you mentioned if you have introduced the Teacher
Incentive Act in this again.
Mr. Kildee.
Mr. PRICE. I mentioned I reported working with you in the
TEACH Act because I think there are many similarities between
the two.
Mr. KILDEE. My Congressional district is really a microcosm of
this country. I have urban, suburban, rural. I have affluent and
poor. And my school districts, I have many school districts in my
Congressional district, they run the range also. Some are seriously
stressed with a concentration of poverty, abject poverty, and some
scandalously decrepit buildings. They tore a jail down under Federal court order in Flint, Michigan, because it was unfit for human
habitation and that jail was in better shape than some of the
schools.
Yet in my same district, I have middle class, upper middle class
school districts where, God bless them, when they build a school it
looks like a Hyatt Regency, and they really tax themselves to do
that because there is no State aid for buildings. And I go out and
help cut the ribbon.
But the disparity just in the physical buildings is outstanding.
And teachers, for the most part, are attracted to those middle class
or upper middle class districts. Or they might start out at one and
go to the upper middle class.
And then the vicious cycle also is that parents, young parents
who are middle class themselves, as their children reach school
age, they move out to the middle class area.
So the City of Flint, for example, is losing population. It has gone
from a 190,000 down to about 118,000.
Dr. Sanford, you discussed the need to provide incentives for our
best teachers to work in our hardest schools. Can you expand on
the range of obstacles those schools must overcome to recruit and
retain the teachers?
Mr. SANFORD. Well, as I think as you indicated, one of the things
that is pervasive in inner city schools is that we have young teachers who come to the inner city schools but unfortunately, they need
additional professional development and they need additional time;
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and one of the things that we found is that we must put additional
emphasis on working with our teachers really to help them over
time in gaining the skills and the wherewithal to really be effective.
And so I think it is really incumbent upon us to make sure that
we address those issues in terms of professional development as
well.
Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Klein, New York City, you probably have
schools of various ages, right? Some old and some new. I know
when I came here 30 years ago to Congress, there were school business, school buildings in Flint that were well over 50 years old
then. And they are still being used.
To what degree is the quality of the workplace for teachers a factor?
You know, even on Capitol Hill here when people are looking for
a job, very often they wonder are they going to be put over in the
Ford annex or work in the Rayburn Building. Those are considerations.
Mr. KLEIN. It certainly matters, and one of the things we are
doingwe have got a 13 billion capital plan in the city to really
try to address a lot of those issues.
But if you look at the variables, in the end, I think the thing that
matters most is the colleagues in the buildings. If you have a great
principal, teacher, you know what Joe said before about principal
is not only a principal. Teachers want to be with great principals.
If you have got strong colleagues that people want to learn from,
teachers want to be with strong colleagues that they want to learn
from. Class size matters. All of those things matters.
If you are in an environment where you are respected, where you
feel you can learn, where you feel like you are part of a team that
can transform the lives of kids. That is why I dont mean to single
him out. We have got many likablebut when you have got guys
like Dr. Sanford doing the work that he is doing, people want to
be there. People want to be a part of that. It is an enormously exciting thing. Whatever you think about testing, we could go on forever about it, but I will tell you this: When he got the highest gains
in his State, people in his school were proud. His parents were
proud, his teachers were proud, and they wanted to be around him.
And you know what? He is going to be able to recruit better people
because he is succeeding.
Too often in education, we reward the failure and we keep pouring more and more money into the failure. We have got to reward
guys like this, let them grow his school. Let him attract more adult
talent there. Let more kids from his community get the education.
And believe me, when you get that kind of positive feedback, you
can see it is transformation.
Now that is, in no way, to say he shouldnt have a science lab,
he shouldnt have a gymnasium. You need all of those things as
well.
Mr. KILDEE. I visited hundreds of schools in my 30 years here,
and the one constant you will find when you find an outstanding
school, one requirement is that they have a very good principal.
And that is a constant find.
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Mr. KLINE. The magic ingredient in education is the teacher. But
the magic ingredient in creating a great school is the principal.
And the same kind of thingsthat is why I am so excited in New
York now, I literally can pay principals up to $200,000 with the incentive pay and the pay-for-performance. And that has been a
major breakthrough. Because if you get people like this, and there
are other people from new leadersthe first initiative we started
was a leadership academy. Raised $70 million in private money.
We have now trained 200 principals who are in our schools
throughout the city.
Let us think about it this way: The school is the only unit that
matters. We in politics, we talk school districts and all this other
stuff. But we as parents know the thing that matters is which
school our kid goes to and the school is not going to be better than
the quality of its leadership.
Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MILLER. Mr. Ehlers.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
All of this talk of incentives makes me wonder about the Congress itself, where we all get paid the same regardless of what we
are doing. Maybe, Mr. Chairman, we need some incentives for a
few of our Members.
As a physicist, I have a particular interest in science education.
And this talk of incentives has reminded me of the particular problem. As someone said, it is an imperfect science of setting up a
merit system and reward-for-pay, but it is not an imperfect system
to recognize the market outside of the school. And that is the big
problem you have with good science teachers, to a certain extent,
also good math teachers. They have much higher paying options
available to them, if indeed they are good in math and science.
And I find very few schools are willing to meet the market. And
that is a very precise measure that you can have: To meet the market for that person. And I think our science teaching in many
schools has floundered because of the failure to meet the market,
and you end up with lower quality teachers as a result.
That is just one factor.
My main question is about the math-science partnership programs at both the Department of Education and at the National
Science Foundation. And I am interested how many of you have
used these programs or have had teachers use them or have participated in them? Let me see a show of hands here.
Very little. So obviously the word is not getting out.
But I think this is one of the most important things we have to
do if we are going to improve math, science education, much of the
problem resides with the teacher, not becauseand it is not the
teachers fault. I personally have worked with a lot of schools to try
to improve math, science programs. I never criticize the teacher because almost every case that I have met and the people I have
worked with, the teacher is anxious to teach well and especially to
teach math and science well.
But they do not feel competent to do it. They do not feel they
have the training or the knowledge to do it. And I think this is a
huge opportunity for professional development. That is why we
have said at the math-science programs in the Department of Edu-
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cation and the National Science Foundation, primarily research-oriented in the National Science Foundation to develop good programs, to measure their value and transfer that information to the
Department of Education.
Maybe you will be reluctant to comment on this if you have
never been involved with the programs, but I would appreciate the
comments about the concepts.
Am I on track in saying that the best way to get out the problems of math and science teaching is through professional development so far as the Federal Government is concerned? Where can
we have the most impact with that, and I think we can through
funding professional development for our teachers. Am I right or
wrong, and if I am right, do you think the math partnerships will
work?
Ms. McLean.
Ms. MCLEAN. Thank you.
When the Eisenhower funds were available that weour district
used for math and science, we had a tremendous opportunity for
professional development all the time. With reauthorization of and
the NCLB, those were taken away from us because the focus was
on reading. So we had to privately do our own professional development because everything was focused on reading. All resources
were taken away from us for science.
And I think it is a valuable use of resources for professional development. Like myself, I teach physics but I was a biology graduate. And if I take enough of the other sciences, I could pass the
test so that they will give me a license to teach physics.
In 2003, I went to graduate school at Montana State, was a combination of on-line and on campus, in the summertime, to take
more physics because even though I was effective, I attractedover
50 percent of the graduating seniors take physics with me every
year and they are doing well. I knew I didnt have the full background to take them where I should be. I made the course fun and
attractive and we do all kinds of things.
But you are right. I wasnt fully competent. The more like with
national awards I realize that I really needed to increase my
knowledge that I could help more students. And biology, even
though I was undergrad major in biology, it changes so fast with
our technology, I read Scientific American, and I will get a paragraph and it is way over my head on half the stuff. I want to go
back.
The problem with the math-science partnerships is they are connected to universities. And so rural people like me do not have access or opportunities. So these programs are going on and we dont
evenwe are not even aware. They get the literature out there. So
we are not aware we can partake in it or often UNR is an hour
and a half drive from my location. And we are one of the nearest
local rural communities to the university. When they are running
programs at 3 oclock, we cant take off our work day to go participate in those.
So it is a great need for us to stay on top of the science fields
because it is changing very, very fast with technology. And we are
all left behind on that.
Mr. EHLERS. Go ahead, Dr. Burke.
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Mr. BURKE. Congressman, I agree with what the teacher just
said about Eisenhower funds. But, you know, the math-science
partnerships are very much dominated by the colleges and universities.
My experience with the urban systemic program that was funded
by the National Science Foundation which had college and universities involved, but was more driven by the districts was that that
was much more successful in delivering high quality professional
development directly to the teachers in the schools.
When I had that responsibility in Miami Dade, we did an increase in test scores that I think was at least in part attributable
to a lot of professional development work with teachers. But what
was even more significant was that the course taking pattern for
students and their success rate in higher level math and science
courses in high school increased very dramatically, and I think that
was really a very, very significant event for us.
And so I would suggest that really take a look at how those programs are structured. I think the professional development for
math and science teachers is absolutely critical because there are
not enough in the pipeline anyway. It is just a dramatically soft
market. And we need to do a lot of work in that area, but we need
to look at whether the math-science partnership right now is really
the best delivery model.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you for the comments.
Chairman MILLER. Mr. Scott.
Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank all of the witnesses for your testimony.
Dr. Ritter, you are the only, I think, university representative
here. We are trying to translate quality into effectiveness and increase the number and effectiveness of teachers, and most of the
focus has been after they have gotten out of college.
Are there things we can do to increase the effectiveness of the
courses by changing the course structure and improving the course
structure to improve to education of teachers, and can we increase
the number with techniques like targeted scholarships?
Mr. RITTER. Thank you. I think I will have to be short because
the evidence isnt strong on this.
It is hard to tell what types of courses and what types of training
lead to optimal teacher outcomes. There are a few things that we
know. It does make sense that folks who have to teach secondary
math and secondary science do better if they are trained in this
content area. And so those sorts of things matter. Learning the
content. So getting a specific content training, as compared to getting training in general, teaching classroom management, matters
much more for upper level than for not.
But also before they even get into the colleges
Mr. SCOTT. What about for lower levels?
Mr. RITTER. For lower levels, content doesnt seem to matter as
much. Simply getting trained in an education degree is just as
good. And the intuition there is that higher levels science requires
more of the content and when you are teaching lower level kids,
classroom management, these sorts of things, seem to matter more.
But the evidence is mixed on these questions.
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One thing the evidence isnt mixed on, though, is colleges of education do have a hard time attracting top students. And part of the
reason might be that highly-motivated folks who want to be recognized might tend to shy away, or folks who are interested in
science, as we heard earlier, or math, might tend to shy away because they might not be able to receive as competitive as salary as
they would receive elsewhere.
There are, of course, folks who will enter the field anyway because they are driven to teach and want to teach and will do it despite the fact they wont be recognized and rewarded.
But if we want to open up the pipeline and get even more individuals in, I think the whole theme of this panel on recognizing
and rewarding good teachers will help in addressing what is going
on in colleges of education.
Mr. SCOTT. One of the things that has been mentioned is how to
assess the teachers. Dr. Dale, you have indicated that teaching is
an art. Do we have the appropriate measures to decide who is an
effective teacher and who isnt?
Mr. DALE. Let me tell you the story that I think is most compelling, at least from my perspective, that is our partnerships with
universities in their last years of internship were our teachers, our
employees, are working as co professors with the professors at the
universities designing internship quality experiences in the classroom. We find when the student exit that, they are on a par with
second- and third-year teachers universally.
Mr. SCOTT. Now in assessing the effectiveness as a teacher, do
you calculate in there the drop-out rate? We dont want teachers
pushing kids out and then scoring those who are left and see their
scores went up.
Ms. BIBEAU. The intent was working with kids and keeping them
in school.
Mr. SCOTT. And Dr. Sanford, if teachers have problems teaching
certain categories of students, racial, income, nationality, and had
a consistent differential, that is they had problems dealing with
kids of a different race or kids of low income, is there something
that you could do to improve that through professional development?
Mr. SANFORD. Well, I think it is not only professional development but it is also in the mentoring that we spoke of earlier and
just ensuring that individuals who go through a program have a
residency component, and that residency component should include
them working with a mentor or a master teacher who can help
them be more effective in the classroom.
Mr. SCOTT. You will have desegregated data. If you notice the
differential in certain teachers, should a principal do something
about that?
Mr. SANFORD. Most definitely, but the No Child Left Behind Act
will help them empower them to do more by making it feasible to
really help and replace those teachers who are least effective.
Mr. SCOTT. And very quickly, we have heard about the role of the
principal being so important. How do we get some measure of that
into the law?
Mr. SANFORD. I think working with smart individuals like these
over here.
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Mr. SCOTT. My time is just about up.
Thank you.
Chairman MILLER. Mr. McKeon.
Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been very, very interesting to me. I feel almost like I
am in a time warp. I will trying to pinch myself and see how what
I am hearing relates to my past experience.
I was a school board member for a number of years in California,
in a high school district. But in California, none of you are from
California so I dont know if California has changed since I was on
the board, or if we still have some of the similar problems, but
talking about teacher pay and paying different teachers different
amounts, you just couldnt do that in California. In fact, we
couldnt get rid of a teacher that is having problems.
I am wondering how, if teachers arent functioning, you move
them out. The protections in California, it just was like impossible
to do that. Made it very hard to do some of these things. I remember when we first tried to have a mentor teacher program, there
was going to be a $2,000 stipend for a mentoring program and the
union wouldnt let us do that.
I am hopeful that California has made some of these changes,
too, because you have all alluded to it, the fact that you have one
teacher getting paid the same amount, a teacher next door doing
a lot less work, a lot less productivity, who is getting the same
amount or even more because the pay scale, the way it worked,
was just based on steps and columns, how long you had been doing
it and your education level. So a 15-year teacher who maybe was
burned out was getting paid more than a 5-year teacher who just
is so excited and cannot wait to get into the classroom each day.
I think that unless we break that cycle and do a lot of the things
that I am hearing here today, we are never going to be able to be
productive in the process.
