Frenemies? Just when we thought they were getting along, some passive aggressive sparring between DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee and AFT President Randi Weingarten surfaced in an op-ed exchange via the New York Daily News. Rhee's editorial actually praised Weingarten, lauding the AFT President's role in negotiating the new D.C. teachers contract and recommending that New York "lean on" her as they seek to work out their own contract impasse. Her words were met with clear disdain from Ms. Weingarten. In a response to Rhee, Weingarten's editorial rebuffed Rhee's "unsolicited advice to New Yorker's about how to resolve the current teachers contract impasse," emphasizing that this was only Rhee's "first labor contract."

In this issue:

	Big strides and bigger challenges in Baltimore
	A horse is a horse, of course, of course...but tell us what makes a good math teacher!
	80% of success may be showing up--though not apparently in Newark
	Forcing the issue: Cincinnati's finest given no choice in where they teach
	Morsels of teacher research on offer, courtesy of Chicago
	Quick rundown on Pittsburgh's new Gates-fueled contract
	You may not be getting any younger, but teachers are

BIG STRIDES AND BIGGER CHALLENGES IN BALTIMORE

Baltimore, home of Cal Ripken, The Wire, and NCTQ president Kate Walsh, is the latest city to go under the NCTQ microscope for a look at its teacher policies. In addition to these cultural icons, Baltimore's got a lot going for it as teacher contract negotiations heat up this summer.

The district's efforts are backed in part by new reforms passed by the state board requiring student performance to account for at least 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation rating. With student achievement factored in, it is highly unlikely that the district will again see 98 percent of its teachers rated satisfactory.

Baltimore has made big strides hiring more talent, thanks in large part to its feeders Teach For America and The New Teacher Project, now filling half of the district's vacancies. But the district is doing a poor job in keeping these teachers. Teach For America's teachers are most likely to exit first, followed by traditionally trained teachers. Teachers recruited from other countries (primarily the Philippines) have the most staying power.

While New York, Chicago and Austin have gotten a lot of attention for eliminating seniority-based forced placements by the central office, Baltimore has also done so quietly and importantly without having to negotiate the deal with the local union. Baltimore may well be the only district in Maryland to recognize that it retains the authority--stemming from a decision by the state board--for all teacher assignments. What made Baltimore so smart? Perhaps its new legal counsel, who switched sides to work for the district after retiring from the Maryland State Education Association.

However, two years into this new policy, Baltimore hasn't quite figured out what to do with the teachers that no principal wants to hire. The number of teachers being paid full salaries even though they are not in charge of classrooms is beginning to pile up, with no legal solution in sight--a problem that New York has had similar trouble resolving. It will take a change in state law to take such teachers off the payroll, a change that would no doubt be tough to pull off in Maryland's union-friendly legislature.

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The research team of Donald Boyd, et al. are out with another study on teacher effectiveness with New York City as the stage. This one might best be understood as a horse race among various teacher providers, proving who is best when it comes to training middle school math teachers.

Let's imagine that the most representative horse from each "stable" is lined up at the starting gate: New York's Math Immersion (MI) program, Teach For America (TFA) and traditional programs referred to by Boyd as "College Recommending" (CR) programs. MI is definitely the dark horse, an alt-cert program that has grown from a pilot in 2002 to providing nearly half of all secondary math teachers in the city.

Here's the call at the finish line, according to Boyd. It's TFA first, then CR followed in last place by MI, with TFA leading by a full length and CR beating MI only by a neck.

But there's a catch. If the race were repeated again and again, using different horses (or teachers) from each stable, the winners' circle would look different each time. According to the study, "most of the teachers from one pathway are indistinguishable from teachers who enter through other pathways."

In fact, there is so much variation in the way that both the Math Immersion program and the local colleges train teachers--with training sites scattered across the city and state--it seems a misnomer to call them "programs". One might expect the Math Immersion program, generally speaking, to be the heaviest on math content, yet the number of credits required among its five sites ranges from only three all the way up to 18. And although the local colleges, on average, are lighter on math methods, they can require as many as seven credits. One might also think that the colleges might err on the side of too much professional coursework--yet almost half of them, for example, fail to require a single course in classroom management.

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Some interesting facts in the wake of Newark's contract negotiations with its local teachers union. When it comes to sweet leave deals, it would appear that teachers there have it made. Students? Not so much.

