Perhaps it’s because, as a nation, we’ve come around on teacher quality. Or perhaps it’s because so many of the policy prescriptions that contribute to improving the teacher corps are so dry, technical, and largely beneath the hurly-burly of public debate. Either way, NCTQ’s 2015 Policy Yearbook is notable for the substantial amount of positive change it documents, with states “continuing down a reform path focused on teacher effectiveness” and “fewer states out of step with the prevailing trend each passing year.” What the report fails to note is that NCTQ itself can claim substantial credit for creating this tipping point, amassing a substantial record of effectiveness in a very short amount of time.
Getting religion on teacher quality is one thing. Ending our sinful ways is a very different matter. The average state teacher policy grade for 2015 is a C-minus, a mark that is “still far too low to ensure teacher effectiveness nationwide,” NCTQ notes. Yet just six years ago, in the 2009 yearbook, the average was a D. The pews are beginning to fill up.
Better evidence of improvement can be seen state-by-state. In 2015, thirteen states earned grades between B-minus and B-plus (six years ago, no state scored better than a C). Today, twenty-four states set a high academic bar for admission into teacher preparation programs; in 2009, thirty-six didn’t require even a basic skills test. Twenty-two states now require elementary school teachers to demonstrate content knowledge in core subjects they teach; twenty-six now measure their knowledge of math. And perhaps the biggest conversion of all: In 2009, not one state tied evidence of teacher effectiveness to employment decisions of any consequence. A mere six years later, nearly half (twenty-three) do. Can I get an “Amen”?
Lest complacency set in, the yearbook still offers ample cause for outrage. It is fine and laudable, for example, that a slim majority of states now require middle school teachers to pass a test in the core subject that they teach. But it’s mind-numbingly stupid that states everywhere didn’t long ago make this the very first criterion for teaching middle school. (What could possibly be more important? Ensuring that prospective teachers aren’t on the FBI’s Most Wanted list?) It’s also alarming that, for all the attention given to early childhood education, NCTQ cannot identify even a single state as a “best practice state”—or even one meeting the goal of delivering well-prepared early childhood teachers.
Florida is still atop the leader board with an overall grade of B-plus (the nation still awaits its first A-rated state). New Mexico wins “most improved” with a jump from D-plus to C on the strength of gains in its teacher preparation program accountability, alternative certification programs, and teacher effectiveness policies. Indiana and New York this year join Louisiana and Tennessee with overall B grades. NCTQ singles out the Empire State for particular praise in improving policies for certifying special education teachers. Fordham’s home state of Ohio rates a B-minus; however, the yearbook gives Ohio the highest marks in the nation for expanding the pool of teachers with “flexible yet rigorous pathways” into the profession.
“The teacher policy glass is starting to look half full on many fronts,” the report notes. That is indeed encouraging. Under the leadership of Kate Walsh, NCTQ has good reason to be proud of its work writing the hymnal from which an ever-increasing number of state policy makers are singing.
SOURCE: “2015 State Teacher Policy Yearbook,” National Council on Teacher Quality (December 2015).
