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ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: BOOSTING

QUALITY IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND LABOR

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 11, 2007

Serial No. 110–34

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor

(

Available on the Internet: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/education/index.html 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR 

GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Chairman 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

Linda T. Sa ́nchez, California 

John P. Sarbanes, Maryland 

Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii 

Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania 

John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky 

Phil Hare, Illinois 

Yvette D. Clarke, New York 

Joe Courtney, Connecticut 

Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California, 

Ranking Minority Member 

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin 

Peter Hoekstra, Michigan 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington 

Kenny Marchant, Texas 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

Rob Bishop, Utah 

David Davis, Tennessee 

Timothy Walberg, Michigan 

Dean Heller, Nevada

Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director 

Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on May 11, 2007 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of Members: 

Altmire, Hon. Jason, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Pennsylvania, prepared statement of .......................................................... 74

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ Senior Republican Member, Committee 

on Education and Labor ............................................................................... 3

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor ......... 1

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2

Additional submissions: 

Prepared Statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. 

Ducommun Professor, Stanford University School of Education 74

Letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA), 

dated May 10, 2007 ........................................................................ 82

Letter from the National Writing Project, dated May 11, 2007 ..... 84

Statement of Witnesses: 

Bibeau, Joan, Education Minnesota ............................................................... 31

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 33

Burke, Dr. Joseph P., superintendent of schools, Springfield, MA .............. 41

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 42

Dale, Dr. Jack D., superintendent, Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax, VA ........................................................................................................... 24

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 26

Klein, Joel I., chancellor, New York City Department of Education ........... 13

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 15

McLean, Valdine, chemistry, physics, and biology teacher, Pershing County High School, Lovelock, NV ...................................................................... 21

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 23

Podesta, John D., president and chief executive officer, Center for American Progress ................................................................................................. 8

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 10

Ritter, Gary W., associate professor, endowed chair in education policy, 

Department of Education Reform, College of Education and Health 

Professions, University of Arkansas ............................................................ 36

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 38

Sanford, Dr. Jarvis, principal, Dodge Renaissance Academy ....................... 17

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 18

(1)

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: BOOSTING 

QUALITY IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION 

Friday, May 11, 2007

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Education and Labor 

Washington, DC

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:33 a.m., in Room 2175, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. George Miller [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Miller, Kildee, Payne, Scott, Tierney, 

Kucinich, Holt, Susan Davis, Danny Davis of Illinois, Bishop of 

New York, Sarbanes, Sestak, Loebsack, Hirono, Hare, Clarke, 

Courtney, Shea-Porter, McKeon, Petri, Castle, Ehlers, Keller, Price, 

Kuhl, Bishop of Utah, David Davis of Tennessee, Walberg, and 

Heller. 

Staff Present: Aaron Albright, Press Secretary; Tylease Alli, 

Hearing Clerk; Alice Cain, Senior Education Policy Advisor (K-12); 

Adrienne Dunbar, Legislative Fellow, Education; Amy Elverum, 

Legislative Fellow, Education; Denis Forte, Director of Education 

Policy; Lloyd Horwich, Policy Advisor for Subcommittee on Early 

Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education; Lamont Ivey, 

Staff Assistant, Education; Brian Kennedy, General Counsel; AnnFrances, Lambert, Administrative Assistant to Director of Education Policy; Jill Morningstar, Education Policy Advisor; Ricardo 

Martinez, Policy Advisor for Subcommittee on Higher Education 

Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness; Joe Novotny, Chief Clerk; 

Lisette Partelow, Staff Assistant, Education; Daniel Weiss, Special 

Assistant to the Chairman; Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director; James 

Bergeron, Minority Deputy Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Robert Borden, Minority General Counsel; Kathryn 

Bruns, Minority Legislative Assistant; Taylor Hansen, Minority 

Legislative Assistant; Linda Stevens, Minority Chief Clerk; Assistant to the General Counsel; and Brad Thomas, Minority Professional Staff Member. 

Chairman MILLER. Good morning. The Committee on Education 

and Labor will come to order for this morning’s hearing. And I 

want to say how much I look forward to this hearing focusing on 

one of the most important issues in education today, and that is 

teacher quality. 

A fundamental goal of No Child Left Behind was to close the 

achievement gap. One of the best ways we can close the achieveVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
2

ment gap is to close the teacher quality gap. We must ensure that 

every child in every classroom is taught by an outstanding teacher. 

No Child Left Behind took important steps for setting some of 

these basic criteria for determining who is qualified to teach. It requires teachers to be certified, to have a bachelor’s degree and 

know something about the subject they teach. 

The law set a deadline, the 2005-2006 school year, for all States 

to ensure that teachers meet the criteria. Unfortunately, no States 

met the deadline and it has since been extended by a year; and as 

a result, too many children are still taught by teachers who are not 

certified and who do not have the expertise in the subject matter 

that they are teaching, and it is inexcusable. 

Even more troubling is the fact that for too many low-income 

children the best teachers are often across town, a world away from 

the students who need them the most. For example, nearly threequarters of the math classes in high-poverty middle schools are 

taught by teachers who lack a major, even a minor in math. It is 

these students who most need a leg up in life that a good education 

can provide. 

And with that I am going to ask unanimous consent to revise 

and extend my remarks. I know we have many members who are 

here. We had a big change in schedule yesterday, and I want to 

make sure that they get the opportunity to hear the witnesses. 

I will put the rest of my remarks in the record at this time. 

Thank you. And I recognize Mr. McKeon, the senior Republican on 

the committee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. George Miller, Chairman, Committee on 

Education and Labor 

Good morning. I’m looking forward to today’s hearing because it focuses on one 

of the most important issues in education today: teacher quality. 

We all remember the difference that wonderful teachers have made in our lives 

and I want to thank our teachers here today for their dedication and commitment 

to taking on the overwhelming demands of their profession. 

We ask teachers to perform miracles every day in our under-funded and overcrowded system. We owe them and their students more than rhetoric; we need to 

show our commitment to encouraging talented people to enter the field and stay 

there. 

Report after report has shown that the single most important factor in determining a child’s success in school is the quality of his or her teacher. Unfortunately, 

the data is equally clear that low-income and minority students are much less likely 

than their peers to be taught by well-qualified teachers. 

A fundamental goal of No Child Left Behind is to close the achievement gap. One 

of the very best ways we can close the achievement gap is to close the teacher quality gap. We must ensure that every child, in every classroom, is taught by an outstanding teacher. 

No Child Left Behind took an important first step by setting some very basic criteria for determining who is qualified to teach. It requires teachers to be certified, 

have a Bachelor’s degree, and know something about the subject they teach. 

The law set a deadline—the 2005-2006 school year—for all states to ensure that 

their teachers meet this criteria. Unfortunately, no states met the deadline and it 

has since been extended by a year. 

Too many children are still taught by teachers who are not certified or who do 

not have expertise in the subject they are teaching. This is inexcusable. 

Even more troubling is the fact that for too many low-income children the best 

teachers are often across town and a world away from the students who need them 

most. For example, nearly three-quarters of math classes in high-poverty middle 

schools are taught by teachers who lack a major—or even a minor—in math. It is 

these students who most need the leg up in life that a good education can provide. 

3

We all remember a teacher who made us proud of ourselves for what we accomplished and helped us face our future with hope and confidence. Imagine if every 

one of our teachers over the years had given us that same strength. 

Over the next decade, we will need to hire more than two million new teachers 

to serve in our public schools. Yet today, we have no national plan for attracting 

outstanding students into the teaching profession, or keeping them there. 

There are many reasons why people decline to enter the teaching profession or 

decide to leave—low pay, lack of meaningful professional development, lack of respect, unsuitable working conditions, or little opportunity for advancement. 

By failing to address this problem, Congress is shortchanging our children and costing taxpayers an estimated $2.2 billion annually to replace teachers who have 

left the profession. We need to act immediately to ensure that we have an adequate 

supply of outstanding teachers for the next generation of students. 

