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Illinois School Board Journal
March-April 1999

Hire the best

By Alice Sutton

Every fall on the first day of school, parents across the nation anxiously await the assignment of their children to new teachers. They wonder: Who is going to teach my child? Will my child's teacher be inspiring and devoted? Will she or he look at their individual needs? Will this teacher help my child learn the necessary basics as well as how to think and solve problems? Will my child's teacher be knowledgeable not only in subject matter but about children's needs as well? Parents lobby to get their students into certain classes, knowing that their children's learning depends upon the quality of the curriculum and teaching they receive during the year. Those with financial resources may move to affluent communities or place their children in private schools. Families with neither the political clout or financial means to do either may live within the grasp of a magnet school, which typically have the best teachers in the district who are working in schools that are organized to support their teaching efforts.

These parents spend tremendous effort to make sure their children have good teachers, because they know what a difference it will make to their children's future. Parents have always known that teaching is the most important element of successful learning.

Policymakers, too, are coming to understand that the quality of teaching in our public schools will make the crucial difference not only to the futures of individual children but to America's future as well. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996) proposes "an audacious goal. . . . By the year 2006, America will provide every student with what should be his or her educational birthright: access to competent, caring and qualified teaching." ("What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future," National Commission on Teaching America's Future, September, 1996)

New realities

Illinois school boards are charged with the duty of recreating the teaching force by selecting only the most caring, competent, and qualified teachers.

This year America's schools enrolled more children than ever before. In the year 2007, student enrollment will grow to 54.3 million up from about 52 million in 1996. The size of the teaching force is projected to exceed 3.3 million by 2007. Forty percent of the nation's teachers will retire or otherwise leave the profession by 2003-2004 (U.S. Department of Education). The changing demands of America's workforce requirements have stimulated growing concern about students' ability to succeed in meeting the demands of a knowledge-based society and economy based on global competition.

By the year 2000, blue collar workers will comprise only 10 percent of the workforce. The "knowledge work" jobs that are replacing them require people to plan and organize much of their own work, manage teams and use high levels of technical know-how. These skills require an education that teaches students to frame their own problems, organize themselves, and persevere in complex projects rather than passively doing worksheets.

Many current educators were prepared years ago in programs that did not envision the kinds of challenges schools now confront and did not have access to the knowledge about teaching and learning available today. In 1996, for example, about 11 percent of U.S. students were identified as disabled, and the vast majority of them (73 percent) were served in regular classrooms. Today's teacher, in a typical classroom of 25 students, will serve at least four or five students with specific needs that she or he has not been prepared to meet, according to "Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching."

For these and other reasons, some schools are reporting difficulty in finding teachers for many job openings -- even though there are many new teachers who can not find jobs. For example, in 1994, more than half of schools with vacancies in special education, bilingual education or English as a second language, physical science, life science, or foreign language -- and more than 40 percent of schools with vacancies in mathematics -- had difficulty filling positions. Furthermore, schools with the largest number of low income students and minority students were much more likely to report that they had difficulty filling positions. Consequently, these schools were more likely to fill vacancies with unqualified teachers, substitutes, or teachers from other fields or to expand class sizes or cancel course offerings.

Standards

If our goal is for all students to meet the Illinois state-mandated standards, then teachers are the means to this end. "Teachers, too, will be expected to know not only what student standards require but also how to enable students to meet them," reported C. Strol, in "What Higher Education Can Do to Get Better Teachers Into Our Schools." (American Association for Higher Education Bulletin # 49, April, 1997)

However, according to a U.S. Department of Education survey, many teachers are not as qualified as they should be to teach the subjects they teach. For example, only 52.6 percent of mathematics teachers have a state license and a major in their primary teaching assignment field.

In addition, in a study by R.F. Ferguson, student test scores varied by 40 percent as a result of teacher qualification. ("Paying for Public Education," Harvard Journal on Legislation, Summer 1991) In an analysis of 900 Texas school districts, the study found that teachers' experience (as measured by scores on licensing examination, master's degrees, and experience) accounted for 40 percent of the measured variance in students' reading and mathematics achievement at grades one through seven.

