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Every student deserves a fully qualified, caring, and enthusiastic teacher

Support Teacher Development

Attaining knowledge and skill in the many areas of teaching practice is not easy and cannot be effectively measured by a single snapshot in time, such as one classroom observation or a single standardized test of teacher knowledge. Rather, teacher learning should be described as occurring along a continuum – from pre-service (university level) through in-service (school level) years. Teacher preparation does not end once teachers are in the classroom, but rather continues with the induction of beginning teachers and with professional development for experienced teachers. Ideally, an investment in teacher quality starts at the earliest stages of a teacher’s career and continues throughout a professional lifetime.

The federal government and states must support and provide incentives for a systemic approach that recognizes, supports, and measures a teacher’s growth and ability along the various stages of a quality continuum – a continuum that includes recruitment, preparation, licensure, hiring, induction, professional development, on-going performance assessment of teaching skills and practice, and advanced certification. (Boe, E.E., and Bobbitt, S.A., Why didst thou go? Predictors of retention, transfer and attrition of special and general education teachers from a national perspective. (Journal of Special Education): 30, 4, 390-411.)

Recruitment, Preparation, and Licensure

Ensuring that new teachers enter the profession with the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities is the most important function of federal and state policies governing teaching. We must recruit talented and committed professionals to the teaching profession, and we must develop a teacher workforce that reflects the diversity of the student population and nation as a whole. Across the country, teachers are prepared in more than 1,300 large and small, public and private colleges and universities, as well as through alternative programs offered by districts and states. Program designs and teacher preparation vary widely.

All teacher preparation programs, including alternative routes, should be accredited based on high standards set by the profession. Such programs should be designed to ensure that new teachers attain the pedagogical and professional knowledge and skills needed to teach independently and collaboratively and to prepare all students to be contributing members of society able to meet the demands of the 21st century workplace.

NEA believes that all pipelines into the profession must be equal in rigor and that every person licensed as a professional teacher in a given state must meet identical standards and measures. NEA also supports a single, national system of professional accreditation for teacher preparation programs, under the auspices of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.

Regardless of the avenue through which someone enters the profession, teacher preparation should include certain core elements.

• A bachelor’s degree that includes a liberal arts curriculum to ensure adequate basic skills in reading, writing, and computation.
• Preparation and demonstrated subject matter knowledge in one’s core teaching area, including an academic major in the same teaching area.
• Preparation and demonstrated professional and pedagogical skills, knowledge, and abilities.
• Supervised clinical practice provided via an internship, student teaching, or a mentoring program.
• Access to a new teacher induction program that includes mentoring from a qualified teacher as well as support and mentoring from university faculty, school administrators, and peers.
• Full professional licensure, granted only after demonstrating effective classroom practice as a teacher of record.

To assure professional preparation and licensing of beginning teachers, NEA supports:

• Allowing multiple pathways for entrance to the teaching profession and for attaining full licensure.
• Requiring every teacher preparation program to complete a single national accrediting process.
• The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) is the proven leader in teacher education accreditation and should be the sole accrediting body.
• Giving independent, teacher-led standards boards authority over developing state preparation and licensure standards for all teachers.
• Closing federal and state loopholes that allow unlicensed or unprepared teachers into classrooms. Rejecting testing-only approaches to licensure that allow for “trial-and-error” teachers to enter the classroom without demonstrating they possess the necessary teaching knowledge and skill.

New Teacher Induction and Support

No period is as important to a teacher’s career as the first few years of teaching. These initial years set the professional norms, attitudes, and standards that will guide practice over the course of a career.

More comprehensive and better quality induction and mentoring programs for new teachers will help slow the revolving door of teacher turnover. Effective programs are tailored specifically to individual needs and the school, school district, and state circumstances. The highest quality induction programs articulate standards, professional norms, and expectations for teacher knowledge and skill. High expectations, knowledge of how to create learning experiences that meet the needs of diverse learners, and a firm belief in the power of the classroom teacher to affect student learning must be at the heart of every induction program.

