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This is the value of the teacher, who looks
at a face and says there's something behind that and I want to reach that
person, I want to influence that person, I want to encourage that person, I
want to enrich, I want to call out that person who is behind that face, behind
that color, behind that language, behind that tradition, behind that culture. I
believe you can do it. I know what was done for me.
—Maya
Angelou
The
transformative power of an effective teacher is something almost all of us have
experienced and understand on a personal level. If we were particularly
fortunate, we had numerous exceptional teachers who made school an exciting and
interesting place. Those teachers possessed a passion for the subjects that
they taught and genuine care for the students with whom they worked. They
inspired us to play with ideas, think deeply about the subject matter, take on
more challenging work, and even pursue careers in a particular field of study.
Some exceptional teachers achieve celebrity status, such as Jaime Escalante,
the math teacher who inspired the film Stand and Deliver, but thousands
of unsung heroes go unrecognized in their remarkable work with students on a
daily basis.
Qualities
of Effective Teachers
We
know intuitively that these highly effective teachers can have an enriching
effect on the daily lives of children and their lifelong educational and career
aspirations. We now know empirically that these effective teachers also have a
direct influence in enhancing student learning. Years of research on teacher
quality support the fact that effective teachers not only make students feel
good about school and learning, but also that their work actually results in
increased student achievement. Studies have substantiated that a whole range of
personal and professional qualities are associated with higher levels of
student achievement. For example, we know that verbal ability, content
knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, certification status, ability to use a range
of teaching strategies skillfully, and enthusiasm for the subject characterize
more successful teachers.1 The following are some of the key qualities of
effective teachers:
Have formal teacher preparation training.
Hold certification of some kind (standard,
alternative, or provisional) and are certified within their fields.
Have taught for at least three years.
Are caring, fair, and respectful.
Hold high expectations for themselves and their students.
Dedicate extra time to instructional preparation and reflection.
Maximize instructional time via effective classroom management
and organization.
Enhance instruction by varying instructional strategies,
activities, and assignments.
Present content to students in a meaningful way that fosters
understanding.
Monitor students' learning by utilizing pre- and
post-assessments, providing timely and informative feedback, and re-teaching
material to students who did not achieve mastery.
Demonstrate
effectiveness with the full range of student abilities in their classrooms,
regardless of the academic diversity of the students.
For a complete listing of
these qualities with references, please refer to Appendix A.
Not only does a reasonable
consensus exist on what effective teachers do to enhance student learning, but
also meta-analyses by researchers such as Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock
(2001) have begun to quantify the average effects of specific instructional
strategies. When properly implemented, instructional strategies such as
identifying similarities and differences, summarizing and note taking, and
reinforcing effort and providing recognition can result in percentile gains of
29–45 points in student achievement.2 Such an increase would mean that the
score of an average student at the 50th percentile might rise to the 79th or
even the 95th percentile with the effective use of selected instructional
strategies. While teaching undeniably will remain an art, there is also a
science to it that we are only beginning to aggressively apply to practice. As
observed by Mike Schmoker, author of Results: The Key to Continuous School
Improvement, “when we begin to more systematically close the gap between
what we know and what we do, we will be on the cusp of one of the most exciting
epochs in the history of education.”3 With state standards and federal
legislation, such as No Child Left Behind, more explicitly defining
accountability, the time has arrived for a systematic application of our
research-based knowledge.
Impact of
Teacher Effectiveness on Student Achievement
The
work of Bill Sanders, formerly at the University of Tennessee's Value-Added
Research and Assessment Center, has been pivotal in reasserting the importance
of the individual teacher on student learning.4 One aspect of his research has
been the additive or cumulative effect of teacher effectiveness on student
achievement. Over a multi-year period, Sanders focused on what happened to
students whose teachers produced high achievement versus those whose teachers
produced low achievement results. He discovered that when children, beginning
in 3rd grade, were placed with three high-performing teachers in a row, they
scored on average at the 96th percentile on Tennessee's statewide mathematics
assessment at the end of 5th grade. When children with comparable achievement
histories starting in 3rd grade were placed with three low-performing teachers
in a row, their average score on the same mathematics assessment was at the
44th percentile,5 an enormous 52-percentile point difference for children who
presumably had comparable abilities and skills. Elaborating on this body of
research, Dr. Sanders and colleagues reported the following:
.