This week 43 of my colleagues and I introduced the TEACH Act of 2007 to help 

increase our supply of excellent teachers and principals. It would double the federal 

investment in teacher quality so that all children will be taught by high-quality 

teachers and all teachers will have the supports they need to do their job well. 

Among its many provisions, the TEACH Act addresses the teacher shortage crisis 

in math, science, foreign language, special education and English language instruction through incentives, including upfront tuition assistance and loan forgiveness. 

The bill also establishes state-of-the-art induction programs for new teachers so 

they will have the support they need to succeed. It helps school districts establish 

career ladders for teachers who expand their knowledge and skills and take on new 

professional and leadership roles such as mentor or master teacher. 

The TEACH Act also ensures children have teachers with expertise in the subjects they teach. It provides financial incentives, including performance pay, to support outstanding teachers and principals who commit to spending four years in the 

hardest-to-staff schools, with extra incentives for teachers of shortage subjects. 

It also enforces NCLB’s teacher equity provisions by making ESEA funding contingent on states’ compliance with their plans to make sure poor and minority children have equitable access to high-quality teachers. 

Finally, the TEACH Act identifies and rewards our best teachers using 21st century data, tools and assessments. This includes holding schools of teacher education 

accountable for results by requiring states receiving Title II Teacher Quality grants 

to track the quality and results of the graduates of teacher education programs in 

the state and makes continued funding contingent on their progress. 

Nothing we will do this year on this committee is more important that ensuring 

that we live up to the promise at the core of No Child Left Behind—the promise 

of a qualified teacher for every child. 

We must dedicate the necessary resources, demand the necessary results, and 

stay with it to the end to make sure every child in America has a teacher we can 

all be proud of. We must also work to ensure that every teacher in America can 

say they are proud of us for the support we give them. 

I appreciate all each of you are doing to make this a reality and am looking forward to hearing more about what Congress can do to help through the ESEA reauthorization. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening today’s 

hearing. And I thank the witnesses for joining us here today and 

welcome each of you. 

The subject of teacher quality is a priority for me, this committee 

and this Congress. As we move forward with the reauthorization 

of No Child Left Behind, we must be mindful that we have 3.2 million teachers serving in our Nation’s classrooms, working with our 

children to help shape their futures. Through No Child Left Behind 

we placed upon ourselves the responsibility to ensure that the children in those classrooms are receiving the best education possible 

and from highly qualified, effective teachers. 

About a year ago, unfortunately, the Department of Education 

announced that no State would meet No Child Left Behind’s requirement of having highly qualified teachers in every classroom by 

the end of 2005-2006. And while many States submitted revised 

plans to achieving that goal, it is my belief that it will take a boldVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
4

er approach to develop and retain the most capable teachers in our 

schools. The foundation for this approach is ensuring that resources are in place to make it happen. 

During the No Child Left Behind era, Congress and President 

Bush have been working to address the subject of teacher quality 

by providing historic increases in teacher development funding to 

help States put the best-trained teachers in every classroom. In 

fact, since NCLB was first enacted, we have seen a 35 percent increase in funding for the teacher and principal training and recruitment fund, a formula grant program supporting activities to 

improve elementary and secondary teacher quality. 

Another key part of our effort must be innovation. On this front, States and schools have received more than $100 million in recent 

years to design and implement their own unique performancebased compensation standards through the Teacher Incentive 

Fund. Testimony from several of our witnesses today will show 

that performance pay for teachers can boost the quality of the 

teaching force and improve student achievement. 

I am sorry to say that the omnibus spending measure passed by 

Congress earlier this year virtually eliminated all funding for these 

programs leaving many States and local school districts to question 

whether they can fully implement the teacher recognition pay systems they have designed over the past several years. To ensure 

that the teacher incentive fund becomes a permanent part of our 

national effort to boost teacher quality, our committee colleague, 

Congressman Tom Price, introduced the Teacher Incentive Fund 

Act legislation that would authorize locally designed performance 

pay programs. The Teacher Incentive Fund Act enjoys broad bipartisan support, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in ensuring it plays a prominent role in the No Child Left Behind reauthorization process. 

Coupled with advancing this important legislation, Congress 

must also work to break down burdensome barriers currently in 

place through overly cumbersome collective bargaining agreements. 

Quite often these agreements include onerous bureaucratic hurdles 

for school districts that have nothing to do with teacher quality or 

student achievement. Removing these hurdles would provide principals and other education leaders more freedom to reward good 

teachers, remove poor ones and generally create a staff that is responsive to their schools needs. If we are truly serious about placing high-quality teachers in every American classroom, then this 

committee must explore ways to include proposals addressing collective bargaining agreements in the reauthorization process. 

For example, quite often restructuring a school into a charter 

school or making other wholesale changes to a school staff and curriculum requires a waiver from some of the work rules contained 

in collective bargaining agreements. Allowing school districts to 

waive those rules for schools in the restructuring process is a policy 

change that deserves serious consideration. 

Mr. Chairman, our Nation’s teachers and principals are on the 

front lines in the effort to close the achievement gap in our schools. 

During this reauthorization process, we must push for innovative 

ways to reward these men and women for their successes inside the 

classroom. I look forward to hearing the testimony of each of our 

5

witnesses today, and I would like to thank each of you for joining 

us here today. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, Senior Republican 

Member, Committee on Education and Labor 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening today’s hearing, and I thank the witnesses for joining us and welcome them. 

The subject of teacher quality is a priority for me, this Committee, and this Congress. As we move forward with the reauthorization of NCLB, we must be mindful 

that we have 3.2 million teachers serving in our nation’s classrooms—working with 

our children to help shape their futures. Through No Child Left Behind, we placed 

upon ourselves the responsibility to ensure that the children in those classrooms are 

receiving the best education possible—and from highly qualified teachers. 

About a year ago, unfortunately, the Department of Education announced that no 

state would meet No Child Left Behind’s requirement of having ‘‘highly qualified 

teachers’’ in every classroom by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. And while 

many states submitted revised plans to achieving this goal, it is my belief that it 

will take a bolder approach to develop and retain the most capable teachers in our 

schools. 

The foundation for this approach is ensuring that resources are in place to make 

it happen. During the No Child Left Behind era, Congress and President Bush have 

been working to address the subject of teacher quality by providing historic increases in teacher development funding to help states put the best-trained teachers 

in every classroom. In fact, since NCLB was first enacted, we have seen a 35 percent increase in funding for the Teacher and Principal Training and Recruitment 

Fund—a formula grant program supporting activities to improve the elementary 

and secondary teacher quality. 

Another key part of our effort must be innovation. On this front, states and 

schools have received more than $100 million in recent years to design and implement their own unique performance-based compensation standards through the 

Teacher Incentive Fund. Testimony from several of our witnesses today will show 

that performance pay for teachers can boost the quality of the teaching force and 

improve student achievement. I am sorry to say that the omnibus spending measure 

passed by Congress earlier this year virtually eliminated all funding for these programs, leaving many states and local school districts to question whether they can 

fully implement the teacher recognition pay systems they’ve designed over the past 

several years. 

To ensure that the Teacher Incentive Fund becomes a permanent part of our national effort to boost teacher quality, our Committee colleague, Congressman Tom 

Price, introduced the Teacher Incentive Fund Act—legislation that would authorize 

locally-designed performance pay programs. The Teacher Incentive Fund Act enjoys 

broad, bipartisan support, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in ensuring it 

plays a prominent role in the No Child Left Behind reauthorization process. 

Coupled with advancing this important legislation, Congress also must work to 

break down burdensome barriers currently in place through overly-cumbersome collective bargaining agreements. Quite often, these agreements include onerous bureaucratic hurdles for school districts that have nothing to do with teacher quality 

or student achievement. Removing these hurdles would provide principals and other 

education leaders more freedom to reward good teachers, remove poor ones, and 

generally create a staff that is responsive to their schools’ needs. 

