Lots happening on the stimulus bill. Senators are split on some provisions including education and behind the scenes this is where a lot of the anti-No Child advocacy is starting to boomerang. Turns out that “it sucks, fund it” isn’t such a great message after all. Who knew? Anyway, Senator Ben Nelson (NB) has emerged as the Dem lever on this but aren’t two Dem senators whose views – given their backgrounds – really deserve some weight on the education pieces Mark Warner (VA) and Michael Bennet (CO)? It also appears that given the dynamics when it comes to schools there is a non-trivial chance that this could end with the most reformist pieces of the bill on the cutting room floor and the least reformist skating through.
There is also some back and forth about various pieces of language on different issues. One hot one is the language on teacher quality where there are differences between the House bill, the Senate bill, and what various interest groups want. Guestbloggers David Coleman, Jason Zimba, and Doug Staiger weigh-in on that controversy with the guest post below:
Based on our backgrounds in education research and policy, we were surprised to see the New York Times’s recent endorsement of teacher qualifications over teacher effectiveness. Commenting on the House and Senate stimulus language, the New York Times editorial page wrote on Wednesday:
“The Bush administration failed to enforce a crucial provision of No Child Left Behind that requires states to finally give poor and minority schools a fair share of experienced, qualified teachers. The House version of the stimulus bill requires states that get the new money to comply with the law. If the Senate fails to embrace this provision, it would be selling out impoverished children.”
This has the ring of civil rights and common sense. But it is actually the Senate language, not the House language, that focuses on what matters most to outcomes for poor children: the presence of an effective teacher. The House language insists, along the lines of NCLB, that poor children receive an experienced, qualified teacher. The Senate language instead says that states should use the funds to “increase the number, and improve the distribution of effective teachers.”
So the question is: which matters more for poor kids – the experience and qualifications of teachers or their demonstrated effectiveness in the classroom. On this matter, the research is overwhelming. The observed impact of an effective teacher is at least 5-10 times greater than the impact of qualifications or experience. Based on research from the past 30 years, there is no more urgent cause in education than increasing the concentration of effective teachers teaching poor children.
Ironically, while the House bill neglects demonstrated performance in distributing teacher talent, it also provides states with funding for data systems that will help us better gauge teacher effectiveness. The Senate bill, on the other hand, rightly highlights effectiveness, but does not fund the data systems required for such a measure.
Closing the achievement gap will require a new paradigm. We need to focus on demonstrated effectiveness in the classroom if we are going to transform the trajectories of poor children.
When the bills do go to conference we hope that Congress uses the Senate language on effectiveness and funds the requisite data systems to monitor student learning and growth (using the House language).
Guestbloggers David Coleman and Jason Zimba are the founders of Student Achievement Partners. Doug Staiger is John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and Zimba is a faculty member at the Center for Public Action at Bennington College.
I agree completely with your statements:
“…there is no more urgent cause in education than increasing the concentration of effective teachers teaching poor children.
Ironically, … (the Senate Bill) rightly highlights effectiveness, but does not fund the data systems required for such a measure.
Closing the achievement gap will require a new paradigm. We need to focus on demonstrated effectiveness in the classroom if we are going to transform the trajectories of poor children.
…we hope that Congress uses the Senate language on effectiveness and funds the requisite data systems to monitor student learning and growth (using the House language).”
But effective systems USING DATA to measure effectiveness are not in place, and they will not be in place for a long time. Even when we have the technology to measure individual teacher effectiveness, we will still need to develop the wisdom to use those tools and that will take much loneger. So, if you are talking about data being used to supplement/complement human judgement, as we strengthen human capital (including principals who need to someday be capable of evaluating teaching effectiveness) then I agree. But if we can’t agree to use data appropriately, then I’d prefer to have Stimulus money either be used to bolster the “status quo” or be transferred to other sectors. If stimulus money is to be used to measure teaching effectiveness using the state-of-the-art models of today, I would prefer to use stimulus money to hire people to dig holes and then fill them in.
I’m not overly confident in my solutions, but I am completely confident that the expansion of today’s primitive models for accountability would do more harm than good. In my opinion, if you read the latest research from the perspective of an inner city teacher, you would want to allay fears that data-driven accountability won’t be used widely until those models had some relation to reality. Remove that threat of dysfunctional accountability systems being rushed into place, and we could agree on much much more.
Yes, how is anyone but the most careful observer supposed to know that we don’t benefit from “experienced, qualified teachers”? Who would know that this phrase doesn’t refer to actual results in the classroom but instead refers to all of the degrees and certificates that teachers have to acquire. Thanks to Coleman, Zimba and Staiger for pointing this out. Even with no improvement in accountability systems, our students would be much better off without the highly qualified language (as it refers to degrees). Teachers and districts are required to spend (waste) enormous sums of money in order to make sure teachers are highly qualified. If research has proven that there is no benefit to being highly qualified, then, at the very least, we can get that distraction out of our legislation and enable schools to try to figure out how to tell if a teacher is truly effective. If Congress funds real systems to figure this out, then, great. But if not, let’s at least stop spending private and public money to make sure our teachers have those degrees that do nothing to help our students.
This article really hit home. I am in graduate school for Education, so I can become highly qualified and get a job within the public schools. I found it difficult to get a job in the public schools because I am not highly qualified.
So, I am working on my first course Entitled Teacher as a Professional. And, the class is about learning how to be an effective teacher. If research has shown the there is no benefit to a highly qualified teacher, then how does a teacher become effective if not through education and mentoring?
Coleman, Zimba, Staiger are exactly right. The most shovel ready project in education is to give school districts the tools and the imperative to focus on teacher effectiveness. We are in the midst of massive dislocation in the workforce, during which districts will have new opportunities to search for talent. If that search is limited to counting credentials rather than earnestly developing and rigorously evaluating teacher effectiveness, then the research is clear that there will not be higher outcomes for students. The stimulus package should preserve the effectiveness language and the data systems – and perhaps even link them structurally rather than seeing the data systems as an IES (research) initiative.
Jodie’s question is a good one–how is she supposed to become effective if not through a class called, “Teacher as a Professional”? The problem is that we have no way of knowing if that class will make Jodie more effective. If it is like most teacher education classes, no one has ever investigated whether this particular teacher education class itself enables its trainee-teachers to raise student performance. The research that Coleman, Zimba and Staiger cite tells us that it is most likely that this class will not improve Jodie’s effectiveness. So the only way that we can find an answer for Jodie and other people looking to raise student performance is if we stop directing the bulk of teacher education money to so many unproven teacher education programs (by using the “qualified teachers language in our education laws”) and start investing in those tools that Larry Berger suggests.
Shouldn’t Coleman disclose that he is CEO of a company selling products into this space. Looks like a lobbyist looking for favorable language in a funding bill to me.