Tag: Kansas Policy Institute

States are the primary drivers of teacher policy, said Sandi Jacobs, and the states, particularly Kansas, are not doing a good job promoting teacher quality.

Jacobs is Vice President of National Council for Teacher Quality. She appeared in Wichita at an event sponsored by the Kansas Policy Institute. NCTA is a research and advocacy group that promotes accountability and transparency of the institutions that affect teacher quality.

While states play the largest role in formulating teacher policy, other actors are local school districts, teachers unions, and the education schools that train teachers. Until last year when Race to the Top money became available from the federal government, it didn’t play a significant role. Kansas did not make it past the first round of Race to the Top evaluations.

Jacobs said that there is strong consensus that of the factors under control of schools, teacher quality has the greatest impact on student success. And recently there has been a shift in how we consider teacher quality, moving from certifications and past education to effectiveness and results in the classroom.

Jacobs presented research that shows how teacher quality can make a large difference in how much students learn in just a period of three years. In the example she illustrated, third graders who had teachers in the top 20 percent of effectiveness for the next three years went from the 50th percentile in performance to the 90th. For students with teachers in the lowest 20 percent for the same period, their performance dropped from the 50th percentile to the 37th percentile. This is a “huge achievement gap,” she said.

Jacobs said that states already have many policies regarding teachers, but they are not the right policies. The NCTQ gives an average grade of “D” to the states for their policies regarding teachers. Kansas is below average, earning a grade of “D-.”

Among the policy areas regarding teacher effectiveness and quality, states fare worst in identifying effective teachers. Further, the methods that statues use to evaluate teachers are not indicative of teacher effectiveness in the classroom. Only ten states “require evidence of effectiveness to be the preponderant criterion for teacher evaluation.” Kansas policy says that school districts “should” include a measure of teacher effectiveness in their evaluations. But that is as far as Kansas policy goes, Jacobs said. Kansas, like many states, does not require classroom observation in teacher evaluation.

If student data is to be an important factor in teacher evaluation, states must create data systems that match students and their test scores with teachers. Kansas has the building blocks in place, Jacobs said, but the system needs more work before this matching can be done.

Value-added data has been in the news recently. This refers to the ability to measure the impact of teachers on student achievement. In value-added methodology, the specific students taught by a teacher are tracked so that teachers may be evaluated by the achievement of their own students, not by broad measures. “Value-added methodology is very fair to teachers. It looks at their impact on their students,” Jacobs told the audience.

Jacobs said that twelve states use value-added data in teacher evaluations. Kansas does not.

The frequency of teacher evaluation is important, too. Kansas requires multiple evaluations for new teachers, which Jacobs said is a wise policy, even though the evaluation process may not be meaningful. For teacher who have gained tenure, they are evaluated once a year in their first two years after gaining tenure. After that, evaluations are required once every three years, which Jacobs said does not make sense, and should be addressed.

The process of granting tenure — permanent employment status, after which is is very difficult to dismiss a teacher — is almost automatic in most states, Jacobs said. She added: “We’re not awarding it based on anything too meaningful, and we’re awarding it very quickly.” In Kansas, as in most states, teachers earn tenure after three years.

Jacobs said that after three years, school districts will have probably two years’ of data on a teacher, which she said is not enough. She recommended a probationary period of five years before evaluating a teacher for tenure.

For professional licensure, which is awarded by states, many states require no evidence of effectiveness. Kansas requires a performance assessment. Jacobs had no data for Kansas, but on other states that have such as assessment, the passing rate is generally above 98 percent. “So if 98 percent of people are coming through your gate, well then you don’t have a gate. Why are you even giving that assessment?”

The policy area in which Kansas scored lowest was in exiting, or firing, ineffective teachers. Kansas labor law has special language just for teachers, Jacobs said, and this language makes it very difficult to dismiss ineffective teachers. Teachers are also allowed multiple appeals. The second appeal is made in the court system, which changes the matter from an educational issue to a procedural issue.

Kansas is also weak in alternate certification, a process where people may become teachers without going through the traditional route through the education colleges. Kansas schools may hire such teachers only if they certify that no traditionally-prepared teacher is available. Jacobs said that research shows that alternatively-certified teachers perform well.

Retaining effective teachers is important, Jacobs said, and compensation is an important factor in this regard. A problem is that teachers are treated interchangeably, she said, because school districts pay teachers based on years of experience and by degrees earned, not by effectiveness. Furthermore, there is strong consensus of evidence that advanced degrees do not make teachers any more effective in the classroom. It’s a “double premium” that districts pay, however, as many will pay teachers to earn a higher degree, and then pay them a higher salary. But this practice does not increase student leaning.

Kansas does not have a state teacher salary schedule. Instead, districts create their own salary schedules. But Jacobs said the state needs to send the message to districts that salary schedules based on years of experience and advanced degrees “don’t make sense, aren’t efficient, and are counterproductive to retaining our most effective teachers.”

I asked Jacobs about the relative importance of class size as compared to teacher effectiveness. Jacobs said that research shows that class size makes a difference for very young children (below third grade), when class size can be reduced to 11 or 12 students. For everyone else, there is no evidence that class size makes a difference. Additionally, reducing class size requires that more teachers be hired. When California tried class size reduction, the thousands of additional teachers hired were not of high quality, and student achievement fell.

Additional coverage of Jacob’s lecture is in the Wichita Business Journal at Teacher council: Improving quality of educators increases student achievement and the Wichita Eagle at Advocate touts education reform.

This week another study finds that Kansans, like most Americans, are uninformed about the level of school spending. Reaction of the education bureaucracy indicates that uninformed citizens are their preference.

The KSN Television news story Survey results fan flames in education funding feud (both print and video are available) reports on a study asking people about the amount of school spending in their state. In Kansas, few knew the correct level of spending: “No more than 10 percent could guess the correct per student spending range in Alabama, New York, Arkansas, or Kansas.” 40 percent of survey respondents in Kansas thought schools spent less than $4,000 per student. 71 percent thought the figure was $8,000 or less. The actual number is somewhere around $12,000 per student.

The survey document referred to is from The Foundation for Educational Choice, and is available at Interstate Survey: What Do Voters Say About K-12 Education in Six States?

The results of this study confirm what the Kansas Policy Institute found earlier this year in its own poll of Kansans and their knowledge of school spending. That effort found that few Kansans have accurate information about school spending. Surprisingly, the poll found that those with children in the public school system are even more likely to be uninformed regarding accurate figures. KPI also found that when presented with accurate information about changes in school spending, few Kansans are willing to pay increased taxes to support more school spending.

There are several important things Kansans should take away from the KSN news story. First, Newton school superintendent John Morton thinks it is “a real concern” when citizens have access to data about government spending. This is a common reaction by government bureaucrats and officials. They prefer to operate without citizen scrutiny.

Second, the education bureaucracy in Kansas denies the reality of school spending. According to the KSN story: “[Morton] says although numbers may say schools receive $12,000 per student, only about $4,000 makes its way to daily student learning.”

This denial of the magnitude of school spending is routine by the school spending lobby and its supporters. They also do their best to exaggerate the effects of any slowdown in the rapid rate at which spending had been increasing. This was demonstrated by Rep. Melody McCray-Miller at a recent legislative forum in Wichita. She disputed the total amount of spending by the Wichita school district. Wichita board of education member Lanora Nolan disputed these same figures at a Wichita Pachyderm Club meeting. Also see Wichita schools on the funding decrease.

Finally, it’s astonishing that of the roughly $12,000 that Kansas schools receive for each student, only $4,000 — according to Morton — makes its way to “daily student learning.”

May I ask: Where does the other $8,000 go?