Supporting new teachers is complex and demanding work, and having qualified, experienced teacher mentors is the most important feature of any high quality induction program. NEA recommends that the federal government promote and provide financial support for exemplary models of new teacher induction that:

• Institute comprehensive systems of support for at least the first two years of teaching, with new teachers working under the guidance of experienced and accomplished teacher mentors.
• Provide new teachers with reduced course loads or less demanding school assignments that permit them to participate in organized professional development, induction activities, and planning during the school day.
• Regularly assess new teachers’ classroom performance and base their professional learning directly on assessment results.
• Increase training, accountability, and support for school administrators, particularly in schools or districts with high teacher turnover.
• Create incentive grants to districts to develop peer assistance programs that focus on the improvement of staff knowledge and skills.
  

Professional Development and Continuous Growth

Given the complexity of teaching and learning, high quality professional development is necessary to ensure that all teachers are able to meet the needs of diverse student populations, effectively use data to guide reform, engage parents, and become active agents in their own professional growth.

Schools and districts need to focus on providing high quality professional development that will have the greatest impact on student learning. Professional development that incorporates active learning and involves participation of teachers from the same grade level, subject, or school leads to increased effectiveness. Teacher networks and study groups tend to produce greater effects on teaching than workshops or conferences.

School leaders must create formal and informal opportunities for teachers to influence, select, design, and create their own professional development opportunities. When teachers assume responsibility for their own professional development, it is more likely to be directly linked to their needs, their students’ needs, and their school district’s curriculum and instructional and strategies.

Another factor important to quality teaching is quality instructional leadership for school principals and other administrators.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

National Board Certification is among the most powerful and transformative professional development experiences available to teachers. The credential, offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), was established in 1987 with the help of NEA and other leading education organizations.

Teachers who participate in National Board Certification must provide evidence of how their teaching meets rigorous national standards through assessments that require analysis and reflection of how their teaching impacts student learning. There are now 74,000 National Board Certified teachers across the U.S. Far more are needed. Federal policy can encourage more teachers to pursue National Board Certification, and such policies and investments are justified by recent research evidence on the impact of National Board Certified teachers on student achievement. The National Research Council confirmed that students taught by National Board Certified teachers make larger gains on achievement tests than those teachers who have not earned this credential.

Many states and school districts provide financial incentives, resources, and support to encourage teachers to earn National Board Certification. These incentives must be significant in order to attract the best qualified teachers to the schools with the greatest needs. Washington State recently enacted legislation to provide $5,000 stipends to National Board Certified Teachers and another $5,000 for those who teach in hard-to-staff schools.

Revise the "Highly Qualified" Standard

Low-income and minority students are disproportionately taughtby underqualified teachers, including teachers who are teaching out of field,inexperienced, or fail to meet their state’s teacher licensing and certification standards. Recognizing the data on the importance of good teaching is what prompted Congress and the Administration to take steps to improve the teaching force.

Under the teacher quality provisions of NCLB, states must ensure that all teachers of core academic subjects are highly qualified. The law defines a “highly qualified teacher” as at least having a bachelor’s degree, demonstrating content knowledge in the subjects he or she is teaching, and meeting state certification and licensure requirements.

The law also requires states to adopt minimum standards for who can be considered a highly qualified teacher, measure the extent to which schools in the state provide such teachers to all students, and adopt goals and plans to ensure that all students are taught by qualified teachers. In addition, the law calls on states to publicly report their plans and their progress on teacher quality.

We support ensuring that all teachers and paraprofessionals have the appropriate training and experience to be effective in their jobs. And we support changes in the federal “highly qualified” provisions that would recognize the unique nature of some teaching positions.

Offer More Support for hard-to-staff Schools

Hard-to-staff schools are those that have difficulty in finding and retaining qualified, effective teachers. Many are high-poverty, inner-city, or rural schools that offer lower salaries and inferior working conditions. These districts frequently lack the supports teachers need to be effective in their jobs, and they frequently have high turnover. Such schools often have large numbers of teachers who are inexperienced, provisionally licensed, or teaching out of field. As a result, these schools have great difficulty maintaining stability and developing a strong organizational culture that supports learning.

In a two-year study, the Center for Teaching Quality – with support from NEA and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards – worked with more than 2,000 National Board Certified Teachers who examined teacher recruitment and retention research and participated in structured dialogues with leading policymakers from their states.

The report entitled, “Recruiting and Retaining Quality Teachers for High-Needs Schools: Insights from NBCT Summits and Other Policy Initiatives,” found that teachers who are better trained, more experienced, and licensed in the subjects they teach are more likely to be teaching in more affluent schools, serving more academically advantaged students.  The same is true for teachers who generate higher student test scores as well as those who earn National Board Certification.

