# Presentation: 316855

## Teacher Advancement Program

**TAP Expansion, Impact and Outcomes**
**Lewis C. Solmon**
**President**
**Teacher Advancement Program Foundation**
**April 27, 2006**

**Teacher Advancement Program**

**Notes:**
Rationale:
Cost of turnover
Lost performance

Components
Our success
Using data 

## Slide 2

**Notes:**
I want to start with the rationale for TAP.

## Home and Family				49%

**Teacher Qualifications****	****	****	****43%**
**Class Size****	****	****	****	****	****  ****	****  8%**

**Research on Importance/Impact of Teacher Quality**

- Source:  Marzano

**Notes:**
WHAT AFFECTS STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT?

Quality teaching does make a difference 
Need to attract and retain more talented teachers (% in top/bottom quartile) turnover.  
Need better distribution (out-of-field in high poverty)

From meta-analysis using aggregate data on teacher effects on student achievement.

Robert J. Marzano is a Senior Scholar at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning in Aurora, Colorado; an Associate Professor at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Vice President of Pathfinder Education, Inc.; and a private consultant operating out of Centennial, Colorado

Note: Coleman Report.

## Evidence on Teacher Quality

**Magnitude of quality effects (TX)**
**10X class size reduction**
**5 years of good teacher = SES gap**
**Magnitude of quality effects (Gary, IN)**
**Good ******** Bad equals 1 year achievement**

- Source: Hanushek

**Notes:**
Smaller classes make it difficult to ensure quality teachers
Intuitive vs. Empirical

## Out-of-Field Teaching Rampant

**	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****     ****Physical **
**	****	****	****	****Math****	****   English    History     Science**
**All Public ****	****	****35.8%     33.1%        58.5%       59.1%**
**Schools**
**High Poverty          51.4%     41.7%        61.2%       61.2%**
**Schools**

- Source:  Ingersoll, 2003

**Notes:**
And this only refers to subject matter knowledge.
Says nothing about years experience in teaching.

TQ distribution issue
-least experienced teachers go to hard-to-staff schools, gain experience, 
effectiveness and seniority and move to wealthier schools 
-must end FARM System 

## Distribution of Experienced Teachers in Philadelphia 

**Average percentage of teachers in high-poverty/high-minority and low-poverty/low-minority schools by measures of teaching experiences in the school and total years of teaching experience, 1998-1999**

**Average percentage of teachers**

## Why Don’t People Choose Teaching?

**Salaries not competitive**
**Costs of training not warranted by salary**
**Start career and retire with same title and same job description**
**Rarely do supervisors try to see how effective you are**
**Few opportunities to get better at what you do**
**Everyone with same experience and credits gets same pay**
**Women have more career opportunities now**
**Little collegiality**
**Sometimes little respect from community**
**Often unpleasant, dangerous environment**

**Notes:**
Many excellent teachers, just NOT ENOUGH
We asked what is different about teaching than other professions that deters highly capable graduates from selecting it as a career. 
Salaries not competitive – Can’t pay all teachers wages competitive with lawyers.  In it for the money?  Vs. love kids?
Some suggest signing bonuses in hard-to-staff schools 
-want effective teachers not any teacher
-what incentive is there for these teachers to stay when bonus ends?
-could provide larger performance bonuses for teachers in high need schools, but     
	they get bonus only after proving effectiveness and they continue
Few opportunities to get better at what you do – professional development irrelevant.
Difficult to support families on one income.
In essence it does not have the “standing” of other professions.
The hope for the profession is to make it a real profession.
No career ladder
Isolation

So now people are talking about performance pay

## To Some:TAP is a professional development program that makes successful hard work pay off.To Others:TAP is a performance pay program that provides a great deal of support to teachersMessage:Do not implement performance pay in a vacuum – please!