If we are truly serious about placing high-quality teachers in every American 

classroom, then this Committee must explore ways to include proposals addressing 

collective bargaining agreements in the reauthorization process. For example, quite 

often, restructuring a school into a charter school or making other wholesale 

changes to a school’s staff and curriculum requires a waiver from some of the work 

rules contained in collective bargaining agreements. Allowing school districts to 

waive those rules for schools in the restructuring phase is a policy change that deserves serious consideration. 

Mr. Chairman, our nation’s teachers and principals are on the frontlines in the 

effort to close the achievement gap in our schools. During this reauthorization process, we must push for innovative ways to reward these men and women for their 

successes inside the classroom. I look forward to hearing the testimony of each of 

our witnesses and would like to thank each of you for joining us here today. 

6

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. 

We have the honor of having a great panel this morning to help 

us learn about this issue and, hopefully, provide some suggestions 

for our reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. I consider this the 

centerpiece of the changes that we need to make to see this law 

successfully reauthorized, to provide for the distribution of highly 

qualified teachers, to improve the skills of new teachers and current teachers and, hopefully, to end the unfortunate loss of talent 

through the very high turnover in people leaving the field after a 

couple of years. 

We are joined this morning, first, by John Podesta, who is President and CEO for the Center for American Progress, a progressive 

think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through 

ideas and action. He served as Chief of Staff to President Clinton 

from 1998 to 2001 and is currently a visiting professor of law at 

Georgetown University Law Center. 

And next we are joined by Chancellor Joel Klein, who became 

New York City School’s Chancellor in 2002 when he went ahead 

and instituted a comprehensive public school reform program, Children First. Previously, he was the Chairman and CEO of 

Bertelsmann, Incorporated, and the Chief Liaison Officer of 

Bertelsmann, AG. Prior to Bertelsmann, he served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the U.S. Antitrust Division after serving 2 years as Deputy Counsel to President Clinton. 

Next is Jarvis Sanford, who is the principal of the Dodge Renaissance Academy—good to see you again; it was only a week ago, I 

believe; thank you for being with us—a public school in Chicago. 

Sanford has a distinguished educational background that includes 

a B.A. from Morehouse and a Doctorate of Education from Northern Illinois University, and he is a graduate of the New Leaders 

for New Schools principal training program. 

The accomplishments that bring him here today, however, come 

during his 3-year tenure at Dodge. In 2005, 26 percent of the students scored at or above national norms. One year later 62 percent 

of the students achieved this level representing a 36 percent gain 

in 1 year, the largest gain in the State of Illinois. 

And I think Mr. Davis had something he wanted to say about 

those tremendous results. 

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. The only thing I 

would really say is that when we describe the community where 

the Dodge School is located, it is one of the low income, or one of 

the poorest communities in urban America, which makes the accomplishments of Dr. Sanford and his staff even more outstanding 

when you consider the impediments that exist in that community. 

And we are certainly pleased that he is here and look forward 

to his testimony. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. 

Next is Ms. Valdine McLean, who is a science teacher from Pershing County in Lovelock, Nevada; and Mr. Heller is going to make 

the introduction. 

Mr. HELLER. Thank you Mr. Chairman. It is my pleasure to introduce Valdine McLean as an exceptional high school teacher at 

Pershing County High School in Lovelock, Nevada. Ms. McLean 

teaches physics, chemistry, biology leadership classes to students in 

7

grades 9 through 12. She was the first teacher in her school to use 

computers in her classroom, has created a technology-rich environment that has proven to be particularly effective for English language learners and special needs students. 

She has served as a State President in the Nevada State Science 

Teachers Association, and worked extensively with the writing and 

revision of the State Science Standards Committee. Her awards include Pershing County Teacher of the Year in 2000, Nevada Teacher of the Year 2001, Horace Mann Teaching Excellence Award 2001 

and NEA Foundation for Improving Education and Teaching Excellence Awards 2001. 

So I am proud to have a fellow Nevadan here. I know the chairman of the school board, Todd Plimpton, is pleased to have her 

here also. Her influence is not only in the classroom, but on the 

field also, as her husband is the football coach for the high school. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. And welcome. 

Next is Mr. Jack Dale, who is the Superintendent of Fairfax 

County Public Schools. Previously he served as Superintendent for 

Frederick County, Maryland Public Schools, where in his fourth 

year he was named Maryland Superintendent of the Year. He has 

been a teacher of mathematics, Assistant Principal, Director of Instruction and Associate Superintendent. 

Welcome. 

And Joan Bibeau, who is the elementary school teacher on Leech 

Lake Indian Reservation in rural, northern Minnesota. She is a 34-

year veteran teacher, an enrolled member of the White Earth Bank 

of Ojibwe Tribe, and she was awarded the Minnesota Indian Education Association Teacher of the Year in 2006. 

Dr. Joseph Burke has been the Superintendent of Schools in 

Springfield, Massachusetts, since 2001. Prior to Springfield, he 

spent his entire career in Miami-Dade County, Florida’s public 

school system and worked most recently as District Director for 

Math and Science. 

Dr. Gary Ritter is Associate Professor of Education and Public 

Policy and Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Public Policy 

Director Program at the University of Arkansas. He is also the Director of the Office of Education Policy at the university. 

And Congresswoman Clarke, is she here? She wanted to make a 

comment about the Chancellor. Did you want to say something 

about Chancellor Klein? 

Ms. CLARKE. Yes, I do. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to our 

distinguished panelists and my colleagues. I wanted to thank 

Chancellor Klein for taking the time out of his very busy schedule 

to join the committee here in Washington today. 

As many of you may be aware, the reauthorization of No Child 

Left Behind Act will have a tremendous impact on our home, New 

York City. The New York City school system that you oversee, 

Chancellor Klein, has over 1,400 schools with over 1 million students. It is the largest school system in the United States, with 

136,000 employees and an operating budget of $15 billion. The New 

York City school system, of which I am a proud graduate, is larger 

than the school system of at least eight States. 

8

Chancellor Klein has played a key role in many of the city’s recent education successes, but there is still a long way to go. So it 

is my hope that we can work together as educators and legislators, 

as public servants, driving to help America’s children to develop a 

balanced approach that improves teacher quality, and also recognizes that the institutional knowledge of our best public school 

teachers are a key resource in improving overall quality. 

As we focus on teacher recruitment initiatives and incentives, we 

also understand the vital importance of those excellent teachers in 

schools across America who are already providing a high-quality 

educational experience to our children. 

Again, Chancellor Klein, thank you for coming today. It is my 

pleasure to introduce you to this body and the committee looks forward to what I anticipate will be a thoughtful, yet lively conversation. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

Thank you, Chancellor. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Podesta, we will begin with you. Welcome to the committee 

and thank you so much for your time. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN D. PODESTA, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS 

Mr. PODESTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the 

committee. I am outgunned by this outstanding group of professional educators, but at least there is one other lawyer sitting here 

with me, so I will try to hold my own. 

Let me offer just a bit of context, and then I want to offer three 

specific recommendations for improving teacher and principal quality in our schools. 

To start, I think it critical to recognize that the deficiencies in 

our public education system pose long-term threats to the wellbeing of our people and our economy. The U.S. suffers from twin 

achievement gaps. There are large disparities in educational attainment and readiness within our country, particularly between 

low-income and racial and ethnic minorities and others; and at the 

same time, American students as a whole are falling behind their 

counterparts in other developed nations. 

I can go through a lot of statistics, but the committee knows 

them well. Our Nation just can no longer tolerate the status quo 

of undereducated children and declining economic competitiveness 

in the world. 

Second, nothing matters, I think, more in improving the educational opportunities of our students than finding and retaining 

highly qualified teachers and principals. A 2006 report by Dan 

Goldhaber for the Center for American Progress found that a very 

good teacher, as opposed to a very bad one, can make as much as 

a full year’s difference in learning growth for students. Furthermore, the effective increases in teacher quality swamps the impact 

of other educational investments, such as reductions in class size. 

