So, I was all set to write this morning about Teacher Appreciation Week.  About how instead of giving teachers gift cards or having the PTO/PTA host a luncheon for teachers or telling them “thank you” we should appreciate teachers by taking action.  By pushing policymakers to lay off and let professional educators do their jobs.  I was going to say that if you really want to show your appreciation for teachers, you’ll tell policymakers to invest in teachers.  Sure, the gift cards are nice.  But our teachers deserve much more.

Then, I saw this open letter from a student about what’s going on in education policy in Tennessee. 

Dear Congresswoman Black,

I am a 17 year old Junior at Hendersonville High School, and over the past year I have come to believe that my education is under attack. I do not quite know who is to blame, but there are things going on in Tennessee education lately that are not for the benefit of students like myself. I’ve heard that it is the State Board, I’ve heard that it’s the State Government trying to get more funding…to me it does’t matter. I am contacting you because I don’t understand what happened. I want to know when being one of the best high schools in the state stopped being good enough. I don’t understand why a teacher who EARNS a high score on an evaluation must have a county official come in and mark them down. I demand to know why the people running the EOC’s won’t release any information on how these tests are scored. I am a student that cares about my grades, and I participated in the testing and I know already in life that anything that happens behind closed doors is not a good thing. Having said all of that, I am reaching out as a concerned student because I’ve come to see that no amount of common sense or logic from the teaching staff in this state is ever going to get the attention of the people running this system. I understand that because of this, the responsibility falls on me as a young person to remind lawmakers who they are supposed to be looking out for. The systems and policies that have been forced upon school systems all across the state look magnificent on paper. Watching the effects of these new practices firsthand, I am disgusted that something like this should happen in our great state. We have outstanding teachers here at Hendersonville High. We have an equally outstanding student body. It sickens me to see one incredible teacher after another throw in the towel. Is this the way they hope to improve education in Tennessee? Do they think that the pressure they put on teachers is improving my education? How am i supposed to learn in such a stressful environment? They all try to hide it but we can all tell that they can hardly take any more. I used to love coming to school and learning to use my brain. Now, I come to school every day and I learn a State Standard the way that the state demands it to be taught. No matter how different that is from the way my teacher has been teaching it for 25 years (which somehow has earned her students outstanding marks). How is my teacher supposed to plan a lesson when he/she has to fill out a self-evaluation that can take dozens of hours? Im sorry, but they’re just not being paid enough for this. To sum everything up Ms. Black, I’ve come to you because I hope to see an end to the madness, and I know that you want only the best for the people you represent. I implore you to use your influence to try and make things right in education. We’ve suffered long enough.

Clearly, this young man gets the point. 

Today, Sara Mead profiles the two Princeton students at the heart of Students for Education Reform. 

The story is an admirable one.  Two eager policy wonks going beyond discussions and readings and into the world of real policy change. 

Building a national organization from the ground up.  Getting involved and actually MAKING policy change happen. 

I think many who want to see strong schools that work for all children welcome this type of activism.

A persistent achievement gap that separates the wealthy and middle class from the poor in our schools is unacceptable.  Changing this requires bold, sustained reform. 

Unfortunately, so far, SFER has been pushing for popular, though questionably effective, reforms that are likely to have little impact on student performance over time.

For example, SFER counts as a “win” the inclusion of budget funding for New York’s teacher evaluation system.  They are pushing for similar use of so-called “value-added” data in their affiliate states around the country. 

I would argue that a better use of that money would be dramatically improving teacher pay.  In fact, SFER states a goal of injecting more great young minds into the teaching profession.  But, if the money’s not there, will they come?

Moreover, there is significant debate about what value-added data can really tell us about any one teacher’s performance. 

And, it’s worth noting that teacher quality, while important, accounts for only about 25% of the total impact on student learning.

If SFER really wants to close the achievement gap (I believe they do), they should focus much more of their effort around advocacy for high quality Pre-K programs.  There’s lots of evidence these programs are a low-cost, high return intervention.  Former Sen. Bill Frist even makes such a plea in a recent column about ending child poverty. 

