Momentum for early literacy reform continues in Jefferson City, as House Bill (HB) 2872 recently passed out of committee.

While this version removed several provisions from the original bill, it retains the core components necessary to meaningfully improve early reading outcomes. As HB 2872 continues to move through the legislative process, it is critical to preserve two elements.

#1. A Clear, Firm, and Objective Third-Grade Retention Policy

Under HB 2872, a student who scores at the lowest level on a state-approved Missouri reading screener will be retained unless the student completes a summer reading program and scores above the lowest level on a retest opportunity, or qualifies for a good-cause exemption. Good-cause exemptions apply only to students with limited English proficiency, disabilities, or students who have already been retained.

Having a firm third-grade retention policy is important. An analysis of multiple states’ literacy policies found no consistent evidence that reading scores increase in states without a retention component. Critically, the value of the retention component is not just for students who are retained—it is also for all the students who are not retained because their reading scores improve. In most states with retention policies, the retention rate ends up being low; it is the threat of retention, more than retention itself, that spurs widespread literacy gains.

A number of states—Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, Florida, and Tennessee—use a rule-based retention policy. These states have seen significant gains in reading, and all have higher test scores than Missouri.

Without a rule-based policy, teachers and parents talk themselves into promotions that are ultimately to the detriment of children. It feels mean to hold a child back. But it is no kindness to promote a child from the third to fourth grade if the child cannot read. It is not setting the child up for success.

HB 2872 requires that parents be notified if their child is identified as having a reading deficiency at any time during grades 1–3. This level of transparency can help parents be part of the solution for their children.

Retention can be a difficult experience, but research shows it is much easier on young children; it is primarily students in later grades who are negatively impacted when retained. Younger students who are retained under these types of policies benefit tremendously in terms of on-grade academic achievement, even years after retention.

#2. Accountability for Teacher Preparation Programs

It is also critical to align the training in teacher-preparation programs with evidence-based reading instruction. In 2023, the National Council on Teacher Quality evaluated teacher-preparation programs nationwide and awarded nearly half of Missouri’s participating institutions with an “F” for their coverage of scientifically based reading instruction.

HB 2872 allows the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to bring teacher preparation programs into alignment with the science of reading for the benefit of our students. Specifically, it allows DESE to review teacher preparation programs for compliance with evidence-based reading instruction and prohibit noncompliant programs from certifying new teachers.

The new version of HB 2872 that emerged from committee has changed in the following ways. The new bill:

• Has no explicit ban of the use of three-cueing (a reading method relying more on cues, guessing, and memorization rather than systematic phonics) in K-12 classrooms.
• Eliminates the proposed $500 incentive to districts for students who remediate a substantial reading deficiency.
• Redefines the Missouri Reading Screener to include multiple DESE-approved assessments rather than a single (new) statewide test.

These changes weaken the bill, but are secondary to the structural pillars of reform: an objective, assessment-based retention rule and stronger accountability for teacher preparation programs. As long as these pillars are in place (especially retention), HB 2872 represents meaningful progress.

We encourage our Missouri lawmakers to continue to take our literacy crisis seriously and to enact policies that help more Missouri students become confident, capable readers.

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House Bill 2274: Increasing Mobility for Teachers

On January 15, Show-Me Institute Senior Policy Analyst Avery Frank submits testimony to the Missouri House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee regarding an interstate teacher mobility compact.

To the Honorable Members of This Committee

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Avery Frank. I am a senior policy analyst at the ShowMe Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, Missouri-based think tank that advances sensible, well-researched, free-market solutions to state and local policy issues. The ideas presented here are my own and are offered in consideration of fostering flexibility in Missouri’s public education system.

Reducing Uncertainty for Out-of-State Teachers

In 2020, Missouri adopted a form of universal licensing reciprocity allowing most licensed professionals (with some exceptions) who have held a valid license issued by another state for at least one year to practice in Missouri at the same occupation or level, meaning that they would have Missouri examination, educational, or experience licensing requirements waived.¹

Teachers are among the many licensed professions in Missouri, and this reciprocity regime is beneficial as it currently stands. However, uncertainty remains for many out-of-state teachers who may seek to relocate to Missouri. For example, which Missouri teaching license is equivalent to their current out-of-state license?² Additionally, existing statute allows relevant licensing authorities up to six months to issue a licensing waiver.³ Together, these uncertainties can reduce Missouri’s attractiveness as a place to move and teach.

House Bill 2274 would establish the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact in order to address these challenges. If enacted, the compact would require each participating state to create and maintain a list of licenses it is willing to consider for equivalency. This would help teachers more clearly understand their potential teaching options and reduce uncertainty when considering relocation.

