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Good teachers for all; DetNews-July 8, 2010
Topic Started: Jul 9 2010, 04:49 PM (253 Views)
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Good teachers for all
National movement aims to ensure highest-quality teachers reach all of America's students
Amber Arellano / The Detroit News

Kimberly Kyff is a superstar of Michigan teachers. She won the 2006-07 Michigan Teacher of the Year award, an honor bestowed on a tiny percentage of American educators. She is a National Board Certified teacher, as well, which makes her among the nation's equivalent of the Marine Corps of teachers. Kyff also is a rarity for her willingness to tackle some of the country's toughest, poorest, big city classrooms. She's served in the Detroit Public Schools for 14 years. Despite her extraordinary performance and stellar reviews by parents and bosses, this summer Kyff faces the end of her job because she lacks enough seniority.

"Some of the strongest teachers in my building are laid off," says Kyff, who's taught at Jamieson Elementary on the city's west side. "A lot of them are questioning whether to stay in Detroit and the profession. It's so sad."

For decades, teachers like Kyff didn't question the education establishment's use of solely seniority to make most decisions about school district layoffs and teacher tenure. Today that's changing in Michigan and around the country.

Spurred by a growing body of research that shows teacher quality is the No. 1 in-school predictor of student achievement, states and cities from New York City to Colorado are moving to ensure school districts consider other factors -- such as performance and attendance -- when staffing the nation's classrooms, despite enormous political hurdles and risks.

What's at stake: nothing less than the country's ability to compete in the global economy.

President Barack Obama has a commitment to turning around urban schools, which is driving the focus on teacher quality. Research shows students who have great teachers for five consecutive years would catch up with their suburban peers in learning.

"If you provide really great teachers to poor kids, you can take on the ravages of poverty in our country -- and close the urban-suburban achievement gap," says Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a non-partisan research group that advocates for better teachers.

In Michigan, the impact of seniority-based school staffing is immediate. Budget-crunched school districts are laying off thousands of teachers, almost always based on seniority.

"What scares me is that some of our least senior but most prepared, qualified teachers are being laid off," says Sharif Shakrani, co-director of Michigan State University's Education Policy Center.

Younger teachers often have the expertise and training that older teachers may lack, especially in high-demand subject areas such as math and science, Shakrani says.

Tenure changes
Michigan lawmakers have begun exploring reforms to the state's teacher tenure law for just these reasons. Just the fact they're talking about such a change is a radical departure from the past -- and difficult to achieve. Tenure is a political sacred cow, aggressively protected by powerful teacher unions.

Michigan's problems, nonetheless, mirror other states and cities around the nation:

• In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he may need to layoff more than 6,000 teachers due to fiscal woes. Like 14 other states, he must do so based on seniority because state law requires the most recently hired teachers be laid off first.

• Facing a $54 million spending gap, Cleveland Schools CEO Eugene Sanders says he may have to shed more than 500 teachers, yet he had no flexibility to do so based on student need or performance.

• And in Detroit this summer, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has laid off 2,000 teachers to stem a spiraling deficit. His administration says it's too soon to say how many may be called back to work this fall.

Colorado, perhaps, offers an example of a way forward on tenure and seniority reform. It's now considered a front-runner to win Race to the Top, the federal grant competition for states, after passing among the country's boldest education reforms in recent American history.

Its new law requires teachers to be evaluated annually, with at least half of their rating based on whether their students progressed during the school year. Beginning teachers will have to show they've boosted student achievement for three straight years to earn tenure.

Colorado, in part, was able to pass legislation due to new research and teacher evaluation methods.

Teacher unions have argued successfully that performance evaluations for teachers would be biased, and lead to unfair treatment by unprofessional principals or politically motivated local school boards.

"Seniority is basically experience," says Arthur Przybylowicz, general counsel for the Michigan Education Association teacher union. Teachers with more than three to five years experience generally perform better than new hires, research shows.

"It's surprising to find people who believe experience in the classroom is a bad thing," Przybylowicz says. "If a pilot had little experience, would you feel comfortable flying with him?"

Education advocates say experience is important, but other factors need to be considered -- namely, how well teachers teach.

That may sound easy, but performance evaluations have been an obstacle for school districts for decades.

Many districts lack comprehensive, transparent evaluations for tenured teachers, and do not hold them accountable for their performance. The development of new "value-added systems" now allows school districts and states to consider performance, attendance and other factors.

While unions criticize such value-added systems, experts say they may be developed to fairly take those issues into account. How? By considering how far behind students are when a teacher gets them in the beginning of a school year, and how much the teacher accomplishes in teaching them.

Great teachers are found to teach 1.5 years worth of academic content, while weak educators teach just one-half of a year's worth, according to researchers.

"With value-added systems, we can fairly assess the value a teacher adds," Walsh said. "Socio-economic is still the No. 1 one predictor of student achievement. But we cannot easily change where a student comes from. The one thing we can control is their teacher."

She added: "There is nothing more powerful a school can do -- not a smaller class size, not anything else -- than to give students a great teacher."

Reforms often stalled
Kyff, the laid-off Detroit teacher, says the research isn't surprising. Educators and parents have always known some teachers are great -- while some are not so hot.

"Seniority has its place," says Kyff, a strong supporter of her local union, the Detroit Federation of Teachers. "But there also comes a time when you need to look beyond it to teacher effectiveness. That should be measured in multiple ways, not just test scores."

Kyff is hopeful that a new district-wide evaluation system -- promised to be put into place this year by her union and Bobb's administration -- will be enacted this year.

But she's worried. Implementation has been stalled for months.

That's a common tactic by local unions to prevent a district from considering performance in staffing decisions.

"I think everyone in the country looks at Detroit schools and says, 'There is no harder job around,' " Walsh said. "Whoever is going to fix Detroit, they have to fix its teacher evaluation system first."

Bobb lacks leverage to make that happen. Last year, for example, he promised to end seniority. He was forced to compromise mightily during union contract negotiations.

That's the case in school districts across Michigan.

Without state legislative reforms, the implementation of objective and rigorous performance-based evaluations of teachers and principals likely will not happen.

Typically local school administrators and union officials have little incentive to undertake such a politically difficult challenge.

Kyff estimates about 35 of the district's approximately 100 National Board Certified Teachers have been laid off. Students will suffer the most if they are not called back.

"I really love teaching," Kyff says. "I really do. I love the challenge."



From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100708/OPINION01/7080329/1007/rss07#ixzz0tDirgSuY
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