Outsiders have envied, emulated, and damned D.C.’s acclaimed teacher-evaluation system, IMPACT. But what is the insiders’ perspective? This report from Ed Sector delivers the answer. Author Susan Headden, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, presents a thorough and balanced perspective on this revolutionary (but still emergent) system.
Outsiders have envied, emulated, and damned D.C.’s acclaimed teacher-evaluation system, IMPACT. But what is the insiders’ perspective? This report from Ed Sector delivers the answer. Author Susan Headden, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, presents a thorough and balanced perspective on this revolutionary (but still emergent) system. She explains the core elements of IMPACT (the classroom observations, instructional buckets against which teachers are measured, etc.), and weaves a narrative that effectively captures the experience of (a sample of) observed teachers, “master educators” (the ones conducting the observations), as well as principals, union leaders, and District staff responsible for developing the system. She notes a few red flags (the distribution of IMPACT’s large performance bonuses are concentrated in already high-performing schools, for example) and details a few places where IMPACT could be improved, notably by doing more to help develop educators rather than simply reward or punish them. But progress is being made on that front. Based on our own interviews, we found that, overwhelmingly, teachers saw monumental improvements in professional development, and that the new system gave them specific, tangible ways to enhance instruction.
Inside IMPACT: D.C.’s Model Teacher Evaluation System
Education Sector
by Susan Headden
June 2011
This report begins with a Cinderella story: high school (the infamous Locke in Los Angeles) meets charter management organization, is taken over, transforms from drop-out factory to a high-performing charter. How widespread should the involvement of charter management organizations be in turning around the nation’s lowest performing high schools? CAP takes on this question in its latest report.
Low-performing district schools opting to become charters are rare; only five percent of schools awarded a federal School Improvement Grant have chosen to restart as charter schools, and very few of those are high schools. But the report argues that the use of Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) in school overhauls is an area ripe with opportunity. This policy paper offers observations, largely based on conversations from charter operators and district leaders in two cities, on how district-charter partnerships are taking shape.
CMOs attempting to turn around failing schools face different obstacles than those working solely with start-ups. Money and resources are obviously a key component in the district-charter relationship. The ability and willingness of school districts to invest funding into facilities and maintenance, and to provide human capital resources, can create a great support system for a failing school. Administrative barriers and issues of autonomy are cited as the largest hurdles for districts becoming charters under the CMO direction. CAP’s anecdotal evidence confirms what we already knew: CMOs undertaking turnaround projects are forced to grow in new directions.
These are fine “first looks” at the role of CMOs in district schools turned to charters. However, CAP’s paper shows little information on the advancement of student performance in the schools studied, nor the likelihood that districts will look to charter operators to turn around drop-out factories using School Improvement Grant money.
Charting New Territory: Tapping Charter Schools to Turn
Around the Nation’s Dropout Factories
Center
for American Progress
Melissa Lazarín
June 2011
With Ohio’s biennial budget (HB 153) now in effect, it’s time to get into the details to figure out precisely how Ohio’s schools, educators, and students will be affected. Consider two education policy changes included in HB 153 that are aimed at providing more education options for students in low-performing district schools: increasing eligibility for the EdChoice Scholarship and expanding districts in which new charter schools may open.
Expanded voucher eligibility and access
HB 153 increased the number of slots available for the EdChoice scholarship from 15,000 to 30,000 this year and 60,000 next year and beyond. Access to publicly funded vouchers has always been limited to students attending chronically failing schools, specifically students in district public schools rated D or F by the state for two or more of the last three consecutive years. This year, lawmakers broadened that eligibility to include not just D/F schools, but school buildings ranked in the bottom 10 percent of performance (according to Performance Index, an average of students’ proficiency in tested grades and subjects) for two of three consecutive years.
This expansion may seem broad, but it is actually just a drop in the bucket. Using current school performance data (and updated data will be released at the end of this month), students from just 31 schools statewide enrolling a total of 8,700 youngsters would be newly eligible. To put this in perspective, this is less than one half of one percent of Ohio’s public student population (1.9 million).