Unfortunately, I think we are not doing enough to recruit and retain the best teachers available; and I would note that shortage of 

qualified effective teachers also has a disproportionate impact on 

9

low-income and minority students. They are about twice as likely 

to be assigned inexperienced students in our country today. 

Congress, I think, has a real window of opportunity to address 

the challenge of teacher quality with the unprecedented number of 

teachers who are expected to retire and the recruitment challenge 

that comes with that. According to the National Commission on 

Teaching in America’s Future, 2 million teachers will leave their 

jobs within the next decade. The country has a huge recruitment 

challenge. So it is imperative, I think, that we experiment with innovative initiatives that will increase the supply of quality teachers 

and principals. 

The TEACH Act, introduced by the chairman and Senator Kennedy on the Senate side, I think would do just that. It puts Federal 

money and commitment behind the programs designed to experiment with better ways of identifying, preparing and compensating 

teachers and principals. 

Developing a better teacher workforce will require three key 

steps: improving the quality and use of data and decision-making, 

creating more competitive compensation structures for teachers, 

and relying more on teachers as resources for innovation and identifying and correcting problems. 

I have a bit of time. Let me speak briefly about each of these 

areas. And I direct you to my written testimony for a more detailed 

analysis. 

With respect to better data, I would say that without reliable information we simply cannot evaluate results or properly assess 

school performance. Better data is also useful for measuring the effectiveness of preparation programs for teachers and principals, developing more sophisticated career advancement systems, more equitably deploying the teacher workforce. 

States and local districts are experimenting with this across the 

country. I would point you to Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, 

which uses value-added data to identify highly effective teachers 

and then provides them with economic incentives to teach in the 

highest-needs schools. 

With respect to competitive compensation, we need to acknowledge that job structure and financial rewards are key motivators 

for employees in any profession. Accounting for educational attainment, teachers are drastically underpaid compared to those of similar backgrounds in other professions. We cannot expect the best 

unless we are willing to pay for the best. States and districts need 

to reform pay and performance structures to improve starting salaries to attract talented mid-careerists and young people committed 

to a career in education. 

Similarly, if a teacher or principal is taking on more challenging 

subjects, teaching in tougher schools or delivering positive results, 

we should create rewards for them, as the TEACH Act would do. 

And as we make starting salaries more competitive and increase 

incentives for retention, we should keep in mind that we need to 

respond to poor performance by fairly and effectively removing ineffective educators. 

Finally, with respect to teachers as go-to resources, the President 

and the Congress need to act on the premise that teachers and 

principals are public education’s most valuable assets. PolicyVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
10

makers should seek direct input from teachers on issues such as 

quality of development programs, school conditions and administrative reports. 

We recently at the center had Governor O’Malley, who is planning to build on his successful initiatives with CitiStat in Baltimore, to track student performance and to carry out surveys among 

teachers every 2 years to identify problems, to evaluate effectiveness of educational initiatives, to track progress and results and to 

effectively and efficiently direct resources based on need. 

We should consider implementing a similar program, I think, at 

the national level. 

With that, I am out of time, so let me turn it over to Joel. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Podesta follows:]

Prepared Statement of John D. Podesta, President and Chief Executive 

Officer, Center for American Progress 

Chairman Miller and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to 

testify today. I am John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American Progress. I am also a Visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown 

University Law Center. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to discuss the growing problem 

of recruitment and retention of highly effective teachers and principals in our nation’s schools. As the Committee considers the reauthorization of the No Child Left 

Behind Act, it is important to consider ways to strengthen our education system—

especially how to attract, train, equitably distribute, and retain the most effective 

teachers and principals, the very problems that the Teacher Excellence for All Children Act addresses. 

This is Teacher Appreciation Week, and we should stop and consider how important effective teachers are to our education system. We appropriately spend a lot 

of time discussing what is wrong with the American education system, but it is also 

important to remember that across our country legions of dedicated teachers are 

doing nothing short of performing miracles in our schools. Teachers are the backbone of high-quality public education and strengthening the teacher workforce can 

lay the foundation for fruitful investments in other areas of public education. Research demonstrates that the single most important factor determining how much 

students learn is the quality of their teachers. Teacher salaries and benefits are by 

far the largest education expenditure, but they are also the most critical resource 

for student learning. A very good teacher as opposed to a very bad one can make 

as much as one full year’s difference in the achievement growth of students.1 Studies also show that high-quality leadership directly affects school performance, as 

well as improves the working environment for teachers. Unfortunately, education 

leaders and public policymakers often fail to treat teachers and principals as our 

most valuable resources, and our current policies are not effectively addressing their 

needs. 

Not only are we failing to attract new teachers to the field; we are also failing 

to retain them. One-third of new teachers leave within the first three years of teaching, and half are gone by the fifth.2 In high-poverty schools with poor working conditions, rates of overall teacher attrition are disastrously high. Between 2000 and 

2001, one out of five teachers in the nation’s high-poverty schools either left to teach 

in another school or dropped out of teaching altogether.3

Shortages of highly effective teachers have a disproportionate effect on low-income 

and minority students; they are about twice as likely to be assigned to inexperienced 

teachers4 who on average make far smaller annual learning gains than more experienced teachers.5 As a result, low-income, African American, and Latino children consistently get less than their fair share of good teachers. 

The impact of a lack of quality teachers is felt daily by our nation’s students. Due 

to shortages of highly effective teachers, shortages of teachers in certain subject 

areas, and ineffective administrative practices in many schools, large numbers of 

secondary teachers are assigned to teach classes outside of their areas of preparation. For example, 37 percent of students in grades 7-12 are taught by a teacher 

who lacks a college major and state certification in the subject being taught.6 Rates 

of ‘‘out-of-field teaching’’ are especially high in middle schools, high-poverty schools, 

and shortage areas such as mathematics. Chancellor Joel Klein will speak more to 

11

this problem, but the bottom line is that the lack of retention and the distribution 

of qualified teachers are highly inequitable. 

The current situation of teacher quality and effectiveness is deplorable, but the 

problem is not insurmountable. We have a window of opportunity to effect change 

in our public school system with the unprecedented number of teachers who will 

soon reach retirement age. According to the National Commission on Teaching and 

America’s Future, 2 million teachers will leave their jobs within the next decade. 

Replacing so many teachers is a daunting task, but it also presents us with an opportunity to overhaul the current system. With such a large number of teachers 

leaving in the next decade, efforts to attract new candidates must be renewed. Simply put, it is imperative that we experiment with innovative initiatives that will increase the supply of quality teachers and principals. 

The TEACH Act proposal introduced by Chairman Miller and Senator Kennedy 

would put money behind programs designed to experiment with new ways of preparing and compensating teachers as well as principals. This legislation would help 

address the problem of teacher and principal quality by taking several of the necessary steps to equip each classroom with a highly qualified teacher and each school 

with a properly trained principal. We should implement its recommendations and 

also seize the opportunity for change by moving forward with bold new ideas to address the challenge of employing an effective teacher workforce in our schools. The 

three ideas I would like to discuss with you today are: collecting and using data for 

decision-making, offering more competitive compensation for our teachers and principals, and using our teacher workforce as a go-to resource. 

We need to increase the amount and improve the quality of information we gather 

about 

America’s teacher workforce and at the same time encourage the use of such data 

for greater accountability and smarter decision-making. The Center for American 

Progress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently worked together to examine 

state-by-state educational effectiveness. One of the major findings in our joint report 

titled ‘‘Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness’’ was that America’s K-12 schools are failing their students and putting 

America’s future economic competitiveness at risk. In completing this report, however, we also found that state education systems suffer from a severe lack of meaningful data on performance.7

Without reliable information, we simply cannot evaluate results or properly assess 

school performance, so the lack of meaningful, reliable data on our nation’s schools 

is alarming. Improved data with respect to teacher and principal performance can 

be used to improve instruction and to help rectify inequities in student opportunities 

for learning. Better data can also help measure the effectiveness of preparation programs for teachers and principals, lead to the development of more sophisticated career advancement systems, and more effective and equitable deployment of our 

teacher workforce. Furthermore, data can help build the case for larger investments 

in professional development programs for both teachers and principals. 