I was really happy to hear Mr. Scott asking Dr. Sanford about
principals, because all of the focus has been on teachers, which I
think is very, very important, but if you do not have a leader on
the campus who is doing a jobeach of those areas is very, very
important, and I know that there is talk about teachers having to
move into administration to make more money, you know, where
the pay scales are close, because, in my experience, the top pay for
a teacher after 15 years, with a Ph.D., was still lower than the
entry-level administrators, so it forced peopleif you had to make
more money to buy the house and providemoney is not the most
important, but you have to have a certain amount to live, and so
it would force people to go into administration who maybe were
some of the better teachers.
So I do not know if any of you want to respond to any of that
kind of meandering, but this has been really exciting to me.
Mr. PODESTA. Mr. McKeon, I think that we spend a lot of time
on the pay for performance, which I think there is unanimity on;
that providing financial incentives to good teachers is really criticaland to principals, as Joel so eloquently stated.
I think the other question that we spend a little bit less time on
is the distribution of those teachers into the hard-to-staff schools
and the hard-to-staff subject areas.
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In response to Mr. Scotts questions, it seems to me that we have
got accountability now being driven down into the school system.
We ought to have accountability and the teacher preparation system at the college level so that we track what is happening and
that grant money ends up being looked at with respect to those
measures of accountability to see that you are producing performance.
I think, on the technical question, going back to some of the earlier questions, Dr. Ritter noted that for the people going into the
profession, the gap is smaller, although in the technical majors, it
is still pretty significant, but 10 years outand by 2003 when we
did a study of thisthere is a $28,000 gap if you have a technical
major going into teaching versus going into a different kind of profession. So I think, unless you do something directly about that,
which the TEACH Act does and some of these other ideasTIF, et
ceterabegin to provide performance pay, to provideparticularly
in these hard-to-staff subject areas in schools, we are not going to
attract good teachers into those places for those majors. So I think
these direct incentives are really critical.
Mr. KLEIN. If I could just add one point, because what I think
you are putting your finger on is so important. And I want to give
you a concrete example of this.
In New York City, we are short highly qualified math and
science, meaning teachers who are certified in math and science.
When I am short those teachers, I am not short those teachers in
my middle class schools. I am short those teachers in my highneeds schools, and it is just a matter of supply and demand. There
is no way around this. Every universityI have talked to Matthew
Goldstein, the president of CUNY. He has to pay math and science
teachers more than he pays English teachers. It is not that he
wants to; he just has to if he is going to draw them, given the realities in the market. And if I am going to get enough math and
science teachers for my kids in high-needs communitiesbecause
if you do not know math and science, the kid is not going to learn
math and science. You cannot stay a day ahead of a kid in math
and science. If I am going to do that, I have got to say to a teacher
The normal pay scale would be $55,000 for you to teach. I am willing to pay you $75,000 or $80,000 if you can prove your worth, and
you will go to one of my most challenging schools.
That is where, I think, Congress could have enormous value, Mr.
McKeon, because you can supply the kind of incentives that will,
I think, move collective bargaining agreements in the right direction and in a way that I think would actually help unions, because
there would be, in a sense, a congressional incentive to move the
thing forward. And I am just going to tell youand I will come
back every time you want to have this hearingI am going to be
short math and science teachers for my kids in high-needs communities, and that aint right.
Mr. MCKEON. You cannot be from California because they cannot
pay them more there, so I do not want that secret to get out,
but
Mr. KLEIN. How do you tell the parent of a kid whose only hope
and only future is through educationand Yvette knows this in
Bed-Stuy in Northern Manhattan and in the South Bronx. How do
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you tell a kid that we just do not have a math and science teacher
for you? But I cannot get enough at an entryand I cannot raise
everybodys entry-level salary to $80,000. They do not give me
enough for that either.
Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MILLER. Just before I recognize Ms. Hirono, let me
just say that there is also another reason. In looking at the Alliance for Excellent Education, they have put as an estimate of replacing those teachers who have dropped out of this profession at
about $2.5 billion a year in districts, and then if you take the other
shuffling of teachers that takes place, they increase that to almost
$5 billion a year that is spent on this turmoil that is taking place
because people are leaving the profession, retraining people to
come back in the profession and moving people around within the
profession. Whereas, if you can develop this corps of teachers who
are interested in that school for those students who want to pay
them and can perform, there is a huge savings for the States that
they could also put back into professional development and pay if
we could get out of this revolving door.
Ms. Hirono.
Ms. HIRONO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As we focus on teacher effectiveness and NCLB, definitely pay
for performance is on the table, which generally is, I think, seen
as tying teacher pay to student test scores. And I think there are
limitations and dangers to that because you could set up a situation where the teachers then begin to just work with those students who are going to score high.
I am particularly interested in hearing what Ms. McLean and
Ms. Bibeau have to say after hearing from Dr. Burke and Dr. Ritter about what are the ways that we can best measure effectiveness. And Dr. Burke said, well, 70 percent of their model looks at
classroom performance/observation and 30 percent on what, I
think, is student performance on tests.
I would like to hear from the two teachers who are on the ground
day after day in the classrooms of what you think are the appropriate ways that we can measure the effectiveness of a teacher.
Ms. MCLEAN. I thought Dr. Burkes model was interesting, but
the one thing about the value-added measures is that people before
me have a great impact on the students. So, if the junior high
teacher does her job adequately, she builds a foundation and a vocabulary. Good teachers know that it takes three, four or five experiences on the same topic for you to really understand and learn
and know it, and so my success also depends upon the success of
the prior educators that the kids have. So maybe those seeds were
planted in seventh grade, and then I get the reward because I
made them flower at the right moment.
So that can be a little bit of a problem with the value-added
measures. We do have to show results, though, and I agree that if
you do not have testing, if I am not bringing the kids along and
doing my job, then I should not be paid for that.
Again, back to my point, though, those tests do need to be valid
tests. Money needs to go in them to measure what we really want
the kids to know, not just what is the easiest to test, which are a
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bunch of facts.You know, to me, I think we are creating a generation of who wants to be millionaires but not a generation of engineers or innovators with the way the testing is driving.
There is a good colleague of mine on the Teachers Listening
Team, Anthony Cody out in Oakland. He is a middle school science
teacherwell, he was put into science this yearand they are so
test-driven in his performance base that he confessed; he said,
Well, I had to do strictly direct teaching. he did not have any opportunity to do inquiry or labs with them to engage the kids.
So we are here at a balance. Do we want great test scores? Because we can give it to them and we can teach directly and feed
them and bore them inside and out. Then we are never going to
get our science and math engineers.
Ms. BIBEAU. We have a very good beginning teacher evaluation
process where teachers are observed in the classroom by the administration and by their peers, and there is a rubric involved in
this, and part of it also includes a self-reflection and a self-growth
piece. The ongoing assessment is not as clear at this point in our
districtbut we look at the assessment procedures, at the tests
that the students take, and do the kind of reflection that Ms.
McLean is mentioning that I teach the students before they enter
the time when they are taking the standard tests, but when I see
their test scores in third grade, I start thinking about those test
scores just as seriously as the third-grade teacher, because it does
not just happen in third grade, the effectiveness of the students.
A staff development process that I was able to be part of as an
ongoing teacher included self-assessment, peer assessment, and an
outside assessment that was nonbiased. But I had the availability
to discuss it with an individual who was an expert from a university and reflect on the observations of myself in the classroom, and
that was very, very, very helpful for me to see where I was as a
teacher now. And the evaluation we were looking at is what was
some of the current research in teaching, and was I doing it in my
classroom.
I think that a lot of teachers, when I explained that I was doing
this and that I was volunteering, were, you know, pretty nervous.
I mean, they thought,you knowand when I talked to them, I said
this was one of the best things I ever did because I cannot see what
I saw before that. I did not see that on myself. So I do not think
we are always afraid of, you know, what is the assessment going
to be if it is an assessment that helps us grow and become better
teachers.
Ms. HIRONO. Would it be accurate for me to conclude, while the
testing of the students has a place in your evaluation, that these
other evaluative tools are much more important? Thank you.
Mr. Bishop.
Mr. BISHOP OF NEW YORK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have read the rules of our committee, and I realize that, until
I have been here for 45 minutes, I do not have the right to ask a
question. So, in lieu of that, can I yield to Mr. Ehlers?
Chairman MILLER. The gentleman yields.
Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Whether the
rule is that or not, I deeply appreciate it.
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First of all, let me express my utter delight. For the first time,
I have a panel before me which seems to totally agree with me that
we have to have differential pay for math and science teachers in
order to maintain a good workforce, and it is very heartening for
me. I have been preaching it for 10 years. I have never had a panel
totally agree before.
The second point. Ms. McLean, you commented about the Eisenhower funding, and the math and science partnerships were supposed to be the substitute. I have to tell you that for several years,
I almost single-handedly had to keep the Eisenhower funding going
because there just was not support for it in the Congress anymore.
Math and science partnerships were supposed to replace them. The
billas the No Child Left Behind and as it left this committee
I thought was excellent, and it provided more funding for math and
science partnerships than we had had for the Eisenhower program.
Unfortunately, when it came back from the Senate and from conference, it did not have that. And we have been trying to get it
back up here ever since, and I hope in this next iteration of No
Child Left Behind, we can do it right.
Let me raise a different question which several of you have alluded to. I did not get into the business of trying to improve math
and science education. I centered on the elementary schools because I thought the high schools were, really, in fairly reasonable
shape, and so I spent all of my efforts on the elementary schools.
It is a totally different area because you do not have teachers
trained in a discipline so much, and I just wonder about your ideas.
How can we more effectively train the elementary schoolteacher,
the average onenot the science specialist, but the average elementary schoolteacherto do a better job of teaching science? Because the action starts there. If the kids are not excited about
science through the first through eighth grades, you are not likely
to see them selecting your classes, other than the required ones in
your high school courses. And if they do not take the high school
courses, they are automatically excluded from a very large number
of professional programs when they get to the university. What
comments do you have on that?
Ms. MCLEAN. I work with our elementary teachers. I do basically
a volunteer program where we go in, and I meet with them once
a month, and it is volunteer. I will take the standardone standard for the day and bring in real cheap equipment that they could
buy from home, and we will just start talking about the ideas and
how to teach and the misconceptions. They do not have that. Right
now, I am very concerned about this for our district because, with
the Reading Firstwe are a Reading First schoolthe instructional time has been taken away, so most of our teachers are not
even doing science. So I am terrified about getting these students
in a few years and trying to make up that difference that those colleagues should have done for the last 5 years.
The best of our elementary teachers are doing science for only
half the year and social studies for the other half of the year because there is so much emphasis and direct time structured for the
reading, and we are under one of those programs where they have
to be scripted. All of the other textbooks and resources and literature had to be put in closets, and they are not allowed to use
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them. If they are on a science theme, they cannot get out a butterflyif they are reading about butterflies, they cannot get out a
butterfly and do the whole metamorphosis thing. So I am very concerned, and so are the teachers, so they voluntarily work with me
after school once a month, and we look at how we can integrate it
and how we can work it in, very simple things.
I am not sure what to do at the college level with that, if they
need to be put through the steps of a modified biology course and
a modified chemistry course to get some more of that content, becauseand they are very uncertain. One of the reasons they do not
teach science, the ones who do not, is they are so unsure of themselves, and you know, they will ask me a question to take it to a
deeper level, and I will just model for them, and say, Well, I do
not know, but what are you seeing? you know, just to get them
to encourage them to play with the stuff, to play with their kids.
I mean, it is a start, and I always find it disheartening when I
askyou know, when I am trying to teach about photosynthesis
and respiration and transpiration, and I say, Well, remember
when you put celery in colored water, and the leaves turned purple? they are all What? you know, the sophomore kids say, Let
us do that, and that is a simple experiment that should be happening.
So our districts, we are looking at realigning so that we can have
eight authentic experiments at each level all the way up, so at
least the kids are coming with common backgrounds. So even if
they cannot spend the time that they want to when they hit junior
high and high school, at least we have something to build from
we have experiences to build fromand I am not sure how to do
that in the college setting.
Mr. MCKEON. Thank you for the example you are setting for a
lot of other teachers. Thank you.
Chairman MILLER. Ms. Clarke.
Ms. CLARKE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I have to add my remarks to those of my colleagues already stated. This has been a really very important hearing, and certainly
the comments that have come from each and every one of you will
help us to embark upon the types of reform and the types of deep
inquiry into the redevelopment as we go forth with No Child Left
Behind.
It is very clear with respect to the research that good teachers
do make good students, and students who get several effective
teachers in a row will soar no matter what their family backgrounds are, while students of even two ineffective teachers in a
row rarely recover from that.
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, every State and every
school district must ensure that low-income students have their
fair share of qualified and experienced teachers. However, the reality of it is that classrooms in highly deficient or high poverty rate
schools and oftentimes largely minority or immigrant community
schools are far more likely to be taught by teachers out of their
field of expertise.
I just wanted to sort of draw on some of my own experiences,
having come from the New York City School System. In my formative years, outside of my parents and perhaps my immediate fam-
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ily, my teacher was the most profound adult in my life. And today,
there are so many socioeconomic factors that go into the psyche of
teaching in communities that have these deficiencies.
I wanted to raise a couple of questions because we are trying to
get some tangibles here, but so much of what happens in the classroom there is not a measure for. And I wanted to ask what we
could do in particular around what I would call acquaintance and
engagement.
For many new teachers, no matter what the incentive, if you are
unacquainted and you are not engaged in the communities in
which you are placed to educate children, the disconnect has a profound effect on that childs ability to really love learning. And I say
love learning because you are developing students at the elementary, going into the middle school stage, and being a student is
very important in the exchange between the teacher and the pupil.
I wanted to get some feedback from whomever on the panel
about what is being done at that level. You know, we have talked
about how expensive it is. In New York City, you know, for teachers to live there and be engaged in that way is a huge, huge challenge. And I have to applaud the chancellor because he has been
working it out, but for a long time that has been a challenge. And
even things like parking for teachers in our town is a challenge.
So as to just some things that can ease those burdens, can we have
some conversations around that and perhaps how we can address
those types of engagements in No Child Left Behind?
Everyone nodded. Do not all jump first.
Chairman MILLER. Anyone? Ferris Bueller? Anyone?