The interstate commission created by the compact would primarily function as a clearinghouse, or central information-sharing hub, for licensure and disciplinary information. Each state would retain full authority over who is licensed within its borders and under what conditions. While Missouri already provides a broad pathway for recognizing many out-of-state licenses, the compact would provide additional transparency and consistency that could make the state more attractive to prospective teachers.

Helping Address Teacher Shortages in High-Need Subject Areas and Schools

Missouri’s teacher shortage has received significant attention in recent years⁴. A closer examination of the state’s pipeline and hiring trends suggests that Missouri does not face a broad, statewide shortage of teachers. Instead, shortages are concentrated in specific subject areas and in particular high-need, challenged districts.⁵ 

For example, between the 2017–18 and 2021–22 school years, the Hickman Mills C-1 school district reported a substantially higher percentage of vacant teaching positions than other Kansas City–area noncharter public school districts—more than five times higher than the second-highest district, Kansas City 33.⁶

While the compact alone will not provide a targeted solution to these types of deficiencies, it should improve Missouri’s overall teacher pipeline by making it easier for qualified out-of-state teachers to fill vacancies in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas, such as special education or physics. Kansas is already a member of this compact, and facilitating mobility for teachers living near the Kansas–Missouri border could benefit western Missouri districts in particular.⁷

Conclusion

House Bill 2274 offers an opportunity for Missouri to continue leading on occupational licensing reform while modestly improving access to qualified teachers in areas of greatest need. For these reasons, this bill could help make Missouri a better place to teach and live.

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Too many Missouri students are struggling to read at all grade levels.

The Solution

Adopt evidence-based early literacy policies that have a proven track record in other states.

Key Facts

• On the 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress, 42% of Missouri fourth-graders scored “below basic” in reading, up from 30% in 2015.

• Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores have not returned to prepandemic levels.

A Key Study on Early Literacy

John Westall and Amy Cummings at Michigan State University released a comprehensive national analysis of state early literacy policies in 2023 in which they identified 16 policies that consistently showed evidence of improving literacy. States with all 16 saw significant and sustained increases in reading scores, indicating a path forward for Missouri.

Third-Grade Retention for Struggling Readers

Westall and Cummings found no evidence that reading scores increase without a retention policy to hold back struggling readers.

Missouri technically has a form of third-grade retention on the books, but it is not based on objective academic benchmarks, and it is rarely used.

In the fourth grade, reading instruction shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. Students who cannot read effectively struggle to keep up. While retention is a difficult experience, it is less so when the retention occurs early, and research shows that retained students do benefit. Ideally, prospective fourth-grade students would take a state literacy assessment for reading. Those who do not meet the established reading benchmark would receive summer remediation and another chance to pass the test.

Good-cause exceptions could be made for some students. In other states, these include students with some types of disabilities, English language learners, and previously retained students.

Elimination of the Three-Cueing Method

Three-cueing is an approach to teaching reading that relies on text (the letters on the page) as little as possible and instead uses language cues.

However, reading is not an intuitive skill—rather, it is a technique to be learned. Research shows that skilled readers learn to read each letter rapidly and fluently as they connect the letters’ sounds with their oral vocabulary (phonics instruction). Three-cueing relies more on how the “whole word” looks, along with other context, like pictures. Fluency and decoding, rather than guessing and memorization, should define reading instruction.

Last year, Senate Bill 68 came close to banning three-cueing instruction. It needs to be fully eliminated in classrooms.

Align Teacher Preparation Programs

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released a report on how well teacher preparation programs across the country teach the science of reading. Half of Missouri’s participating universities received an “F.”

Indiana requires programs that certify teachers to include science-of-reading content and prohibit three-cueing. Missouri should follow suit.

Policy Recommendations

• Establish a mandatory third-grade retention program based on objective academic benchmarks with multiple opportunities and good-cause exceptions.

• Fully eliminate the three-cueing method.

• Ensure that Missouri’s teacher preparation programs train prospective teachers in the science of reading.

The post Early Literacy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If you want great schools, you have to have great teachers. Lots of other things are important. Strong school culture, appropriate instructional materials, good curriculum, robust relationships with parents, all necessary. But it is the person, the actual human being, that puts all of that into play that is most important.

Mimicking the Tennessee Teacher Evaluation Model

Missouri could better support teachers by providing meaningful guidance and feedback. One promising model comes from Tennessee.

Launched in 2012, the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (TEAM) was designed to help educators improve. Teachers frequently express a desire to improve, but often lack resources or guidance on how to get better.