Data systems being pioneered in a few states offer an important new opportunity 

to produce information about the performance of individual classroom teachers and 

school principals measured in terms of how much progress students and schools are 

making academically. 

To offer some examples: Chattanooga, Tennessee uses value-added data to identify highly effective teachers and then provides them with economic incentives to 

teach in the highest-need schools.8 Meanwhile, in Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley 

is encouraging school districts to implement his data-tracking system, CitiStat, to 

collect and track information on student performance. When student and teacher 

data are linked, these data collection programs can be used to identify teachers’ 

weaknesses so professional development can be provided in those areas, and to identify teachers’ strengths so they can be used as a resource for other teachers in need 

of mentoring in those areas. 

Informational gaps on America’s teacher workforce must be identified and systematically addressed. Otherwise, problems and underperformance may be missed and 

allowed to persist. The federal government is uniquely positioned to lead in this 

data-gathering revolution and should adopt measures that encourage adequate data 

collection. Additional expenditures may be required to fill in information gaps, but 

this should be regarded as an investment that will pay off in the long run.9

In order to attract and retain highly effective teachers and principals, we also 

need to make targeted investments to incentivize change in our public education 

system. We need to begin by acknowledging that job structure and financial rewards 

are important motivators for employees no matter what their profession. Currently, 

too little attention is paid to creating the financial incentives necessary to recruit 

and retain an effective teacher workforce. We need to change that by offering comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
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petitive compensation that recognizes and rewards different roles, responsibilities, 

and results. 

In the ‘‘Leaders and Laggards’’ report, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the 

Center for American Progress agreed that states and districts need to reform pay 

and performance structures to improve starting salaries. Offering competitive salaries and up-front tuition assistance can help attract talented mid-careerists and 

young people committed to a career in education. 

Our teacher workforce should also receive greater compensation for positive results and a willingness to take on more responsibilities. If a teacher or a principal 

is taking on more challenging subjects, teaching in tougher schools, or delivering 

positive results, we should create rewards for them. 

In the classroom, teachers often find too few opportunities to engage in ongoing 

professional development that is closely aligned with what they teach. That is why 

we need new avenues of advancement that offer expert teachers the opportunity to 

pursue a variety of positions throughout their careers without having to leave classroom teaching altogether. These efforts can be particularly helpful in high-poverty 

schools where new teachers often need additional support and experienced teachers 

need incentives to stay. Commensurate with the responsibilities of mentor teaching, 

master teaching, and any other advanced categories that are created, there should 

be significant increases in compensation as well. 

Compensation systems that recognize the value of our teacher workforce coupled 

with career advancement systems that more effectively reward good performance, 

draw effective educators to high-need schools, and respond to poor performance, including fairly and effectively removing ineffective educators, will make larger investments in teacher and principal salaries more politically viable and maximize the returns on such investments. To effectively determine advancements, expanded compensation for teachers and principals should be coupled with a meaningful evaluation system for them. This would serve a two-fold purpose as it would help determine pay based on performance, while at the same time add hard data to help 

measure education performance and effectiveness. 

The president and the Congress need to act on the premise that teachers and 

principals are public education’s most valuable assets. We need to start treating 

them as our most valuable resource and include them in the decision-making process. To do so, we first need to seek direct input from them on issues such the quality 

of development programs, school conditions, administrative support, and other 

issues.10 Moreover, they must be consulted as compensation systems are redesigned. 

In Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley plans to carry out a survey among school 

teachers every two years called the Teacher Working Conditions Survey to quickly 

identify and address areas pertaining to the ‘‘quality of school leadership, administrative support, professional development, and facility conditions.’’ 11 The survey information will be used to identify problem areas, evaluate the effectiveness of education initiatives, track progress and results, and efficiently direct resources based 

on need.12 As our most valuable resources within the school system, it is imperative 

that teachers and principals get a say in what happens within the classroom. Therefore, we should consider implementing similar surveys in schools nation-wide. 

We have an opportunity to implement highly transformative measures. With so 

many teachers leaving the classroom in the next decade, there is an increased sense 

of urgency to recruit the next generation of teachers and principals and to experiment with more innovative programs. Our nation’s future depends on our efforts to 

find alternatives to the current system and to attract and retain highly effective 

teachers and principals. 

The TEACH Act’s several programs can help improve recruitment, preparation, 

distribution, and retention of a highly effective teacher workforce. I strongly encourage the Committee to move this bill forward and also to consider the other issues 

I discussed with you today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee for inviting me today. 

I’d be happy to take any questions you may have. 

ENDNOTES

1Dan Goldhaber. Teacher Pay Reforms: ThePolitical Implications of Recent Research (December 2006), Center for American Progress, at 1. 2 Richard M. Ingersoll, Why Do High-Poverty Schools Have Difficulty Staffing their Classrooms with Qualified Teachers? Center for American Progress and the Institute for America’s 

Future (2004), available at http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/ingersoll-final.pdf (last viewed 

May 7, 2007). 3 Richard M. Ingersoll, Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?, Center for the Study of Teaching 

and Policy, University of Washington (2003), at 15; Richard M. Ingersoll, Why Do High Poverty 

Schools Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with High Quality Teachers?, Center for 

13

American Progress (2004) available at http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/ingersoll-final.pdf 

(last viewed May 7, 2007). 4 National Center for Education Statistics, Monitoring School Quality: An Indicators Report, 

December 2000, at 13-14. 5 Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, How to Improve the Supply of High-Quality Teachers, 

Brookings Papers on Education Policy: 2004, at 16. 6 Education Week, Quality Counts 2003, Editorial Projects in Education, Jan. 9, 2003, available at http://counts.edweek.org/sreports/qc03/templates/article.cfm?slug=17divide.h22 (last 

viewed May 6, 2007). 7 Center for American Progress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Leaders and Laggards: 

A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness, at 7 (February 2007), available at 

http://www.uschamber.com/icw/reportcard/major—findings.htm (last viewed May 7, 2007). 8Kevin Cary, The Real Value of Teachers, The Education Trust, Winter 2004. available at 

http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/5704CBA6-CE12-46D0-A852-D2E2B4638885/0/

Spring04.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007). 9Teresita Perez and Reece Rushing, The CitiStat Model: How Data-Driven Government Can 

Increase Efficiency & Effectiveness (April 2007) at 10, available at http://

www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/citistat—report.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007). 10O’Malley and Brown, ‘‘New Ideas to Improve Teacher Working Conditions,’’ 2006, available 

at http://omalley.3cdn.net/9debebb3ca354efd54—31m6b9q13.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007). 11O’Malley and Brown, ‘‘New Ideas to Improve Teacher Working Conditions,’’ 2006, available 

at http://omalley.3cdn.net/9debebb3ca354efd54—31m6b9q13.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007). 12Teresita Perez and Reece Rushing, The CitiStat Model: How Data-Driven Government Can 

Increase Efficiency & Effectiveness (April 2007) at 9, available at http://

www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/citistat—report.pdf (last viewed May 7, 2007). 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Klein. 

STATEMENT OF JOEL I. KLEIN, CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Mr. KLEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. McKeon, members of 

the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. 

Ms. Clarke, thank you for your kind words and your distinguished service to our city. 

You know, Mr. Chairman, I told John when I sat down—I said, 

this reminds me of the Clinton White House. He always got to 

speak before I did. But there is one major difference. This is the 

first time I have ever agreed with everything he said, actually, so 

it is good to see you have matured so well, John. 