From the NBCT Summits, some key factors were uncovered in recruiting and retaining highly qualified and experienced teachers in hard-to-staff schools:

• Recruitment incentive must include nonfinancial incentives, such as supportive principals, freedom to use professional judgment, and the ability to work with like-minded and similarly skilled colleagues.
• Teachers need preparation specific to the challenges of high needs schools. Many times teachers do not have the knowledge of community and the culturally relevant pedagogy that enable them to teach effectively and to work well with their students and colleagues.
• Attracting and retaining qualified teachers and education support professionals requires having
• Instructional leaders who are responsive to the needs of all teachers and students. Effective principals have an inclusive, facilitative orientation. They provide the broad outline for reform within their schools and invite parents, teachers, and other school staff to help fill in the details. They set high academic standards, encourage teachers to try new approaches, visit classrooms, and show an understanding of how children learn.
  

Pay Educators a Professional Wage

NEA supports a wide range of innovative compensation systems,but decisions on the specifics of compensation systems should be decided at the local level through collective bargaining between teachers and their school employers. Any alternatives should be closely monitored to determine whether they are producing the desired effects. To date, there is no research that performance-based pay or merit pay systems that base teacher compensation on their student’s test scores produce better student outcomes or encourage people to work better or smarter.

Every state and school district has built structures that reward knowledge and experience, the two most significant factors in teacher quality. The single salary schedule was designed to promote stability, continuity, and predictability both for employees and employers. Any alternative compensation should also advance these goals.

Before we try experiments, we must address base compensation. Over the decade from 1997-98 to 2007-08, in constant dollars, average salaries for public schoolteachers declined 1 percent while inflation increased 31.4 percent.  (NEA Rankings and Estimates). 

Compensation systems must be consistent with the demands and expectations of a respected profession. They must encourage student learning through improved teacher practice. Professional salary and benefits for public education employees are fundamental to achieving the goal of a qualified teacher in every classroom. Who will be lured into a profession with wages that start low and fail to keep pace with comparable careers?

NEA supports enhancing the traditional salary system to address local needs through the bargaining process, taking into account National Board Certification, for example, or incentives to teachers to become mentor teachers. A $40,000 minimum salary must be provided to all teachers in every school. While teacher compensation is primarily a state and local government responsibility, Congress can express support for this minimum salary in the ESEA reauthorization.

NEA believes that compensation systems should encourage the factors that make a difference in teaching and learning – such as skills, knowledge, and experience. We also support enhancing the single salary schedule, by forgiving student loan debt or providing housing allowances or tax credits.

NEA state affiliates have worked to develop a tiered licensure and compensation systems in New Mexico and schoolwide bonuses for meeting state goals in Arizona and North Carolina. Many local affiliates have negotiated contracts with enhancements and incentives for successful student and school outcomes. Two promising models are the contracts negotiated between our affiliates and school boards in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Helena, Montana.

In Manitowoc, a 2006 study,“Alternative Teacher Compensation In Manitowoc, Wisconsin: Six Years Later,” said the new system was “designed to encourage and reward the acquisition of specific new teacher skills and knowledge that the parties believed would result in enhanced student achievement,” and found that in “the six years since the completion of that agreement, the measurable impact on teacher behavior and student achievement has been significant.”

The Helena plan – the Professional Compensation Alternative Plan (PCAP) – was implemented in 2004. PCAP involves a three-legged approach to teacher compensation, including career development and education, professional service, and evaluation. It encourages creativity and challenges educators to try new ideas to enhance student achievement.

Any alternative compensation system should advance the school’s mission. That is why the design is so important. Do we want school staff to be more competitive or collaborative? Do we want to help all teachers set and meet goals, or is the purpose of a plan to offer a golden carrot and an economic stick? The most proven way to tailor systems that meet district goals and culture is through bargained agreements with the local association.

We support additional pay for teachers who acquire new knowledge and skills related to their school’s missions or their individual assignment. Such systems link compensation with school needs, school goals, and are fair and available to all teachers. We also support additional pay for an extended school day or school year.