Mr. RITTER. I will react quickly to your initial question, Congresswoman Clarke.
You mentioned that incentives do not affect us, and I would suggest that it takes a special person to do both, for example, to be
able to knowI mean, we all have limited amounts of skills, and
to be really smart analytically, scientifically, and mathematically
and then to have the personality that makes us want to engage
with kids and these sorts of things, that is unique, I would imagine, amongst the populace. And you have to pay for unique skills.
So I would argue that incentives do matter.
As the teachers earlier had mentioned, you know, you might feel
like coming in and just handing out a worksheet or you might feel
like really engaging with the students and trying to give a lesson
that they can get into. And that takes more energy, and it is possible that the incentives created by differential pay might tilt the
balance.You know, one day, I come in and I am tired, and I am just
not sure if I can give that extra effort today. And I think that is
part of the goal of performance-based pay. It is to encourage us,
when we are on the border, to give that extra effort and to do this
extra work. And if the work involves being engaged, and I know
that if I get engaged and go out into the community and get the
students engaged in a lesson and then they are more likely to
learn, performance pay would encourage me to do that as well.
So I would suggest there is not a total disconnect between the
incentive-based pay and the issue you describe.
Ms. MCLEAN. In our report, we do have a piece centered around
community involvement and after-education programs because that
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does take a tremendous amount of time. And so you can pay people
for doing that and for going the extra mile. With some people, depending on where they are in their career and if they are a new
mother as well, they are not going to have time to do that, so they
will not seek out that pay. But for someone whose children have
gone off to college, you have the time to devote to that, and you
could be rewarded in that kind of aspect. But I cannot speak for
New York because I am rural, so I am in the community, and I go
grocery shopping, and I see my parents, and I go to church, you
know. So I do not know how to solve the city issue.
Mr. DALE. One of the roles that I outlined in my earlier testimony deals with this particular area, and that is making connections with kids in the community. And much as Ms. McLean was
saying, you have to recognize that if you are asking people to do
that as part of their extended roles from the classroom, you pay
people for it. Which is why I have tried to move into these full-time
teaching contracts so that outside of the classroom, then, that is
one of the roles, is to begin to work with the members of the community and whatever it takes to make those kinds of, I will say,
really strong connections.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
I think this hearing has been helpful, partly because we do not
have bells going off, and we actually can concentrate.
Chairman MILLER. That is one of the advantages of staying and
working until 1:30 in the morning.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Exactly. Exactly.
Thank you all for being here.
One of the, I think, models is that we are always looking for best
practices, and I got attracted, actually, as a school board member
and then as a State legislator to the National Board Certification
Program because I know that when my kid is sick or hurts himself
or needs surgery, I want to go to a board-certified physician, and
I want to go to a good teaching hospital. So it seems to me that
there was sort of a connection there between how people think
about teachers and how they would think about other professions
that they seek out in their lives.
So I wonder if you could, without going into a great deal of detail, Ms. McLeanthere is something about the National Board
program that attracts a certain kind of teacher, I think. It is also
teachers who want to be very reflective in their teaching, very, very
positive, I believe, but it has not really spread nationwide in the
way that I would have thought perhaps it would happen. If you
could, address that very briefly.
Getting back to Chancellor Klein and that environment that is
respectful of teachers, how do you think we could best utilize a program like that? I would also ask whether we need to have principal
academies that kind of reflect National Board principal certification
and if that would even make a difference. Is that something that
we ought to use as a model and try and expand and think about?
There have been someI do not know. I am not sure exactly
what the obstacles to that have been, but some peoplesomehow
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this national in the title seems to throw people off. Is it worth
pursuing that orI do not believe that all teachers who are great
teachers have to be nationally board-certified. It is not a panacea,
but it does provide this reflective model that seems to make sense,
and it also could be a model for getting nationally board-certified
teachers, who happen to be certified in math and science at the
best schools, if that became the standard that Federal dollars
would go towards.
Could you help me out with that?
Would any of you like to comment as well?
Ms. MCLEAN. From National Board certification, what drove me
to seek it is, I was the president of our State Science Teachers Association at that time, and it was just coming on the front, and people were forming opinions. I do not like to have an opinion without
an experience, so I put myself through the process so I could speak
for or against or whatever.
Going through that process really transformed me. I learned how
to be really self-reflective. You have to videotape yourself. So you
think you are doing these things, and then when you start watching the videotape, you realize what else is going on. So I was my
own personal critic, and I can make those types of changes.
So the process of that certification helped change me, and so people can do that process outside of the certification. Plus, I worked
withit helped me become stronger with my colleagues because
they had to be critics and help me. They had to help judge me, and
I had to have them come in. So our district does not have a program where we self-reflect or review each other, so we did that on
our own, and I think it was very valuable.
Mr. KLEIN. I think it is an important point.
I guess, with the principalship I think in particular, I would suggest that a place where I think Congress could make a difference
is with the kind of program like New Leaders for New Schools. You
are probably familiar with John Schnyer, who used to work for
Vice President Gore. After he left, he started this program, and he
is training principals throughout the country. It is very hands-on.
It is not academic. We have a version of it called the Leadership
Academy that we started, and we called it boot camp for principals. again, I think Congress could put real seed money in this.
The only caution I haveand I know John said it and I know
we have hereis that we have lots of needs in education, but we
have chronic needs in our high-needs communities. And if we are
going to close the achievement gap, we have got to be somewhat
more selective about these programs. So what I tell the people
we provide them 4 months of intensive training and then a school
year of mentorship with our best principals, and they walk in their
footsteps. And then the next year, we make them a principal. It is
a 13-month type of program, and I tell them, I am willing to pay
for this training on the condition that you will go to work in one
of my high-needs, high-poverty schools. that is what John has
done. Dr. Sanford came out of that program.
John is now doing that in D.C. and in other cities, and it is having a very powerful effect, but I think you have got to understand
that it has got to be nonacademic, very hands-on, and get to the
question that Ms. Clarke asked before. These people have got to get
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into the community, and they have got to understand the challenges. This is an enormously successful model which, I would
think, we could put a lot more dollars against in return for people
taking on the tough challenges.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Does anybody else want to comment?
Yes.
Mr. DALE. Let me just reinforce that one very quickly, because
part of New York, and then Dr. Burke and I are all part of a philanthropic effort to provide and create leadership training opportunities. And we found it to be, just like Joel has talked about, very
effective. It has to be an intentional program, though. It was driven
by, in this case, philanthropic contributions to a variety of school
systems that were engaged in developing leaders.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.
I guess the one thing I would say, Mr. Chairman, really quickly
is that I do think the comment was made by Mr. McKeon that
somehow there is a perception that, in fact, teachers do not support
any kind of performance pay. I do think that, if we can find that
area where they dothe National Board of Certification is supported by teachers in some States, and they actually get quite a
bonus. And there are some incentives, I think even in California
now, for those teachers to go into the low-performing schools.
I really appreciate the comments of how it has got toyou know,
it cannot be just any kind of program that you create. I mean, it
has to be something that actually does have a link with performance, and that can be done. I would think that it could be done everywhere if we could get the right incentive at the Federal level.
Thank you.
Mr. Payne.
Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this very important and interesting hearing.
As a former teacher myselfof course, we were not doing 200 gs
a year at that time. As a matter of fact, my first salary was $3,899
a year. It was not a log cabin either. But things have certainly
changed, that is for sure. I taught for about 10 years in both the
secondary and middle and elementary schools. I also was the president of an elementary school PTA, which is a question that I have
not heard very much mentioned.
What about the parent involvement? I mean, I know that is separate from teachers performance, but just in generaland perhaps
our principal would know. We in the old days had standing room
only in the auditorium when we had a PTA meeting. Things have
certainly changed a lot. There are a lot of demands on people, especially living in inner cities, and it is tough to make it. As I mentioned, in my district, I have, like Mr. Kildee, a very diverse district. I have probably the most affluent community in the United
States in one partin Milburn, south of Short Hills in New Jersey.
And in the other part, I have Newark. Believe it or not, the
schoolI spoke at their graduation last yearwill be 160 years old
next year. It was built in 1848. A number of the schools were built
before the 1900s. So we see the disparity. Of course, we have a
school that is maybe 125 years old, Harriett Tubman in Newark,
that is putting out students who are excellent. So the age of the
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school does not necessarily alwaysof course, that is a very unique
place, Harriett Tubman. That is probably why it has that name. It
is not a typical school in Newark, but it is a public school with public school teachers, a teachers union and all the rest. They are
doing a fantastic job.
So, just quickly, aboutoh, and incidentally, I did my graduate
work at Springfield College. During the summers, I drove up there,
and so I certainly have an appreciation for your fine town.
Would anyone like to comment on the parent involvement?
Mr. SANFORD. One of the things that I have heard over and over
throughout the panel this morning and even to your question, Ms.
Clarke, is it is the high-quality principal programs as well as highquality teacher training programs.
In all of those programs, one of the things that they emphasize
is that the parental involvement is key, and it is critical. But also,
one of the things that I think is really important for us to recognize
is these programs teach you to do that.
One of the things that Mr. Klein said earlier is that we have 13
months where we work side by side with a principal who has been
doing a fantastic job, and I think that one of the things that I
learned is that they emphasize over and over again that you cannot
do it without the parents. So one of the things that I teach my
teachers is that at the beginning of the school year, we spend time
going into the community, learning the families, learning exactly
who they are, and building those relationships that really will take
us throughout the year.
Mr. PODESTA. Mr. Payne, you mentioned that the buildings are
more than 100 years old. We also have a school calendar that is
more than 100 years old.
I think one of the things that has been successfulDr. Dale mentioned thisin terms of thinking about teachers is, in having a
full-time, year-round job, the programs that are successful at bringing people in have extended the day, and they extend the school
calendar. The experiments, I think, that are very promising in
terms of actually bringing the parents into the system have really
utilized kind of a different model of teaching rather than sort of the
9:00 to 3:00, very long intersession break in the summer.
Mr. BURKE. I would like to also comment.
One of the things that we are starting to do in Springfield is create a home visitation program. Our teachers union has actually
been interested in doing that. There was a big project out in Sacramento, California that was evidently very successful, and we
have several groups locally that have been interested in developing
a partnership to really make that happen. So we are just getting
that underway now.
Connected to the question that Congresswoman Clarke asked
earlier, you know in our situation there is a disconnect. Sixty percent of our teachers do not live in the city, and 80 percent of our
teachers78 percent are white78 percent of our students are not
white. So you know, there is a community disconnect there that
has to be bridged, and we are really hopeful that this home visitation program, as we get it underway and really look at it carefully,
might be helpful in that regard.
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Mr. PAYNE. Well, let me thank you all, and I think that that is
an excellent idea. In the old days, it was just something that you
did. You know, if a kid was acting up, you went by the house and
rang the bell at 6 oclock. You saw the parent, had a discussion.
The next day, the kid was doing much betterhe came in limping,
but he was betterbut you know, those days have changed. The
rules have changed, you know, but I think that those kinds of programs definitely work.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, maam.
Ms. BIBEAU. I have just started reviewing the mentorship plan
in our district, but as we get new teachers at my schoolI have
never thought of it in the mentor role, but that was a very important part, that new teachers in our school would start talking
about the community, and I oftenthen at certain points, they will
drive you around, give you a tour, you know, and will startwe
will see families out. Where do families go? We go to some of those
places where they can meet families in a neutral place, and then
we look at ways like the home visit factor. But we look at ways of
how do we get into the homes, you know, whether it is helping
some families, assisting them with computer accessbecause a lot
of people would buy a computer and would not have the basic backgroundor bringing a book on the childs birthday or, you know,
some of those little things that a teacher could do to just get into
the community and meet the families.
Chairman MILLER. Well, thank you very much, andyes, Susan.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Could I just for a second
Chairman MILLER. You are now on their time. You do whatever
you want.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Okay. This is part of the discussion,
becauseI mean, it is that cultural kind of congruency because a
lot of kids grow up, and it is very congruent for them to go right
on to school; and for other children, it is not necessarily in the
same context. And so sometimes I do not think it is so much as just
bringing the parents in, but we really doit is the visits, but it is
really an attitude about bringing what comes from the home into
the school and finding ways of making those connections.
And I think that we can teach people how to do that, and some
schools do a great job at it; but as for others, I do not think they
quite get that connection about why it is important because of that
movement of kids into the school system that may not necessarily
be as natural as it is for some children.
So thank you. I appreciate that.
Chairman MILLER. Thank you. Let me say that my watchword
for education at the moment is engagement. You clearly have engaged the members of this committee, and I thank you for doing
that. I think you will find that you have been testifying at a defining hearing in terms of our reconsideration and reauthorization of
No Child Left Behind, and I really thank you for your expertise,
your experience, and all of your suggestions. And we look forward
to working with you as we get down to the hard part here in reauthorization. Thank you again for your time before the committee.
The committee will stand adjourned.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Altmire follows:]
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Prepared Statement of Hon. Jason Altmire, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Pennsylvania
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing on how to boost
quality in the teaching profession through the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.
I would like to extend a warm welcome to todays witnesses. I appreciate all of
you for taking the time to be here and look forward to your testimony.
In honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, which was observed earlier this week, I
would first like to take this opportunity to thank all of the great teachers across
the country. Teachers do a remarkably hard and important job. The vast majority
of them do this job extremely well and there good work is overlooked far too frequently.
There is nothing more important to the education of this nations children than
ensuring that they are taught by excellent teachers. Research has shown that the
single most important factor in determining a childs success in school is the quality
of his or her teacher.
The reauthorization of NCLB provides this committee with the opportunity to reexamine how effective the law has been in promoting teacher quality. I look forward
to working with the members of this committee to build on the successes that NCLB
has had in promoting teacher quality and in improving the aspects of NCLB that
have not helped advance teacher quality.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I yield back the balance
of my time.
[Additional submissions by Mr. Miller follow:]