We can’t simply evaluate our way into better schools for all kids.  Ending tenure or collective bargaining won’t help much, either.  In fact, in states with strong collective bargaining, student achievement tends to be higher than in states with weak bargaining. 

We can and should invest in our schools so that all students have access to good facilities, adequate resources, and strong, supported teachers.  If SFER works toward those goals, it will do much good across the country. 

A few years ago I gave a speech to a group of top graduates from a local high school.  In my remarks, I encouraged the students to teach.  I told them teaching was a great opportunity to make a difference and that there was a growing need for bright minds in education. 

Those two things are still true.  However, I regret encouraging those students to consider teaching as a profession. 

Few professions exist with such intense demands and so little in terms of direct reward. 

If those students took my advice and were entering the workforce next year as teachers in Tennessee, they’d make about $30,000 a year.  10 years later, they might clear slightly more than $40,000. 

That’s insulting.  And I’ve written about it before.

But it’s not just about money.  It’s about the value society places on schools. Kids go to school in trailers.  Which means teachers teach in trailers.  Teachers teach without a classroom.  New teachers share the bookroom as an office.  Technology is unevenly and inadequately distributed.  Supplies are not included in the overall budget, so teachers buy them with their own meager means. 

And now, the professional associations teachers join are under attack.  Just because they ask to be partners in the reform process. 

New standards are implemented and new evaluation models are pushed down.  But there’s no new money for training or mentoring or salary. 

When states start to see revenue increases as our economy bounces back slowly, investment in teachers is lacking.  Getting excited about a 2% raise on a paltry salary is another insult and disprespects those who work hard every day with our children. 

And when we fail to invest in our teachers, we’re really failing our children. 

When those students I spoke to look at teaching, I don’t expect them to be excited.  Or even interested.  Who wants to sign up for a high demand, high risk profession with little reward?

Who would tell their child to become a teacher? 

Would you?

Today in The Week, Bill Frist poses this question:  How can the U.S. find and train more great teachers?

Although he didn’t ask me, my answer is above.  Pay teachers more.  A lot more.  If we make the teaching profession a place where people can make a respectable living, we’ll attract and keep more teachers.

This is not exactly Bill Frist’s answer, though. 

Frist notes that many states are “implementing new systems to evaluate teachers, designed to give them feedback on how they are doing and a clear picture of what they can improve on.”  That’s true, and in some cases, it makes sense. 

However, without the attendant professional development and support, an evaluation alone won’t result in meaningful improvement in practice.  States must commit to investing in teachers in order to get results.  Tennessee, where Sen. Frist and I both live, has yet to make that investment. 

Next, Senator Frist tosses out the idea of performance pay as a way to keep good teachers in the classroom. 

This despite the results of a Vanderbilt study that indicated that, “teacher performance pay alone does not raise student test scores.”  The study was comprehensive, controlled, and involved substantial bonuses (up to $15,000).  The results suggest that adding a performance pay scheme will not improve student achievement.  Whether or not Laura’s teacher gets a bonus has no impact on Laura’s success in gaining ground in reading. 

However, a study by researchers at the London School of Economics tells us that raising teacher pay overall leads to an increase in student achievement.  Specifically, a 10% increase in teacher pay leads to a 5-10% increase in student achievement.  The authors note that raising teacher pay makes the profession more attractive, thus attracting a broader (and stronger) pool of applicants.  It also increases the prestige of the profession, thus encouraging those who are teachers to remain in the profession and causing college students to choose teaching as a profession. 

How many college students want to sign up to enter a profession where it takes at least 10 years to make $40,000?  I bet Bill Frist would say, “not many.”  And he’d be right.  Unfortunately, that’s the situation in Tennessee.  A new teacher today might expect to earn just over $40,000 by his tenth year in the field. 

So, we can work on teacher preparation and accountability and evaluations this year and next year and the next.  But until we’re willing to invest in teachers — both in terms of pay and in terms of professional development and support — we’re not going to be attracting many new, “great” people to the profession.  And, it will remain difficult to keep many in our existing pool of teachers. 

Bill Frist is right:  There’s no silver bullet to improve our schools. 

