Teacher Effectiveness Reform

  The January/February, 2010, issue of The Atlantic Monthly has an article on teacher effectiveness that everyone interested in the health of our public schools should read. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/good-teaching Written by Amanda Ripley, it describes the results of 20 years of analysis of student test score progress linked to 7,300 specific teachers. This analysis was conducted by Teach for America. Teacher practices are measured through observations, review of their lesson plans and interviews. The results are "specific and surprising."        
  Briefly (because you should read the article) the characteristics and skills of the effective teachers (defined as those who move their students one and a half or more years ahead in one year) are:
1) They set big goals for their students.
2) They perpetually seek ways to improve their effectiveness.
3) They avidly recruited students and their families into the process.
4) They maintained focus so that everything they do contributes to student learning.
5) They planned exhaustively and purposefully with outcomes in mind.
6) They worked relentlessly.

  Specific strategies included: frequent checks for understanding (using all-student-respond strategies, tickets out the door, etc.), using the "I do, we do, you do" structure to their lessons, and establishing classroom routines that can be executed by the students with little or no direction from the teacher.
  This is very important information in light of the 4.3 billion dollars in federal funds that will be awarded in the form of a competitive grant, "Race to the Top." This is essentially a teacher-effectiveness reform initiative designed to help states identify great teachers and shift teacher compensation from a credentials/experience model to an effectiveness model.
  The popular press was busy last month in this area. Bill Gates had an essay in the February 1, 2010, issue of Newsweek. In November, 2009, the Gates Foundation awarded $300 million to districts in Tampa,  Memphis, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles.  The grant projects will implement incentive pay for effective teachers and study ways to fairly and reliably measure teacher effectiveness.
  The work of Daniel Willingham on how we learn, think and remember also translates into the research base for effective teaching practices. His book, "Why Don't Students Like School," is an excellent resource for educators. http://www.danielwillingham.com/
  Federal and state education agencies now have a considerable body of information on which to base reform. Let's hope they don't waste too much money reinventing the wheels built by Teach for America, the Gates Foundation and Willingham.