Rarely seen: Black male teacher such as Brandon George. Also under that list: Teachers with strong subject-matter competency. More of both needed.

What’s happening in the dropout nation:

- The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board sniffs at the Ford Foundation’s school initiative. Given the foundation’s history of getting itself — and the entire philanthropic sector — in trouble in the school philanthropy arena, it may be best for Ford to stick to something more traditional.

- Gotham Schools reports that New York State’s Education Commissioner and Board of Regents Chancellor wants to allow for the use of student test data in measuring teacher performance during the first two years of their careers before they attain tenure. This is essentially a revival of a law passed two years ago during the first year of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s tenure that was kibboshed a year later by the legislature and Gov. David Paterson last year at the behest of the state’s AFT affiliate. Nice idea. At least one study suggests that the teacher performance remains constant before and after tenure. But until tenure is eliminated and school districts actually take time to assess teachers, the proposal is rather meaningless. After all, some of the research so far also shows that teacher performance declines after they reach tenure.

- So far, this week, neither Kevin Carey nor Checker Finn have taken potshots at each other over whether stimulus funds should be used for saving teacher jobs. Unfortunately, neither side is focusing on the real problem: How to improve the quality of teaching in America’s schools. The stimulus debate, like the money, will eventually go away. The  impediments to improving teacher quality –  including woeful training at the ed school level, state policymaking that blocks effective performance management, poor selection of aspiring teachers who are both competent in their subjects and care about the children they teach, human capital policies that encourage teacher absenteeism, and lack of diversity in the teacher ranks — will still remain. It’s time for both of them to go back to their laudable work.

- Maureen Downey takes a look at the Florida ACLU suit and former Sunshine State governor Jeb Bush’s response. Hint: Another example of what happens when education statistics(accurate, maybe) and education statistics (unreliable, definitely) collide in public policy debates.

- The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Brooke Dollens Terry takes a look at teacher quality in the Lone Star State. She isn’t impressed.

- EdSector’s Erin Dillon peruses Teachers College’s report touting desegregation. She not only finds that it lacks rigor, but it uses a “strawman” of free-market school reforms that doesn’t define which form (in the form of charter schools and other school choice measures) at the heart of their discussion. Ultimately, argues Dillon, the need is to ultimately improve the quality of education in every neighborhood in order to achieve true equity between majority-black , majority-Latino and majority white schools.

- The Boston Globe wants Massachusetts legislators to raise the dropout age to 18. Fine. Hopefully, the Globe editorial board will hold state officials accountable for improving curricula, teacher quality and opportunities for engaging students and parents as equal partners with teachers and principals. Increasing the dropout age alone won’t solve much of anything.

- Jay Mathews joins Andy Smarick in advocating for shutting down dropout factories and other poor-performing schools.

- Sara Carr’s fascinating series about school choice in New Orleans offers a point I have been making for some time: School reformers must now focus on developing systems for giving parents the information and guidance they need to make decisions. This means improving the quality and delivery of school data — or simply put, let a thousand SchoolMatches bloom — and fostering grassroots organizations that can help parents make decisions.

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New solutions must be undertaken if we want high-quality teachers in the classroom, especially in order to turn around the nation's dropout factories.

The dropout nation at a glance. Updated continuously throughout the day (new stories and updates marked with an *):

