Teacher Quality and Preparation

The Obama Administration has repeatedly stressed the importance of measuring teacher effectiveness as part of a reform agenda for K-12 education. In both the Blueprint for Education Reform - Obama’s platform for K-12 education policy - and subsequent policy proposals, the Administration has made clear that they want to strengthen the federal government’s role in supporting teacher evaluation systems. The Administration’s focus on teacher evaluation makes last week’s report, Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness, by the Center for American Progress especially timely.  It discusses how rigorous teacher performance assessments could be used to measure teachers’ success in the classroom, including an in-depth look at one approach to improving the quality of teachers in every classroom, the Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium.

As the Consortium implements pilot programs and stakeholders begin to better understand how to assess teachers, the Obama Administration and state legislators should take note. States and school districts can use data from the assessments to improve teacher preparation and professional development programs. The federal government can use the data to target grant funds through new or existing federal programs to support effective teacher training and development programs.

The report by Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond describes current efforts among 20 states to create a common teacher assessment system that could be used for teacher certification and evaluation. The teacher performance assessments (TPAs) used to evaluate teachers would be portfolio-based, similar to the National Board Certification process. Teachers would be assessed through classroom videos, teacher self-reflections, content reviews, and student and teacher feedback combined with data on student performance on different types of tests. Pilot programs began in the 2010-11 school year and will be scaled up over the coming years. By 2015, the consortium hopes to have nationally available TPA systems for initial teacher licensing, professional licensing, and advanced certification. Current teacher in-take and evaluation systems do not provide enough information to properly assess teachers’ strengths and weaknesses, but the consortium hopes that with more advanced assessments, principals and other instructional leaders could better place, support, and reward teachers.

Not only can states and school districts use these assessments to make staffing decisions, but experience with the National Board Certification process suggests that teachers can also use the self-assessment process to improve their practice in the classroom. Because the program requires teachers to self-reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses, many who have gone through the National Board Certification program have used this process to improve their teaching strategies and be more responsive to the needs of students. Aggregated results from these evaluations can also help inform professional development and teacher preparation programs.

Darling-Hammond’s report has important implications for the Obama Administration’s proposal for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as described in the Blueprint for Education Reform. The Blueprint would attempt to streamline the teacher quality grant programs under current law under a broader, more flexible umbrella program. At present, there are 15 federal programs targeted at improving the quality of teachers in K-12 classrooms and making the teaching profession more attractive to both current and potential new teachers. In fiscal year 2010, these programs cost a total of $3.9 billion, or 5.9 percent of the U.S. Department of Education’s discretionary budget. The Improving Teacher Quality State Grants program, for example, is the largest federal program devoted to K-12 teachers. The $2.9 billion program provides states with formula grants to implement activities that increase the number of highly qualified teachers, principals, and assistant principals in high-need classrooms and schools. Local educational agencies (LEAs) can use funds for activities to improve teacher quality, including implementing and improving teacher assessment programs.

Under the Blueprint, federal support for K-12 teacher programs would be reorganized, combining programs with similar purposes under a few large pools of money. The Effective Teachers and Leaders formula grant program would replace Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, combining the program with others focused on strengthening teacher effectiveness. The Effective Teachers and Leaders grants would be flexible, so that states and school districts can use funds as they see fit to meet the needs of students in their communities.

As the TPA pilot programs progress and stakeholders better understand how to assess teachers, the Obama Administration and state legislators should pay close attention. States and school districts can use the TPA systems to develop teacher preparation and professional development programs, collect quality data on beginning teacher effectiveness, and create coherent assessment systems for all stages of a teacher’s career. The federal government could use new or existing teacher quality grant funds to support these assessments and the training and development programs they show to be effective.

Check back with Ed Money Watch for updates on the progress of these assessments and the data they provide on teacher effectiveness.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about teachers. State budget crises have forced school districts to pink slip thousands of teachers across the country and teacher union contracts require inexperienced teachers to be let go first. This has left many, primarily low-income, schools to increase class sizes or rely on substitutes to fill teaching gaps.

At the same time, much media attention has been focused on the two Obama administration one-time competitive grant programs signed into law as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The $4.4 billion Race to the Top (RttT) program requires that states design programs that improve the distribution of teachers in order to win grants. This requirement has led several states to pass teacher-focused legislation to comply with these requirements. Similarly, the $650 million Investing in Innovation (i3) program includes an “improving teacher distribution” category under which 354 local education agencies and organizations applied for grants.

