The policies that states use to govern the teaching profession are outdated, both too inflexible and not rigorous enough, and often privilege the interests of teachers over those of students, an encyclopedic released today concludes.
The review grades all 50 states and the District of Columbia in six areas of policy, for a total of more than 1,300 grades, but finds no state worthy of more than two B鈥檚. Most earned a mix of C鈥檚, D鈥檚, and F鈥檚.
Tied for best-performing states were Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Texas, but the reviewers still considered them 鈥渨eak.鈥 Alaska and Maine were tied for worst, followed by Montana, Nebraska, Hawaii, and Oregon.
Three years in the making, the report is the work of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington advocacy and research organization that has championed higher standards for teachers, especially as determined by test scores and linked to individual rewards. The group intends to update annually its State Teacher Policy Yearbook, which includes an extensive review of each state鈥檚 policies, including recommendations for improvement.
Education Week鈥檚 annual report covers some of the same teacher-policy ground.
Among the conclusions drawn in the report:
鈥 Only 17 states require teacher-preparation programs to make basic-skills testing a condition of admission, and only three require teachers to pass a test of minimal professional knowledge before entering a classroom. Twenty states give teachers up to three years to pass a professional-competency test.
鈥 Just 14 states require annual evaluations of teachers, and only four specify that classroom effectiveness should be the preponderent criterion.
鈥 Only six states offer 鈥済enuine鈥 alternative routes into the profession for those already holding a bachelor鈥檚 degree, meaning standards for entry are higher than for traditional programs, requirements are individualized, and the distribution of work is manageable for someone already in the classroom.
鈥 Just 18 states collect 鈥渕eaningful鈥 numerical data on how well the graduates of teacher-preparation programs do, such as their students鈥 test scores. The lack of such data, the authors say, limits states鈥 ability to hold programs accountable.
鈥 Twenty-three states attach 鈥渁 lot of strings鈥 before giving an out-of-state teacher an equivalent license.
The review is particularly hard on policies regarding special education teachers. Those policies, it contends, 鈥渞eflect a view that [such] teachers are little more than behavior managers and do not have to deliver actual instruction to children.鈥 In general, the report says, states continue to neglect many teachers鈥 subject-matter preparation, despite progress made on that front because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The review also faults states for doing little to alleviate the shortage of mathematics and science teachers, which often results in shortchanging the neediest children of teachers qualified in those fields. For instance, according to the report, just over half the states鈥28鈥攕upport paying teachers in shortage areas more.
Kate Walsh, the president of NCTQ, acknowledged that the report does not address the actual quality of teachers in a state, since many factors beyond policy influence that. 鈥淏ut state policy can make good teachers better and poor teachers abysmal,鈥 she argued.
Noting that state education departments have had several chances to see and respond to the reviews, she said she hoped the yearbook would lead to further collaboration with the states. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not saying that if states just do the 27 things we say, everything will be perfect,鈥 Ms. Walsh added. 鈥淲e want a conversation. We鈥檝e put forward some fairly good models of how those [policy] reforms should occur.鈥
Moving the Field Backwards?
The yearbook has already begun to face sharp criticism, however, in part because the grades and recommendations are predicated on those models. The goals they are intended to meet were set with the help of a 35-plus-member advisory group that includes former school superintendents, teachers, education business leaders, and state education officials, among others. Yet most of the panel, including economist Eric A. Hanushek and Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp, have struck off in directions different from those trod by university-based teacher education programs or the teachers鈥 unions.
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, for example, fired off a two-page rebuttal this week, arguing that the NCTQ鈥檚 recommendation to keep professional accreditation and state approval of teacher-preparation programs separate 鈥渨ould move teaching backward three decades. 鈥 Professional accreditation has been a substitute for state approval in most professions for the past 50 to 100 years,鈥 the statement from the Washington-based accrediting body said.
C. Emily Feistritzer, the president of the National Center for Alternative Certification, also in Washington, questioned the value of toting up facts about such programs across the nation, in part because they are ever-changing and in part because she believes the existing setup is working. 鈥淲e really do have a truly market-driven phenomenon, and 鈥 if the programs don鈥檛 meet the needs of candidates and of the districts who need them, then they are dead,鈥 she contended.
Alaska鈥檚 state schools chief responded with surprise to the news that his state had gotten a D from the NCTQ in teacher licensure. 鈥淲e鈥檙e probably more innovative than the vast majority of states on teacher licensure, and 鈥 we鈥檙e one of the few to require that pedagogy is at the same level as content knowledge,鈥 Roger Sampson said about the system that was put in place starting in 2005-06. It requires teachers to submit videotapes of their teaching to earn passage from the beginning level of licensure to the 鈥減rofessional鈥 level.
Mr. Sampson, who will take over this September as the president of the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, which advises state officials on matters of education policy, wondered whether the yearbook鈥檚 facts were up to date. In any case, he said, in the next year or two, his state should go from the current F on 鈥渟tate approval of teacher-preparation programs鈥 to a higher grade because Alaska education leaders are working on an approval process that emphasizes the performance of aspiring teachers.
Said Mr. Sampson, 鈥淚鈥檓 not confident that those things [the NCTQ] picked out [to grade the states on] are the causes of the output鈥 the authors of the report are seeking.