But, we do know the answer to his question.  Pay teachers more.  A lot more.  And the sooner the better. 

I noticed today that Louisiana passed a package of so-called education reforms that include teacher evaluations made up of 50% value-added data.  This in spite of research suggesting serious flaws in the use of value-added models as an evaluation tool. 

Tennessee is now in the midst of its first year with a similar evaluation model.  And there certainly have been some serious and well-warranted complaints about the system. 

I was discussing this very topic with a friend of mine who is a financial advisor.

He was trying to get at why teachers had so many complaints about being evaluated.

I explained that teachers have always been evaluated and that most teachers I talked to didn’t mind being evaluated, but that this particular process had its problems. 

Then, I gave him a brief overview of the system in Tennessee.

And then he said:  “And after you get your evaluation and score (1-5) back, you work on a performance management plan, right?”

I said, ” What?”

He said well surely after you get all this data and feedback, the teacher will work with their principal on a performance management plan and targeted training to improve.

I laughed. 

Not because that’s not what should happen.  It absolutely is. 

I laughed because engaging in this sort of training and development is NOT at all part of the plan. 

He explained that his company invested heavily in coaching for its employees.  That evaluations resulted in a clear statement of strengths and weaknesses.  That the company believed that by working with employees to constantly improve — and to design improvement plans WITH the employee targeted specifically to individual needs, the whole company would prosper. 

And this is exactly what SHOULD happen with the evaluation system in Tennessee. 

Teachers will get a set of feedback at the end of this year that is more comprehensive than many have gotten in a very long time. 

And it would be ideal of that feedback could be used to develop a targeted, individual performance management plan that included meaningful professional development and possibly some personal coaching.

But, that’s not in the cards. 

Instead, teachers will be handed back their evaluations and told “get better.”

They will be offered little more than whatever the district decides it can afford in terms of professional development.  That could be a 3-day PD “Summit” with group sessions not targeted to specific teacher needs. 

Beginning teachers are NOT offered focused mentoring in their first and second years, even though solid research suggests that mentoring of early-career teachers boosts both teacher satisfaction and student achievement.

Without the performance management plans and attendant professional development, it is difficult to believe that the evaluations are really about helping teachers. 

Why is there no performance management plan? Because the tools necessary to make such a plan work would require a significant financial investment. 

It’s hard for me to see how we can expect to improve teaching practice when at the end of the year, all we’re doing is giving teachers a number and suggesting they find ways to improve on their own. 

This interview with Steve Barr (of GreenDot Charter fame) highlights the importance of collective bargaining.

Or, rather, the fact that collective bargaining isn’t bad for schools or taxpayers.  In fact, it’s quite good, Barr argues.

He really says, look, collective bargaining and tenure don’t have all these supposed negative impacts. 

He says the point he wants to make is that unions shouldn’t be scared of education reform. 

I think that’s a good point.  There are many well-intentioned ed reformers out there who want to do what works for kids.  Some of these reformers also propose ideas that run counter to what unions have traditionally supported. 

That doesn’t mean ed reform is bad.

But I think Barr’s argument is important for ed reformers, too.  So often, we hear about the “union” getting in the way of reform.  And sure, sometimes there is union pushback on reform efforts. 

But Barr would tell reformers:  Don’t attack the union.  Work with them. 

He makes the point that when you have happy, engaged teachers, you get student success. 

And you can get those happy teachers by working with their union. 

The big mistake I see in many reform efforts, especially at the state level, is policymakers totally ignoring the desires of the union. 

No, the union is not always right.  But, they do (as Barr notes) typically advocate for policies that are in the interests of the teachers who are their members. 

Working with unions builds a spirit of collaboration rather than confrontation and can help push important reforms forward. 

This post by Justin Baeder (a Seattle-area principal) discusses the issue of “un-flattening” teacher pay.

Mr. Baeder asks his readers to offer their thoughts.

Here are mine:

1) It is insulting for any teacher who has been working 20 years in the profession to be making $47,000 (And I live in Tennessee, not Seattle).

2) Starting pay for teachers should be at $40,000 or above. 