. . the results of this study well document that the most important factor
affecting student learning is the teacher. In addition, the results show wide
variation in effectiveness among teachers. The immediate and clear implication
of this finding is that seemingly more can be done to improve education by
improving the effectiveness of teachers than by any other single factor.
Effective teachers appear to be effective with students of all achievement
levels, regardless of the level of heterogeneity in their classrooms.6
Further
analysis of the Tennessee data indicated that the effects on achievement of
both strong and weak teachers persisted over three years: subsequent
achievement was enhanced or limited by the experiences in the classrooms of
strong or weak teachers, respectively.7 In other words, learning gains realized
by students during a year in the classroom of an effective teacher were
sustained over later years and were compounded by additional years with
effective teachers. Conversely, depressed achievement results resisted
improvement even after a student was placed with an effective teacher, and the
negative impact was discernible statistically for approximately three
subsequent years. Given results like these, it's no wonder that the researchers
found that “a major conclusion is that teachers make a difference.”8
In
a comparable study by researchers in Dallas, Texas, similar results were found
in both math and reading during the early grades.9 When 1st grade students were
fortunate enough to be placed with three high-performing teachers in a row,
their average performance on the math section of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills
increased from the 63rd percentile to the 87th, in contrast to their peers with
similar scores whose performance decreased from the 58th percentile to the
40th, a percentile difference of 42 points. A similar analysis in reading found
a percentile difference of 44 percentile points. The studies in Tennessee and
Texas produced strikingly similar findings: Highly effective teachers are able
to produce much greater gains in student achievement than their less effective
counterparts.
While
the numbers help to summarize the cumulative academic effects of less effective
teachers, we can only imagine the sense of failure and hopelessness that these
children and their parents experienced during the years in these classrooms.
Undoubtedly, the children wondered what was wrong with them when, in reality,
it was the quality of their instruction. A common yet misguided bit of folk
wisdom has been that adversity, in the guise of an ineffective teacher, builds
character and that a student can catch up the following year. The research
indicates otherwise.
Based
on the findings from the Dallas Public Schools' Accountability System, the
negative effects of a poor-performing teacher on student achievement persist
through three years of high-performing teachers.10 The good news is that if
students have a high-performing teacher one year, they will enjoy the advantage
of that good teaching in future years. Conversely, if students have a low-performing teacher, they
simply will not outgrow the negative effects of lost learning opportunities for
years to come. Further exacerbating the negative effects of poor-performing
teachers, the Dallas research shows that “lower-achieving students are more
likely to be put with lower effectiveness teachers . . . . Thus, the negative
effects of less effective teachers are being visited on students who probably
need the most help.”11
Summarizing
the findings from studies of the Dallas and Tennessee Value-Added Assessment
Systems, Mendro states:
Research
. . . has demonstrated the effects of teachers on student achievement. They
[the researchers] show that there are large additional components in the
longitudinal effects of teachers, that these effects are much larger than
expected, and that the least effective teachers have a long-term influence on
student achievement that is not fully remediated for up to three years later.12
In
straightforward terms, these residual effects studies make it clear that not
only does teacher quality matter when it comes to how much students
learn, but also that, for better or worse, a teacher's effectiveness stays
with students for years to come.
Highly
Qualified Versus Highly Effective
Given
the growing body of knowledge about the impact of effective teachers on
children, it seems that educational policy is beginning to acknowledge the
importance of classroom teachers in addition to curriculum standards and
assessments. A case in point is the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001,
which has introduced both the concepts of “adequate yearly progress,” based on
annual testing, and “highly qualified teacher,” based on teacher credentials,
as strategies to improve U.S. education. According to the legislation, “highly
qualified” teachers are defined as those who hold at least a bachelor's degree,
are fully licensed or certified by the state in the subjects they teach, and
can demonstrate competence in the subjects they teach.