[The prepared statement of Ms. Darling-Hammond follows:]
Prepared Statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun
Professor, Stanford University School of Education
I thank Chairman Miller and the members of the Committee for the opportunity
to offer testimony on the re-authorization of ESEA, in particular the ways in which
we measure and encourage school progress and improvement. My perspective on
these issues is informed by my research, my work with states and national organizations on standards development, and my work with local schools. I have studied
the implementation of No Child Left Behind,1 as well as testing and accountability
systems within the United States and abroad.2 I have also served as past Chair of
the New York State Council on Curriculum and Assessment and of the Chief State
School Officers INTASC Standards Development Committee. I work closely with a
number of school districts and local schools on education improvement efforts, including several new urban high schools that I have helped to launch. Thus, I have
encountered the issues of school improvement from both a system-wide and local
school vantage point.
I am hopeful that this re-authorization can build on the strengths and opportunities offered by No Child Left Behind, while addressing needs that have emerged
during the first years of the laws implementation. Among the strengths of the law
is its focus on improving the academic achievement of all students, which triggers
attention to school performance and to the needs of students who have been underserved, and its insistence that all students are entitled to qualified teachers, which
has stimulated recruitment efforts in states where many disadvantaged students
previously lacked this key resource for learning.
The law has succeeded in getting states, districts, and local schools to pay attention to achievement. The next important step is to ensure that the range of things
schools and states pay attention to actually helps them improve both the quality of
education they offer to every student and the quality of the overall schooling enterprise. In order to accomplish this, I would ask you to actively encourage states to:
Develop accountability systems that use multiple measures of learning and
other important aspects of school performance in evaluating school progress;
Differentiate school improvement strategies for schools based on a comprehensive analysis of their instructional quality and conditions for learning.
Why Use Multiple Measures?
There are at least three reasons to gauge student and school progress based on
multiple measures of learning and school performance:
To direct schools attention and effort to the range of measures that are associated with high-quality education and improvement;
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To avoid dysfunctional consequences that can encourage schools, districts, or
states to emphasize one important outcome at the expense of another; for example,
focusing on a narrow set of skills at the expense of others that are equally critical,
or boosting test scores by excluding students from school; and
To capture an adequate and accurate picture of student learning and attainment that both measures and promotes the kinds of outcomes we need from schools.
Directing Attention to Measures Associated with School Quality
One of the central concepts of NCLBs approach is that schools and systems will
organize their efforts around the measures for which they are held accountable. Because attending to any one measure can be both partial and problematic, the concept of multiple measures is routinely used by policymakers to make critical decisions about such matters as employment and economic forecasting (for example, the
Dow Jones Index or the GNP) and admission to college, where grades, essays, activities, and accomplishments are considered along with test scores.
Successful businesses use a dashboard set of indicators to evaluate their health
and progress, aware that no single indicator is sufficient to understand or guide
their operations. This approach is designed to focus attention on those aspects of
the business that describe elements of the businesss current health and future prospects, and to provide information that employees can act on in areas that make a
difference for improvement. So, for example, a balanced scorecard is likely to include
among its financial indicators not only a statement of profits, but also cash flow,
dividends, costs and accounts receivable, assets, inventory, and so on. Business leaders understand that efforts to maximize profits alone could lead to behaviors that
undermine the long-term health of the enterprise.
Similarly, a single measure approach in education creates some unintended negative consequences and fails to focus schools on doing those things that can improve
their long-term health and the education of their students. Although No Child Left
Behind calls for multiple measures of student performance, the implementation of
the law has not promoted the use of such measures for evaluating school progress.
As I describe in the next section, the focus on single, often narrow, test scores in
many states has created unintended negative consequences for the nature of teaching and learning, for access to education for the most vulnerable students, and for
the appropriate identification of schools that are in need of improvement.
A multiple measures approach that incorporates the right dashboard of indicators would support a shift toward holding states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student achievement as has been urged by
the Forum on Education and Accountability. This group of 116 education and civil
rights organizationswhich include the National Urban League, NAACP, League of
United Latin American Citizens, Aspira, Childrens Defense Fund, National Alliance
of Black School Educators, and Council for Exceptional Children, as well as the National School Boards Association, National Education Association, and American Association of School Administratorshas offered a set of proposals for NCLB that
would focus schools, districts, and states on developing better teaching, a stronger
curriculum, and supports for school improvement.
Avoiding Dysfunctional Consequences
Another reason to use a multiple measures approach is to avoid the negative consequences that occur when one measure is used to drive organizational behavior.
The current accountability provisions of the Act, which are focused almost exclusively on school average scores on annual tests, actually create large incentives for
schools to keep students out and to hold back or push out students who are not
doing well. A number of studies have found that systems that reward or sanction
schools based on average student scores create incentives for pushing low-scorers
into special education so that their scores wont count in school reports,3 retaining
students in grade so that their grade-level scores will look better,4 excluding lowscoring students from admissions,5 and encouraging such students to leave schools
or drop out.6
Studies in New York,7 Texas,8 and Massachusetts,9 among others, have showed
how schools have raised their test scores while losing large numbers of low-scoring
students. For example, a recent study in a large Texas city found that student dropouts and push outs accounted for most of the gains in high school student test
scores, especially for minority students. The introduction of a high-stakes test linked
to school ratings in the 10th grade led to sharp increases in 9th grade student retention and student dropout and disappearance. Of the large share of students held
back in the 9th grade, most of them African American and Latino, only 12% ever
took the 10th grade test that drove school rewards. Schools that retained more students at grade 9 and lost more through dropouts and disappearances boosted their
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accountability ratings the most. Overall, fewer than half of all students who started
9th grade graduated within 5 years, even as test scores soared.10
Paradoxically, NCLBs requirement for disaggregating data and tracking progress
for each subgroup of students increases the incentives for eliminating those at the
bottom of each subgroup, especially where schools have little capacity to improve the
quality of services such students receive. Table 1 shows how this can happen. At
King Middle School, average scores increased from the 70th to the 72nd percentile
between the 2002 and 2003 school year, and the proportion of students in attendance who met the proficiency standard (a score of 65) increased from 66% to 80%
the kind of performance that a test-based accountability system would reward.
Looking at subgroup performance, the proportion of Latino students meeting the
standard increased from 33% to 50%, a steep increase.
However, not a single student at King improved his or her score between 2002
and 2003. In fact, the scores of every single student in the school went down over
the course of the year. How could these steep improvements in the schools average
scores and proficiency rates have occurred? A close look at Table 1 shows that the
major change between the two years was that the lowest-scoring student, Raul, disappeared. As has occurred in many states with high stakes-testing programs, students who do poorly on the testsspecial needs students, new English language
learners, those with poor attendance, health, or family problemsare increasingly
likely to be excluded by being counseled out, transferred, expelled, or by dropping
out.
TABLE 1.KING MIDDLE SCHOOL: REWARDS OR SANCTIONS?