But RttT and i3 are not the only federal programs that address teachers – despite all of the media attention they have received. In fact, the federal government funds 15 individual programs, run by the Department of Education, that provide either formula or competitive grants to local education agencies, states, institutions of higher education, and partnerships with non-profits, or grants or loans directly to teachers. In 2010, the federal government spent $3.9 billion – 5.9 percent of the Department of Education’s discretionary budget – on programs addressing teacher training, distribution, compensation, and retention.

Nine of these programs fall under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), accounting for $3.7 billion in spending. The Obama administration’s proposed program consolidations for ESEA reauthorization would fold these programs with other instructional and leadership initiatives into several larger programs relating to teaching and learning. This would include one $2.5 billion formula grant program for efforts to improve teacher effectiveness and several smaller competitive grant programs targeted at improving teacher quality and instruction in specific subject areas.

Detailed information on these federal programs is not readily available through a centralized source, making it difficult to judge the federal government’s support for teachers. In response, the Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP) has published a Background and Analysis page as part of the FEBP website that explains the size, scope, and purpose of federal programs that support teacher training and development programs. This timely new resource helps provide clarity on the many different federal teacher programs.

The Federal Programs for K-12 Teachers page includes summaries and funding information for the 15 federal teacher programs in the table below.¹

¹These programs are labeled as K-12 programs. However, it is often unclear whether they might also apply to pre-kindergarten teachers too. Our colleagues at Early Ed Watch raise that question in a post today.

On Monday, the Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog published an opinion piece attempting to dispel myths about the “teacher layoff crisis.” Opinion writer Charles Lane tells readers not to believe the hype about the drastic consequences of 100,000 to 300,000 teachers losing their jobs in the coming school year. He says a proposed $23 billion Education Jobs Fund pending in Congress, which would help states avoid teacher lay offs, is both unnecessary and not enough to stimulate the economy anyway. He claims that even if 300,000 teachers lost their jobs, the student-teacher ratio in the country would only increase from 15.3 students per teacher to 16.6 students per teacher, a seemingly insignificant jump.[1] But his analysis oversimplifies the situation surrounding teacher layoffs, painting a rosier picture of student-teacher ratios than may be the reality in many schools.

Lane is correct in stating that current estimates of potential teacher layoffs – ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 – are shaky at best. These numbers are based on worst-case scenario counts of teachers that have been pink slipped, but have not officially lost their jobs. Typically, schools pink slip far more teachers than will actually be let go in case something drastic really happens. Additionally, these numbers do include non-instructional staff like administrators, janitors, and bus drivers, further obscuring the relationship between the number of actual layoffs and the direct impact they will have on classrooms.

However, Lane does not account for the variation in potential teacher layoffs or the variation in student-teacher ratios in classrooms across the country. In many states, the situation is far more dire than Lane makes it seem. For example, the budget situation in California is particularly challenging right now, meaning that as many as 36,000 teachers have been pink slipped. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average student-teacher ratio in California in 2008 was 20.8 students per teacher. If 36,000 teachers are let go, the student-teacher ratio in the state will increase to 23.6 students per teacher, an increase of nearly three students.

In New Jersey, current student-teacher ratios are much lower – 12.4 students per teacher. But the state’s projected budget deficit suggests that as many as 9,950 teachers could lose their jobs in the coming year. Such a change would increase the state’s average student teacher ratio by more than 1 student to 13.6 students per teacher. In Virginia, where 10,000 teachers could potentially lose their jobs, the student-teacher ratio could increase from 17.1 to 19.9 students per teacher, almost three students and more than twice the national number Lane cites.

Teacher layoffs also do not affect schools within a state or even a district evenly. According to teacher seniority rules in place in most schools, the teachers that were most recently hired are let go first. This means that new, or less experienced teachers are laid off first during budget cuts. Typically, more experienced, tenured teachers work in high-income schools because those schools are perceived to be more attractive teaching placements. As a result, less-experienced teachers tend to work in low-income schools. Because the less-experienced teachers will be laid off first due to seniority rules, low-income schools will bear the majority of the burden of the teacher lay offs. The students in these schools, who often benefit the most from low student-teacher ratios, will be disproportionately effected by teacher lay offs.

