Guest column Focus on quality of teachers to improve Arkansas education

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
February 21, 2011

Guest column Focus on quality of teachers to improve Arkansas education
By SANDRA STOTSKY SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

LITTLE ROCK — As reported by the Center for American Progress, urban students tend to be taught by academically less able teachers than are their suburban peers. According to this report, academically stronger teachers tend to choose to teach in non-urban schools or move there from urban schools to continue teaching. The use of academically weak licensure tests, in effect, discriminates against urban and rural students, who depend far more than do other students on the academic quality of their teachers for fostering their academic growth. As the National Council on Teacher Quality just noted, Arkansas needs to require a strong and independent licensure test of the foundations of reading instruction for prospective teachers in K-8 in order to begin to move its reading scores higher at all grade levels.

According to the 2011 “Quality Counts” report, published by Education Week, Arkansas came in 6th in its annual ranking of states’ public education policies, environment and performance. That’s the good news. But, according to the latest “State Teacher Policy Yearbook,” released by the National Council on Teacher Quality on January 27, Arkansas received a grade of C- on “delivering well-prepared teachers” to its schools. Among the policy areas that Arkansas needs to address in order to advance teacher quality and student achievement, according to the report, is to require a “stand-alone licensure test” of the fundamentals of beginning reading instruction to ensure that prospective early childhood and elementary teachers know how to teach reading effectively when they begin their teaching careers. The report also notes that Arkansas has set its passing score for the required PRAXIS elementary content test so low that “it is questionable whether this assessment is indeed provid
ing any assurance of content knowledge.” In fact, Arkansas has one of the lowest passing scores in the country for this test.
The U.S. Department of Education is clearly not satisfied with the overall quality of this country’s teaching force. Yet, its 500-point system for judging Race to the Top applications gave far more weight to state plans for upgrading those who are already in the classroom than for recruiting, preparing or licensing the kind of teachers the USDE wants to see in the classroom.
This enormous hole is surprising because it ignores what we have learned from high quality research-that the chief characteristic of an effective teacher is knowledge of the subject being taught. There is no body of evidence for any other characteristic of an “effective” teacher, although educational researchers have long tried to find one. The National Mathematics Advisory Panel duly noted that finding in its 2006 final report.

This hole is also surprising because it is common knowledge that this country draws most of its teachers from the bottom two-thirds of our college population. High-achieving countries like South Korea, Finland and Singapore draw those they train as teachers very selectively from an application pool consisting of theirmost academically able college students-the top third. In contrast, only 23 percent of American teachers come from the top third.

The USDE (perhaps deliberately) missed the opportunity to call attention to the quality controls in place in other countries that ensure the academic competence of those who are allowed to become teachers. It is reasonable to infer that these quality controls also drastically reduce the need for massive amounts of remedial professional development-a distinctly American phenomenon. No other country would spend what we lavish on professional development, especially when most of it is for remedial purposes and there is so little evidence of its effectiveness in raising student achievement.

This is precisely what Massachusetts sought to avoid by means of its teacher tests. Because of the requirement in its 1993 Education ReformAct that prospective teachers pass a subject area test for licensure (as well as a skills test), the state developed the strongest subject tests it could over a decade ago. These tests have been a significant factor in raising student achievement in the state, especially minority group achievement, because they have helped to assure an academically stronger teaching corps in its urban and rural schools, as well as in its suburban schools.

Yes, more academically rigorous licensure tests for teachers do create issues that need to be dealt with. Many undergraduates and graduates admitted into Massachusetts teacher preparation programs fail the strong subject tests the state developed. What we don’t know is whether the state’s preparation programs have given aspiring teachers enough support, required enough academic coursework, or simply admitted too many weak students as tuition-paying bodies in orderto maintain or expand the number of education faculty positions the legislature funds. Contrary to what critics charge, the tests are not the problem. They serve their intended purpose-to safeguard the public interest in ensuring academically competent teachers for all children.

For Arkansas to see increases in student reading achievement, the state should require prospective early childhood and elementary teachers to pass an independent licensure test of reading fundamentals, set passing scores much higher on the current tests it requires, and set higher admissions requirements for early childhood and elementary teacher preparation programs.

Sandra Stotsky is Professor of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and former Senior Associate Commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Education.