By using announced and unannounced in-class observations, academic growth data, and student performance data, TEAM calculates a teacher score (1–5 scale) that provides information to teachers and school leaders about teacher performance. The goal is not to punish teachers, but to coach them and help them improve. Observers identify one strength and one area for improvement in each lesson, keeping the process constructive, focused, and encouraging. The Tennessee Education Research Alliance at Vanderbilt University found that teachers in schools with stronger implementation of TEAM improved faster than those in schools with weaker implementation.

The evaluation promotes ongoing dialogue about what happens in the classroom and how it affects student performance, and provides a basis for professional advancement—e.g., high-performing teachers can be identified through TEAM for mentoring roles.

Initially, there was strong pushback against teacher evaluation in Tennessee, which is not surprising. At its launch, only 28 percent of teachers believed TEAM would improve student outcomes, and only 38 percent believed it would improve teacher performance. But those numbers changed quickly once teachers actually experienced TEAM, rising to 71 and 76 percent, respectively, by 2019.

Missouri should consider emulating Tennessee’s commitment to rigorous and constructive teacher evaluation. If we’re serious about improving school quality and student outcomes, we need to be serious about improving teacher quality.

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Paying teachers to get master’s degrees that do not make them more effective is inefficient. Most obviously, it misdirects school district resources—why privilege teachers who get a credential that does not make them better at their jobs when we could use metrics tied to actual performance, or just pay all teachers more? The master’s pay premium also incentivizes teachers to invest tuition money, time, and energy in degrees with no measurable value. And the artificial demand fueled by these policies encourages universities to expand the degree programs themselves. All around, it is a tremendous waste of resources.

A new report released by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) describes the current national policy landscape with respect to the master’s degree premium. The report identifies Missouri as one of just 15 states that require districts to pay a master’s degree premium. In fact, we just re-upped the policy in 2024 with Senate Bill 727, which raised minimum teacher pay and maintained a new, higher minimum pay standard for teachers with master’s degrees (and at least 10 years of experience).

The NCTQ report also looked at salary schedules in 140 large districts in the United States, including three in Missouri: Kansas City, Springfield, and St. Louis. All three have large pay premiums for teachers with master’s degrees, especially highly experienced teachers. For example, with 20 or more years of experience the premium exceeds $10,000 annually in all three districts, and it gets as high as $18,600 in Kansas City.

This is a steep price to pay for a credential that has been demonstrated repeatedly to have no connection to classroom effectiveness. It’s time to end this practice.

The post We Shouldn’t Pay Teachers for Master’s Degrees appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS) is focusing on boosting reading instruction for this upcoming school year. Specifically, KCPS is requiring all early elementary teachers, reading specialists, and other reading-adjacent teachers to learn evidence-based reading methods through LETRS. LETRS, passed in 2022, is a program designed to retrain Missouri’s K–5 teaching force in the science of reading.

The director of elementary curriculum at KCPS stated: “Teachers that are coming into the profession just don’t have the science of reading background from universities.” According to the National Council of Teacher Quality (NCTQ), this is a valid claim.

The NCTQ conducted a survey to evaluate which universities are implementing scientifically based reading instruction into their curriculum for future teachers—and the results are concerning. Per the survey, only 25 percent of higher education institutions nationally adequately address all five core components (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) of reading instruction. Missouri is no better, as nearly half of our participating universities received an F grade on the NCQT’s report.

There are still 70 districts and charters that are not participating at all in the LETRS program, and many more are not embracing evidence-based reading instruction. Reading achievement has improved in states that embraced this practice. If reams and reams of research support the use of evidence-based reading instruction, then why are districts ignoring it? How are our students learning instead? Why are our universities neglecting to properly educate prospective teachers? These are questions that Missouri parents deserve to have answered.

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Why should we care about phonics instruction? Because it works.

There are typically two views when discussing early reading instruction: emphasis on phonics instruction involving daily lessons, and a “balanced literacy” approach which puts an emphasis on understanding meaning (three-cueing method) with occasional phonics sprinkled in. Numerous studies from independent researchers, the National Literacy Institute, and the Congressional-sponsored National Reading Panel have indicated that systematic and explicit phonics instruction is more effective in helping students learn to read than non-systematic (balanced literacy) or no phonics instruction. These results can be seen in schools that implement it, such as in Richmond or in our own backyard at KIPP Victory Academy—whose recent, explicit emphasis on phonics helped it obtain the highest English/language arts growth rate in the entire state from 2018–2021.