Mr. Chairman, you said it at the outset, and I think this is a serious matter, we all know the recent report out of the Aspen Commission, which pointed out that teacher quality is the single most 

important ingredient in a child’s education. And tragically, in 

America today, teacher quality is unevenly distributed in our 

schools. Students with the greatest needs tend to have access to 

the least qualified and least effective teachers; and if we don’t address that issue head on, we are not going to succeed in transforming education in America. 

Let me give you some examples in my city. People talk about, for 

example, high turnover of teachers. In some schools we have a perpetual turnover of teachers. In other schools, we have absolute stability. In some schools, the average teacher salary will be $20,000 

more on average than in another school. In some schools, if I get 

a vacancy, 200, 300, 400 people apply to teach there. In other 

schools, every year I am running through 20, 30, 40 new teachers. 

And as long as we continue with the current structures and the 

current incentives, we are going to continue to get the current results. 

What I am excited about is the TEACH Act that you and Senator 

Kennedy have put forward. And I think we ought to take it to the 

highest positive levels. 

14

I will give you three examples from New York City. Working 

with our union, we have negotiated a $10,000 pay differential for 

what we call lead teachers. They go in a pair to high-needs schools. 

I designate the teacher, I designate the schools—over 200 now 

working in New York City. They build capacity, they attract other 

talent, they begin to create the desired kind of positive conditions. 

The second thing we did is, we gave a $15,000 signing bonus to 

math, science teachers who commit to go for 3 years to a highneeds school. As a result of that, in 2 months we got over 100 new 

teachers to come to New York from other school districts in order 

to go to high-needs schools. We are now working with NYU and 

CUNY. We have put together a lot of scholarship money for kids 

in math and science to train and then again commit to go to highneeds schools. 

And I think it is absolutely essential, as John and others have 

said, that we put in place meaningful pay-for-performance programs in high-needs schools. If we don’t do that, we are not going 

to be able to generate the incentives we need to make sure we get 

the talent. 

Let me give you, to me, the proudest example, and see if I can 

convince Dr. Sanford to come to New York with this. 

We just negotiated a contract with our administrators union. 

Chairman MILLER. He is a free agent. 

Mr. KLEIN. Wherever I go, I am always looking for great principals. Those are the people who change schools. Under our new 

principals contract—and this was a big breakthrough for everybody, a principal in New York basically can make as much as 

$150,000 and then another $50,000, $25,000 to go to a high-needs 

school for 3 years to do turnaround work, and another $25,000 on 

a pay-for-performance basis. 

Chairman MILLER. You’re getting his attention. 

Mr. KLEIN. I know. Plus I have a little discretionary money we 

can throw in too. 

But that is the kind of results you want to reward. 

As a result of these programs in New York, what we are doing 

for the first time is really beginning to create the conditions which 

will attract talent, reward talent and keep talent in high-needs 

schools. 

NCLB can mandate that we get a highly qualified teacher in 

each classroom, but if the law of supply and demand doesn’t allow 

that, then the mandate is going to be an unfulfilled mandate. And 

if the Federal Government wants to change the facts on the ground 

in urban education, I would suggest you put significant amounts of 

dollars in meaningful incentives to attract talent. 

And let me assure you this is not a zero-sum game. In my highperforming schools, I will continue to have high-quality teachers. 

But the fact of the matter is, if you pay people the same and they 

have a choice between working with kids who come to school with 

all the privileges and working with kids who come to school with 

all the challenges, most people, most people are going to choose to 

work with the kids with all the privileges. And that is why we have 

this enormous inequity in the distribution of the most vital resource in urban education, and that is teachers and principals. 

15

So I hope in this reauthorization, Mr. Chairman, that your leadership, the leadership of Mr. McKeon and the entire Congress gets 

behind a meaningful incentive-driven, pay-for-performance set of 

programs so that we can finally give the kids, 53 years after 

Brown, an equal educational opportunity. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Klein follows:]

Prepared Statement of Joel I. Klein, Chancellor, New York City 

Department of Education 

Good morning. Thank you Chairman Miller and Congressman McKeon for inviting me to testify today. Also thank you to Congresswoman Yvette Clarke for all her 

help in representing New York City. 

This morning, I will discuss some of the innovative ways we’re promoting teacher 

excellence in New York City. But first, I’d like to reiterate a point I made when I 

testified before this committee last summer. 

The law that we’re discussing today, No Child Left Behind, might not be perfect, 

but it is very valuable. It forces us to focus on student performance and recognizes 

that the achievement gap—the gap that separates our African-American and Latino 

students from their white peers—is the chief problem in American schooling. This 

law puts muscle behind the attempt to close that gap. It requires us to report student performance in grades three through eight by race and poverty status. We can 

no longer mask the deficiencies of some students with outsized gains by others. 

Now, NCLB can be improved and I have proposed ways to do that. But to criticize 

the heart of No Child Left Behind is to refuse to take responsibility for student performance and especially for the achievement gap—the most serious civil rights, social, and economic crisis facing America today. We should learn from our experiences and make a good thing better, but we should not consider diluting or destroying a law that forces us to confront our problems head on. We must not yield to 

the critics of NCLB because, I believe, their complaints are missing the law’s broader significance. 

Now, to the topic at hand. 

We know how important good teachers are. Research shows that an average student lucky enough to have three teachers in a row in the top 25 percent of all our 

teachers will improve, rising from the 50th to the 60th percentile. But a student 

with three teachers in a row in the bottom 25 percent will fall from the 50th to the 

40th percentile. The difference between those two outcomes is enormous, especially 

when you consider 13 years of education. 

It’s clear that one of the best ways to raise student performance is to increase 

the number of effective teachers and reduce the number of ineffective teachers. 

Thankfully, the large majority of teachers are hard-working, competent, and committed. Our challenge is to make sure that all students are taught by successful 

teachers. 

One way we’re meeting that challenge under Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership in 

New York City is by recruiting and retaining more excellent teachers, especially in 

hard-to-staff subjects and high-needs schools. 

We used to lose great teachers simply because we couldn’t pay them competitively. So we’ve raised starting teacher salaries by 43% since 2002, bringing teacher 

salaries much closer to salaries in nearby high-income districts. 

We’ve created two new programs specifically to address our shortage of math and 

science teachers—a problem facing cities nationwide. The Housing Incentive Program gives bonuses of up to $15,000 to experienced shortage-area teachers who commit to spending three years in one of our high-needs schools. This incentive has already brought about 100 teachers to New York City. 

The second program, the Partnership for Teacher Excellence, is a new approach 

to teacher preparation that trains math and science teachers by giving them on-theground experience in our schools. These students receive tuition assistance at the 

City University of New York or New York University in exchange for a commitment 

to teach in a high-needs school. The first graduates of this program will start teaching in our classrooms this fall. 

We also created the Lead Teacher program last year to reward excellent teachers 

and encourage them to remain in our schools to help their peers. Lead Teachers 

earn an additional $10,000 a year to mentor and coach other teachers while also 

teaching students. They work in the schools that need their experience the most—

16

those that are struggling to meet their academic goals. About 200 Lead Teachers 

are working in our highest-need schools this year. 

I’d like to commend Chairman Miller for proposing the TEACH ACT, which would 

provide incentive pay to teachers in high need areas. This would complement existing New York City efforts to attract top-quality teachers to our high-needs schools. 

I would urge Congress go further and provide pay for performance—especially for 

teachers in struggling schools—based on state or city value-added accountability 

systems approved by the Secretary of Education. We must reward teachers who 

make great progress with our struggling students. Not every challenge is the same 

in life; that’s also true in education and Congress should recognize it as such. 

We recently created this type of incentive for our principals, through negotiations 

with the Council for School Supervisors and Administrators. The new contract permits the Chancellor to create ‘‘Executive Principal’’ positions, allowing the Department of Education to raise by $25,000 the salaries of high-performing principals 

who voluntarily agree to lead high-needs schools for at least three years. It also allows the Chancellor to pay principals performance-based bonuses of up to $25,000. 

Similar incentives for our teachers would go a long way toward attracting and retaining top-quality teachers in our highest needs schools. 