When viewed nationally, an across-the-board increase in student-teacher ratios from 15.3 to 16.6 seems insignificant, as such large aggregations often do. But the reality in some states and in low income schools could be much worse than Lane acknowledges. While it’s impossible to know how many teachers will lose their jobs in the coming school year, it’s imperative that we keep the discussion about the impact of these lay offs as honest as possible. Skimming over the details, as Lane does with student-teacher ratios, distorts the debate and could result in some truly negative consequences for our students and schools.

The Education Jobs Fund, a $23 billion fund requested in legislation in both the House and the Senate to help states pay for teacher salaries and benefits, appears to be dead due to lack of Senate support. But that House leaders and Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-WI) are looking for creative alternatives to the spending program. Yesterday, Politico reported that House leaders and Congressman Obey are exploring the possibility of redirecting “idle” funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to help states avoid significant teacher layoffs.

The ARRA provided nearly $100 billion for education programs including a $48.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) to help states fill their education budget gaps. Though the SFSF provided funds that local education agencies can use to help avoid teacher layoffs, the other funds provided through programs like Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are more restrictive. Based on the Politico report, it sounds like Obey would like to repurpose some of the unspent ARRA funds into a program like the SFSF that states could use specifically to support teacher salaries and benefits. However, the mechanical and political details of such a move are still quite unclear.

Technically, it would be easiest to use appropriations legislation to redirect the unobligated ARRA funds under programs like Title I grants and IDEA into a program like the SFSF specifically for teacher salaries and benefits. Assuming Congressman Obey only intends to repurpose education ARRA funds, however, the vast majority of the non-SFSF ARRA funds have already been obligated to states and territories.

As of May 28, 2010, all IDEA funds had been obligated to states. The remaining unobligated ARRA funds include $1.4 billion for Title I, about $1.4 billion for Pell Grants, $250 million in Statewide Data Systems Funds, about $150 million in Teacher Incentive Grant Funds, and $38 million for Vocational and Rehabilitative Services. This total amount of unobligated funds, around $3.2 billion, doesn’t come close to the $23 billion requested for these purposes in previous version of House and Senate legislation.

To make up the rest of the difference, any legislation would have to redirect already obligated (but not outlaid) ARRA funds into a fund specifically meant for teacher salaries and benefits. Not including SFSF, about $21.9 billion in ARRA education funding has yet to be outlaid, including roughly $8 billion in both IDEA and Title I. This amount is much closer to the $23 billion that was requested for the Education Jobs Fund by the House and Senate.

If Congressman Obey is able win passage of a bill (or pursue some other measure) that would redirect already obligated funds, he would also have to find political consensus on how to redistribute them among the states. He could redistribute them based on total and school age population, much like the SFSF monies were originally distributed. This would give each state a pot of flexible funding they could use to support their teaching forces. However, it could also mean that the states that need the money the most, like California, New Jersey, Illinois, and Utah that have already used the vast majority of their SFSF monies, could end up with less money than they need to keep their school budgets afloat. Conversely, states that have spent very little of their SFSF funds, like Wyoming and Alaska, could get far more money than they need.

Or Congressman Obey could try to take the more challenging political route, and pursue legislation that would distribute the funds among states according to need. This, however, is unlikely to fly in Congress as some states could easily lose out on funds that were once theirs under the ARRA. While this method could have the best results for struggling states, it is the least likely to gain traction in Congress.

Of course, Congressman Obey has released almost no details about his plan to redirect “idle” ARRA funds and all we can do is speculate as to what he has in mind. It is clear, however, that he is looking into creative solutions to shore up state education budgets. Check back with Ed Money Watch for more details as they arise.

On Thursday, Ed Money Watch's Jennifer Cohen appeared on PBS Newshour to discuss the effect of education budget cuts in school districts and classrooms alongside Jay Matthews of The Washington Post's Class Struggle blog. The discussion focused on teacher layoffs and class size increases as ways to shore up budgets in struggling school districts, as well as reform efforts like the teacher contract ratified by the teachers union in Washington, DC.

Cohen described how teacher layoffs often affect low-income schools, where more inexperienced teachers work, more than higher-income schools because of "last-hired, first-fired" policies in many teacher contracts. She also explained that by firing the least experienced, and therefore least expensive, teachers, school districts are forced to fire more teachers than if they were able to fire some more experienced, more expensive teachers.