Newark teachers get 18 days of leave each year, compared with a meager 10 days in New York City, 12 days in Washington, D.C., and 13 days in both Philadelphia and Chicago. Adding up the 18 days of leave with the district's 10 paid holidays and 14 vacation days for both teachers and students, Newark teachers have paid leave for 22 percent of their 192-day work year.

A number of school districts offer ample leave packages, but their teachers still show up. Not in Newark. Last school year, roughly half of the district's teaching corps took at least two weeks of leave, on top of their regular holiday breaks. In fact one out of every four teachers in the district took three weeks of paid leave, about every 12th school day, even though most of this leave is technically termed "sick leave".

The average number of combined sick and personal leave offered teachers among the 101 districts in NCTQ's TR³ database is 14 days, as shown here.

Sounds like an issue that is right up the alley of New Jersey's governor, Chris Christie, who has to approve the district's new teacher contract. We suggest looking to Boston for some answers. Although teachers there are given 15 days of sick leave, the district both carefully monitors and restricts when leave can be used, so that teachers routinely use less than half the time available to them.

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Here's something of a conundrum: Cincinnati Public Schools superintendent Mary Ronan, backed by her board of ed, wants to fix the district's lowest-performing schools, in part, by staffing them with the highest-performing teachers. Only she doesn't want to give the teachers any choice in the matter. So the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers has filed a grievance, claiming that the new policy violates the teachers' contract.

Boosting teacher quality, by spreading the wealth district-wide, is certainly a laudable goal--especially if, like Cincinnati, you have a program in place that trains faculty to become "lead teachers." But is the way in which the district does this too draconian?

More than 10 years ago, Cincinnati created a program training volunteer teachers to become lead teachers. Such teachers, now numbering over 200, work for the district as a roving evaluator for three years, earning a stipend of $6,500 before returning to the original school.

But the district, trying to trim its budget and boost student performance, plans to revamp the program next year, when lead teachers will have to go wherever the district assigns them after they complete their rotations.

While the union and the district squabble over whether the contract allows for the change, the bigger issue for us is the wisdom of force-placing teachers--even great ones. As one lead teacher told The Cincinnati Enquirer, "I'm not saying I wouldn't want to work at a (lower-performing) school, but I feel I would want to have a choice to work there. If you just place them, they could be unsatisfied and it could affect their performance."

It could also discourage them from pursuing the lead-teacher job. In contrast, a recruitment program in Massachusetts openly challenges exceptional teachers to join a team of peers, as well as a like-minded principal, to boost student achievement at an officially designated "turnaround" school. So they volunteer knowing exactly what they're getting into.

At the very least, Cincinnati could allow for interviews between lead teachers and principals, to help ensure a good fit. And perhaps the revamp can include a new incentive arrangement, one that shifts funds, primarily, to those willing to work in high-needs schools. That way, you have choice and save money.

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Chicago Public Schools is under the microscope, the subject of two separate studies: one covering teacher evaluation, the other performance pay.

First, The Consortium on Chicago School Research took a close look at the district's new evaluation system, finding, for the most part, that it does in fact reliably identify strong and weak teachers.

Piloted for two years now in a total of 100 schools, the teacher-evaluation system is grounded in the ubiquitous Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching. Researchers tested the system to see if principals and outside observers--who conducted classroom observations side by side, but without discussion or collaboration--would give teachers "matching" ratings.

While there was general consistency among how teachers were rated, the one interesting twist was that the principals were more likely than outside observers to rate teachers "distinguished" rather than "proficient."

One principal explained that, between the two, he chose "distinguished" so as to preserve positive working relationships with his teachers by keeping ratings consistent with those given in years past, prior to implementation of the more rigorous Danielson Framework system.

But researchers also attributed ratings mismatches to a lack of understanding the complicated system on the principals' part.

On the performance-pay front, Mathematica recently released a report assessing the effectiveness of the Chicago district's Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), which went into effect in 2007 and awards bonuses to teachers based on a combination of value-added and observation performances. The study found no evidence that the performance-pay system had any positive effect on either student test scores or teacher retention rates in Chicago.

However, this was yet another Mathematica study released to the public after only a year's data. Might Mathematica--or its sponsor, the U.S. Department of Education--be persuaded to delay publication of findings until some more meaningful measures of time have passed? Premature public releases of data can do great harm, as has been the case for The New Teacher Center, reeling since Mathematica issued two consecutive reports on its induction program, both negative, until finally this year's good news.

