Good Faith Efforts: What States Can Do to Ensure Quality Teachers for the Students Who Need Them Mos

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Good Faith Efforts What States Can Do to Ensure
Quality Teachers for the Students Who Need Them
Most

• Cynthia Prince
• Director, Teacher Professional
• Development
• Council of Chief State School Officers
• February 16, 2006

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The Issue

• NCLB requires every state to develop a plan to
  ensure that poor and minority students get their
  fair share of good teachers.
• In addition, USDE now requires states to
  demonstrate they are making good-faith efforts to
  distribute teachers equitably in order to get a
  one-year extension on the HQT deadline.
• What can states do to meet both of these
  requirements?

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Purpose of this presentation

• Present a template that states can use or adapt
  to
• meet NCLB requirements
• organize evidence of good-faith efforts
• Identify 8 critical elements that should be
  addressed in every state plan
• Provide multiple examples of state strategies to
  improve teaching quality in high-need schools

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What NCLB requires states to do

• Each State plan shall describe
• the specific steps the State educational
  agency will take to ensure that poor and
  minority children are not taught at higher rates
  than other children by inexperienced,
  unqualified, or out-of-field teachers, and
• the measures that the State educational agency
  will use to evaluate and publicly report the
  progress of the State educational agency with
  respect to such steps.

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More than one way to ensure an equitable
distribution of teachers

• Increase supply
• Create a new pool of teachers
• Redistribute existing teachers
• Reduce demand
• Strengthen the skills of teachers already working
  in high-need schools
• Keep good teachers from leaving

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Two goals

• Increase the relative attractiveness of
  hard-to-staff schools so they can compete for
  their fair share of good teachers.
• Make these schools personally and professionally
  rewarding places to work.

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Strategies that are not likely to close the
teacher quality gap

• Involuntary transfers
• Simply producing more teachers
• Raising all teachers pay
• Purely compensatory measures to make up for bad
  working conditions, lack of resources, and poor
  leadership

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Strategies that are most likelyto work are those
that

• Reward teachers for taking on more challenging
  assignments
• Provide the specialized preparation and training
  teachers need to be successful in challenging
  classrooms
• Improve working conditions that contribute to
  high teacher turnover
• Revise state policies or improve internal
  processes that may inadvertently contribute to
  local staffing inequities.

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Different ways to target

• Make it exclusive
• Give priority to target groups
• Make it increasingly lucrative

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The states role in solving the teacher quality
gap

• Regulate
• Build systems
• Build capacity
• Allocate resources
• Inform

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8 essential elements of a solid state plan

• Data and reporting systems
• Teacher preparation
• Out-of-field teaching
• Recruitment and retention of experienced teachers
• Professional development
• Specialized knowledge and skills
• Working conditions
• Policy coherence

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4 parts under each component

• Inventory of current policies and programs
• Specific strategies your state will adopt
• Specific steps to implementation
• Measures to evaluate and publicly report progress

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For further information

• Cindy Prince
• Director, Teacher Professional Development
• Council of Chief State School Officers
• cindyp_at_ccsso.org
• [phone]