To view this video, click play. For a transcript of the interview, click here.

Over the past several weeks, news media outlets have been buzzing about potential drastic teacher layoffs ranging from between 100,000 and 300,000 nationwide if the Education Jobs Fund isn’t passed in Congress. The Education Jobs Funds is a $23 billion program that has been proposed in both the House and the Senate that would help states pay for teacher salaries and benefits during the economic downturn. The fate of the proposal is unclear at this time. But the news media has framed the story as a false choice. The large estimated numbers of teacher layoffs cited by the media and advocates assume that nothing else can change about teacher compensation in the mean time. In other words, 100,000 to 300,000 teachers could lose their jobs in the coming year as long as state and local policymakers make no changes to teacher salary schedules, benefits, or planned raises in response to budget shortfalls. Now it looks like the Education Jobs Fund versus mass layoffs may indeed be a false choice for many school districts.

Yesterday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested another way to avoid massive teacher layoffs that doesn’t involve an additional $23 billion in federal spending. He announced that he plans to freeze all teacher and administrator salaries at the levels specified by the current salary schedule. Now, this means that the salary schedule will stay the same. However, teachers will still receive pay raises based on their increase in years of experience – otherwise known as “step” increases. So, even though teachers with five years of experience will be making the same amount this coming year as they did last year, a teacher that now has six years of experience will be making more than she or he did with only five years of experience.

According to the New York Times, this salary freeze, combined with the elimination of an estimated 2,000 teacher positions through attrition and retirement, would save $400 million and 4,400 teacher and administrator jobs. To be sure, the legality of this move is somewhat in question – Mayor Bloomberg cannot unilaterally decide the content of the teachers’ salary contract without union ratification – though New York City’s teachers are currently working without a finalized contract. Bloomberg could feasibly refuse to sign one if the union decides not to accept the salary freeze.

Regardless of these complications, the New York example suggests that there are ways to help shore up state and school district budgets rather than Congress enacting another bailout. One such approach is to freeze teacher salary schedules at the current level, as Bloomberg suggests, or even roll the schedules back to 2008 or earlier to help balance budgets. Another option is to cut the benefits teachers receive in addition to their salaries like healthcare, life insurance, and retirement. Finally, and likely the least attractive option, is furloughing teachers.

Obviously, these methods may not work in all states or school districts. In some districts in California, for example, freezing salary schedules maybe not provide sufficient enough savings to overcome current budget deficits. In other districts with particularly strong teacher’s union presence, they may be unable to receive approval for these strategies no matter how dire the consequences. For these places, continued federal action, like the Education Jobs Fund, may be absolutely necessary. But any additional federal funding should come with some strings attached, like requiring districts to exhaust cost savings options before receiving funds. Otherwise, the federal funds simply allow states and school districts to defer tough budget choices that are ultimately necessary.

In a critical mass of districts, however, making difficult decisions about teacher compensation may be the only lifeline left for districts to keep their budgets afloat and teachers in their classrooms. A full $23 billion Education Jobs Fund seems unlikely at this point – while education stakeholder groups have rallied behind the legislation, Congress seems less than enthused about spending that much money on education. Now appears to be the time to gather all the stakeholders at the table and start hashing out a teacher compensation system that makes sense in today’s economy. New York is not the first district to do so, and it likely won't be the last.

Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced the release of applications for $437 million in Teacher Incentive Fund grants (TIF). TIF grants are competitively awarded federal grants that local education agencies (LEAs), state education agencies (SEAs), and partnerships between either of these entities and non-profit organizations can use to implement programs that address the distribution of high quality teachers among high-need schools and subject areas. These grants are made possible through both a fiscal year 2010 appropriation of $300 million and a carryover appropriation of $137 million from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The Department of Education is likely to award between 40 and 80 grants ranging from $5 million to $10 million, and applications are due July 6, 2010.

These grants will be awarded specifically to programs that support Performance Based Compensation Systems (PBCSs) for teachers and principals. In the past, TIF grants have been available for other basic types of teacher compensation programs like pay incentives for teachers that work in hard-to-staff schools and subjects. However, the Obama Administration shifted its focus for the grants over to PBCSs after the Department of Education announced that ARRA funding for the TIF will go to support these performance-based programs. Additionally, appropriations for TIF have increased dramatically since the ARRA. Regular appropriations in fiscal years 2006 through 2009 were less than $100 million in each year.