We’re already seeing impressive results from these initiatives and our other recruitment efforts. We are receiving about five applications for every teacher we hire, 

meaning that our schools are more selective than ever before. 

I’ve spoken so far about how we’ve improved the quality of the new teachers we 

hire. We’re also taking an important step to improve the quality of the teachers 

we’ve already hired. We intend to make tenure a well-deserved honor, not a routine 

right. Today tenure is nearly automatic. About 99% of teachers who serve for three 

years in our system receive tenure as a matter of course. This is the default position. We want as many teachers as possible to become tenured, but we want them 

to earn it on the merits. This is so important because once a teacher has tenure, 

he or she basically enjoys lifetime job security. 

Under our new tenure proposal, principals will receive a new set of supports and 

tools to ensure that this incredibly important decision is made in a rigorous, 

thoughtful, and fact-based manner. For example, this spring, we launched something called the ‘‘Tenure Notification System,’’ which notifies principals when their 

teachers’ probationary periods are nearing a close. 

Not everyone is going to be a good teacher, and it’s up to principals to carefully 

assess each candidate and determine whether he or she deserves the substantial job 

protection afforded by tenure. We want to ensure that all of our children have great 

teachers; we cannot afford to let ineffective teachers remain in our system. This new 

Tenure Notification System will help principals consider whether teachers who are 

eligible for tenure deserve it. 

Under our new tenure review system, we also intend to take teacher impact on 

student performance into account. Using student outcomes as a measure of teacher 

quality is controversial in some quarters, but if we are really going to change things, 

we need to acknowledge candidly that results matter: research shows that past 

teaching success is the single best predictor of future success. It’s not right to hold 

students accountable for high achievement without also holding adults accountable 

for their own performance. 

We are working with the United Federation of Teachers to create a new peer 

intervention program for struggling teachers. Where this remediation fails, we will 

help principals remove the lowest performers. 

And we are giving our educators new tools to help them improve the work they 

do every day by measuring and analyzing how well students are learning. 

We are providing all schools with periodic assessments, which are diagnostic tools 

aligned with curriculum that teachers will use over the course of the year to learn 

about their students’ strengths and weaknesses. This will help educators adjust instruction to each student’s individual needs in time to make an immediate difference. To help make all of this new information available in a timely way, we are 

launching a powerful new data and knowledge management system called the 

Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS). ARIS will put critical information—about results on periodic assessments, end of year standardized exams, and 

other results—at the fingertips of principals, teachers, and parents. 

Unfortunately, by focusing exclusively on credentials in defining a ‘‘highly qualified’’ teacher, NCLB abandons teacher quality at the classroom door. We need to ensure that we hire qualified teachers, but we also need to ask whether those teachers 

are actually helping students learn. 

When I testified before this committee last year, I told you that in an age of technology, educators no longer have to guess what a student’s problem is and experiment until they find the right solution. Well, schools no longer have to guess about 

17

teacher quality, either. It is something we can and should measure. I hope the next 

version of NCLB will motivate schools to do this, just as we’re doing it in New York 

City. 

Thank you. I welcome your questions. 

Chairman MILLER. Dr. Sanford. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JARVIS SANFORD, PRINCIPAL, DODGE 

RENAISSANCE ACADEMY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, 

thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today. 

Mr. Davis, thank you for those kind words and for the work that 

you do in Chicago. 

Research supports what common sense tells us, the two most important variables affecting student learning are the quality of the 

teachers and the quality of the school leader. And this means that 

the most urgent challenge in an effort to improve student achievement across the country is a problem of human capital. Both of the 

two presenters before me were keenly aware of that and testified 

as such. 

And how do we develop the teachers and how do we develop the 

leaders who will make sure this is possible? One, teacher recruitment. On teacher recruitment two things are clear. First, the traditional approaches on teacher training are not providing either the 

quantity or quality of teachers and principals we will need in order 

to transform American education. 

And second, we know that there are programs around the country that are recruiting and training principals who are having a 

profound impact on student achievement. And I would like to 

spend my time here helping to share with you exactly the results 

at Dodge Renaissance Academy, where I am the principal. 

Dodge is over 95 percent low income. However, I am proud, even 

more so, to share the statistic that we were able to achieve the 

highest gains in the State of Illinois on the Illinois Standards 

Achievement Test. Dodge scores skyrocketed from 26 percent of 

students at or above national norms to 62 percent in 2006, a 36 

percent gain in just 1 year. And when individuals ask how we accomplished this, I say that it is all because of good teachers and 

good leadership; and I attribute much of that success, really, to the 

Academy of Urban School Leadership and New Leaders for New 

Schools. 

The Academy of Urban School Leadership has been changing, 

really, the reality of underperforming and underserved schools in 

Chicago for the past 6 years, and is one of only three not-for-profit 

urban teacher residency programs in our country. AUSL’s teacher 

preparation program is a model that is modeled after the medical 

profession’s requirement of a clinical residency. 

The program requires that a teacher candidate spend a full 

school year’s apprenticeship with a mentor teacher in one of the 

urban teaching academies like Dodge. During that year residents 

earn a master’s degree and State certification. But here is the key. 

Theory and practice are woven together as course workers specifically design to equip the residents in order to teach in low-performing schools. 

18

AUSL also provides continuing professional development in an 

effort to help its graduates through instructional workshops, networking opportunities and coaching. And their field coaches are 

strategically aligned and provide graduates with intensive support 

during the first 2 years in the classroom. 

I particularly appreciate the value of this type of training models. And it is because I, too, was trained in a residency model program as part of my principal program with New Leaders for New 

Schools. I was honored in an effort to be selected from over 250 applicants as one of 14 New Leaders in order to join my cohort in 

Chicago. 

As a part of the New Leaders training model, all fellows really 

engage in highly rigorous coursework that focuses on instructional 

and organizational leadership and then spend a year in a full-time, 

paid residency with an outstanding mentor principal in an urban 

public school. 

I think New Leaders, both for new schools and AUSL, have three 

implications for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind; and 

the first and most important is that we should continue to support 

growing teacher and principal training programs that are successful, because we know that developing outstanding teachers and 

principals is the only way to reach our goal that no child gets left 

behind. 

And the second issue is that we should hold the adults accountable not only for the results, but also hold them accountable just 

as we do our students. And this means we should track the success 

of teachers and principals as they go out into the world and connect 

these results back into the teacher and principal training programs 

that prepared them. And this will help us to determine which programs are really turning out great teachers and which are not preparing our teachers for urban schools. 

Third, we will recruit and develop these outstanding teachers 

and principals we need in order to make sure we get them to the 

schools that need them the most. We must provide, as Mr. Klein 

just indicated, incentives for our best teachers and principals, who 

work in the hardest-to-staff schools that are struggling the most. 

In addition, I think teacher and principal training programs are 

an important lesson that low-performing schools should not and 

will not continue in the future. 

I welcome any and all of you to visit Dodge, and to visit the 

Academy of Urban School Leadership and to visit New Leaders for 

New Schools, to experience the models in action. And I believe you 

will have an incredible opportunity to really support these programs that are achieving outstanding results and truly guarantee 

that no child is left behind. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

[The statement of Dr. Sanford follows:]

Prepared Statement of Dr. Jarvis Sanford, Principal, Dodge Renaissance 

Academy 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to 

testify before you today concerning the vital importance of the reauthorization of the 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act, perhaps better known as the No Child 

Left Behind Act. 

19

Background 

As context for my testimony today, a brief overview of my credentials is warranted. My education background is a Bachelor of Science degree from Morehouse 

in Atlanta; an MBA and a Doctor of Education degree, both from Northern Illinois 

University; and a graduate of the premiere principal training program, New Leaders 

for New Schools in Chicago. I am completing my third year as Principal of the 

Dodge Renaissance Academy, an elementary school on the west side of Chicago; my 

student population, about 450 students, is above ninety-five percent low-income. 

