Tapping the Potential - Alliance for Excellent Education

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TA P P I N G T H E P O T E N T I A L : R E TA I N I N G A N D D E V E L O P I N G H I G H - Q U A L I T Y N E W T E A C H E R Sdramatic inequality in high-need schoolsby making a concentrated effort to developevery beginning teacher into a highqualityprofessional.Incentives for ParticipationIn order to make induction part of theschool culture rather than just an extraprogram, quality providers offer incentivesfor teachers and school leaders to participatein induction activities. Some componentsof induction, like mentor trainingor professional development seminars,may be voluntary, require extra workbefore the year begins, or extend beyondthe regular paid workday. Incentives likecompensation, career advancement, orcertification requirements can boost attendancefor voluntary programs and easethe burden of weekend work.Mentors and teacher leaders often supportseveral new teachers in addition toteaching their own students. Compensatingthem with stipends or extra professionaldevelopment funds recognizes and encourageshigher levels of professional commitment.Financial incentives increase the likelihoodthat veteran teachers will participatein induction. New teachers in voluntaryprograms may also need compensation,especially if they are asked to attend eventsoutside the paid workday.Using veteran teachers as inductionleaders—mentors, coaches, programofficers, observers, and evaluators—createsopportunities to advance in the professionthat teachers have traditionallynot had. These are what many call“career ladders” or “differentiatedroles,” and they encourage teachers todevelop their skills to greater degrees,especially when financial incentives,Incentives likecompensation, careeradvancement, orcertification requirementscan boost attendance forvoluntary programs andease the burden ofweekend work.Arkansas’s Pathwise ModelBeginning Arkansas teachers are given an initial teacher license valid for one to three years, during which they are considered to be in atime of induction. Through induction the state supports the practice and professional growth of new teachers. When novices, with their mentors,decide that their teaching meets set requirements, a Praxis III assessment, the capstone of the induction experience, is scheduled. ThePraxis III, developed by the Educational Testing Service, is designed to assess the skills of new teachers in their own classroom settings. Theexam includes written descriptions of the class and subject matter, direct observation of classroom practice by a trained and certified assessor,and interviews structured around the observation. Upon successful completion of the performance assessment, Arkansas issues a standardlicense to the newly inducted teacher for continued teaching in the state. 97For more information about Arkansas’s Pathwise Model, see http://arkedu.state.ar.us/pdf/ADE%20HANDBOOK.pdf.The Career in Teaching PlanThe Career in Teaching (CIT) Plan in Rochester, New York, illustrates how induction enables veteran teachers to take on leadership roles andadvance in the profession. Rochester’s program includes four stages in a teacher’s career: intern, resident teacher, professional teacher, and leadteacher. Lead teachers primarily serve as supervisory mentors for new teachers, and they are compensated with larger salaries. Negotiated in 1987between the Rochester Teachers Association and the Rochester City School District, CIT has successfully shown to improve and retain its teachers. 98For more information about the Career in Teaching Plan, see http://www.rochesterteachers.com/contract/52cit.htm.25
A L L I A N C E F O R E X C E L L E N T E D U C AT I O NAt its best, inductionaddresses the specific,practical concerns ofclassroom teachers, suchas how to adapt teachingmethods for Englishlanguagelearners, how toensure that students meetachievement benchmarks,and how to overcomestudents’ barriers tolearning.reduced workloads, or certificationrequirements are attached to them.Researchers at Harvard University havefound that veteran teachers in schoolswith well-developed induction programsvalue their new roles. Career ladders recognizetheir work, improve their teachingpractice, stimulate them intellectually,and ward off boredom and burnout.Schools with differentiated roles also benefitby identifying and nurturing strongteacher leaders who can readily supportstruggling teachers. 99Finally, certification or licensurerequirements are strong, though blunt,incentives to participate in induction.Licensure incentives work best wheninduction pairs assessment and supporttogether to improve teacher quality. Forexample, several states now usePerformance-Based Licensing (PBL) ortwo-tiered licensing measures. In PBL programs,states issue novice teachers a provisionallicense to teach in the inductionperiod. During induction states provideteachers supports that prepare them topass a final licensing evaluation. At theend of induction, beginning teachers mustpass a performance-based exam in orderto continue licensed teaching in the state.Alignment with ClassroomNeeds and Professional GoalsRegardless of incentives and licensurerequirements, teachers will not fully ownthe induction process if they cannot putwhat they learn to use in their own classrooms.At its best, induction addresses thespecific, practical concerns of classroomteachers, such as how to adapt teachingmethods for English-language learners,how to ensure that students meet achievementbenchmarks, and how to overcomestudents’ barriers to learning.Comprehensive induction also aligns itscomponents with teachers’ professionalgoals, like learning to work effectively withparents. Through induction, teachersform a vision of good teaching by continuallyreflecting on how their practice fitsThe University of VirginiaThrough a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the University of Virginia (UVA) has pledged to induct every beginning teacherin the two school districts surrounding its campus, regardless of where they were trained. During three days of summer training,staff from UVAand the two districts will prepare mentors to align their induction work with the Virginia Standards of Teaching and basic classroom needs.Because districts have further tailored state standards to their own needs, mentors will be prepared to address those standards as well.The primarygoal of mentors’ work is that new teachers will always make decisions in the classroom using data to decide what works—what leads tostudent improvement and what helps teachers meet state and district standards.Using formative assessments based on the New Teacher Center at the University of California at Santa Cruz model, mentors will begin theirwork with new teachers focusing on classroom management and student behavior, since these concerns are often foremost on the mind of newteachers. Eventually mentors will use formative assessments, along with state standards, to assess a teacher’s instructional and assessment practiceand make plans for improvement. For example, every Virginia teacher must know their individual students and be able to adapt teachingmethods to students with different abilities. Using the state standard as a goal, a mentor would then help the novice teacher identify differenttypes of students, look at their achievement data, and determine how the novice can better adapt his or her teaching to those students’ needs.For more information about the University of Virginia initiative, see http://www.virginia.edu/provost/tneuva/.26
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