To award these grants, the Department will split the competition into two separate parts. The first competition, known as the Main TIF competition, will focus on the design and implementation of PBCSs. The second competition, called the TIF Evaluation competition, will require grantees to cooperate with an evaluation contractor that will conduct a rigorous study of the impact of the PBCS. Those that receive grants under this second competition will receive an additional $1-$2 million to use for TIF activities in exchange for its cooperation with the evaluation. The second competition fulfills an ARRA requirement to conduct a national evaluation of PBCSs’ effect on teacher and principal recruitment and retention.

As part of the focus on PBCSs, ED will require applicants under both competitions to align their proposals with three “absolute priorities” they have defined. Applications that do not address all three of these priorities will not be considered in the competition.

The first priority requires applicants to demonstrate that they will implement a PBCS that involves differentiated levels of compensation for effective teachers and principals. This means that teachers or principals that help improve student achievement (and are therefore deemed “effective”) must receive incentive payments (or some other sort of differentiated pay) of some significant value. Under this priority, teacher effectiveness measures must include student growth, peer or principal observations, and other measures like leadership roles.

The second priority addresses the fiscal sustainability of the PBCS. Applicants must show that they have anticipated the costs associated with the PBCS they are proposing over time and will provide an increasing share of the cost of the PBCS from non-TIF monies over the five years of the program.

The third priority requires applicants to prove that the PBCSs they are proposing are part of a larger comprehensive teacher quality strategy. This means that LEAs, SEAs, and non-profits cannot implement PBCSs in a vacuum. They must be accompanied by other strategies like professional development, retention and tenure systems that are based on data and evaluations, and other methods.

ED has also identified three “Competitive Preference” priorities for the TIF grants. Applications that address one or both of these priorities will be given additional points during the application review process. These are described below:

Applicants can receive an additional five points towards their overall TIF score if they propose a PBCS that uses value-added measures of student achievement. This means that the proposed PBCS will measure the specific impact of a student’s teacher on that student’s academic growth by controlling for various factors like student demographics and teacher characteristics. This will require extensive data systems and specific knowledge of value-added analysis.

Applicants can also receive an additional five points if they propose a PBCS that will help high-need schools recruit and retain effective teachers in hard-to-staff subjects. This means that applicants will have to determine how they will know that a new teacher is “effective” and how they will identify “hard-to-staff” subjects.

Finally, an applicant will be awarded two additional points if they have not previously received a TIF grant or propose to implement a PBCS in a school or district that has not previously benefitted from a TIF grant.

The Teacher Incentive Fund program provides a unique opportunity for states and school districts to implement out-of-the-box teacher compensation systems. The new focus on PBCSs, and away from simpler incentive programs, represents a risk for the Obama administration. If the ARRA-funded TIF Evaluation competition reveals that PBCSs are ineffective at retaining effective teachers, then significant federal funds will have been wasted. However, given the current demand for alternative teacher compensation and other methods that redefine the way teachers are hired and retained, this may be a gamble worth making.

Today, the National Research Council released a report titled “Preparing Teachers:Building Evidence for Sound Policy.” According to Ed Week, the report concludes that current evidence does not suggest that teachers who participate in alternative training pathways like Teach for America are any more or less effective than those who attend traditional training programs. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that alternative certification programs are no better or worse than traditional ones. It means that we don’t know enough about those programs or the teachers they produce to make a definitive call either way. As we look forward to the reauthorization of Elementary and Secondary Education Act and other federal education programs, we need to consider ways to better understand these programs and support those that are most successful.

According to the study, current research on teacher training programs shows that there is no significant difference in teacher quality between the two program types. The writers note that their conclusion does, however, come with a major qualification: good research on these teacher programs is hard to come by and not as rigorous as it could be. With better data, the study suggests, we could potentially find significant differences between teachers from different training pathways.

Assuming all alternative certification programs are the same, and therefore can be compared to traditional programs as a group, is questionable too. Sometimes differences among alternative certification programs are as great as differences between alternative and traditional programs. Without the data to hone in on these differences, we cannot properly assess what aspects of various programs are and are not working. Once we can identify those successful aspects, we can build ever better teacher training programs, whether they are alternative or traditional (or even eliminate the need for such a distinction). In the end, the point of teacher training is not about the struggle between alternative and traditional routes, but about training good teachers.