**What is TAP?**

## Why Do Performance Pay Plans Fail?

**Imposed on Teachers**
**Do not provide mechanism for poorly performing teachers to get better**
**Teachers not prepared to be assessed**
**Fear of bias, nepotism of evaluators, don’t trust the principal**
**Evaluation criteria not fair (student test scores vs. value added) or justified by research**

**Notes:**
Since the entry into TAP is often when looking for a performance pay plan, and since performance pay is most controversial element of TAP – must ask why it has not worked in the past.
Then we can see how the design of TAP has taken most of these issues into account.

TAP is a comprehensive reform, the most controversial aspect of which is performance pay 
		-rewards for extra work and high level performance
		why do performance pay plans fail? 
		must be well designed

## Why Do Performance Pay Plans Fail?

**Some teachers lose money**
**Zero-sum game causes competition**
**Fear that the program will not be sustainable**

**Why Do Performance Pay Plans Fail?**

**Notes:**
NOT PERCEVED AS FAIR
All of these negatives can be dealt with. 
Especially, lets think about what we mean by fair.
Equal does not mean fair.

## 

ELEMENTS OF THAT REFORM:
Multiple Career Paths
Instructionally Focused Accountability
Ongoing, Applied Professional Growth
Performance-Based Compensation

**ELEMENTS OF THAT REFORM:**
**Multiple Career Paths**
**Instructionally Focused Accountability**
**Ongoing, Applied Professional Growth**
**Performance-Based Compensation**

**TAP is a Comprehensive Reform**

**Notes:**
Here is an overview of those structures 
1.  Multiple Career Paths – needed for distributed instructional leadership
2. Instructionally Focused Accountability – to be fair, also no one sees you perform - can identify effective teachers.
3. Ongoing, Applied Professional Growth – to help get better – if so, willing to be evaluated
4.  Performance-Based Competition  - reward for hard work if successful 

These have been the basics of TAP since its inception.
All 4 must be in place in TAP schools.  Some adaptation within the principles, but we have never waivered regarding the importance of each of them.
Teacher feedback influences shape of programs.
Others have focused on one element, and so, mischaracterized the program.

Most performance pay plans fail because they simply reward teachers who are effective and do not reward others.
Our plan combines rewards with a professional development process that enables ALL teachers to become more effective.

Resistance to performance pay is generally not due to resistance of teachers to be held accountable, but rather, because many teachers feel they are not prepared to be assessed as to effectiveness.

## Performance Pay

**Must be supported by strong, transparent and fair teacher evaluation system**
**Need professional development to deal with areas of improvement**
**Teachers are willing to be evaluated if they are prepared for it**
**Bonuses keep them willing to do extra work**

**Performance Pay**

**Notes:**
Our conclusion is that performance pay alone is not enough.

Performance pay must be supported by a strong, transparent and fair teacher evaluation system that requires teachers of different ranks to operate it, and professional development that reinforces the performance criteria and enables conscientious teachers to meet these criteria.  Hence TAP.
Fear of performance pay often is because many well-intentioned teachers fear they will not do well because they do not know what to do.  
Hence, unless professional development is provided in these schools to deal with deficiencies, led by Master and Mentor teachers, teachers will not feel comfortable.  
With professional development and other support they will accept performance pay.  That is if they are prepared to be assessed, they will accept assessment.

**I began by thinking performance pay would motivate teachers to do better.  Rather, teachers are willing to be evaluated if they are prepared for it.  The “pot of gold” keeps them willing to do the extra work.  —> Fair professional

## TAP: Performance-based Compensation

**Excellent teacher performance, as judged by experts**
**Student achievement gains (Value-added)**
**Different functions/additional duties**
**Our model **_**would**_** support higher pay:**
**If the teacher’s primary field is difficult to staff, or if the teacher is in a hard-to-staff school**
**For teacher training & relevant degrees (e.g. National Board Certification)**

**TAP: Performance-based Compensation**

**Notes:**
Our model would support pay for hard to staff
	1) field
	2) school
	as well as for  3) National Board Certification
It does pay for performance of teacher and their students.

