Education Stakeholders Study State Policy and Collective Bargaining Language

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Report highlights need for collaborative professional development

A new report, "Advancing High-Quality Professional Learning Through Collective Bargaining and State Policy," calls for more collaboration and a common set of standards for developing policy on professional development for teachers. The study is the result of a three-year partnership between the National Staff Development Council (NSDC), National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). This report explores how states and districts can support high-quality professional learning opportunities for educators.

Professional development—or professional learning—refers to activities teachers undertake to enhance professional knowledge and skills or career opportunities, with the goal of improving student learning.

The report contains recommendations and examples of legislation, regulations, administrative guidelines, and collective bargaining language in 12 policy areas. Members of the task force who worked on the report hope it will be used to guide the development of collective bargaining agreements, memorandums of understanding, and state policies that strengthen professional development in order to improve teaching and learning.

After examining state policies and local bargaining agreements, the task force drew some broad conclusions:

• There is wide variation in state policies and collective bargaining language pertaining to professional development across states and districts;
• The quality of professional learning for teachers is improved when it is embedded in state policy and collective bargaining; and
• Collaboration among stakeholders at the school, district and state level is needed to create and sustain policies that promote high-quality professional development for teachers.

"The project is a landmark collaboration among school, district and state stakeholders to develop policy recommendations about professional development for effective teaching and student success," said Stephanie Hirsh, NSDC's executive director. "The four national organizations formed a productive partnership that serves as a model for how state and local stakeholders can join forces to create and promote collective bargaining agreements and policies to strengthen and enhance the quality of teaching and student 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 of their own professional growth," said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. "This report demonstrates that professional development is most effective when it is incorporated into collective bargaining agreements and policies that drive the day-to-day work of teachers."

Six states were represented on the task force: Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.

About National Staff Development Council

The goal of the National Staff Development Council is to ensure that every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves. NSDC is the only education association working solely to increase student achievement through more effective professional development.

About National Education Association

The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing 3.2 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers.

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Parents Grade Their Local Schools on Basis of Student Achievement Not Racial Composition of School

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Harvard study debunks popular belief that low-income, minority and less-educated parents are not as informed about school quality

A Harvard University study released today provides the first evidence from a nationally representative sample of Americans that the public, and especially parents, grade their local schools on the basis of student achievement and not on the percentage of students at the school who are African American or Hispanic. The findings, available here, also reveal that poor, minority and less educated citizens are just as informed about school quality as the public as a whole. However, both parents and the general public give lower grades to schools with a high percentage of students from poor families.

Harvard’s Matthew Chingos, Michael Henderson and Martin West asked a nationally representative sample of American adults to identify their local elementary and middle schools and to grade them on the “A” to “F” scale traditionally used to evaluate students. The authors then linked the grades given to each school to the school’s characteristics, including its size, the size of classes at the school, the racial and ethnic composition of the students, the percentage of students from poor families, and the percentage of students performing at proficient levels in reading and math on state tests.

The peer-reviewed study, which is featured in the Fall 2010 issue of Education Next, is the first to compare Americans’ subjective ratings of local schools to actual data on student achievement at the same schools. The analysis reveals that citizen ratings of local schools reflect publicly available information on the level of student achievement in the schools.

“Parents care most about whether students at their local school are performing well. While they also rate schools with fewer poor students more highly, we found no signs that the grades parents gave their school is influenced by its racial or ethnic composition,” observed Martin West, one of the study’s authors.

The researchers found that citizens who are less educated, of lower income, or minority are no less able than better-educated, higher-income, or white citizens to evaluate the schools on the basis of student achievement. As Matthew Chingos explained, “We found no evidence that traditionally disadvantaged groups are less informed about student achievement when rating their local schools.”

In light of the ongoing push to establish common academic standards across states, the authors examined data from the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress to see whether citizen ratings of school quality are responsive to the level of student performance relative to the nation as a whole or only relative to other schools within the same state. They found no evidence that citizens or parents have information about school quality beyond the information provided by state testing systems. In other words, citizens appear to be evaluating schools based on local comparisons or on information provided by their state testing system with out taking into account the relative rigor of state standards.

The study uses data from a 2009 survey of parents and other adults conducted by Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. The survey was administered to a nationally representative sample of 3,251 American adults in February and March of 2009. Of the elementary and middle schools the survey respondents rated, 14 percent received a grade of “A,” 41 percent received a “B” grade, while 36 percent received a “C.” Seven percent were given a “D” and 2 percent an “F.” These subjective ratings were compared with data on actual school quality as measured by the percentage of students in each school who achieved “proficiency” in math and reading on states’ accountability exams during the 2007-08 school year.

The authors employed geo-coding techniques to identify the closest five elementary and middle schools to a nationally representative sample of American adults. After first selecting the specific schools they considered to be their local elementary and middle school, survey respondents were asked to grade those schools. The study found that if a school had 25 percent more students performing at a proficient level in math and reading, the school was rated a half grade higher by parents.

The analysis also incorporates data from the National Center for Education Statistics on the racial/ethnic composition of each school, the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (an indicator of family poverty), the average number of students in each grade (a measure of school size), and the school’s pupil-teacher ratio (an measure of class size) in the 2007-08 school year.

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WWC Reviews Research on Adolescent Literacy Interventions

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Methods designed to improve adolescent literacy are the focus of three new WWC Intervention Reports in the topic area of Adolescent Literacy. The reports examine the research on Reading Mastery, Accelerated Reader™, and Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction.

Reading Mastery is for students in grades K–6 and can be used as a stand-alone program, a supplemental program, or as an intervention for struggling readers. Of the 175 studies reviewed by the WWC on Reading Mastery for adolescent learners, one study, a randomized controlled trial, meets WWC evidence standards. A second study, a quasi-experimental design, meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. These two studies included 361 fourth and fifth grade students who attended schools in the midwestern and northwestern United States. Based on these studies, the WWC found Reading Mastery to have potentially positive effects on reading fluency. It had no discernible effects on comprehension for adolescent learners. Read the full WWC report now at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/adolescent_literacy/reading_mastery/

The Accelerated Reader™ guided reading intervention uses reading practice and computerized quizzes to supplement regular K–12 reading instruction. The WWC reviewed 318 studies on Accelerated Reader™. One study, a randomized controlled trial, meets WWC evidence standards. A second study, a quasi-experimental design, meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. The two studies include 2,877 students in grades 4 to 8 in Oregon and Texas. Based on these studies, the WWC found the Accelerated Reader™ to have no discernible effects on reading fluency or comprehension for adolescent learners. Read the full WWC report now at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/adolescent_literacy/accel_read/

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) is a program that integrates reading and science in an effort to improve reading comprehension and increase reading engagement among students in grades 3 to 9. The WWC reviewed 48 studies on Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction for adolescent learners. None meet WWC evidence standards and the WWC is unable to draw any research-based conclusions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction. Read the full WWC report now at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/adolescent_literacy/cori/

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