So why aren’t all schools using this method? Many teachers believe this approach is incredibly boring and drives the love of reading out of children. Additionally, it is hard for teachers to learn and teach; Missouri’s new phonics training program (LETRS) in Missouri takes 160 hours to complete. Finally, universities are simply not instructing future teachers to use this method effectively, or even hardly at all.

The NCTQ conducted a survey to evaluate which universities are implementing scientifically based reading instruction into their curriculum for future teachers—and the results are concerning. Per the survey, only 25 percent of higher education institutions nationally adequately address all five core components (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) of reading instruction. Missouri is no better, as nearly half of our participating* universities received an F on the NCQT’s report.

*Central Methodist University (F), Hannibal-LaGrange University (F), Lincoln University (B), Lindenwood University (B), Lindenwood University Graduate (D), Missouri Southern State University (F), Missouri Western State University (D), Northwest Missouri State University (F), Southeast Missouri State (F), University of Central Missouri (F), University of Missouri-Kansas City (A), University of Missouri-St. Louis (C), University of Missouri-St. Louis Graduate (C); all other Missouri universities declined to participate

Many universities in Missouri seem to be shying away from a strategy that can help teachers become better reading instructors. The LETRS program was a good start, but that law is primarily about identifying and addressing problems in early childhood reading, along with some additional professional development opportunities for existing teachers. We need Missouri universities to get on board and give teachers all the tools they need to effectively teach kids how to read right from the start.

The post The Science of Reading in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There are other sorts of inequities, however, that are much stealthier. They are no less unfair, just less noticeable. Take for example the Public School Teacher’s Retirement System of Missouri. Most public school teachers love this retirement plan. It allows many teachers to retire by their mid-fifties and earn a steady income for the rest of their lives. But most teachers don’t know that this system has been built with a structural flaw that favors some individuals over others.

As Andrew Tipping and I demonstrate in our forthcoming peer-reviewed article in Educational Researcher, “Cross-subsidization in Teacher Pension Benefits: Examining Rates of Return Among School Districts,” teachers in some school districts get disproportionately larger returns on their retirement contributions. We calculated the rate of return for a career teacher in 490 school districts. The rate of return is the interest rate that would be needed, based on all contributions, to pay out a specific benefit for a pre-determined period of time. For instance, if I put $100 into a savings account and wanted to take out $110 in a year, I would need to earn a 10 percent return. We simply do the same sort of calculation, but over a 30-year career and a 30-year retirement. We find a tremendous disparity in the rates of return among career teachers in different school districts. The variation of rates of return among school districts is displayed in the histogram below taken from our article:

Source: Authors’ calculations on the basis of Missouri School Boards’ Assocation (2015), Public School Retirement SYstem of Missouri (2016), and district salary schedules.

We found that in general, smaller, lower-paying school districts have lower rates of return and larger, higher-paying school districts have higher rates of return. This occurs because of the structure of the system. So why does this happen?

Let me try to explain. Imagine you and I decide to pool our investments, and we each invest $500 for a total of $1,000. Only, we do not invest our money all at once. We do it over a period of five months. You invest $100 every month for five months. I invest $65 the first month and increase my investment each month with a final contribution of $123 in the fifth month. I somehow convince you that we should base the payout on just the fifth period and not our entire investment. We earn a 10 percent return on our $1,000 investment, but distribute the funds based on our final period five contributions, which leads to a 45/55 split, despite both investing the same amount of money in total.

That is essentially what happens in the pension system and no one seems to notice.

Teachers in poorer school districts contribute more in the beginning of their career relative to the end, and because of the way the system works, they end up subsidizing the retirement benefits of teachers in wealthier school districts. This cross-subsidization of pension benefits occurs because benefits are not tied to total lifetime contributions. In fact, only the final three years out of a teacher’s entire career are used to determine benefits. It is this design of the system that allows this unfairness to occur. Yet, unlike my first graders, no one seems to be shouting out “That’s not fair!”

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Pulling from the influencers’ responses, the Star concluded that Missouri needs to pay teachers more. That’s all fine and dandy, but simply paying teachers more is not the solution. As the editorial board points out, schools need to do a better job of paying the best teachers more. The board writes: “Deciding which teachers are “best” is complicated, of course. Test scores? Graduation rates? Classroom grades? Peer reviews? Yet the broad concept of rewarding quality teachers is sound.” I couldn’t agree more, and here’s why.

Most school districts pay teachers on a single salary schedule. This means if you are a rock-star physics teacher with dozens of other lucrative job prospects, you will be paid the same amount as a less-motivated and less-capable teacher who couldn’t find another job if he tried. This pay system is attractive to low-skilled workers, but pushes individuals with a lot of potential into other fields.

