AFT releases new policy report: Smart Testing, Let's Get It Right

This week, the American Federation of Teachers hosted a forum that featured the presentation and discussion of a paper authored by education writer and consultant Paul Barton. The paper, “Smart Testing: Let’s Get it Right: How assessment-savvy states have become since NCLB?” asserts that only 52 percent of states’ tests are aligned to strong standards, allowing some to conclude that states are doing a better job in developing content standards than in using them to drive assessment. As a result, testing that is not aligned with strong standards drives many accountability systems. This “drift into test-based accountability” is troubling to many educators.

Two years ago, the NCTE Executive Committee adopted Framing Statements on Assessment that describe the Council's guiding principles on assessment. Further, NCTE has endorsed a Joint Organizational Statement on the No Child Left Behind Act that emphasizes the need for the law to "to shift from applying sanctions for failing to raise test scores to holding states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student achievement."

What assessment practices do you value? Does the current policy emphasis on accountability make it easier, or more difficult, for you to engage in the kinds of assessment practices you believe work best?

Met Life Survey of the American School Teacher, 2006: Expectations and Experiences

On Thursday, Met Life released their annual survey describing attitudes and experiences of American teachers. In many years, this annual study challenges widely-held perceptions of teachers and our work in the classroom. This year was no exception. It points out that professional respect is a critical component of teacher satisfaction, and is even more important to experienced teachers than early-career colleagues. A few highlights:

• Being treated as a professional by the community is a key driver of teacher satisfaction.
  Dissatisfied teachers are more than twice as likely as satisfied teachers to feel that they are not treated as a professional by the community (36% vs. 15%).
• One-quarter of teachers (27%) say it is likely they will leave the profession in the next five years.
• Teachers who plan to leave are more likely than others to report worse experiences than
  expected with the professional prestige of teaching (44% vs. 34%), salary and benefits (40% vs. 30%) and control over their own work (24% vs. 13%).

--BUT--our problems with teacher retention are more significant with long-term professionals than new teachers:

• Teachers with 21 or more years experience are nearly four times as likely as new teachers (less than five years experience) to plan to leave teaching to go into a different occupation (44% vs. 12%).

--AND--in some ways, new teachers are better prepared for meeting challenges posed by issues that have arisen in recent years than their more experienced counter-parts:

• New teachers (less than five years experience) are more likely than their peers with 21 or more years experience to feel prepared to engage families in supporting their children’s education (42% vs. 27%), work with children with varying abilities (42% vs. 30%) and maintain order and discipline (44% vs. 34%).
• New teachers are more likely than their veteran peers to have mentors (82% vs. 16%).
• New teachers’ expectations are more aligned with the realities of teaching. They are less likely to report that the number of special needs students they would work with (34% vs. 44%) and their professional prestige (21% vs. 41%) were worse than they expected upon entering the profession.

To me, this suggests that we cannot neglect the need to provide support, growth, and renewal experiences for experienced teachers. Through innovative teacher education and induction programs, there is evidence that we are making progress in equipping early-career teachers to succeed. Now, we must also take seriously the challenge of fighting burn-out, and nurturing the talents and capacity of veteran teachers who have so much to offer the next generation of students. What did you find interesting in the survey results?

The NCTE Legislative Platform

Establishment of an NCTE DC-area office last summer was only a first step towards expanding our organization’s influence on policies shaping literacy education. Over the past few months, the executive committee has taken a vital next step by carefully researching pending legislation, hosting hearings with key congressional aides, drafting, and approving a legislative platform. The platform will guide on-going work at the national and local levels to inform legislators regarding measures that can truly support, not inhibit, high quality teaching and student learning.

Building the Platform

Last April, a group of NCTE officers and staff leaders met with the government relations staff of the American Association of School Administrators, widely recognized as one of the most effective education groups in Washington DC. Bruce Hunter, their Director of Government Relations, described the process that they use to establish an annual legislative agenda. It involved inviting AASA executive committee members to a series of briefings and working sessions in Washington DC each winter to gather information, focus on the most critical issues to AASA members, and establish core positions for the organization. They invited experts and legislators from both parties to brief them, took several days to analyze and debate positions, then drafted a document that established positions on matters in which their members had both expertise and concern. Subsequently, they developed a field network to offer expert testimony on the issues, and to mobilize their membership to generate communications as needed to inform the legislative process.