These findings have significant implications for federal teacher programs as Congress begins reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Obama Administration proposed creating a $405 million competitive grant program called Teacher and Leader Pathways that would lump together all existing funding for teacher training programs and nearly triple funding available for such programs. This proposed change has caused significant concern in the alternative certification world because it would eliminate line items in the budget for programs like Teach for America (TFA received $18 million in federal support in 2010) and require them to participate in the competitive grant process.

But moving to a competitive grant system has many pluses. First, successful programs like TFA could end up with significantly larger grants than they would have received under the old system, allowing them to expand or scale up as necessary. At the same time, the Department of Education could invest significant funds in various types of alternative certification programs based on the quality of their applications and previous records of success and collect ample data on the characteristics of these programs, their participants, and the outcomes they produce. Over time, the Department could use this data to better target and invest the competitive funds into those programs that show the best outcomes.

The report also emphasizes the importance of overall data collection to the future of education. Currently, almost every state has the capacity to collect longitudinal student outcome data for accountability purposes. But just a few states can track their teachers over time, beginning with their graduation from training programs and following them to different schools and subject areas. Statewide Data Systems, a federal grant program, provides competitive grants to states to help build and implement their longitudinal data systems. Thus far, the focus of these grants has been on student data including standardized test scores and demographics. But over time, this focus should shift to including teachers in these longitudinal systems so states can better assess how their traditional and alternative certification programs are serving their schools and their students.

It’s no surprise that current research on alternative and traditional certification programs is somewhat lacking. But it is surprising that we can’t claim to know any more about the variations in the quality of these programs than we did five years ago. With the right research and some strategic funding, however, we can grow this knowledge and start making some definitive statements about teacher training.

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED

Last week the Department of Education announced the recipients of the $100 million in Teacher Quality Partnership grants made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This program aims to build partnerships between local school districts and teacher colleges to improve and reform teacher training programs. According to the press release, 12 grants were awarded. Seven of those grants will go towards teacher residency programs, three will focus on more traditional licensing programs, and two will do both. Additionally, five grants will also focus on training for school leaders like principals and superintendants.

President Obama has been voicing support for programs like these since the campaign trail. Though little rigorous evidence exists as to their efficacy, anecdotal evidence supports programs like teacher residencies and other alternative induction and training programs.

Beyond this limited information available in the press release, however, the Department of Education provides almost no details on any of the funded program. To remedy this, Ed Money Watch has done some digging to collect more details on each of the grants. The information we collected, as well as links to further details, can be found below. We will be sure to update this as we get more information.

California State University – Northridge (California)
Project Name: Teaching Residency Program in Special Education

According to Congressman Brad Sherman’s website, this $8,454,548 grant will address “the critical shortage of qualified special education teachers who are prepared to serve in high-need schools. The project is a partnership between the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the Colleges of Education and Humanities at California State University, Northridge. The program will recruit a total of 150 special education teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, prepare them to serve children with disabilities in high-need schools, and evaluate the impact of the project on new teachers and their students. The program will offer an 18-month credential or master’s degree residency program in Special Education, and a 2-year induction program.”

Denver School District No. 1 (Colorado)
Project Name: Denver Teacher Residency

This residency program was awarded a grant of $8,204,269. No specific information on the Teacher Quality Partnership grant proposal is available. However, information on the Denver Teacher Residency program can be found here.

Iowa Department of Education (Iowa)
Project Name: Iowa Teacher Quality Partnership Project

According to the Iowa Department of Education, this $9,035,380 grant will be used to “partner with the UNI, Stanford University School Redesign Network, and UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST)…[to] work together to define emerging attributes of effective teaching and integrating those attributes into both teacher preparation programs and continued professional development for beginning and experienced teachers.” Additionally, the grant work will include the “use of innovation and technology in Iowa's classroom and UNI's educator preparation program. UNI teacher preparation students will be able to gain even more hands-on learning experiences by joining various classrooms of rural high-needs schools in Iowa through online technology such as video conferencing. The intention is to broaden this effort and make it available to all accredited teacher preparation programs in the state.”