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The board of ed and the teachers union in Pittsburgh recently negotiated a five-year teacher contract focused on teacher pay in the form of three new initiatives: an individual performance-pay plan, a school-based performance-pay plan and a career ladder.

The contract was negotiated without "bullying" or "fisticuffs," according to the district and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers. And the groundwork for it was laid by a $40 million Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant aimed at focusing Pittsburgh schools on improving teacher quality.

Teachers can now earn bonuses of up to $8,000 per year by demonstrating that they've contributed to the academic growth of their students (as measured by value added) and either teaching afterschool classes or taking on leadership roles.

"Career ladder" positions, for experienced teachers with proven track records of boosting student achievement, offer teachers additional compensation ranging from $9,300 to $13,300 per year, depending on the teacher's specific responsibilities.

The contract also includes school-wide bonuses both for attaining AYP and ranking among the top performing schools in the state of Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh's contract shows commendable progress toward a compensation system that places value on effectiveness rather than experience and the number of degrees a teacher has accumulated. But there's room for improvement. Teacher assignments will still be based on seniority, and principals don't have much of a say in who works in his or her building.

While it doesn't hurt to pay top teachers more, a truly effective change of school culture should include policies that allow principals to select those teachers who are best fits for their staff.

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Twenty years ago, your average teacher had 15 years of experience. That's changing. Changing demographics now put most teachers either under 30 or over 52, with the majority leaning toward the younger set, according to University of Pennsylvania professor Richard Ingersoll and UPenn doctoral student Lisa Merrill.

Such disparity has strong implications. Younger teachers, for example, are more supportive of performance pay according to a Public Agenda study. The same study shows that Baby Boomers aren't as motivated about improving pay.

So, what will the future look like? Apparently a lot of churn, as the current ranks of younger teachers turn over through unprecedented layoffs and/or more lucrative career opportunities. Younger teachers, reports Public Agenda, are almost three times as likely as older colleagues to leave the classroom for other education jobs in policy and administration.

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TQBulletin is a monthly publication of the National Council on Teacher Quality, nonpartisan research and advocacy group committed to restructuring the teaching profession, led by our vision that every child deserves effective teachers. Cartoons by David Flanagan To subscribe to or unsubscribe from TQ Bulletin, or to send questions, comments, or suggestions, please e-mail TQBulletin@nctq.org.

	2009 State Teacher Policy Yearbook
	NCTQ's annual 52-volume report on state policies that impact the teaching profession. This year's edition is a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of states' teacher policies including key policy areas such as teacher preparation, evaluation, tenure and dismissal, alternative certification and compensation.
	+ Visit the website
	+ Visit the 2008 website
	+ Visit the 2007 website
	Tackling the STEM crisis: Five steps your state can take to improve the quality and quantity of its K-12 math and science teachers, June 2009
	Strong K-12 math and science preparation ensures that college freshmen are capable of diving into demanding STEM* majors rather than treading water in remedial courses. That's better for them and for our nation's future. State laws and regulations can help to build a bigger and better pipeline of K-12 teachers who will savor, not skirt, rigorous math and science instruction. *Science, technology, engineering and mathematics
	+ Download the report
	No Common Denominator: The Preparation of Elementary Teachers in Mathematics by America's Education Schools, June 2008
	American students' chronically poor performance in mathematics on international tests may begin in the earliest grades, handicapped by the weak knowledge of mathematics of their own elementary teachers. NCTQ looks at the quality of preparation provided by a representative sampling of institutions in nearly every state. We also provide a test developed by leading mathematicians which assesses for the knowledge that elementary teachers should acquire during their preparation. Imagine the implications of an elementary teaching force being able to pass this test.
	+ Download the Executive Summary
	Teacher Rules, Roles and Rights
	Explore the intricacies of collective bargaining agreements, board policies, and teacher handbooks. TR3 has data from 100 school districts and all 50 states. These 100 districts represent 20 percent of public school students in the United States.
	+ Visit the website
	Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative, September 2007
	A new report from NCTQ and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, examines the current realities of alternate routes, originally intended as a fast track way to get talented individuals into teaching.
	+ Download the pdf
	What Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading and What Elementary Teachers Aren't Learning
	In this groundbreaking report, NCTQ studied a large representative sampling of ed schools to find out what future elementary teachers are--and are not--learning about reading instruction. The report, the most comprehensive of its kind, determined that education schools are ignoring the principles of good reading instruction that would prepare prospective teachers how to better teach reading.
	+ Download the Executive Summary