Below is the list of schools newly eligible to lose students to the voucher program (highlighted schools are those in Ohio’s Big 8 districts). On average, these schools collectively have a student population that is 77 percent non-white and 81 percent economically disadvantaged, though as you can see, the range is pretty wide. Some schools have very few non-white or economically disadvantaged kids. (Note: Cleveland students are eligible for the Cleveland Opportunity Scholarship Program, not for EdChoice, which is why none of that district’s low-performing schools are reflected here).
Chart 1. Public district schools newly eligible to lose students to EdChoice voucher program
Source: Ohio Department of Education
In sum,
broader eligibility for EdChoice will probably not drive up enrollment very
much at all. What’s more likely to affect enrollment, according to School
Choice Ohio’s Director of
Community Programs Sarah Pechan, is timing. The department reopened
enrollment for EdChoice after the budget’s passage, and parents and families
have until mid-August to apply for one of the many open slots. According to
Pechan, having a wider time frame – especially during the summer months when
parents are weighing schooling options heavily – will likely increase uptake.
Expanded number of districts that can have start-up charter schools
Under previous law, a start-up charter school (as opposed to converting an existing district school to a charter, which can happen anywhere geographically in the state) could open only in a “challenged” school district. This was defined as any of Ohio’s Big 8 districts (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, or Youngstown), a district rated D or F (see here for a list of such districts last year), or a school district in Lucas County that was part of the original charter school pilot area a decade ago (eight school districts in total, one of which is Toledo and already counted under the Big 8 list).
The recently enacted budget added to the definition of challenged school districts any that rank in the bottom five percent of all districts statewide (according to Performance Index score), regardless of their grade (A-F). When it comes to charter school start-ups, eligibility would expand (based on last year’s data) to include 16 new school districts. This is up from 23 school districts, for an increase of 41 percent, and means nearly 55,000 additional students could now have charter options.
The new list of eligible school districts within which charters could start up (based on last year’s data) is below. Notice that all of them earned a “C” (Continuous Improvement) from the state but still rank in the bottom five percent of school districts.
Chart 2. Newly eligible Ohio school districts within which charter school start-ups can operate
Source: Ohio Department of Education
The official eligibility will change once the 2010-11 achievement data are released later this month. But overall, Ohio can expect a significant increase in eligibility of districts that are rated C based on this new budget provision.
An effective leader is vital to an effective school, especially when that school is a turnaround. Unfortunately, those equipped to lead rapid change in consistently low-performing schools are in short supply. In this report, Public Impact suggests that school leaders be imported from untapped pipelines of talent lying outside of the education sector. Instead of adhering to traditional practice of recruiting from within, schools can replenish the dwindling principal pool and revive turnaround schools by selecting leaders from other areas.
In looking for a new leader, the report recommends that schools select for a number of qualities. Those best suited to lead turnarounds possess the unique ability to motivate, problem-solve, and confidently lead students and staff. The report also outlines key areas in which non-traditional candidates should be trained. To ensure that a new hire is quickly brought up to speed, a clear action plan should be put in place that allows a new school leader and his or her staff to hit the ground running. Leaders coming from outside education should also be trained in the elements of highly effective, high-poverty schools.
In Ohio, where 42 schools are already beginning turnaround efforts under the federal School Improvement Grant program (to say nothing of the list to be overhauled under recently passed provisions in Ohio’s budget), most of the schools must replace top leadership. Where will these high-capacity school leaders come from? Simply rotating the existing pool of principals is ineffective and previous attempts at overhaul among Ohio schools illustrated that without real leadership change, turnarounds are largely meaningless. Some schools got by with a simple internal shift while others swapped in a principal from another failing school. Whatever the case, turnaround schools in Ohio and elsewhere would be wise to invigorate themselves by introducing a breath of fresh air from outside the traditional leadership pipelines.