• Time for alternatives to teacher licensing? So suggests the San Francisco Chronicle, which peers into the licensing and test requirements for becoming a teacher in California and find it a tad onerous. The paper’s solution: Audition each teacher to see if they are qualified, something similar to the method teaching guru Martin Haberman uses to determine whether a teacher should be a candidate for his Star Teacher program.
• Although I agree with the Chron that the licensing requirements are a little much, the test-taking makes sense; you want teachers who have the subject-level competency needed in order to assure that every child gets a high-quality education. The real issue is that so much of teacher recruiting, training, licensing and recertifying in many states (actually, in all states to one degree or another) has little to do with actual instruction and subject-competency in the first place. Fifty-four percent of America’s teachers are trained in schools of education that are generally of low quality, according to former Teachers College president Arthur Levine in a 2006 report; the SAT score requirements are low as are other admission requirements, so the aspiring teachers (and the schools of education) are basically not ready for prime time. And most states don’t require teachers to actually take a subject-competency test before entering a teaching program; this means that many teaching students are coming in without having a strong knowledge base from which to educate students.
• Then there are the license renewal requirements: Thirty states require teachers to gain a master’s degree in order to have their licenses renewed; this, despite there being no research showing that earning an advance degree improves academic instruction or student academic performance, according to the most recent report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (disclosure, I am a co-author of the report). Eighteen states require districts to give raises to teachers based on additional graduate work, even though, again, there is no proof that such busywork will improve student learning. So teachers spend less time on improving their instructional skills and knowledge base and more time on gaining paper that will yield them better salaries and keep them employed. And you wonder why the quality of K-12 instruction is not where it should be.
• Teacher licensing should be focused on assuring that people with strong subject knowledge, polished in instruction and caring about children should be in the classroom. But this means restructuring schools of education, licensing renewal requirements and salary structures in order to make this happen. If you want more math and science teachers — both of which are in short supply — states must structure compensation to include salary differentials that can lure at least some aspiring math and science students into the field. At the same time, alternative teacher training programs that target baby boomer professionals looking for a second career after retirement, must also be part of the teacher supply landscape.
• *At the same time, the teacher compensation system — which rewards seniority and degree-accumulation over improving instructional method, subject-level competency and willingness to work with the hardest-to-teach students — must also be restructured. Simply raising salaries, as DC schools chieftain Michelle Rhee is attempting to do (in exchange for the elimination of tenure) isn’t enough. The problem isn’t simply a matter of money: There are shortages of teachers in math, science and special education positions; paying more for an indiscriminate number of teachers no matter their subject doesn’t solve the problem. Higher salaries need to be paid in high shortage positions while the entire compensation structure must be aimed towards improving instruction and knowledge base. Until those things are done, students will never get the kind of high-skilled teachers they need.
• *Speaking of Rhee: Fast Company has a profile of Rhee and her efforts to turn around the nation’s most pervasive academic failure complex. Thanks to Erin O’Connor and Critical Mass for the tip.
• Adding options for New York children: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg polishes up an otherwise mediocre legacy as mayor with his pioneering work on education; this time, he is expanding the range of school choices for the city’s students and parents. Eighteen new charter schools will open this year, reports the New York Times, adding to the 50 schools currently open for business; 51 charters have been started since Bloomberg took office seven years ago.
• Who should prevail in accountability: Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act seven years ago, California has insisted on operating two different accountability systems — the federal AYP mandates and the state’s own Academic Performance Index — that don’t fully match up with one another in terms of expectations and performance indicators. The state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office takes a look at both AYP and API and find them wanting. It, instead, wants an accountability system that focuses on how school districts actually get the schools they oversee — especially those that are dropout factories and academic failure mills — up to speed. [Update: Link fixed per Jacqui Guzman. Thanks Jacqui.]
• Why running a school district ain’t easy, Volume 500: The Monitor in the Mexican border town of McAllen, Tx., takes a look at the tenure of outgoing district superintendent Yolanda Chapa. From accusations of forcing out a predecessor to complaints about her not having a doctorate (as if having a graduate degree results in tip-top school leadership) to the programs she started, one gets the sense that Chapa will be happy to get out of dodge and let someone else handle the mess.

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Or should she?

Should he be ignored by his teacher?

Although one can appreciate Mike Petrilli’s argument that school systems should focus more on developing strong systems of academic instruction over finding talented aspiring collegians to teach (I’ll explain more of this tomorrow, with the help of The American Spectator), the reality is that the quality of instructor matters as much as the quality of instruction.

As pointed out so often by teaching guru Martin Haberman, it is important for a teacher to care about the children in his care as it is for that teacher to have strong instructional skills and subject-matter competency. All the instructional systems won’t matter if the teacher doesn’t know his subject and doesn’t care as much about the children lagging behind — either because the student’s learning style doesn’t

match the teacher’s instructional style or because of poor academic instruction before he reached that particular classroom — as for those landing on the student honor roll.

Exemplifying this reality is the poor advice given to teachers by Huston over at Gently Hew Stone, who tells teachers to not bother thinking about improving the performance of the laggards in their classroom. From where he sits, Huston thinks that “we can’t afford to dwell on those who choose to fail.”

And this teacher is absolutely wrong.

The teacher should especially care about the laggards — most notably the ones that are dramatically failing class — because they are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine: They alert teachers to the other students that are lagging behind, but aren’t given much attention because they aren’t misbehaving or they are barely skating by with Cs and Ds. Given the reality that a quarter of America’s students are failing to graduate from school — and that a large portion of those who do graduate will need remedial math and science once they reach college — the need to pay attention to every early warning indicator is crucial to keeping kids in school and on path to graduation.

The failure isn’t always the fault of the instruction given by the particular teacher (although, along with weak curriculum, is often part of the problem). The kids may need different kinds of instructional methods — and instructors — in order to get back on track. Or may need to be held back and given new settings in order to improve their performance. The kids may be struggling with Dyslexia or another learning disability and therefore, needs a new academic setting. Or the kids may come in from atrocious schools and are struggling in better-performing settings. And if the problem lies with the teacher’s instruction, then he — along with the principal — can take the steps needed to improve his methods or core subject knowledge.

What is needed — and the improvement for which Huston and Petrilli or should advocate — is expanding the amount of individual student data available to teachers. This can help them — and administrators — tailor instruction and lessons for each student. As I have discovered as part of another project on which I am working, school data systems often don’t extend beyond the central offices of school districts; even when schools are connected to the systems, access to information is limited to the clerical personnel and administrators charged with data processing work. As a result, teachers at the elementary level know little about their students save for the information they gather during the time the student is with them and the gossip shared with them in the faculty lounge. States should follow the path of Florida, which is now attempting to allow each teacher to access individual student data as part of the expansion of its school data system.

Collaboration at the middle- and secondary-school level is also key. A student’s academic problems are often not limited to one subject or teacher. Schools are attempting to do more of this, but it will take time to become a wide-spread — and well-done — practice.

Either way, a teacher should pay attention to those falling behind. Because it is a sign of deeper problems among the student body that aren’t always manifested in flunking out.

(Photos courtesy of Adobe Systems)

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