While
licensure or certification is a significant indicator of teacher quality, these
factors alone are insufficient for teacher effectiveness. As discussed earlier,
teacher effectiveness is characterized by a far more complex set of qualities
than one's professional preparation. It includes dispositions and an array of
planning, organizational, instructional, and assessment skills. Effective
teachers are able to envision instructional goals for their students, then draw
upon their knowledge and training to help students achieve success. A “highly
qualified” teacher is certainly a good starting point, but most of us would
want our child to have a highly effective teacher whose teaching effort yields
high rates of student learning.
Promoting
Teacher Effectiveness
How
do we support and cultivate effective teachers for all our schools and all our
children? It is our belief that teachers want and need feedback, not only on
the act of teaching, but also on the results of teaching. Timely,
informative feedback is vital to any improvement effort. For instance, consider
the role of a track coach, fitness trainer, or weight counselor. These
individuals provide guidance on how to perform better, but the evidence
of their effectiveness as professionals manifests in tangible results:
improved running time, weight lifted, or pounds lost. It is evident that
“people work more effectively, efficiently, and persistently . . . while
gauging their efforts against results.”13
Teacher
evaluation systems are often intended to serve the purpose of providing
feedback and guidance for improving professional practice. In fact, most
authors identify the fundamental purposes of teacher evaluation as improving
performance and documenting accountability.14 The performance improvement
function relates to the personal growth dimension and involves helping
teachers learn about, reflect on, and improve their practice. The improvement
function generally is considered formative in nature and suggests the
need for continuous professional growth and development.15 The accountability
function, on the other hand, reflects a commitment to the important
professional goals of competence and quality performance. Accountability is
typically viewed as summative and relates to judging the effectiveness
of educational services.16
Teacher
evaluation traditionally has been based on the act of teaching and
documented almost exclusively through the use of classroom observations. In a
study conducted by the Educational Research Service,17 99.8 percent of U.S.
public school administrators used direct classroom observation as the primary
data collection technique. However, primary reliance on formal observations in
evaluation poses significant problems (e.g., artificiality, small sample of
performance) for teacher evaluation.18 Even under the best of circumstances,
when principals might visit a classroom three or four times in a given year,
the observation
Can
be artificial by nature,
Suggests an inspection approach to
supervision,
Has limited validity based on the skill of
the observer,
Is narrow in scope (i.e., restricted to instructional skills only), and
Involves
a small sample of the teacher's actual work with students (e.g., four hours of
observation would equal less than 1/2 of 1 percent of a teacher's time teaching
during a given year).19
Despite
these substantial drawbacks to the traditional evaluation process, the truly
fundamental flaw in such an approach is the assumption that the presence of
good practice during the observation equates to the academic success of
students. If student learning is our ultimate goal, then it should be measured
directly and not extrapolated from limited observations of classroom
instruction. A more balanced approach to teacher evaluation would involve an
assessment of the act of teaching as well as the results of
teaching. We don't suggest throwing out the use of classroom observation to
foster teacher improvement; rather we advocate that teacher effectiveness be
judged and demonstrated by both classroom instruction and the learning
gains of students. Assessing Teacher Effectiveness
Most
educators would agree that they are responsible for student learning, but the
profession as a whole has avoided evaluations based on measures of student
learning, sometimes with good reason, given the unfair approaches that have
been proposed. The solution, however, is not to continue with traditional
strategies simply because they are benign and comfortable, but rather to
develop fair and reasonable means of assessing teacher success with students. A
number of school systems and educational programs, to be discussed later in
this book, have explored innovative ways of capturing valid and reliable data
on student learning to inform the teacher evaluation process. Developing fair
approaches for the assessment of teacher effectiveness requires an unflinching
look at both the legitimate concerns that have driven the avoidance of a
results orientation in the past, and the promising possibilities that make it
more attractive in today's climate of greater accountability for student
learning outcomes.
Concerns
Concerns
about assessing teacher quality based on measures of student learning have
clustered around what Schalock20 terms the collective and conditional nature of
accountability, as well as the strategies for measuring student learning.