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEST SCORE TRENDS AND STUDENT POPULATIONS
Laura ........................................................................................
James .......................................................................................
Felipe .......................................................................................
Kisha ........................................................................................
Jose ..........................................................................................
Raul .........................................................................................
200203
200304
100
90
80
70
60
20
Ave. Score = 70
% meeting standard = 66%
90
80
70
65
55
...............................................
Ave. Score = 72
% meeting standard = 80%
This kind of result is not limited to education. When one state decided to rank
cardiac surgeons based on their mortality rates, a follow up investigation found that
surgeons ratings went up as they stopped taking on high-risk clients. These patients were referred out of state if they were wealthy, or were not served, if they
were poor.
The three national professional organizations of measurement experts have called
attention to such problems in their joint Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, which note that:
Beyond any intended policy goals, it is important to consider potential unintended
effects that may result from large-scale testing programs. Concerns have been
raised, for instance, about narrowing the curriculum to focus only on the objectives
tested, restricting the range of instructional approaches to correspond to the testing
format, increasing the number of dropouts among students who do not pass the test,
and encouraging other instructional or administrative practices that may raise test
scores without affecting the quality of education. It is important for those who mandate tests to consider and monitor their consequences and to identify and minimize
the potential of negative consequences.11
Professional testing standards emphasize that no test is sufficiently reliable and
valid to be the sole source of important decisions about student placements, promotions, or graduation, but that such decisions should be made on the basis of several different kinds of evidence about student learning and performance in the classroom. For example, Standard 13.7 states:
In educational settings, a decision or characterization that will have major impact
on a student should not be made on the basis of a single test score. Other relevant
information should be taken into account if it will enhance the overall validity of
the decision.12
The Psychological Standards for Testing describe several kinds of information that
should be considered in making judgments about what a student knows and can do,
including alternative assessments that provide other information about performance
and evidence from samples of school work and other aspects of the school record,
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such as grades and classroom observations. These are particularly important for students for whom traditional assessments are not generally valid, such as English language learners and special education students. Similarly, when evaluating schools,
it is important to include measures of student progress through school, coursework
and grades, and graduation, as part of the record about school accomplishments.
Evaluating Learning Well
Indicators beyond a single test score are important not only for reasons of validity
and fairness in making decisions, but also to assess important skills that most
standardized tests do not measure. Current accountability reforms are based on the
idea that standards can serve as a catalyst for states to be explicit about learning
goals, and the act of measuring progress toward meeting these standards is an important force toward developing high levels of achievement for all students. However, an on-demand test taken in a limited period of time on a single day cannot
measure all that is important for students to know and be able to do. A credible
accountability system must rest on assessments that are balanced and comprehensive with respect to state standards. Multiple-choice and short-answer tests that are
currently used to measure standards in many states do not adequately measure the
complex thinking, communication, and problem solving skills that are represented
in national and state content standards.
Research on high-stakes accountability systems shows that, what is tested is
what is taught, and those standards that are not represented on the high stakes
assessment tend to be given short shrift in the curriculum.13 Students are less likely
to engage in extended research, writing, complex problem-solving, and experimentation when the accountability system emphasizes short-answer responses to
formulaic problems. These higher order thinking skills are those very skills that
often are cited as essential to maintaining Americas competitive edge and necessary
for succeeding on the job, in college, and in life. As described by Achieve, a national
organization of governors, business leaders, and education leaders, the problem with
measures of traditional on-demand tests is that they cannot measure many of the
skills that matter most for success in the worlds of work and higher education:
States * * * will need to move beyond large-scale assessments because, as critical
as they are, they cannot measure everything that matters in a young persons education. The ability to make effective oral arguments and conduct significant research
projects are considered essential skills by both employers and postsecondary educators, but these skills are very difficult to assess on a paper-and pencil test.14
One of the reasons that U.S. students fall further and further behind their international counterparts as they go through school is because of differences in curriculum and assessment systems. International studies have found that the U.S.
curriculum focuses more on superficial coverage of too many topics, without the
kinds of in-depth study, research, and writing needed to secure deep understanding.
To focus on understanding, the assessment systems used in most high-achieving
countries around the world emphasize essay questions, research projects, scientific
experiments, oral exhibitions and performances that encourage students to master
complex skills as they apply them in practice, rather than multiple-choice tests.
As indicators of the growing distance between what our education system emphasizes and what leading countries are accomplishing educationally, the U.S. currently
ranks 28th of 40 countries in the world in math achievementright above Latvia
and 19th of 40 in reading achievement on the international PISA tests that measure
higher-order thinking skills. And while the top-scoring nationsincluding previously low-achievers like Finland and South Koreanow graduate more than 95%
of their students from high school, the U.S. is graduating about 75%, a figure that
has been stagnant for a quarter century and, according to a recent ETS study, is
now declining. The U.S. has also dropped from 1st in the world in higher education
participation to 13th, as other countries invest more resources in their childrens futures.
Most high-achieving nations examination systems include multiple samples of
student learning at the local level as well as the state or national level. Students
scores are a composite of their performance on examinations they take in different
content areasfeaturing primarily open-ended items that require written responses
and problem solutionsplus their work on a set of classroom tasks scored by their
teachers according to a common set of standards. These tasks require them to conduct apply knowledge to a range of tasks that represent what they need to be able
to do in different fields: find and analyze information, solve multi-step real-world
problems in mathematics, develop computer models, demonstrate practical applications of science methods, design and conduct investigations and evaluate their results, and present and defend their ideas in a variety of ways. Teaching to these
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assessments prepares students for the real expectations of college and of highly
skilled work.
These assessments are not used to rank or punish schools, or to deny promotion
or diplomas to students. In fact, several countries have explicit proscriptions against
such practices. They are used to evaluate curriculum and guide investments in professional learningin short, to help schools improve. By asking students to show
what they know through real-world applications of knowledge, these nations assessment systems encourage serious intellectual activities on a regular basis. The systems not only measure important learning, they help teachers learn how to design
curriculum and instruction to accomplish this learning.
It is worth noting that a number of states in the U.S. have developed similar systems that combine evidence from state and local standards-based assessments to ensure that multiple indicators of learning are used to make decisions about individual
students and, sometimes, schools. These include Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wyoming, among others. However, many of these elements of state systems are not currently allowed to be used to gauge school progress under NCLB.
Encouraging these kinds of practices could help improve learning and guide
schools toward more productive instruction. Studies have found that performance
assessments that are administered and scored locally help teachers better understand students strengths, needs, and approaches to learning, as well as how to meet
state standards.15 Teachers who have been involved in developing and scoring performance assessments with other colleagues have reported that the experience was
extremely valuable in informing their practice. They report changes in both the curriculum and their instruction as a result of thinking through with colleagues what
good student performance looks like and how to better support student learning on
specific kinds of tasks.
These goals are not well served by external testing programs that send secret, secured tests into the school and whisk them out again for machine scoring that produces numerical quotients many months later. Local performance assessments provide teachers with much more useful classroom information as they engage teachers
in evaluating how and what students know and can do in authentic situations.
These kinds of assessment strategies create the possibility that teachers will not
only teach more challenging performance skills but that they will also be able to
use the resulting information about student learning to modify their teaching to
meet the needs of individual students. Schools and districts can use these kinds of
assessments to develop shared expectations and create an engine for school improvement around student work.
Research on the strong gains in achievement shown in Connecticut, Kentucky,
and Vermont in the 1990s attributed these gains in substantial part to these states
performance-based assessment systems, which include such local components, and
related investments in teaching quality.16 Other studies in states like California,
Maine, Maryland, and Washington,17 found that teachers assigned more ambitious
writing and mathematical problem solving, and student performance improved,
when assessments included extended writing and mathematics portfolios and performance tasks. Encouraging these kinds of measures of student performance is critical to getting the kind of learning we need in schools.
Not incidentally, more authentic measures of learning that go beyond on-demand
standardized tests to look directly at performance are especially needed to gain accurate measures of achievement for English language learners and special needs
students for whom traditional tests are least likely to provide valid measures of understanding.18
What Indicators Might be Used to Gauge School Progress?
A key issue is what measures should be used to determine Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP) or the alternative tools that are used for addressing NCLBs primary
goals, e.g. assuring high expectations for all students, and helping schools address
the needs of all students. Current AYP measures are too narrow in several respects:
They are based exclusively on tests which are often not sufficient measures of our
educational goals; they ignore other equally important student outcomes, including
staying in school and engaging in rigorous coursework; they ignore the growth made
by students who are moving toward but not yet at a proficiency benchmark, as well
as the gains made by students who have already passed the proficiency benchmark;
and they do not provide information or motivation to help schools, districts, and
states improve critical learning conditions.
This analysis suggests that school progress should be evaluated on multiple measures of student learningincluding local and state performance assessments that
provide evidence about what students can actually do with their knowledgeand on
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indicators of other student outcomes, including such factors as student progress and
continuation through school, graduation, and success in rigorous courses. The importance of these indicators is to encourage schools to keep students in school and provide them with high-quality learning opportunitieselements that will improve educational opportunities and attainment, not just average test scores.
To these two categories of indicators, I would add indicators of learning conditions
that point attention to both learning opportunities available to students (e.g. rigorous courses, well-qualified teachers) and to how well the school operates. In the
business world, these kinds of measures are called leading indicators, which represent those things that employees can control and improve upon. These typically
include evidence of customer satisfaction, such as survey data, complaints and repeat orders; as well as of employee satisfaction and productivity, such as employee
turnover, project delays, evidence of quality and efficiency in getting work done; reports of work conditions and supports, and evidence of product quality.
Educational versions of these kinds of indicators are available in many state accountability systems. For example, State Superintendent Peter McWalters noted in
his testimony to this committee that Rhode Island uses several means to measure
school learning conditions. Among them is an annual survey to all students, teachers, and parents that provides data on Learning Support Indicators measuring
school climate, instructional practices, and parental involvement. In addition, Rhode
Island, like many other states, conducts visits to review every school in the state
every five years, not unlike the Inspectorate system that is used in many other
countries. These kinds of reviews can examine teaching practices, the availability
and equitable allocation of school resources, and the quality of the curriculum, as
it is enacted.
Ideally, evaluation of school progress would be based on a combination of these
three kinds of measures and would emphasize gains and improvement over time,
both for the individual students in the school and for the school as a whole. Along
with data about student characteristics, an indicator system could include:
Measures of student learning: both state tests and local assessments, including
performance measures that assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding,
including student work samples, projects, exhibitions, or portfolios.
Measures of additional student outcomes: data about attendance, student gradeto-grade progress (promotion / retention rates) and continuation through school (ongoing enrollment), graduation, and course success (e.g. students enrolled in, passing,
and completing rigorous courses of study).
Measures of learning conditions, data about school capacity, such as teacher
and other staff quality, availability of learning materials, school climate (gauged by
students, parents, and teachers responses to surveys), instructional practices,
teacher development, and parental engagement.
These elements should be considered in the context of student data, including information about student mobility, health, and welfare (poverty, homelessness, foster
care, health care), as well as language background, race / ethnicity, and special
learning needsnot a basis for accepting differential effort or outcomes, but as a
basis for providing information needed to interpret and improve schools operations
and outcomes.
How Might Indicators be Used to Determine School Progress and Improvement Strategies?