This was effectively illustrated by economist Kirabo Jackson on Twitter. I have recreated his graph (which he posted on May 31) below. The solid red line represents the single salary schedule. The blue line represents the ability of a teacher to earn more outside of teaching. As you can see, individuals with low ability (those to the left of point A) are likely to find a teaching career attractive. Meanwhile, higher-ability individuals have an incentive (better pay) to pursue another job. Now look what happens when we simply raise teacher pay (red dotted line). We shift the number of those who would like teaching from point A to point B—a marginal improvement at best.

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Now consider what would happen if we had a pay system that actually paid teachers based on their ability. This is represented by the green line. While the current system is designed to attract the lowest-skilled individuals into the profession, changing the pay structure to reward high performing individuals could make teaching desirable for the best and the brightest.

The Kansas City Star’s editorial board is right: We should pay great teachers more. And we should do it by changing how we pay teachers.

The post Want More Great Teachers? Then Pay Great Teachers More appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Given that teachers will be a constituency that would be significantly affected by any changes to pensions in the state, we thought it wise to ask them what they think, both about their current pensions as well as possible alternative arrangements. We worked with both district and charter school leaders to cast a wide net and include as broad a range of viewpoints as we could.

Unfortunately, not long after we put our survey in the field, one of the state’s teachers’ unions instructed its members not to participate in our data collection. It’s unfortunate, but at this stage, not unexpected.

While it significantly curtailed our sample, 53 teachers did choose to respond, and we thought their voices deserved to be heard—even when they disagreed with some of the stances that Show-Me Institute writers have taken in the past. Accordingly, in addition to the complete survey results we have included an appendix with every open response that teachers gave—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

We encourage you to give the paper a read. Teachers have complicated and often conflicting views on their pensions as well as alternatives. Understanding those views will improve public pension policy.

The post Teachers’ Opinions on Missouri’s Public School Retirement System appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This lesson hit home with me as I was reading about the new certification requirements for public school teachers. Missouri has long had certification requirements. For instance, traditionally certified teachers must earn an education degree, and they have long been required to pass a content exam. Over the past few years, however, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has revised many of the requirements, making it more difficult to become a teacher. Prospective teachers must take a personality inventory (which I’ve written about before), they must pass a more difficult content exam, and now they must also pass a performance assessment.

To many, these sound like good ideas because they are sprinkled with a bit of the truth. We want our public school teachers to be excellent. If we put these screens in place, we’ll get better teachers—or so the thinking goes. The problem is that while teacher licensure screens are an unproven way to improve teacher quality, they are a sure-fire way to shrink the teaching pool.

Take licensure exams, for instance. As I have shown in the journals Educational Policy and the Journal of School Choice: International Research and Reform, licensure exams are very loosely related to teacher effectiveness. Yes, people who do well on tests tend to be better teachers, on average, but there is considerable variation. In other words, some people who do well on a content exam are terrible teachers; while some who do poorly on a licensure exam are great teachers. Screens like this let in some bad teachers and keep out some good teachers.

In a recent working paper, “Can we simply raise the bar on teacher quality?” I show how simply making licensure exams harder will have a negligible impact on the overall quality of teachers in the field. Yet, as a result, we would reduce the number of teachers; further exacerbating teacher shortages. These shortages would do the most harm to disadvantaged schools attempting to compete for the limited supply of teachers.

Missouri’s newest test, the Missouri Pre-Service Teachers Assessment, seeks to move beyond testing only content knowledge. Here is a description of the test from the Southeast Missourian:

The first three parts of the exam are written, and the last has a video component, except in areas where shooting footage is difficult.

In the first part of the exam, student teachers are assessed on how well they know their students and the context of the school in which they’re teaching.

The second part tests them on how they plan to check whether their students have learned the information they taught.

In the third part…student teachers are judged on how they plan to teach their lessons, and the fourth part allows them to demonstrate how effective their approaches have been…

Once again we have put in place a policy that sounds like a good idea. In the end, however, it too will not likely have a positive impact on public education in Missouri.  The problem is that we simply cannot capture great teaching in one of these assessments. Think back to the best teacher you ever had. Would these exams make him or her stand out from his or her peers? Probably not. 

Licensure screens for teachers sound like good public policy, but they aren't. If we really cared about teacher quality, we’d be better off to open pathways into the profession, support teacher professional development, and get rid of bad teachers.  

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But you want to know the truth?

I could have been better.

The sad thing is, I didn’t have to be.

The structure of public education is such that anyone with a decent head on their shoulders can become a teacher and, with minimal effort, remain a teacher for rest of their career.