Importing Leaders For
School Turnaround
Julie Kowal and Emily Ayscue
Hassel
Public Impact
2011
Every year some 200,000 teacher candidates from 1,400 higher education institutions complete their student teaching requirement. In theory, student teaching is an opportunity for students to combine everything they’ve learned about the profession over the course of their training, and walk away prepared for the classroom. But in reality, how well are teacher-prep programs equipping teachers for their futures in the classroom? A recent study by NCTQ attempts to answer this question.
The report ranked 134 schools (69 percent public and 41 percent private) according to these standards of quality: whether student teaching lasts at least 10 weeks; whether the teacher preparation program selects the cooperating teacher (the primary classroom teacher); whether cooperating teachers have at least three years of experience; and whether they have the capacity to mentor an adult and provide feedback and support. To rate schools, NCTQ collected numerous documents, including those that outline the selection process of cooperating teachers; surveyed principals from elementary schools who participated in the student teaching experience; and conducted several site visits.
The findings are shocking, and shed light on many ways in which student teaching experiences are inadequate. They include:
NCTQ only looked at two education schools in Ohio, and the results are worrisome. Ohio University received a “poor” rating (the lowest rating), and Youngstown State University was rated as “weak” (the second lowest rating). Ohio should take note of these findings and strive to improve its student teaching programs. It should be noted that while the Buckeye State has room to improve it should be applauded for being one of only a small number of states that considers student teaching a full-time commitment of 12 semester hours.
Student Teaching in America
Julie Greenberg,
Laura Pomerance, and Kate Walsh
National Council on
Teacher Quality
July 2011
Outsiders have envied, emulated, and damned D.C.’s acclaimed teacher-evaluation system, IMPACT. But what is the insiders’ perspective? This report from Ed Sector delivers the answer. Author Susan Headden, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, presents a thorough and balanced perspective on this revolutionary (but still emergent) system. She explains the core elements of IMPACT (the classroom observations, instructional buckets against which teachers are measured, etc.), and weaves a narrative that effectively captures the experience of (a sample of) observed teachers, “master educators” (the ones conducting the observations), as well as principals, union leaders, and District staff responsible for developing the system. She notes a few red flags (the distribution of IMPACT’s large performance bonuses are concentrated in already high-performing schools, for example) and details a few places where IMPACT could be improved, notably by doing more to help develop educators rather than simply reward or punish them. But progress is being made on that front. Based on our own interviews, we found that, overwhelmingly, teachers saw monumental improvements in professional development, and that the new system gave them specific, tangible ways to enhance instruction.
Inside IMPACT: D.C.’s Model Teacher Evaluation System
Education Sector
by Susan Headden
June 2011
This report begins with a Cinderella story: high school (the infamous Locke in Los Angeles) meets charter management organization, is taken over, transforms from drop-out factory to a high-performing charter. How widespread should the involvement of charter management organizations be in turning around the nation’s lowest performing high schools? CAP takes on this question in its latest report.
Low-performing district schools opting to become charters are rare; only five percent of schools awarded a federal School Improvement Grant have chosen to restart as charter schools, and very few of those are high schools. But the report argues that the use of Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) in school overhauls is an area ripe with opportunity. This policy paper offers observations, largely based on conversations from charter operators and district leaders in two cities, on how district-charter partnerships are taking shape.
CMOs attempting to turn around failing schools face different obstacles than those working solely with start-ups. Money and resources are obviously a key component in the district-charter relationship. The ability and willingness of school districts to invest funding into facilities and maintenance, and to provide human capital resources, can create a great support system for a failing school. Administrative barriers and issues of autonomy are cited as the largest hurdles for districts becoming charters under the CMO direction. CAP’s anecdotal evidence confirms what we already knew: CMOs undertaking turnaround projects are forced to grow in new directions.
These are fine “first looks” at the role of CMOs in district schools turned to charters. However, CAP’s paper shows little information on the advancement of student performance in the schools studied, nor the likelihood that districts will look to charter operators to turn around drop-out factories using School Improvement Grant money.
Charting New Territory: Tapping Charter Schools to Turn
Around the Nation’s Dropout Factories
Center
for American Progress
Melissa Lazarín
June 2011