After evaluating the AASA experience and practices of other leading education groups, the executive committee appropriated funds for members of the government relations subcommittee and NCTE Officers to come to Washington DC in late January to draft a first-ever NCTE legislative platform. In preparation for the meeting, the NCTE Federal Relations Director (Sandra Gibbs) and our Legislative Consultant (Ellin Nolan) scheduled a series of meetings at the Longworth Building with legislative staffers from the Senate HELP committee and the House Education and the Workforce Committee. They offered a full day of testimony and data about the future of matters like the Higher Education Act, No Child Left Behind Reauthorization, and emerging federal programs relating to high school reform and the American Competitiveness Initiative.

NCTE leaders then spent the better part of the next two days sifting the testimony and information, and drafting a platform document for consideration by the full executive committee in February. Eventually, two documents were passed—a more detailed, technical document for staff to use to advise Congress about specific legislative provisions, and a more thematic document for use with public audiences.

Platform Highlights

The legislative platform incorporates various NCTE resolutions and guidelines, and weaves them into a series of recommendations to Congress. While consistent, progressive themes are found throughout the document, it draws special attention to matters of immediate policy concern at different scholastic levels and in areas where we have greatest expertise (notably, teacher preparation, professional development, and research). Here’s a selection:

• Early learning recommendations call for a full, independent, study of Reading First to evaluate its long term effects and overall effectiveness. A restoration of full funding for Head Start is singled out for federal action.
• General K-12 recommendations focus on decreasing the emphasis on high stakes tests while investing in assessments that advance, not merely measure, student learning. Further exploration of “growth models” that incorporate longer term evaluations of student cohorts is advocated, as is greater support for English language learners, teachers in high-needs schools, and well-informed literacy coaches.
• Teacher preparation recommendations focus on the need for legislation to support teacher learning about subject matter content and pedagogy. It warns federal investment in only a narrow range of research methodologies or programs aligned solely with this research. It calls for full integration of new technologies in teacher preparation, and establishment of program assessments based on consistent, long-term data drawn from students who have completed teacher preparation study, rather than students who have completed other degrees.
• Professional development, and access to it, is a major focus throughout the document. The emphasis in the NCTE Platform is on support for career-long professional development that is designed to meet local challenges. Measures that expand access to mentors and literacy coaches are advocated, as is more funding for programs that promote the integration of technology and that leverage partnerships between universities, school systems, businesses, and non-profit organizations.

Taking Action

To bring our platform and related issues to the attention of key policymakers, two major undertakings are scheduled for April. During the latter half of the month, a series of email invitations to schedule appointments with Congressional Representatives in their home offices will be sent to NCTE member activists. It will include links to our platform, supporting research briefs, and logistical advice on scheduling and making the meeting count. For those who want to meet key office-holders in Washington DC, we are hosting English Language Arts Advocacy Day on April 27. The day will begin with briefing from Congressional Aides, NCTE staff members, and our legislative consultant (Ellin Nolan). In the afternoon, participants will be invited to share their perspectives on literacy education issues through meetings with their Congressional Representatives and Senators.

What’s Next

As we move ahead, members can expect to find more frequent briefings on the Squire Policy Research Office web pages and more frequent calls to action through the emailed action alerts and announcements in the NCTE Inbox. This is a critical period in the history of our organization and a time of opportunity for the larger literacy education community. We have the experience, research base, and energy needed to improve education legislation and learning outcomes in English language arts classrooms. Our challenge today is to develop the grassroots organizational capacity to bring our expertise and carefully-considered messages to policy makers. With the active participation of members at local and national levels, we can resist one-size fits all “solutions” and make a positive difference for teachers, students, and their families.

On Being Members of A Community

Recently, I heard a radio interview with an author who charted the decline of community support for public education. He put together a persuasive case. Americans, the commentator invoked, are more devoted than ever to nurturing the potential of their own children. But the commitment to the children of others, as measured through failed bond referenda, decline in support for public after-school programs, and low approval ratings in polls about public schools, has weakened. The dreary conclusion is that we may be turning into a society of self-seeking clans.