Often, accountability efforts in schools are reduced to simplistic mandates for
students to reach specified achievement goals at certain points in time. While
gratifying as a bottom line, these expectations ignore the complex
interdependencies of the learning enterprise. We must consider questions such
as, “accountability by whom, with what resources, and as measured by what?”
Collective
nature of accountability: Responsibility by all stakeholders. Accountability should
be thought of as a collective responsibility for supporting learning by
parents, principals, superintendents, school board members, and teachers,
to say nothing of the students themselves. Holding teachers accountable for
student achievement without recognition of the roles played by these other
partners in the educational process is patently unfair and can amount to
scapegoating. Likewise, requiring students to attend summer school, or
retaining them due to limited progress, avoids the collective nature of
accountability if school systems have not provided the quality of instruction
necessary for students to meet grade level expectations.
Ultimately,
learning is a phenomenon that occurs as a result of the interactions between a
teacher and student. Teachers cannot be solely responsible for student learning
because it is an internally controlled activity. However, teachers are expected
to optimize the conditions for learning. It is what they were hired to do and
it is their professional obligation. As Schalock notes, “educator
accountability for student progress in learning goes hand-in-hand with the
social contract that assigns responsibility for education to schools.”21
Conditional
nature of accountability: Resources and student needs. Just as many actors
affect the educational process, many variables affect the learning process
within a classroom and are beyond the control of the individual teacher. These
external variables include the level of support provided by the community and
state, the availability of books for every child, the number of computers,
sufficient instructional supplies, the support of curriculum specialists, and
so forth. Within the classroom, the number and type of students can have
dramatic effects on the level of academic achievement experienced by the class.
Class size does make a difference, especially when a teacher is expected to
work with a large number of at-risk students, whether they are disabled,
limited in their English, or poor.
Measurement
of student learning. One
additional concern about the use of student learning assessments in the teacher
evaluation process is the way in which learning is assessed. The traditional
use of grades or standardized achievement scores is certainly suspect for a
variety of reasons, including the
Accuracy of grading procedures,
Alignment of achievement tests with the
curriculum,
Diagnostic value of either approach for
instructional improvement, and
Single-point-in-time nature of these indicators.
In
the absence of meaningful pre-test data, grades or achievement test scores at
the end of the year are hardly valid measures of a teacher's influence during a
given year; indeed, they reflect the cumulative effects of what students have
learned at home and school over preceding years. A much more accurate measure
of what a student has learned would be reflected by an assessment that is
curriculum-aligned and administered both at the beginning and end of the year.
When such learning gains are averaged over a whole class of students, we have a
general indication of the magnitude of learning that took place with that group
of children. (A more in-depth discussion of possible assessment strategies will
be offered in Chapter 2.)
As
has become evident, the interplay of factors affecting student learning is
multifaceted and quite challenging. It is also difficult to reach consensus on
how best to measure student learning. Given these complexities, many educators
have avoided being too explicit or public about tracking student learning for
the purpose of improving instruction or evaluating performance. However, the
current context of high-stakes accountability for students and schools found in
most states, and which is being developed as a result of No Child Left Behind,
provides an impetus and urgency for examining ways to assess teacher quality
that are fair and realistic. Today, superintendents, principals, teachers, and
students are being held accountable for higher levels of student achievement.
Teachers are being pressured to produce results, yet often lack the necessary
information and support to make data-driven instructional decisions. The use of
approaches such as those suggested in this book can offer feedback on how to
improve instruction in a balanced and meaningful manner.
Possibilities
Two
primary purposes of teacher evaluation, as noted earlier, are professional
growth and accountability. The use of data on student learning in the teacher
evaluation process offers a potential tool for both improvement and for
refocusing teacher evaluation on the accomplishments of teachers versus
stylistic issues or their political standing. Too often, personal opinions or
biases contaminate the evaluation process and undermine the credibility and
trust necessary for meaningful dialogue about instruction. Reliable and valid
informatio on student learning helps to align the evaluation process with the
fundamental concerns of schooling. There are numerous advantages to this
approach.