The rationale for these multiple indicators is to build a more powerful engine for
educational improvement by understanding what is really going on with students
and focusing on the elements of the system that need to change if learning is to
improve. High-performing systems need a regular flow of useful information to
evaluate and modify what they are doing to produce stronger results. State and
local officials need a range of data to understand what is happening in schools and
what they should do to improve outcomes. Many problems in local schools are constructed or constrained by district and state decisions that need to be highlighted
along with school-level concerns. Similarly, at the school level, teachers and leaders
need information about how they are doing and how their students are doing, based
in part on high-quality local assessments that provide rich, timely insights about
student performance.
Some states and districts have successfully put some of these indicators in place.
The federal government could play a leadership role by not only encouraging multiple measures for assessing school progress and conditions for learning but by providing supports for states to build comprehensive databases to track these indicators
over time, and to support valid, comprehensive information systems at all levels.19
If we think comprehensively about the approach to evaluation that would encourage fundamental improvements in schools, several goals emerge. First, determina-
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tions of school progress should reflect an analysis of schools performance and
progress along several key dimensions. Student learning should be evaluated using
multiple measures that provide comprehensive and valid information for all subpopulations. Targets should be based on sensible goals for student learning, examining growth from where students start, setting growth targets in relation to that
starting point, and pegging proficiency at a level that represents a challenging but
realistic standard, perhaps at the median of current state proficiency standards.
Targets should also ensure appropriate assessment for special education students
and English language learners and credit for the gains these students make over
time. And analysis of learning conditions including the availability of materials, facilities, curriculum opportunities, teaching, and leadership should accompany assessments of student learning.
A number of states already have developed comprehensive indicator systems that
can be sources of such data, and the federal government should encourage states
to propose different means for how to aggregate and combine these data. In addition, many states existing assessment systems already provide different ways to
score and combine state reference tests with local testing systems, locally administered performance tasks (which are often scored using state standards), and portfolios.20
For evaluating annual progress, one likely approach would be to use an index of
indicators, such as Californias Academic Performance Index, which can include a
weighted combination of data about state and local tests and assessments as well
as other student outcome indicators like attendance, graduation, promotion rates,
participation and pass rates or grades for academic courses. Assessment data from
multiple sources and evidence of student progression through / graduation from
school would be required components. Key conditions of learning, such as teacher
qualifications, might also be required. Other specific indicators might be left to
states, along with the decision of how much weight to give each component, perhaps
within certain parameters (for example, that at least 50 percent of a weighted index
would reflect the results of assessment data).
Within this index, disaggregated data by race/ethnicity and income could be monitored on the index score, or on components of the overall index, so that they system
pays ongoing attention to progress for groups of students. Wherever possible these
measures should look at progress of a constant cohort of students from year to year,
so that actual gains are observed, rather than changes in averages due to changes
in the composition of the student population. Furthermore, gains for English language learners and special education students should be evaluated on a growth
model that ensures appropriate testing based on professional standards and measures individual student growth in relation to student starting points.
Non-academic measures such as improved learning climate (as measured by
standard surveys, for example, to allow trend analysis over time), instructional capacity (indicators regarding the quality of curriculum, teaching, and leadership), resources, and other contributors to learning could be included in a separate index on
Learning Conditions, on which progress is also evaluated annually as part of both
school, district, and state assessment.
Once school progress indicators are available, a judgment must be made about
whether a school has made adequate progress on the index or set of indicators. If
the law is to focus on supporting improvement it will be important to look at continuous progress for all students in a school rather than the status model that has
been used in the past. A progress model would recognize the reasonable success of
schools that deserve it. Rather than identifying a school as requiring intervention
when a single target is missed (for example, if 94% of economically disadvantaged
students take the mathematics test one year instead of 95%), a progress model
would gauge whether the overall index score increases, with the proviso that the
progress of key subgroups continues to be examined, with lack of progress a flag
for intervention.
The additional use of the indicators schools and districts have assembled would
be in the determination of what kind of action is needed if a school does not make
sufficient progress in a year. To use resources wisely, the law should establish a
graduated system of classification for schools and districts based on their rate of
progress, ranging from state review to corrective actions to eventual reconstitution
if such efforts fail over a period of time. States should identify schools and districts
as requiring intervention based both on information about the overall extent of
progress from the prior year(s) and on information about specific measures in the
system of indicatorsfor example, how many progress indicators have lagged for
how long. This additional scrutiny would involve a school review by an expert
teammuch like the inspectorate systems in other countriesthat conducts an inspection of the school or LEA and analyzes a range of data, including evidence of
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individual and collective student growth or progress on multiple measures; analysis
of student needs, mobility, and population changes; and evaluation of school practices and conditions. Based on the findings of this review, a determination would
be made about the nature of the problem and the type of school improvement plan
needed. The law should include the explicit expectation that state and district investments in ensuring adequate conditions for learning must be part of this plan.
The overarching goal of the ESEA should be to improve the quality of education
students receive, especially those traditionally least well served by the current system. To accomplish this, the measures used to gauge school progress must motivate
continuous improvement and attend to the range of school outcomes and conditions
that are needed to ensure that all students are educated to higher levels.
ENDNOTES
1 See,
e.g. L. Darling-Hammond, No Child Left Behind and High School Reform, Harvard Education Review, 76, 4 (Winter 2006), pp. 642-667. http://www.edreview.org/harvard06/2006/
wi06/w06darli.htm
L. Darling-Hammond, From Separate but Equal to No Child Left Behind: The Collision of
New Standards and Old Inequalities. In Deborah Meier and George Wood (eds.), Many Children
Left Behind, pp. 3-32. NY: Beacon Press, 2004.
2 Linda Darling-Hammond, Elle Rustique-Forrester, & Raymond Pecheone (2005). Multiple
measures approaches to high school graduation: A review of state student assessment policies.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University, School Redesign Network.
3 Allington, R. L. & McGill-Franzen, A. (1992). Unintended effects of educational reform in
New York, Educational Policy, 6 (4): 397-414; Figlio, D.N. & Getzler, L.S. (2002, April). Accountability, ability, and disability: Gaming the system? National Bureau of Economic Research.
4 W. Haney (2000). The myth of the Texas miracle in education. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8 (41): Retrieved Dec. 8, 07 from: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n41/
5 Smith, F., et al. (1986). High school admission and the improvement of schooling. NY: New
York City Board of Education; Darling-Hammond, L. (1991). The Implications of Testing Policy
for Quality and Equality, Phi Delta Kappan, November 1991: 220-225; Heilig, J. V. (2005), An
analysis of accountability system outcomes. Stanford University.
6For recent studies examining the increases in dropout rates associated with high-stakes testing systems, see Advocates for Children (2002). Pushing out at-risk students: An analysis of
high school discharge figuresa joint report by AFC and the Public Advocate. http://
www.advocatesforchildren.org/pubs/pushout-11-20-02.html; W. Haney (2002). Lake Wobegone
guaranteed: Misuse of test scores in Massachusetts, Part 1. Education Policy Analysis Archives,
10(24). http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n24/; J. Heubert & R. Hauser (eds.) (1999). High stakes:
Testing for tracking, promotion, and graduation. A report of the National Research Council.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; B.A. Jacob (2001). Getting tough? The impact of
high school graduation exams. Education and Evaluation and Policy Analysis 23 (2): 99-122; D.
Lilliard, & P. DeCicca (2001). Higher standards, more dropouts? Evidence within and across
time. Economics of Education Review, 20(5): 459-73;G. Orfield, D. Losen, J. Wald, & C.B. Swanson (2004). Losing our future: How minority youth are being left behind by the graduation rate
crisis. Retrieved December 8, 2007 from: http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=410936; M. Roderick, A.S. Bryk, B.A. Jacob, J.Q. Easton, & E. Allensworth (1999). Ending social promotion: Results from the first two years. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research; R. Rumberger
& K. Larson (1998). Student mobility and the increased risk of high school dropout. American
Journal of Education, 107: 1-35; E. Rustique-Forrester (in press). Accountability and the pressures to exclude: A cautionary tale from England. Education Policy Analysis Archives; A.
Wheelock (2003). School awards programs and accountability in Massachusetts.
7 Advocates for Children (2002), Pushing out at-risk students; Heilig (2005), An analysis of accountability system outcomes; Wheelock (2003), School awards programs and accountability.
8 Heilig, 2005.
9 Wheelock, 2003
10 Heilig, 2005.
11 American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education, Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, Washington DC: American Educational Research Association, 1999, p.142.
12 AERA, APA, NCME, Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing., p.146.
13 See for example, Haney (2000). The myth of the Texas miracle; J.L. Herman & S. Golan
(1993). Effects of standardized testing on teaching and schools. Educational Measurement:
Issues and Practice, 12(4): 20-25, 41-42; B.D. Jones & R. J. Egley (2004). Voices from the
frontlines: Teachers perceptions of high-stakes testing. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12
(39). Retrieved August 10, 2004 from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n39/; M.G. Jones, B.D.
Jones, B. Hardin, L. Chapman, & T. Yarbrough (1999). The impact of high-stakes testing on
teachers and students in North Carolina. Phi Delta Kappan, 81(3): 199-203; Klein, S.P., Hamilton, L.S., McCaffrey, D.F., & Stetcher, B.M. (2000). What do test scores in Texas tell us? Santa
Monica: The RAND Corporation; D. Koretz & S. I. Barron (1998). The validity of gains on the
Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS). Santa Monica, CA: RAND, MR1014-EDU; D. Koretz, R.L. Linn, S.B. Dunbar, & L.A. Shepard (1991, April). The effects of highstakes testing: Preliminary evidence about generalization across tests, in R. L. Linn (chair), The
Effects of high stakes testing. Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the American
Educational Research Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education, Chicago; R.L. Linn (2000). Assessments and accountability. Educational Researcher, 29 (2), 4-16;
R.L. Linn, M.E. Graue, & N.M. Sanders (1990). Comparing state and district test results to na-
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tional norms: The validity of claims that everyone is above average. Educational Measurement:
Issues and Practice, 9, 5-14; W. J. Popham (1999). Why Standardized Test Scores Dont Measure
Educational Quality. Educational Leadership, 56(6): 8-15; M.L. Smith (2001). Put to the test:
The effects of external testing on teachers. Educational Researcher, 20(5): 8-11.
14 Achieve, Do graduation tests measure up? A closer look at state high school exit exams. Executive summary. Washington, DC: Achieve, Inc.
15 L. Darling-Hammond & J. Ancess (1994). Authentic assessment and school development.
NY: National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching, Teachers College, Columbia University; B. Falk & S. Ort (1998, September). Sitting down to score: Teacher learning
through assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(1): 59-64. G.L. Goldberg & B.S. Rosewell (2000).
From perception to practice: The impact of teachers scoring experience on the performance
based instruction and classroom practice. Educational Assessment, 6: 257-290; R. Murnane &
F. Levy (1996). Teaching the new basic skills. NY: The Free Press.
16 J.B. Baron (1999). Exploring high and improving reading achievement in Connecticut.
Washington: National Educational Goals Panel. Murnane & Levy (1996); B.M. Stecher, S. Barron, T. Kaganoff, & J. Goodwin (1998). The effects of standards-based assessment on classroom
practices: Results of the 1996-97 RAND survey of Kentucky teachers of mathematics and writing. CSE Technical Report. Los Angeles: UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student Testing; S. Wilson, L. Darling-Hammond, & B. Berry (2001). A case of
successful teaching policy: Connecticuts long-term efforts to improve teaching and learning. Seattle: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington.
17 C. Chapman (1991, June). What have we learned from writing assessment that can be applied to performance assessment?. Presentation at ECS/CDE Alternative Assessment Conference, Breckenbridge, CO; J.L.Herman, D.C. Klein, T.M. Heath, S.T. Wakai (1995). A first
look: Are claims for alternative assessment holding up? CSE Technical Report. Los Angeles:
UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing; D. Koretz,
K., J. Mitchell, S.I. Barron, & S. Keith (1996). Final Report: Perceived effects of the Maryland
school performance assessment program CSE Technical Report. Los Angeles: UCLA National
Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing; W.A. Firestone, D.
Mayrowetz, & J. Fairman (1998, Summer). Performance-based assessment and instructional
change: The effects of testing in Maine and Maryland. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 20: 95-113; S. Lane, C.A. Stone, C.S. Parke, M.A. Hansen, & T.L. Cerrillo (2000, April).
Consequential evidence for MSPAP from the teacher, principal and student perspective. Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the National Council on Measurement in Education, New
Orleans, LA; B. Stecher, S. Baron, T. Chun, T., & K. Ross (2000) The effects of the Washington
state education reform on schools and classroom. CSE Technical Report. Los Angeles: UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing.
18 Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, and Pecheone, Multiple Measures.
19 M. Smith paper (2007). Standards-based education reform: What weve learned, where we
need to go. Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
20 At least 27 states consider student academic records, coursework, portfolios of student work,
and performance assessments, like research papers, scientific experiments, essays, and senior
projects in making the graduation decision. Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, and
Pecheone, Multiple Measures.
[Letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) follows:]