Governors State University (Illinois)
Project Name: Chicago Southland Region Teacher Quality Partnership Project

According to a Park Forrest, IL news source, the $7,172,773 grant will provide “GSU alternative certification students…with mentor-teachers in south suburban classrooms for a one-year residency period. They will be paid $30,000 during the residency period, with that salary coming via the federal grant. Teacher candidates will work in high-need, low-income school districts and, after certification, will agree to teach for three years in the partner district. The grant provides funding for about 170 residency placements over the next five years. Partnering school districts are Calumet Park 132, Posen-Robbins 143.5, Dolton-Riverdale 148, Harvey 152, West Harvey-Dixmoor 147, Lincoln 156 in Calumet City, Ford Heights 169, Thornton High School 205, and Bloom High School 206. The nine districts represent 21,000 students in 37 schools. All have heavy concentrations of minority and low-income students.”

University of Chicago (Illinois)
Project Name: University of Chicago Urban Education Institute's Urban Teacher Education Program

According to a University of Chicago release, the $11,584,312 grant will expand the existing teacher residency program and “result in improved curriculum to align with the needs of Chicago Public Schools, the addition of a robust secondary mathematics and science certification program, enhanced recruitment strategies to further improve the selectivity and diversity of candidates, extended new teacher induction activities, and solidified school partnerships. Chicago UTEP will work with the Consortium on Chicago School Research to evaluate and measure the impact of their model. When the work supported by the grant is fully operational after five years, the Chicago UTEP program will be serving approximately 300 aspiring and novice teachers in various stages of development.”

Boston Plan for Excellence (Massachusetts)
Project Name: Boston Teacher Residency Partnership

According to information shared with Ed Money Watch by Boston Teacher Residency staff, this $15,024,128 grant will be used to "increase the number of effective teachers the Boston Teacher Residency Partnership (BTRP) prepares to teach in Boston Public Schools (BPS).  This will be accomplished by recruiting and intensively preparing teacher candidates in high-need areas identified by BPS including special education, English as a second language, science, mathematics and early childhood with a focus on attracting teachers from underrepresented populations. Specifically, the BTRP plan is to prepare a total of 548 teachers, representing more than one-third of the district's total hiring needs and including 105 new special education teachers; 102 new teachers of English language learners; 175 math and science teachers; and 48 early childhood teachers.  This project scales up the already well-established Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) program and adds an emphasis to the preparation of K-2 teachers by including Wheelock College in the existing partnership of BTR, University of Massachusetts Boston and BPS."

University of North Carolina – Greensboro (North Carolina)
Project Name: Project ENRICH

According to a University of North Carolina – Greensboro release, the $6,948,132 grant will be used to expand Project ENRICH into the Winston/Forsyth Schools. With the grant “UNCG will recruit and train teachers, including about 20 resident teachers per year who will earn master’s degrees and get hands-on training working with experienced teachers in the school system. Residents will be selected to mirror the diversity of the student population, and must have an undergraduate degree in a content area and no teaching credential.” The program aims to “prepare approximately 475 teachers during the five year period (100 residents in math, science, special education and English Language Learners and 375 undergraduates in a variety of fields that include elementary, middle and secondary teachers from multiple areas: math, science, English, social studies, foreign languages as well as music, art, physical education and literacy).”

Questa Independent Schools (New Mexico)
Project Name: Land of Enchantment Teacher Quality Partnership

According to a press release from Senator Jeff Bingaman’s website, the $8,680,166 grant “will fund 50 special education teachers and 50 principals over the next five years in the Chama Valley, Dulce, Cuba, Jemez Mountain, Mesa Vista, Questa, Peñasco and Central Consolidated (Kirtland) school districts… The Land of Enchantment Teacher Quality Partnership will use this funding to support a special education teacher residency program, which will recruit recent college graduates who will be paired with a special education mentor in the classroom.  The grant will also allow the schools to develop and implement a school leadership program to prepare candidates for careers as principals and superintendents.  The funding will allow teachers in the districts to take a one year leave from teaching and explore an administrative internship.” 

Lehman College (New York)
Project Name: Mathematics Achievement with Teachers of High-need Urban Populations

According to a City University of New York release, the $7,662,612 grant will “prepare elementary teachers who are highly qualified to teach English language learners and students with special needs and to improve the mathematical understanding and performance of all students… MATH-UP (Mathematics Achievement with Teachers of High-need Urban Populations) aims to prepare 125 teachers in grades 1-6 who will bring their new skills and approaches into the classrooms of 18,750 South Bronx students. The grant will provide a diverse group of teachers with a rigorous graduate program that is content-enriched, school-focused, needs-based and integrated with professional development.”