3) Teachers (ALL OF THEM) should receive significant raises at years 5, 10, and 20.  Baeder himself acknowledges that teachers gain lots of knowledge and valuable experience after 5 to 7 years.  We should also make it worthwhile for skilled veterans to stay in the classroom. 

4) I like the team leader concept he discusses and think it’s great that he proposes paying that person significantly more for taking on more duties. 

5) Paying teachers what they deserve may well mean eliminating extra pay for graduate degrees that are not relevant to the subject matter the teacher teaches. 

6) Offering reimbursement for graduate training in a teacher’s field of study is another form of useful and relevant compensation — and, it’s a one-time cost rather than a guarantee of future pay increases.

7) Even “basic” teachers who teach in years 20 and beyond should be very, very well paid.  This does two things.  It rewards those teachers for staying in the classroom rather than encouraging them to leave for administration or another profession.  It also creates an incentive to provide meaningful development to that teacher even at a late stage in the career — and a disincentive to keeping a truly ineffective teacher. 

When we commit to paying all teachers well, we all win.  High quality candidates are attracted to the field and strong teachers are encouraged to stay in the classroom where they can make a great impact. 

Simply un-flattening the profession without committing to increasing pay overall will leave us only incrementally better off, if at all.

I keep hearing a lot about the “Parent Trigger” — the way to “fix” broken schools, it’s called.

More on that later…but for now, an interesting read on the topic from Rachel Anne Levy

Emily Douglas writes about the importance of motivation in helping develop a strategic compensation approach.  She specifically notes that collaboration is critical in order for such a system to be successful.  She also wisely adds that strategic compensation alone is not a “magic bullet” for education.

I tend to agree with Emily.  Here’s why.

My father has been an educator for the past 40 years — the last 20 of them as an administrator of Alternative programs. 

When we were talking about teacher compensation not long ago he asked me this question:  “Do you believe your wife (my wife is a teacher) could work any harder at her job?”

I said no.  She works incredibly hard and with an intense amount of dedication to the profession and to her students. 

Then he said:  “What if she knew she could get a big bonus?”

I said, “That wouldn’t matter … she’s doing all she can and giving all she can now.”

And I believe that. 

Most teachers are tragically underpaid.  Many give all they can and earn significantly less than their peers with similar education and training. 

The job of teaching is incredibly demanding. 

Then, my father told me about a time when he was a principal and the system gave school-based cash bonuses for meeting or exceeding certain benchmarks.  The school got a certain dollar amount and the faculty got to decide what to do with that money.  They could give everyone a bonus, they could spend it on supplies, they could buy things for the students… they were allowed to decide what to do.

In 14 years, only once did the faculty decide on bonuses for themselves.  In every other instance, they purchased new technology or supplies or resources.  They wanted the tools to be even better educators. 

This goes to Emily’s point that it’s not all about monetary compensation.

Yes, teachers should be paid a fair wage — they should be well paid.  Let me be clear:  A fair wage is not a $1,000 or $2,000 raise from current teacher salaries.  In most cases, teachers should be making $10,000 more a year than they are right now.  At a minimum. 

But then, teachers should be asked to come together around a strategic compensation system.  They should be asked what they would do if their school had X amount of extra money.  How would they structure a system that would work for them.

Collaboration is critical.  Too often, compensation systems are designed without teacher input.  That’s a huge mistake.

I suspect many teachers would answer like the ones at my dad’s school.  They’d want more resources and tools to help them do their jobs.  Sure, they might also want a cash bonus every now and then, too.  But in either case, they should absolutely be involved in the decision.

Via KnoxViews, a Princeton professor offers this analysis of Value-Added Modeling (VAM) — which is being used in many areas to evaluate teachers.  Some are even proposing using VAM to determine merit-pay schemes and/or to decide which teachers to fire.

In fact, in Tennessee, teachers are now rated on a 1-5 scale based in large part (35%) on their value-added scores.  Nevermind that a significant percentage of teachers teach in subjects with no value-added data (all K-3 teachers, physical education, related arts, etc.). 

The conclusions of this study indicate that VAM has a long way to go before it can be used as a meaningful teacher evaluation tool.