More
objective measure of teacher effectiveness. The importance of objective data in
the evaluation process becomes more striking in a story from one principal in
Dallas. As she entered the new school to which she was assigned, the outgoing
principal informed her of two problematic teachers for whom she would need to
begin laying the groundwork to dismiss. One teacher tended to be scattered in
her approach to tasks and had a somewhat disorganized room. Her students were
often talking and moving around the room at will as they worked. The other
teacher was brusque with her students, rigid with her class rules, and worked
the students hard. They were polar opposites in terms of style, but at the end
of the year, when the new principal received the test data on the teachers in
her building, she found that both of these teachers were top performers in
terms of gains in student achievement. She decided that she could tolerate
individual personality differences if children were being well served by these
teachers. This story offers a compelling message: an evaluation approach that
examines both the act of teaching and the results of teaching
provides a more balanced and realistic appraisal of teacher effectiveness.
Meaningful
feedback for instructional improvement. Objective feedback in the form of assessment
data also offers an invaluable tool for supervision. As Barbara Howard and
Wendy McColskey note, “evaluation that leads to professional growth requires
teachers to look honestly at their weaknesses and strengths.”22 Self-assessment
can be limited because of a lack of objectivity. Feedback from colleagues or
supervisors based on a few classroom visits is equally limited because of the
narrow sampling of behavior it provides. Assessment data of student learning
over a marking period or even half a year can provide substantive feedback on
students' cumulative mastery of material. It provides a broader and richer
sampling of the teacher's impact on students and permits the identification of
specific patterns in the learning of content and skills that were taught.
The
evidence from schools that have been successful in increasing the achievement
level of students, particularly those serving high-poverty and high-minority
populations, has been that better use of data is a key ingredient in their
success.23 Data analysis has been used as a means of monitoring success and
ensuring accountability for the identified goals of schools and school systems.
In a recent study of 32 schools in the San Francisco Bay area, the frequency
with which teachers collected, interpreted, and analyzed data for instructional
improvement was found to differ among schools that were closing the achievement
gap versus those that were not. “Two-thirds of the teachers surveyed in the
gap-closing schools said they used test and other data at least several times a
month to understand their students' skills gaps, and sometimes several times a
week.”24 Instructional responsiveness to student assessments is a powerful tool
for increased student achievement.
Barometer
of success and motivational tool. In addition to providing meaningful feedback
for instructional improvement, student achievement data can provide
encouragement and a sense of gratification. As Schmoker observes, “Data and
results can be a powerful force for generating an intrinsic desire to improve.”25
Credible data on the results of teaching efforts n prove them. “Data make the
invisible visible, revealing strengths and weaknesses that are easily
concealed. Data promote certainty and precision, which increases teachers'
confidence in their abilities.”26
Assessment
is an integral facet of instruction. More than 30 years ago, Lortie noted that
“the monitoring of effective instruction is the heart of effective
instruction.”27 Truly effective teachers monitor student learning on an ongoing
basis and use the information to improve their teaching. How do we encourage
all teachers to embrace this practice to benefit their teaching and the
learning of their students? The purpose of Linking Teacher Evaluation and
Student Learning is to present methodologies that have attempted to balance
the competing demands of fairness, diagnostic value for professional growth,
and accountability for student learning. The details of implementation are
daunting; each methodology reflects years of careful consideration of the myriad
issues that influence student learning and its assessment. All the models
presented in this book have both advantages and disadvantages, but they have a
proven track record for connecting teacher evaluation to student learning.
Conclusion
Across
the United States, school accountability is a theme now commonly heard in the
regular discourse among state government officials and local community members.
Parents, policymakers, and educators alike have examined their public schools
and are calling for, even demanding, improvement. School reform efforts are
taking a variety of forms, with two of the most prominent being a focus on
higher teacher standards and improved student performance.
These
goals were illuminated by the powerful opening salvo in the 1996 report, What
Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, by the National Commission on
Teaching and America's Future, as follows:
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