But, when I think about the devoted NCTE members that I am privileged to know, I see the limits of the speaker’s dismal premise. We are a community of thousands of educators who care deeply about every student and child—not just our own. And like any true community, when we see suffering, we respond.

Last week, as the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina wrecked the traditional start of the school year, I received emails from members across the country. What can we do for the teachers, students, and families in the devastated area? Where can we send money, clothing, books, school supplies—anything to restore a semblance of the safety and security required for students to have a chance to learn and succeed?

These were earnest questions for which we had no immediate answers. As we get better information in the weeks ahead, we will be inviting members to help meet the greatest needs of literacy educators and their students in the afflicted areas. And members will respond. But before we do what we can to support the serious business of educating children in great need, we must remember to be hopeful—about the fate of all of our students, our schools, and our professional community.

While the circumstances are very different, the outpouring of energy and goodwill from NCTE members reminds me of the days following the September 11th tragedy. Concerned teachers crafted special lesson plans, sent school supplies, organized class projects—all in an effort to help students think clearly about how their worlds were changing, and take ownership through their writing and other expressive work. Our professional community always responds with concern for what matters most—students, their teachers, their families, and their schools. Perhaps some in our society do neglect community values. NCTE members do not.

NCTE Weighs In on the TEACH Act

Over the next few weeks, members of Congress will be hearing from NCTE about provisions of the Teacher Excellence for All Children Act (TEACH Act) of 2005. The bill was introduced in the House (H.R. 2835) by its author Representative George Miller (D-CA), and in the Senate (S. 1218) by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL). It’s an ambitious piece of legislation that seeks to amend the two most powerful laws influencing education today—the Higher Education Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind). And, in its current state, it has no chance to become law.

So, why bother? Why tie up NCTE resources to improve a bill that almost certainly won’t revolutionize NCLB, access to higher education, or regulation of teacher education programs?

I think it was that wise sage Woody Allen who once said that 80% of success is just showing up. When you look at some of the legislation enacted this decade, it’s easy to see how this old maxim applies in Washington DC. Just this week, an energy bill that had failed in two consecutive Congressional terms suddenly became law. Passage of a bill like No Child Left Behind would have been very unlikely in the mid-1990’s, but by 2001, it was the law of the land (as we know too well!). The policy pendulum will, inevitably, begin to swing the other way. So, we must not only be present, but influential, when opportunities for real reform emerge.

The TEACH Act could be a blueprint for substantive changes in how federal monies can be used to support student achievement, entry into the teaching profession, and lifelong learning across a teaching career. A group of NCTE leaders gathered at a summer meeting of the College Forum to discuss the merits of the TEACH Act, among other matters. They offered suggestions to Anne Gere, Director of the Squire Office for Policy Research in English Language Arts, and Anne backed their points with research culled from recent policy studies. Working with NCTE legislative consultants Ellin Nolan and Lyndsay Pinkus, with Federal Relations Program Officer Sandra Gibbs, and me, Anne pulled together this letter and research summary that will go to Congressional leaders next week.

In the past, this was as much as NCTE could do to "show up" in deliberations about federal policy. But since we opened our Program Office in Alexandria, Virginia in early July, we are now positioned to do much more. In August, program officers Sandra Gibbs (Federal Relations), Paul Bodmer (Higher Education), and Barbara Cambridge (PreK-12 Education) will be arranging meetings with congressional staff to help them understand our positions on the TEACH Act, the Higher Education Act, Striving Readers legislation, and other pending bills. We can all learn from their experiences by monitoring their blogs, and the blog maintained by the NCTE West Office Director, Dale Allender.

You’ll still be hearing from me, too. NCTE will only really begin to show up on the policy radar when we get active at the grassroots. So watch for calls to action, newsletter postings, and e-mailed invitations to join us in helping our professional community begin to steer literacy policy (rather than being run over by it!). Many thanks for doing all that you can to ensure that the knowledge and sensibilities of English language arts teachers shows up in federal policy on literacy education.