July 31, 2012  |  Sign up to receive Teaching Matters

Presidential Advisors Invite Teachers to the White House Table

New Office for African American Education

Tennessee Teaching Transformation

New Math*

• About 20% of the teachers in large urban districts are so effective that they are practically impossible to replace.
• Irreplaceable teachers help their students achieve 5-6 more months of learning each year than students of low-performing teachers.
• When an Irreplaceable leaves a struggling school, it can take 11 hires to find just one teacher of comparable quality.
• Many Irreplaceables leave too early—at least 10,000 a year in the nation’s 50 largest school districts.
• Many struggling teachers remain far too long. About 40% of teachers with more than 7 years of experience are less effective at advancing academic progress than the average first-year teacher.

Nebraska TOY Weighs in on Teacher Evaluation Maddie Fennell, former Nebraska Teacher of the Year and chair of the National Education Association's Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, is guest posting on the EdWeek blog this week.  Check out her first post, "How Do We Measure and Value Effectiveness?" Some quotables:  •  We have too many traditional evaluation systems that are big on "gotcha" and miniscule on "grow ya."  •  In 2007 I was honored to be named the Nebraska Teacher of the Year. Like many of my fellow state Teachers of the Year, after the congratulations, the first question was, "When are you leaving the classroom?"

Work of "Mr. Mullenholz" Profiled

Budget Sequestration Threatens Students and Teachers

Videos of Interest May 2012 "School Days" Video (6 minutes)  includes clips of the 2012 Labor Management Conference, Teacher Appreciation Week and "ED Goes Back School," President Obama's Commencement addresses, Thank-a-Teacher, conversations about college affordability, and more.  Let's Read, Let's Move. Over 150 students from the DC area participated in "Let's Read, Let's Move" activities led by Arne Duncan, two-time Pro Bowl linebacker LaVar Arrington, Miss America 2012 Laura Kaeppeler, and Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton.  Watch video clips. Cornell McClellan, the First Family’s Nutrition and Fitness Trainer joined Arne Duncan and Sam Kass, Assistant Chef and Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives at the White House, to read and talk to local children about the importance of a healthy lifestyle and learning over the summer. Watch video clips.

Teachers' Notes

• Five Steps for Picking a College is a useful blog tool for school counselors and  teachers of high school students who are advising students about college. The article includes tips from Arne Duncan for evaluating costs, a shopping sheet for scholarships and grants, and websites for information about financial aid. Read FACT SHEET: President Obama’s Blueprint for Keeping College Affordable and Within Reach for All Americans.
• Teacher Pay Could Increase without Upping Class Sizes according to a Public Impact analysis. Read the article in Huffington Post that describes more than 20 models for extending the reach of our most effective teachers and increasing the pay of teacher leaders by 67 - 137 percent.
• August is Connected Educator Month. Check out the calendar of events, including more than 12 events scheduled for August 1, including Aligning Digital Resources with the Common Core, a keynote with Deborah Meier, and a panel discussion with the directors of the Office of Educational Technology. The Official Twitter hashtage is #ce12. You can track what’s going on in connected education and help others do this, too, with a free CEM Twitter widget.
• The Center for Educator Compensation Reform website offers resources and information to raise national awareness of effective strategies for performance-based compensation and supporting teachers whose districts are Teacher Incentive Fund grantees. Teachers visiting the site can read the latest study about peer review, Getting Serious about Teacher Support and Evaluation, by SRI International and J. Koppich & Associates and view a map of performance-based compensation initiatives. 

Top 5 Teacher Quotes (Wisdom from teachers heard by ED) 5. Reflecting on the importance of teachers: '”I save souls!" (STEM teacher) 4. "Education, in general, should move from a clinical, deficit-focused approach to a solution-focused approach where the classrooms are designed to match identified learning styles." (Virginia) 3. “(Education should) focus on training principals as well as teachers. A poor principal undermines even excellent teachers. An excellent principal sets the tone and expectations for the entire school...” (Nebraska) 2. “Teaching is a difficult profession because after I get feedback about what students have learned, I’m continually adjusting my lessons." (Louisiana) 1. " People may say that they don’t leave because of money, but it’s a lot about the money.” (North Carolina)

Teaching Ambassadors Recommend Reading

• From Geneviève DeBose: The Irreplaceables: Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in America's Urban Schools. This report released July 30 by the New Teacher Project examines the issue of teacher turnover, particularly the effects of schools losing their strongest teachers, those who are almost Irreplaceable based on their impact on students' learning. The authors provide research to argue that there are specific strategies school leaders can use to identify and retain these teachers.
•  From Laurie Calvert: "Creating 21st-Century Teachers for 21st-Century Students." This blog written for EdWeek by 2007 Arkansas Teacher of the Year Justin Minkel offers great insights about how his school has created an "ecosystem of education" that allows teachers to create "an open system that enables best practices to escape the confines of each teacher's classroom." 

U.S. Department of Education

STRENGTHENING TEACHING - ED Teacher Webpage