Compared to many other professions, becoming a teacher is relatively easy. In fact, many consider an education degree one of the easiest degrees to obtain. On average, students going into education as a college major have lower scores on college placement tests. In 2014, prospective educators scored an average of 20.4 nationally on the ACT, below the national average of 21.0. The people entrusted with educating our children scored more than three points lower, on average, than individuals going into engineering or English and foreign languages.

Despite having lower aptitude as measured by college admission tests, teachers receive incredibly high marks in their college courses. According to Corey Koedel, an economist at the University of Missouri, the average grade point average for undergraduate education courses is 3.8. What’s more, Koedel found that 20 percent of undergraduate classes in the college of education gave every student an “A.”

Students who graduate and get teaching jobs are rarely challenged to grow, because they rarely receive the types of evaluations that will truly motivate them and help them improve. In many districts, new teachers are only evaluated a handful of times. In most cases, these formal observations are announced in advance. Thus, teacher evaluations are based on snapshots of what should be a teacher’s best lessons. Little wonder, as a report by The New Teacher Project noted, that almost all teachers are given superb marks.

While the fear of losing his or her job may motivate a teacher to work hard, social norms and school staffing policies effectively counter this motivation. Teachers, unlike most workers, are typically paid according to a predetermined salary schedule. No matter how hard they work, a teacher cannot earn a raise. Truly motivated teachers who go above and beyond face considerable pressure to conform. Nobody likes a rate buster.

Over time, the fear of losing one’s job fades. A teacher who reaches tenure—after three years in most states— has what state statutes call an “indefinite contract” or a “permanent job.” Of course, those terms, “indefinite” and “permanent,” come with a small proviso that a teacher doesn’t do anything egregious to a student. Barring that, the job is basically secured.

These were the realities when I was a teacher, and they are the realities today. Had the structures of education been different; had I been motivated and challenged by administrators; had my performance been really evaluated; or had I had the opportunity for advancement, recognition, and raises, things may have gone differently. Maybe I would have improved from a good teacher to a great teacher. In fact, I might still be in the classroom. 

The post I Was a Good Teacher. I Could Have Been Better appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The website teacherspayteachers.com, which allows educators to sell original lesson plans, worksheets, and curriculum materials, has provided Ms. Randazzo with an outlet to sell 4,000 copies of her original worksheet, “Whose Cell Phone Is This?” priced at $1 dollar per sheet. Between all of the resources she has made available for high school grammar, vocabulary, and literature, she has grossed $100,000 in sales.

In Teacherpreneur: Innovative Teachers Who Lead But Don’t Leave, the Center for Teacher Quality advocated for this new type of educator. Teacherpreneurs spend a portion of their time teaching in the classroom and then serve in other educational roles outside the classroom. Some, like Ms. Randazzo, develop materials that they then sell. Others help out as teacher leaders in their schools, mentoring new teachers and developing strong curricula for other classes to use. Some even get involved in the policy process, working with district, state, and national leaders to influence the rules and regulations that govern public schools. 

Unfortunately, as the authors point out, today’s “archaic” work schedule may limit opportunities for teacherpreneurs. Teaching 2030 cowriter Ariel Sacks explained in 2010 why it’s important for teacherpreneurs to split time both as an educator and an entrepreneur:

Many teachers like myself could play any number of teacherpreneurial roles depending on the needs of my school and the funding source—community organization, think tank, or university. Right now, many of us are developing curriculum materials, mentoring teachers, or creating partnerships between our schools and other organizations. And I can imagine more: I could do policy work outside my school and/or be a freelance writer, with perhaps only half of my salary paid by the school itself.

The beauty of a hybrid, teacherpreneurial role is that I would always maintain a classroom teaching practice. Teaching is the soul of my work in education. If I lose that, I think I’d feel disconnected from my purpose and passion—and my colleagues. At least in my own mind, my work would lose relevance and, understandably, I would lose credibility with my teaching peers.

Today’s school environment is hardly a hotbed for teacherpreneurs, so it’s worth considering what types of policy reforms, either at the local or state level, would allow teacherpreneurs to thrive. Expanding virtual teaching opportunities, for example, may allow educators to stay in the classroom while taking on other roles.  They could create online modules or allow students in other schools or districts to join their class via Skype or other video-conferencing software. For every module that a student uses or every student who joins their class, they could get paid.

One day we might not only award an educator with the title of Missouri Teacher of the Year, but recognize a teacherpreneur as well.

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The two least favorite, though, are ubiquitous: “professional development.”

A new study out by TNTP confirms what teachers will tell you: on balance, professional development (PD) does not help teachers improve their practice.