We call on the federal government to show strong leadership in support of teaching as a desired and complex field of study and practice. Compensation should be competitive with other professions requiring similar levels of education and skill. Working conditions should be conducive to teaching and learning. Teachers and other education employees should have a voice in the design and implementation of new approaches, and experiments should be based on research and focused on achieving overall school goals. Inventive compensation designs can never make up for inadequate base salaries, limited health care coverage, and poor retirement systems.

Repeal Unfair Provisions of Social Security Act

An area of enormous significance for many active and retired education employees are the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provisions (WEP) of the Social Security Act that deny 300,000 Americans an average of $3,600 a year, a punishment for working for the public good. It makes no sense.

The GPO provisions reduce the Social Security dependent/survivor benefit for those who receive a public pension as an employee of a state or locality. The burden of this “offset” is greatest on women who have spent most of their lives raising families and who work outside the home for only a short period of time.

WEP falls heavily on low-wage state or local government employees who work in jobs that are not covered by Social Security. Affected employees lose a significant share of their Social Security benefits, and the Windfall Elimination Provisions discourage many people from entering the teaching profession after they have worked in a job that is covered by Social Security.

Association Efforts to Promote Teacher Quality

Teacher Working Conditions Initiative: NEA is collaborating with the New Teacher Center (NTC), University of California Santa Cruz, on a working conditions survey of districts and schools. The survey, undertaken by a number of states, offers insights into teachers’ perspectives on working conditions, and policymakers and others are using the data to address the unique concerns of the state or district’s own teaching force. The NTC survey results confirm that school working conditions – issues such as time, teacher empowerment, professional development, leadership, and facilities and resources – are critical to increasing student achievement and retaining teachers. States that have completed the survey and are using the data for policy and reform purposes include North Carolina, Maine, Kansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Clark County, Nevada, and Fairfax County, Virginia

C.A.R.E. – Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps: NEA’s Culture, Abilities, Resilience, and Effort(C.A.R.E.) guide and training focuses on closing the gaps in student achievement by examining and utilizing research on working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. The guide examines research on cultural, language, and economic differences, as well as unrecognized and undeveloped abilities, resilience, effort, and motivation. C.A.R.E. helps translates research into instructional practices and other strategies that engender high levels of student learning.

Ensuring Quality Teacher Preparation: NEA helps assure that prospective teachers have preparation experiences that are standards-based and rigorously evaluated through its work in accrediting more than 700 teacher preparation institutes through the National Council on the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). More than 200 teachers have been involved in the assessments.

Supporting Accomplished Teachers: Through its network of state and local affiliates, NEA has helped thousands of teachers who have chosen to pursue certification through the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. Recently, NEA has conducted research and developed support strategies designed to ensure that National Board Certified Teachers represent the diversity of the teaching population.

Attracting Talented Teachers to High-Needs Schools: NEA sponsored six National Board Certified Teacher Policy Summits (Washington, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi) culminating in a National Strategy Forum designed to learn directly from accomplished teachers what it will take to recruit and retain them to high-needs schools. Summits have resulted in policy and legislation to support quality teaching and positive teacher working conditions.

Diversifying the Teacher Workforce: NEA is working with the Tom Joyner Foundation to provide support to minorities pursuing state teacher licensure. NEA also maintains an active partnership with the Education Testing Service to conduct research, develop curriculum, and provide intervention services to prospective teachers of color in order to help them meet high standards for teacher licensure.

Advocating High Standards for Teacher Licensure: NEA works in partnership with its state affiliates and national partners, such as the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, to promote and strengthen state licensure processes that ensure every teacher has the necessary preparation, knowledge, and skill before being granted a license to teach.

Providing Quality Professional Learning and Development: Through the new NEA Academy, NEA is developing or brokering high quality online professional development programs and products for teachers throughout the country.

NEA’s Salary Campaign: Quality teachers are the key to providing great public schools for every student. In order to attract and retain accomplished teachers, districts must pay them a professional level salary. A $40,000 minimum salary must be provided to all teachers in every school. While teacher compensation is primarily a state and local government responsibility, Congress can express support for this minimum salary in the ESEA reauthorization. While the $40,000 minimum is at the heart of NEA’s salary campaign, NEA also supports other key compensation elements such as designing compensation systems that encourage the factors that make a difference in teaching and learning – such as skills, knowledge, experience, and National Board Certification. NEA also supports creative ideas to enhance the single salary schedule such as forgiving student loan debt and providing housing allowances or tax credits.