May 10, 2007.
Hon. GEORGE MILLER, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Hon. HOWARD BUCK MCKEON, Senior Republican Member,
Ranking Member, Committee on Education and Labor
RE: Letter for the Record on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) HearingBoosting
Quality in the Teaching Profession
DEAR CHAIRMAN MILLER AND RANKING MEMBER MCKEON: On behalf of the 95,000
school board members who serve the nations 48 million students in our local public
school districts, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) respectfully requests that this letter be entered into the record in conjunction with tomorrows important hearing on teaching quality. We commend your leadership in holding a
hearing on this matter that is inextricably linked to the ability of schools and districts to fulfill the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), particularly raising achievement for all students.
The research on this matter is clear: no other school-related factor has a greater
impact on student achievement than the ability of the students teacher. In short,
teachers matter. School districts and states are striving to recruit and retain qualified and effective teachers but face significant targeted staffing challenges. The
Highly Qualified Teacher requirements within NCLB have added to those challenges in some instances.
While hiring decisions remain the responsibility of local school boards, NSBA believes that Congress does have a role to play in assisting local school districts and
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states in their ongoing efforts to attract, support and retain qualified and effective
teachers. The needs are particularly acute in high-poverty schools and for certain
subjects in which teacher shortages are too common, including math, science, special
education, and classes for English Language Learners.
NSBAs legislative recommendations cover recruitment and retention, professional
development, needed improvements to the Highly Qualified provisions in NCLB, and
strengthening teacher preparation. While we recognize that there may be several
legislative vehicles in which Congress can assist districts and states in strengthening teacher qualityincluding the reauthorizations of NCLB and the Higher Education Act, the TEACH Act, and legislation on U.S. economic competitivenesswe
wish to take this opportunity to outline our recommendations since your committee
will be leading efforts on this matter.
Recruitment and Retention
Through federal incentives and funding for existing programs, Congress can provide important assistance to supplement districts and states teacher recruitment
and retention programs. For example, adequate funding for Title I and especially
Title II (Improving Teacher Quality State Grants), as well as incentives like the
Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program need continued support. NSBA also supports
newer concepts, such as the Teacher Incentive Fund, which can assist district programs that reward teachers and principals who demonstrate positive results in
high-poverty schools. Such programs can also help foster the creation and expansion
of differential pay initiatives for teachers of high-need subjects and hard-to-staff
schools. We also are encouraged by efforts in Congress to provide scholarships for
undergraduates who commit to teach for several years in hard-to-staff schools or
high-need subjects, and for experienced teachers who further their education and
take on added responsibilities, including mentoring.
Professional Development
Improving professional development or in-service training is critical to supporting
and retaining teachers. We recommend partially redirecting NCLBs focus and funding requirements from unproven sanctions to supporting comprehensive professional
development programs that can improve teaching and raise student achievement.
Comprehensive professional development would include analysis of students learning needs, intensive induction and mentoring support, and peer collaboration. This
approach would also result in additional Title I monies available for professional development.
Highly Qualified Improvements
States and school districts have made strong progress in their efforts to meet the
Highly Qualified Teacher requirements within NCLB. Those requirements have also
added to pre-existing recruitment and retention challenges, particularly for rural
schools and areas such as special education. The Department of Education has recognized this by granting some flexibility to districts and states, and clarified in the
IDEA regulations that states can develop a single multi-subject High Objective Uniform State Standards of Evaluation (HOUSSE) to allow special education teachers
of multiple core subjects to demonstrate subject matter competency in every core
subject they teach. We recommend that Congress make that provision permanent,
or permit a special education teacher with full state special education certification
and a bachelors degree to be considered highly qualified.
Additionally, Congress should streamline existing highly qualified requirements
by requiring instructional personnel employed by supplemental service providers to
meet the same requirements as public school educators. Under current law, they are
not held to the same standard.
Finally, some states and school districts are attempting to develop accurate and
appropriate methods, such as value added models, for determining and rewarding
teacher effectiveness. It is a costly and complicated process that requires extensive
collaboration among key stakeholders, including school boards, administrators and
teachers, in order to develop a system that is viewed as fair and accurate. Congress
can assist in this progress by providing funding (through matching grants) for states
to develop the necessary data systems. Although value-added assessments provide
information on student performance, they should never be the sole determining factor in evaluating teacher performance, which must include other factors including
peer and principal evaluations.
If Congress considers amending the highly qualified definition to take into account a teachers effectiveness, NSBA recommends that it be added only as an alternative method by which teachers can meet the standards, not as an additional requirement. This approach could allow teachers who have a track record of success
in raising student achievement but who may not meet all the current credentialing
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or subject matter requirements, to be deemed highly qualified. However, because of
the complexity in developing such systems, Congress might consider creating a demonstration program for interested states wishing to utilize or create a value-added
model for this purpose.
Teacher Preparation
Quality teacher preparation programs, whether traditional or alternative, are an
integral component to ensuring the nation has an adequate supply of outstanding
teachers today and in the future. Few would disagree that the nations teacher preparation programs have room for improvement. Congress should encourage schools
of education to collaborate with local school districts to ensure appropriate alignment with NCLB requirements and state academic standards, as well as the proper
education needed to enable teachers to effectively reach and educate todays increasingly diverse student body. NSBA also recommends that Congress increase accountability for teacher preparation programs by providing incentives to states to develop
accountability programs which track the preparedness and success of graduates of
its teacher preparation programs in raising student achievement (e.g. Louisianas
Teacher Preparation Accountability System).
Again, we appreciate your leadership and interest in strengthening the efforts of
school districts and states to recruit, support and retain quality teachers. We look
forward to working with the Committee on this issue as you consider legislation to
address these challenges.
Sincerely,
MICHAEL A. RESNICK,
Associate Executive Director.
[Letter from the National Writing Project follows:]

