Welcome
This week is part two of my discussion of teacher tenure. Last week, I examined the history of tenure in North Carolina public schools and touched on two studies that addressed the issue of tenure in the state. This week, I muse on the relationship between tenure and the teacher education/certification pipeline. After all, the debate over teacher tenure is, at its core, a debate about teacher quality.
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CommenTerry
Unlike our competitors in other nations, most U.S. states and school districts employ few effective quality control mechanisms in place between the time that a prospective teacher enters a teacher education program and the time she is granted tenure. By granting multi-year contracts, rather than tenure, schools will have a powerful, long-term quality control mechanism that will ensure that our public schools employ the very best teachers.
Most high-performing nations award tenure to their teachers. "Preparing Teachers Around the World," a report published by testing company ETS, noted that, like the United States, Australia, England, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and Singapore maintain teacher tenure systems. The difference is that the requirements to enter the teaching profession in those nations tend to be more rigorous than in the United States. ETS researchers observed,
Compared to the United States, screening criteria are more rigorous and are applied earlier in the teacher education and certification pipeline in most of the countries surveyed. Unlike the United States, most the countries use high school GPA and scores on national exit examinations taken in high school to select students for teacher education programs, including graduate programs. In the United States, the high school record is typically irrelevant to entry into teacher education programs, although it is usually a factor in admission to higher education. (p. 4)
While those nations maintain incredibly high standards for entry into teacher education programs, Australia and England require teacher education candidates to meet high standards to exit their teacher education program or during a practicum. To be sure, many research universities in the United States (and in North Carolina) recruit truly outstanding students for their teacher education programs. These programs, however, are the exception, not the rule.
Rather than entry into teacher education programs, ETS researchers note that U.S. states and school districts choose another mechanism to separate good teachers from poor ones — licensure (also called certification). According to the report, "In the United States nearly all of the high-stakes filtering is applied before or during initial certification. After that, the filters in place might be considered ‘pro forma’ or low-stakes." (p. 7) Specifically, one of the only high-stakes filtering mechanisms in most states is the Praxis series of tests (naturally an ETS product), which assesses teachers’ knowledge of subject matter and pedagogy. Graduates from teacher education programs cannot obtain a state license or certification without meeting one or more Praxis requirements.
Praxis requirements and cut scores vary by state. Some have higher standards than others. Regardless, the vast majority of test-takers earn the required scores on the Praxis tests. North Carolina’s "Institutes of Higher Education (IHE) Performance Report" for the 2011-12 academic year shows that no undergraduate teacher education program had an overall Praxis pass rate that was lower than 86 percent. The statewide average pass rate was 97 percent, and an average of 90 percent of teacher education graduates receive a license within one year of completing their programs. The Praxis tests may be a "high-stakes filter" in the sense that they meet the definition of a "high-stakes test," but these tests are not an effective way to differentiate between excellent and poor teachers.
Another filtering mechanism is the probationary period. The probationary period is the initial (one to five) years of teacher employment. It is easier to dismiss a teacher during this period than during their tenured employment. The 2011 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, "Building a High-Quality Teaching Profession: Lessons from around the world," reviewed tenure or career status around the world. Researchers reported that, of 26 OECD countries assessed in the study, seven countries required a probationary period before they granted tenure.
North Carolina is one of five states to award career status after a four-year probationary period. Six states have five-year probationary periods, while two states have annual contracts. Unfortunately, we are not one of the nine states that tie tenure decisions to evidence of effectiveness, although I suspect that may change in the near future. The National Council on Teacher Quality reports that only Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Tennessee currently use student performance metrics collected during the probationary period to determine whether a teacher has earned tenure.
In general, entry into the teaching profession in the United States is relatively undemanding, particularly when compared to most high performing nations around the world. As long as this is the case, tenure is a liability.
Facts and Stats
North Carolina has 49 state approved teacher education programs.
(Source: "NC Department of Public Instruction: Institutes of Higher Education (IHE) Performance Report, 2011-12," October 2012)
Education Acronym of the Week
IHE — Institutes of Higher Education
Quote of the Week
"It is clear that in most districts the tenure decision is unrelated to a teacher’s performance in the classroom. And from a policymaker’s point of view, there is a mismatch between the costs of tenure and the seriousness with which the decision to grant tenure is undertaken. This mismatch is not a secret and is an area that is ripe for reform." (p. 17)
– Raegen Miller and Robin Chait, "Teacher Turnover, Tenure Policies, and the Distribution of Teacher Quality: Can High-Poverty Schools Catch a Break?" Center for American Progress, December 2008.
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