National Math and Science Initiative, Inc. (Texas)
Project Name: The Teacher Preparation Reform Consortium

According to a National Math and Science Initiative press release, the $2,252,355 grant will be used to “implement the highly-regarded UTeach program at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio… Created originally by The University of Texas at Austin, UTeach enables college students to graduate in four years with deep content knowledge in a math or science major as well as teaching certification.  Ninety-two percent of UTeach graduates from the UT-Austin program become teachers, and 82 percent are still in the classroom after five years.”

Virginia Commonwealth University (Virginia)
Project Name: Richmond Teacher Residency Program

This residency program was awarded a grant of $5,796,491. No specific information on the Teacher Quality Partnership grant proposal or the Richmond Teacher Residency Program is available.

Heritage University (Washington)
Project Name: Heritage 105: Heritage University and ESD 105 Collaborative

According to the Yakima Herald, the $9,017,011 grant will provide teachers in training with “hands-on classroom training upon entry into the teaching program, instead of near the end. Sixteen teaching-learning teams will be developed and placed at three area school districts, which have yet to be named. The teams, consisting of three students and a seasoned teacher, will be divided into eight separate groups of graduate and undergraduate students. Team members will work together to instruct a class and prepare lesson plans — enabling them to better teach the material and connect with their students, said McGuigan, project director for Heritage 105. Once a week, the student teachers will also receive training from Heritage faculty and staff at ESD 105, who specialize in such areas as reading and math instruction. The student teachers will follow their classes from year to year and will train their replacements when they graduate from Heritage.”

Last weekend the Obama Administration released its “Blueprint for Reform,” a document that discusses the president’s proposal for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). On the whole, the document provides some additional, though hardly thorough, details for programs the Administration already alluded to in its fiscal year 2011 budget request. These include the consolidation of several K-12 education programs and the inclusion of a state definition of a “highly effective” teacher and principal as part of the accountability structure. But the document also briefly mentions, though provides no specifics on, a provision that has recently been overlooked in President Obama’s and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s discussion of ESEA reauthorization: Title I comparability.

Comparability refers to a current provision of Title I that requires school districts to provide equitable state and local resources to both their low-income, Title I schools and their higher-income, non-Title I schools. Theoretically, this provision ensures that any federal Title I funds are used to provide additional services to low-income students on top of the baseline provided through state and local funds.

However, current law allows school districts to demonstrate comparability through methods that deeply obscure the amount of state and local funds Title I schools actually receive. For example, districts can demonstrate comparability by comparing student-instructional staff ratios between Title I and non-Title I schools or presenting the federal government with a district-wide salary schedule that demonstrates that all teachers with similar qualification earn the same amount of money across the district. These current methods overlook the variation in teacher pay due to years of experience, a significant factor in teacher salaries. In addition, it blurs the distinction between certified teachers and instructional staff in general, which could include teacher aides and other uncertified staff.

Because more experienced, and therefore higher paid teachers tend to work in higher-income schools, low-income, Title I schools employ primarily less experienced, lower-paid teachers. As a result, higher-income schools receive a greater share of state and local funds to pay for their teachers than low-income schools. Without a dramatic overhaul of the comparability provision, higher-income schools will continue to monopolize state and local resources, short changing low-income students and schools.

Unfortunately, the “Blueprint” is short on specifics for teacher comparability. It only says: “Over time, districts will be required to ensure that their high-poverty schools receive state and local funding levels (for personnel and relevant nonpersonnel expenditures) comparable to those received by their low-poverty schools.”

While this statement does seem to suggest that actual monetary expenditures will be required to demonstrate comparability, it does not clarify what expenditures exactly that will include. Without clearly specifying that districts must demonstrate comparability by including variation in teacher pay as a result of years of experience, rather than student-instructional staff ratios or salary schedules, the Obama Administration leaves these details up to Congress and leaves low-income students vulnerable. Past attempts to strengthen the comparability provision have been wildly unpopular with teachers unions and any significant improvements are likely to be hard won. But including a stronger version of comparability in ESEA reauthorization is an important step towards bolstering Title I schools and ensuring that they have the strongest teaching staff possible.

Read this report to learn about the Federal Education Budget Project’s recommendations for strengthening comparability.