The researchers surveyed over 10,000 teachers, 500 school leaders, and 100 staff members and then compared a variety of PD experiences with several different measures of teacher performance.  The conclusion:

“No type, amount or combination of development activities appears more likely than any other to help teachers improve substantially, including the “job-embedded,” “differentiated” variety that we and many others believed to be the most promising.”

Not good.

But the real-eyebrow raiser is not just the ineffectiveness, but the cost.  TNTP found that on average the districts they studied spend $18,000 per teacher per year on PD. Yes, you read that right: per teacher, per year. In one of the districts they found that PD was a bigger budget line item than transportation, food, and security combined. Combined!

But it’s not just money, it’s also time. According to Kansas City’s teacher contract, teachers are required to attend 3 days of PD before school starts and one day during the year, and then 75 minutes of every Wednesday are earmarked for PD.  That adds up to around 10 days of their 185-day contract. This means that over five percent of teachers’ salaries (and who knows how much of their energy and good will) is dedicated to time that yields little return on investment.

Teachers want to develop professionally.  They want to get better at their jobs.  But we have done a terrible job in helping them do so.

(One brief addendum. Don’t forget this in the coming months when you are bombarded with rhetoric telling you that Missouri schools are “underfunded.”  I’m perfectly willing to admit that dollars are not going to the areas where they can be best used, but I’m not convinced that new, additional dollars will make that any better.)

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Missouri, like all other states, requires teachers to pass a series of examinations before they can become a teacher. These tests act as a barrier to entry. As I have written before, barriers to entry are only effective if they do what they are supposed to do. In this case, the tests should keep out individuals who would be bad teachers. My research has shown that the relationship between performance on licensure exams and performance in the classroom is pretty weak. Despite this fact, Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary education sees licensure exams as a key driver to improving the quality of the teacher labor force.

Education is not the only area in which tests are used to screen out candidates. For example, lawyers have to take the Missouri Bar Exam, which has three parts. Compare this to the sheer number of teacher licensure exams for those wanting to work in public schools (see below). Whether you are in bankruptcy law, civil rights law, criminal law, corporate law, family law, or any other field in the law profession, you take one exam—the bar exam. In education, however, we have constructed tests for just about every single thing.

Want to be a high school biology teacher? There is a test for that. Want to teach chemistry? There is a test for that. Want to teach earth science, general science, or physics? There is a test for each of those. Oh yeah, and you will also have to take a test of your disposition, the Missouri Educator Profile; a test of general knowledge, the Missouri General Education Assessment; and you’ll be evaluated in the classroom by the Missouri Performance Assessment.

It is understandable to want to ensure that prospective teachers have basic competencies. We will not change the quality of the labor force, however, unless we change the structure of the profession. We must begin rewarding great teachers and become more diligent on removing or remediating the bad ones. As it is, we’ve simply gone test crazy when it comes to teacher certification.

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DESE decided the best way to improve teacher quality was to raise the bar on licensure exams. Licensure exams and other certification requirements are only effective at improving the quality of the workforce if they are related to the outcome we desire; namely, increased teacher quality. The figure below offers an illustration. This figure comes from a paper by economist Dan Goldhaber, “Everyone’s doing it, but what does teacher testing tell us about teacher effectiveness.”

On one axis, you have a measure of teacher quality and on the other a teacher’s performance on licensure exams. The height represents the number of teachers, with most being somewhere in the middle. The red line indicates a minimum passing score on the licensure exam and the blue line indicates some minimum level of teacher quality. If teacher quality and performance are highly related, as they are on the left figure, then a licensure exam could do a good job of screening out individuals. “A” represents the individuals who would be good teachers, but are kept out because they fail the test, “B” are the bad teachers who fail the test, “C” are the bad teachers who pass the test, and “D” are the individuals who pass the test and are adequate teachers. As you can see, when the test isn’t related to teacher quality, as presented on the right, we have more ineffective teachers passing the test (“C”) and more good teachers failing the test “A”.

Teacher licensure tests are more like the figure on the right. They do a poor job of predicting who will be a quality teacher. What DESE did is move the red line further to the right; thus, keeping more people out.

The fact is, we are lousy at predicting who will be a good teacher. Thus, increasing the rigor of licensure exams will not do any good. Hanushek offers another solution – teacher de-selection. He writes, “replacing the bottom 5–8 percent of teachers with average teachers could move the U.S. near the top of international math and science rankings with a present value of $100 trillion.” Rather than try to predict who will be a good teacher, we should focus on removing those individuals who have proven to be bad teachers.

Raising the bar on licensure exams will not improve the quality of the teaching profession. If we want to do that, we need to make teaching more attractive to high performing individuals and we need to get rid of the bad apples in the teaching profession.

