June 11th State Board Testimony
By Russlynn Ali
Good morning President Hastings, Superintendent O’Connell, and Board Members.
NCLB’s teacher quality requirements are premised on the last decade and a half of research that proves teacher quality matters most in student achievement, more so than class size, prior achievement levels of students or socio economic status.
The new requirements of the NCLB deliberately focus mostly on content knowledge. Sure pedagogy, knowledge of how children learn, belief systems, teaching practicum and others indicia matter, a lot, but knowledge of the subjects the teacher is charged with teaching is essential – a necessary prerequisite. We do not believe that content knowledge is forever fixed when teachers complete preparation or pass a stand alone test. However, mastery of subject matter is a critical foundation for teaching, so important that if inadequate no amount of teaching skill or instructional wizardry can compensate or yield high achievement.
In the end, parents must be assured that their student is taught by a professional who knows a lot about the subject they teach. And in turn, we owe it to our new teacher candidates to assure that they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to teach all students to meet rigorous standards previously reserved for only a few. What we’re talking about here is knowledge for teaching. In other words, our teachers must demonstrate a deep mastery of an academic subject that goes beyond, but is intimately linked to the highest K-12 content standards for students.
Let me be clear upfront: we categorically reject the assertion that high standards automatically mean fewer Latino and African American teachers. That assertion suggests that people of color are somehow unable to meet high standards. Our kids can do it and so can our teachers.
This Board has demonstrated courageous leadership in its recent decision not to lower our standards for proficiency for students in order to satisfy the high expectations inherent in the NCLB AYP timeframe. And now it must do the same when it comes to our teachers.
The goal must be to raise the quality and intensity of the education our students receive and to do that we must be sure they are taught by the highest quality of teachers, who can demonstrate without question that they know the subject matters they are teaching. That is the message you must send. In the end, the question must not be one of increasing supply and diversity on one hand or raising standards on the other. The two can, should and must, happen simultaneously.
And the data bear this out. We can look to Texas and Louisiana for examples: two states that are increasing the number of black and brown candidates while keeping to high standards on uniform assessments. The Texas A&M system increased the black teacher candidates prepared by their campuses by 41.8% in just four years; Grambling, Southern University at New Orleans and Southern University at Baton Rouge have seen similar increases. This came after concentrated teacher preparation reforms and clearly established, publicly reported benchmark targets. This success didn’t require dumbing down the cut scores.
There has been some confusion about whether the public needs to know the actual passing scores on teacher subject matter or licensure exams. Be aware though that the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act will require teacher preparation programs to report passage rates and scores of candidates on uniform state subject matter assessments.
Let me raise five points about the State Boards new definition for new elementary and secondary teachers:
1. Intern preparation: The State Board’s definition of what highly qualified means for new elementary and secondary teachers now seems to comply with NCLB though we should make it a priority to ensure that interns are making successful progress toward reaching a credential, in a specified time period.
2. Assessment: The state is right to require passing a validated, uniform subject matter test in California or to allow our middle and high school teachers to demonstrate subject matter competency by having at least a major. The concern here though, lies with the second assessment option listed: the “when available a culminating assessment.”
3. Standards for passing: The culminating assessment proposal requires a culminating subject matter assessment, with uniform systematic procedures that govern it. The problem is: it’s not the governing procedures alone that must be uniform to comply with the Act, it is the assessment itself. The proposed culminating assessments, even if available, by allowing the option for many different, disconnect assessments doesn’t meet the requirements of the Act.
Even for the uniform reliable assessments such as CSET, we must caution to keep cut scores at a rigorous level. On some fronts we’ve gone in the wrong direction. Indeed, rather than raising our passing score on the Praxis II in English Comp essays, we’ve lowered our score (from 160 to 155) since 1998 – our cut score is now at about the middle of the pack for all states administering the exam. At the same time, we must applaud the state for maintaining its rigorous cut score for high school mathematics with the Praxis II.
But let me also lay caution here too: research has found that teacher licensing exams tend to address content at the high school level. You must assure the public that the tests you are using for licensure are sufficiently rigorous to certify that teachers have a college-level mastery of their subjects.
4. Middle schools: We also want to applaud the Board in holding to NCLB’s requirements that middle school teachers have a major or meet the test standards in the subject they are teaching. Currently in California, by allowing the multisubject credential to teach in the middle grades, in our highest poverty schools, 91.2% of the middle school math teachers do not have a major or even a minor in the field. The State Board’s definition will change that data – a compulsory step if all kids are to learn Algebra in the 8th grade, or even be ready for Algebra in the 9th.
5. Waivers/Exclusions: It is also right to exclude emergency permit, supplemental and local authorizations, waivers and pre-interns from the definition of highly qualified. This takes nothing away from the recognized potential of these teachers, they are on their way to becoming highly qualified and this new revised definition provides all the incentive necessary to get them there.
There is a problem however with the approach to deeming veteran teachers highly qualified under the NCLB. The Act allows for veteran teachers to demonstrate subject matter either through the uniform assessment, or major or higher if they are secondary teachers, but also allows a uniform and objective process. It is not unreasonable to require our veteran teachers to demonstrate knowledge in the subject matter they are teaching. Such a determination is not meant to punish or unfairly categorize our current teachers – but it can, and should, demonstrate to the teacher where his or her weaknesses are, so those weaknesses can be identified and strengthened on the job with targeted, focused, and highly monitored professional development.
The HOUSE process for veteran teachers as laid out in the Board’s definition does not comply with the plain language of the Act. Namely it is not applied uniformly to all teachers in the same subject and grade level, it is not objective and the results of it are not required to be publicly reported upon request. Indeed the HOUSE method is based on the subjective determination by a principal using a combination of subjective standards. For the very least, we should institute a consistent scoring rubric based on a set of uniform standards that are linked to K-12 content standards.
Let me conclude by acknowledging plainly that raising standards for teachers is not without risk. The threat of litigation will loom and administrators may well panic as they scramble to put a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. And what we’ve talked about here today does not over night address the teacher shortage issue. But we are talking about assuring that the teachers we have are prepared and that we’ve taken the first step of assuring those who enter the profession that they are prepared for the challenge.
Business as usual hasn’t worked as well as we intended.
This doesn’t mean all teachers are poorly prepared. Indeed, in every community we have teachers who excel. But it does mean that our standards for entry into the field of teaching must be higher – and our standards for staying there equally high. The damage to our lowest performing students is most severe, because the reality is, they get the most under-prepared teachers of all.