RICHARD STERLING,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL WRITING PROJECT,
May 11, 2007.
Hon. GEORGE MILLER, Chairman,
RE: Written Testimony Submitted by the National Writing Project to the House Committee on Education and Labor
DEAR CHAIRMAN MILLER: Quality professional development can be elusive and
hard to define, even for an expert teacher. One of our veteran teachers in the National Writing Project, Barbara Smith from Berlin Center, Ohio, confessed to a career-long search for the most useful experience. I have participated in more than
one hundred professional development activities, she said, including universitysponsored workshops, national conventions, regional seminars, scholarly presentations, teacher study groups, and two days of teacher inservice training provided
by my local board of education each school year. In 2000, Barbara found in the
writing project the program she had been seeking. She describes it this way: For
eight hours each day, and often long into the evenings by choice, we worked together to understand deeply what it takes to be effective in the classroom. We identified barriers to our own learning, and then we broke those barriers to merge into
a cohesive, caring learning community. We discovered the value of the support our
colleagues offered. The directors of the institute wove throughout the sessions a
strong program of theory, academic reading, and analysis of research. We worked
to design and produce standards-based lessons that reflected the best practices identified in todays reading and writing research. We became readers and writers and
researchers of our own teaching practice.
Barbaras summer institute took place at Kent State University. The principles
behind that institute emerge from the National Writing Projects 33 years of work
and experience in the field. These principles also take NCLB into account:
Quality professional development programs recognize the complexity of teaching
academic subjects. The first definition of high quality in NCLB is that professional
development improve and increase teachers knowledge of the academic subject
they teach. One way to increase teachers knowledge is to give them firsthand experience in their content areas. In other words, teachers need practice doing the
workpractice at being a historian, a scientist, a mathematician, or a writer. Writing project summer institutes offer participants the chance to write in multiple
genres for multiple purposes to gain firsthand knowledge of the kinds of writing
they teach and the kinds of intervention students may need. To be able to think
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and act as writer (or a mathematician or scientist) is essential to effectively teaching complex subjects.
Quality professional development programs extend over time. NCLB admonishes that professional development should not be short-term workshops or conferences. One example of NCLBs definition of sustained, intensive, and classroomfocused professional development is the writing project summer institute, which
lasts four weeks. School-year professional development, while less intensive, can run
from 15 or 30 hours to 2 to 3 years, in the case of school partnerships. The goal
is that teachers have enough time to develop a repertoire of strategies for teaching,
to participate in the content of what they teach, and to begin to become researchinformed decision makers.
Quality professional development programs take place in a community of professionalism. The assumption here is that teachers have questions and that they do
think about their practice. During writing project summer institutes, for instance,
each participant demonstrates a successful lesson or approach, with the theory and
research to back it up. In a collegial environment, the discussion that follows is both
supportive and questioning so that all participants can rethink and revise their own
strategies. Respect for teacher knowledge is key to helping teachers be continuous
learners.
Quality professional development programs intentionally build teacher capacity.
Linda Darling-Hammond* urges policy makers to shift from designing controls intended to direct the system, to developing capacity that enables schools and teachers
to be responsible for student learning and responsive to diverse and changing student and community needs. In the case of the writing project, writing, researching,
reflecting on practice, studying student work, examining both the how and the
why of classroom strategies, talking about how to embed standardsthe combination of these activities develops teacher capacity to become informed designers of
curriculum and of effective techniques for teaching writing and improving student
learning.
Quality professional development programs are co-constructed. Working with
schools demands that professional development providers co-construct the program
with those who interact on a daily basis with students. NCLB recognizes this need
when it recommends that professional development programs be developed with extensive participation of teachers, principals, parents, and school administrators.
Writing projects involve the school community in designing partnerships which
often include job-embedded activities that teachers find most helpful, for example:
collaborative planning, classroom coaching, demonstration teaching, study and research groups, school-based writing assessment, curriculum development, inservice
workshops, and college prep activities.
On behalf of teachers like Barbara Smith and the over 130,000 others who participated in National Writing Project programs last year, I am pleased to be part of
the NCLB hearings. The subject of quality professional development is one about
which we at the National Writing Project know a great deal and are always ready
to discuss.
[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
*Darling-Hammond, L. (1998). Policy and change: Getting beyond the bureaucracy. In A. Hargreaves, A. Lieberman, M. Fullan, & D. Hopkins (Eds.), The international handbook of education
change (pp. 642-646). The Netherlands: Kluwer.
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Esea Reauthorization: Boosting Quality in The Teaching Profession

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Esea Reauthorization: Boosting Quality in The Teaching Profession

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ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: BOOSTING

QUALITY IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 11, 2007

Serial No. 11034

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

VerDate 0ct 09 2002

08:33 Mar 20, 2008

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR

Howard P. Buck McKeon, California,

Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director

VerDate 0ct 09 2002

08:33 Mar 20, 2008

Hearing held on May 11, 2007 ...............................................................................

VerDate 0ct 09 2002

08:33 Mar 20, 2008

VerDate 0ct 09 2002

08:33 Mar 20, 2008