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Missouri is submitting a new teacher equity plan to the Department of Education. As the Associated Press reports, the plan touches on the unequal distribution of experienced teachers within urban and rural school districts. States must submit updated plans to continue receiving waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Within a draft of Missouri’s Educator Equity Plan, DESE writes, “According to federal guidance, less effective teachers are those who are inexperienced, unqualified, or out of field.” Later in the plan, the department presents dozens of ideas about how to recruit effective teachers to rural, poor communities.

Though DESE highlights a few academic studies, it neglects research with alternate findings especially in relation to experience and education versus student achievement. This—combined with the listed stakeholders (National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Missouri State Teachers Association, etc.) who played a role in giving the department recommendations—produced several unsurprising potential strategies.

• Increased salary
• Smaller class size
• Entry-level screening tools
• Content knowledge and pedagogical skills assessment

None of the listed strategies are “proven” to increase academic achievement. Still, the state continues to draw away from local policies in favor of controversial state and federal mandates.

This is not to say that recruiting teachers to rural communities isn’t a problem; one study found that 75 percent of teachers in urban areas stay in their hometown, while only 43 percent of rural teachers remain. There are, however, more creative solutions to ensure students in rural communities receive a quality education. Here are a few:

• Expand educational opportunity through virtual learning (DESE lists this one, Bravo!).
• Eliminate state mandates that encourage the use of salary schedules, which judge teachers based on experience and education. A competitive salary early on for science and math teachers may drive more qualified teachers to the profession.
• Eliminate arduous certification requirements. The Bering Strait School District in Alaska has 15 schools covering more than 80,000 square miles, many of which must be reached by airplane. The Alaska State Department of Education has recently given waivers to school districts, allowing them to recruit teachers from out of field. “It’s really been handy. Just recently, we hired a language arts teacher with no background, but he’s a good teacher, he’s what we look for,” a Bering Strait personnel staff member told me.
• Allow school districts to operate like businesses—let administrators make personnel decisions that make the most sense to the students within the school district.

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The assignment was to explain some differentiated instruction techniques I planned to use in the classroom—by drawing a cartoon. This is what I turned in:

Clearly, I’m not an artist, but still, this is absolute nonsense—I received minimal points off. This is the kind of assignment the NCTQ would refer to as criterion-deficient. Criterion-deficient assignments are broad in scope and may be difficult for instructors to give high-level feedback. Unlike assignments that allow instructors to measure mastery of knowledge or skills, criterion-deficient assignments are subjective. How could an instructor give high-level feedback to the above garbage?

The NCTQ found that on average 71 percent of grades in teacher preparation courses rely heavily on criterion-deficient assignments. The study also found there is a correlation between the percentage of criterion-deficient assignments and high grades—teacher candidates are 50 percent more likely to receive honors at graduation than candidates with other majors.

I hope these embarrassing findings are a sign to universities that they should stop focusing on reflective assignments that are subjective in nature and, instead, build an environment of rigor that will ultimately draw more quality students to the teaching profession.

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My students then received a lesson about the 10th amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Because education is not explicitly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, education is a power that belongs to the states.

Tell that to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

The U.S. Department of Education unveiled its 50-state strategy on Monday. The strategy, a neglected measure of the 12-year-old No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), readdresses the uneven distribution of effective teachers across low- and high-poverty schools. It requires states to create new plans that address teacher distribution by April 2015, and Missouri is not immune.

For fewer than half the states that submitted plans post-NCLB, many have not been updated in several years. Below is a table from Missouri’s original analysis identifying core academic subjects (math, science, etc.) taught by highly qualified teachers. The data, though last revised in 2006, shows a lower percentage of highly qualified teachers in high-poverty schools.

Missouri is one of 42 states to receive a waiver from parts of NCLB, including the infamous accountability decree, “All students will be proficient by 2014.” In May, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) submitted a request for a one-year extension to the 2012 waiver. DESE will have to renew again next May.

Not coincidentally, the Department of Education’s requirement for updated teacher equity plans will have to be submitted one month prior to DESE’s 2015 extension request. The Department of Education gets equity plans, Missouri gets NCLB waiver. The Department of Education gets unified curriculum, states get Race to the Top money. “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” seems to be the Department of Education’s M.O.

Of course, teacher equity is an issue that ought to be addressed, but the U.S. Constitution did not grant federal authority over education. This power belongs to Missourians. This whole incentive game the Department of Education is playing isn’t fooling anyone. Teacher equity may be a problem, but federal overreach is a bigger one.

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