Ferguson also found that every additional dollar spent on more highly qualified teachers netted greater increases in student achievement than did other uses of school resources. The effects were strong, and the variations in teacher expertise so great that, after controlling for socioeconomic status, the large disparities in achievement between black and white students were almost entirely accounted for by differences in qualifications of their teachers. An additional contribution to student achievement was made by lower pupil-teacher ratios in elementary grades. In combination, differences in teacher expertise and class sizes accounted for as much of the measured variance in achievement as did student family background factors. This data supports the assumption that too many teachers lack the skills they need to raise student achievement as well as help students meet the state-mandated standards. We must ask ourselves: How can we expect students to reach higher standards if teachers do not have the proper qualifications for teaching their assigned field? If teachers are the vital link between standards and education in the classroom then how can we better prepare teachers so students will be prepared?

The opportunity to recreate the teaching force for Illinois schools is there. Responding to the challenge from National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, the Illinois State Board of Education adopted the Illinois Teaching Standards. (See "Illinois Teaching Standards," below). The eleven standards, modeled on those developed by the Interstate New Teachers and Assessment Consortium (INTAC), are a part of a national movement to establish performance-based licensure systems.

The standards represent the common core standards of knowledge and performance that all teachers should know and be able to do. New teachers must meet these standards in order to obtain any Illinois teaching license. Furthermore, the Illinois Teaching Standards will serve as guidelines for the continuing professional development and relicensing of personnel.

Suggestions

The most important aspect of this conceptual framework is still to be tested at the local level through local school boards' selection and hiring processes. Following are some suggestions on how to use the standards to improve your teaching force.

• School boards should review and, if necessary, revise their hiring processes. Some districts have hiring procedures that are so cumbersome, dysfunctional, and untimely that they chase away the best-prepared candidates instead of aggressively recruiting them.
• Before initiating the selection process, determine accurate staff needs, develop accurate corresponding job descriptions and initiate partnerships with universities for recruitment of fully qualified teachers.
• Finally, superintendents must know and use the new teacher standards in the selection process. In order to demonstrate performance-based competency, a teacher candidate will have developed a professional portfolio compiled to provide an effective and easy-to-read portrait of the individual's professional competence. The professional portfolio will typically be organized around the Illinois Teaching Standards and may be either in traditional notebook form or electronic form delivered via computer disk or an Internet address. For every standard, the portfolio will offer tangible evidence of knowledge gained, skills mastered, values clarified, or dispositions and attitudes characteristic of that person. When reviewing for teacher candidates, superintendents should look for competency areas and dispositions that will fit each unique school's instructional needs.

Hiring teachers is a serious business and chances are your schools will be living with the consequences of your decisions for a long time. Selecting teachers who agree with your school's educational philosophy and are competent, caring, and qualified professionals is a priority. There are no shortcuts for teacher selection -- it will require time and perseverance to hire only the best teachers. But what better legacy to leave your schools than a highly qualified, effective faculty? Yours will become the schools in which parents fight to enroll their children.

Alice Sutton has been a teacher, psychologist, administrator and university faculty member in Illinois. She is currently with the University of Southern Indiana, teacher education department.

1) Content Knowledge
The teacher understands the central concepts, methods of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) and creates learning experiences that make the content meaningful to all students.

2) Human Development and Learning
The teacher understands how individuals grow, develop, and learn and provides learning opportunities that support the intellectual, social, and personal development of all students.

3) Diversity
The teacher understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners.

4) Planning for Instruction
The teacher understands instructional planning and designs instruction based upon knowledge of the discipline, students, the community, and curriculum goals.

5) Learning Environment
The teacher uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.

6) Instructional Delivery
The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.

7) Communication
The teacher uses knowledge of effective written, verbal, nonverbal, and visual communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.

8) Assessment
The teacher understands various formal and informal assessment strategies and uses them to support the continuous development of all students.

9) Collaborative Relationships
The teacher understands the role of the community in education and develops and maintains collaborative relationships with colleagues, parents/guardians, and the community to support student learning and well-being.

10) Reflection and Professional Growth
The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates how choices and actions affect students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community and actively seeks opportunities to grow professionally.

11) Professional Conduct
The teacher understands education as a profession, maintains standards of professional conduct, and provides leadership to improve student learning and well-being.