Alabama Education Policy Primer

TOC	Table of Contents
Intro	Introduction by Kenneth K.Wong and James W. Guthrie
Ch. 1	Accountability, Assessments, and Standards
Ch. 2	Achievement
Ch. 3	Closing the Achievement Gap
Ch. 4	Finance and Funding
Ch. 5	Governance and Policymaking
Ch. 6	Math, Science and Technology
Ch. 7	No Child Left Behind (Elementary and Secondary Education Act)
Ch. 8	Reading and Writing
Ch. 9	School Choice
Ch. 10	School Leadership
Ch. 11	Teaching Quality
- - -	Education-ary

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Alabama Education Policy Primer

Ch. 11: Teaching Quality

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Overview
To improve public education in Alabama, the state must improve teaching. Put quite simply, good teaching matters most to student academic achievement. Existing research has powerfully demonstrated that teacher effectiveness has a dramatic impact on student achievement, especially for high-risk children. In Tennessee, researchers found that, all else being equal, students assigned to the most effective teachers for three years in a row performed 50 percentile points higher on a 100-point scale than comparable students assigned to the least effective teachers for three years in a row. In another prominent study published in 2002, researchers concluded from extensive data in Texas that having a high-quality teacher throughout elementary school can "substantially offset or even eliminate the disadvantage of low socio-economic background." This study also found that teacher quality accounted for a 7% variance in student performance — a high figure.

As states move into a new era of educational reform, highlighted by the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the impact of teaching quality has increasingly been measured by student academic achievement. Good teachers get students to learn. A great deal of research is being conducted in order to determine which teachers get results — and what qualities those teachers possess — in hopes of crafting policies that will lead more teachers to similar success. However, there is much known now about policies and efforts that can improve teaching quality and student achievement.

Alabama has taken several important steps to improving teaching quality in the state. The establishment of and investment in the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), which has a strong staff development component, is an important example of the state’s initial commitment to teaching quality (for more information on the Alabama Reading Initiative, see Chapter 8: Reading and Writing). Recently, the state revised its standards for colleges that prepare future teachers, another important quality control measure.What the state lacks, however, is a comprehensive teacher development system that addresses a teacher's career path from the time teachers enter college to the time they enter the teaching profession and beyond. Alabama's long-range goal should be to guarantee that every student in every public school has thoroughly prepared teachers in every subject — teachers who are well-paid, supported with high quality professional development and held accountable for improving student achievement.

To reach this goal, Alabama must address each of the critical areas listed below and link them together in a way that holds each part of the system accountable for the success of the whole:

• Recruitment of talented people into education careers
• Careful screening of candidates who seek to enter teacher training
• Better initial preparation of teachers at Alabama's colleges and universities
• Higher certification and licensing standards, including alternate certification approaches
• Support programs for new teachers
• Adequately funded, on-going professional development targeted at individual school and student needs
• Retention strategies to keep the best and brightest in teaching
• School conditions that maximize teaching and learning

This chapter will examine where Alabama stands in building this type of cohesive support system so that every student receives a qualified, capable and caring teacher.