This is:
Professional
Respectful
And fair (equal is not fair)

## Performance Awards

**Everyone meeting a standard gets bonus**
**Eliminates “zero sum game” mentality  and competition**
**Teachers who score well on skills can earn bonuses even if student scores do not improve, and vice versa**

**Performance Awards**

**Notes:**
Opportunity for all teachers to get a bonus of some amount. 
 NOT: only the top X% will receive bonuses.  
Eliminates the “zero sum game” mentality, and much of the feared competition rather than collaboration.
Teachers who score well on skills, can earn bonuses even if students’ scores do not improve, and visa versa. 

No one does worse than they would now -  no one loses money.
Another expense.

## Skills and Knowledge

**Can get over nepotism/favoritism worry  with clear evaluation system and multiple classroom visits with multiple trained/certified evaluators**
**Possibility of creeping grade inflation**
**Followed up by efforts to help get better**

**Skills and Knowledge**

**Notes:**
50% of the bonus is awarded for skills and knowledge. 
Can get over the nepotism/favoritism worry with a clear teacher evaluation system and multiple classroom visits with multiple trained/certified evaluators. 
There is always the distinct possibility of creeping grade inflation in teacher evaluations.  Evaluators tend to give higher scores than are merited because they want to be nice, to avoid confrontation, tend to think well of everyone, or don’t really understand the standards and scoring rubric.  The school culture is not to criticize colleagues.  There might be the fear of reprisals.  Hence there should be oversight of teacher evaluations.  Must ensure that Leadership Teams understand and apply the TAP Teaching Standards and scoring rubrics in the same way.  This requires a constant checking and rechecking that the principal must stay on top of during leadership meetings.  
Teachers will accept critical/ poor evaluations if these are followed up by efforts to help them get better, and to see what really excellent teaching looks like.

## Student Achievement

**20-30% school-wide for all teachers (gives incentive to help others get better)**
**20-30% based on achievement of individual teacher’s students**
**Value-added assessment**
**Statistical model to measure ****growth**** in student achievement from pre-to-post-testing**
**Eliminates problem of having students with different levels of ability**

**Student Achievement**

**Notes:**
50% is based upon student achievement (value-added):
20-30% school-wide for all teachers (which gives teachers the incentive to help others get better).
20-30% based on achievement of individual teacher’s students.  We would like this percentage to grow once the kinks in the system are ironed out. 
There is a big difference between pay for individual performance and pay for school wide-performance, or even grade-level.  In school-wide and grade level awards, the performance of a few can carry many.
Value-added eliminates problem of having smarter students.  But this is a very difficult concept to explain. 

Notes on value-added:
Replicated Sanders
Can isolate teacher effects
NCLB 3-8 high school reform school wide if no individual
Free rider

## TAP Outcomes

**New Sources of funds have materialized from district budgets, state appropriations, federal funding, ballot initiatives, and private foundations.**
**Growth from 1 state in 2000-01 to 13 states plus D.C. next year serving roughly 125 schools, over 4,000 teachers, and 50,000 students.**
**We have reversed the flow of quality teachers who now move from high SES Non-TAP schools to low SES TAP schools.**
**Easier to hire good teachers**
**Turnover at TAP schools was half that of Non-TAP schools**
**Generally, TAP schools outperform schools in student achievement gains.**

## TAP Outcomes

**Substantially more TAP schools increased the proportion of proficient students from 2003-04 to 2004-05 than declined.**
**Substantially more TAP schools were making AYP in 4 states than statewide even though they generally were more likely to be high needs schools.**
**Support for TAP elements is strong and increasing**
**Collegiality is very strong in TAP school**
**TAP has become a technical assistance program for schools needing improvement in South Carolina.**
**Based on TAP results, Minnesota passed an 86 million dollar teacher compensation. **
**The first 5 schools to reopen in New Orleans Parish in Louisiana are TAP schools.**

##  www.tapschools.org

**         ****lsolmon@tapschools.org**