Overview 

High-performing public schools are an integral component of the core stability 

that is fundamental to a strong democratic, civil, and prosperous society. We must 

elevate the achievement of the worst-performing schools to be able to realize the full 

potential of our children and our country. We cannot have a healthy, vibrant America while so many of our children are truly left behind with no real options or tools 

to develop anything good for their future. 

It is imperative that we recognize that the children in our low-income, urban public schools give us a reality that requires specific and rigorous preparation to reach 

and then teach them to achieve. The life issues, the community realities, the confusion of the world outside of each of these schools follow these students when they 

walk through our doors. All the harshness of their world winds its way into the 

classrooms. 

Teacher and Principal Quality: What’s Working 

Research supports what common sense tells us: the two most important variables 

affecting student learning are the quality of the teacher and the quality of the 

school leader. This means the most urgent challenge to improving student achievement across the country is a problem of human capital: how do we develop the 

teachers that we have, how do we attract the nations best and brightest to become 

teachers and school leaders, and how do we retain these outstanding teachers and 

principals once we have them? 

On teacher recruitment two things are clear: first, the traditional approaches to 

teacher training are not providing the quantity or quality of teachers and principals 

we will need to transform American education; second, we know that there are programs around the country that are recruiting and training high quality teachers and 

principals that are having a profound impact on student achievement. I would like 

to spend my time today talking about two of those programs, about how they have 

made possible our achievement results at Dodge, about how Dodge benefited from 

the tough love of a true turnaround, and about what implications these programs 

might have for the reauthorization of NCLB. 

As I mentioned a minute ago, my school, Dodge, is over ninety-five percent lowincome. However I am proud to share an even more important statistic from Dodge: 

This year we achieved the highest gains in the State of Illinois on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. Dodge’s scores skyrocketed from 26% of students at-or-above 

national norms in 2005 to 62% in 2006, a 36% gain in just one year. 

When people ask us how we accomplished this I say that it is all about good 

teachers and good leadership, and I attribute much of that success to the Academy 

of Urban School Leadership, the organization that trains and supports our teachers, 

and to New Leaders for New Schools, the organization that recruited, trained and 

supported me as a principal. 

Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) 

AUSL has been changing the reality of underperforming and underserved schools 

in Chicago for the past six years and is one of only three not-for-profit Urban Teacher Residency programs in our country. AUSL’s teacher preparation program is modeled after the medical profession’s requirement of a clinical residency. The program 

requires that a teacher candidate spend a full school year’s apprenticeship with a 

mentor teacher in one of their urban teaching academies like Dodge. During that 

year, the Residents also earn their Master’s degree and state certification. Theory 

and practice are continually woven together as coursework is specifically designed 

to equip the Residents to teach in low-performing urban schools. 

AUSL provides continuing professional development to its graduates through instructional workshops, networking opportunities, and coaching. Their Field Coaches 

provide graduates with intensive support during the first two years in the classroom, and three additional years of on-call support. AUSL currently has 153 graduates teaching in Chicago and boasts a ninety-five percent retention rate compared 

to a district wide average of barely 50 percent. 

20

New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS) 

I particularly appreciate the value of this type of training model because I too was 

trained in a residency based model as part of my principal training program with 

New Leaders for New Schools. I was honored to be selected from over 250 applicants 

as one of 14 New Leaders to join my cohort in Chicago. As part of the New Leaders 

training model, all fellows engage in highly rigorous coursework that focuses on instructional and organizational leadership, and then spend a year in a full time paid 

residency with an outstanding mentor principal in an urban public school. 

This combination of rigorous coursework, on the ground experience working alongside outstanding principals, the built in support of a cohort of fellow principals plus 

an organization that provides ongoing coaching and mentoring have been critical to 

my own professional growth and the success of my school. In a time when it is difficult to earn a job as a principal, in Chicago we now have parents, community 

members and kids pleading to get a New Leaders principal for their school because 

they have seen the results that New Leaders principals have generated across the 

city. New Leaders is currently partnering with 9 cities around the country and New 

Leaders principals are changing the educational opportunities of more than 200,000 

of America’s children every day. 

We know there are other innovative teacher and principal training programs 

throughout the country that are having incredible successes attracting the best and 

the brightest into education. Teach For America alone has placed more than 15,000 

teachers in the most underserved classrooms in the country and consistently draws 

applications from more than 10% of the graduating classes of Ivy League colleges. 

These programs and others prove that it is possible to attract the best people to be 

educators, and that if we train them well and support them well they can produce 

the dramatic kind of results that we have seen at Dodge. 

Teacher and Principal Quality: Implications For Reauthorization 

I think New Leaders for New Schools and AUSL have three implications for the 

reauthorization of NCLB, the first and most important is that we should continue 

to support growing teacher and principal training programs that are successful because we know that developing outstanding teachers and principals is the only way 

to reach our goal that no child gets left behind. 

The second is that we should hold the adults accountable for results the way that 

we are holding students accountable for results. This means we should track the 

success of teachers and principals as they go out into the world and connect these 

results back to the teacher and principal training programs that prepared them. 

This will help us determine which programs are really turning out great teachers 

and leaders, and which ones are just diploma mills that do not prepare teachers for 

the real work of instruction. Programs that have high levels of success training effective educators should receive more funding to expand their practices, while education schools or training programs that achieve little or no results should be held 

accountable the way our worst performing schools are held accountable-they should 

lose the ability to certify teachers or they should lose federal funding. 

Third, when we recruit and develop these outstanding teachers and principals we 

need to make sure we get them to the schools that need them most. We must provide incentives for our best teachers and principals to work in the hardest to staff 

schools that struggle the most. To keep and attract these educators we will need 

to build diverse and challenging career paths for teachers and school leaders that 

will allow them to expand and share their skills with others as they become masters 

of their craft. This means allowing teachers to grow into positions as master teachers or staff developers where they can lead apprentice teachers in developing their 

skills. 

Restructuring Failed Schools 

In addition to teacher and principal training and recruitment, I think there is one 

other important lesson from our success at Dodge: our lowest performing schools require our most serious interventions. In addition to the superior teacher-preparation 

model, AUSL also focuses on transforming chronically failing schools into schools of 

excellence by closing schools that fail to meet NCLB guidelines and creating NCLB 

Turnaround Schools. Students leave in June and return two months later in September to a school of all new teachers, a new principal, a new curriculum, and improved facilities. Dodge was the beneficiary of just such a turnaround. We were able 

to capitalize on this drastic change to dramatically change the culture, expectations 

and results at Dodge and we believe that our success demonstrates that schools 

with dramatic needs require dramatic interventions. We should expect more from 

low performing schools and if they don’t succeed we should shut them down and 

open new schools rather than tinkering around the edges with superficial changes: 

21

too many districts allow their lowest performing schools to just rearrange the deck 

chairs on the Titanic rather than demand that they build a whole new ship. 

It is critical to minimize the ‘‘wiggle room’’ that enables districts to embrace 

delays, or to proceed with an incremental change when whole-school change is warranted: chronically underperforming schools should be closed and restarted in order 

to ensure success for the children we are failing to serve right now. 

Too many underperforming and underserved urban schools. 

Too many lives undeveloped. 

Too many fascinating, important futures unexplored. 

I welcome any and all of you to visit Dodge, to visit the Academy of Urban School 

Leadership, to visit New Leaders for New Schools and to experience the models in 

action. I believe that you have an incredible opportunity to support these programs 

that are achieving outstanding results and truly guarantee that No Child gets Left 

Behind. 

Thank you very much for your time and action. 

Chairman MILLER. Ms. McLean. 

STATEMENT OF VALDINE McLEAN, SCIENCE TEACHER, 

PERSHING COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL, LOVELOCK, NV 

Ms. MCLEAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Heller, for your introduction. 

I have taught for 18 years in both inner city and rural schools. 

I currently teach physics, chemistry and biology to students in 

grades 10 through 12 at Pershing County High School in Lovelock, 

Nevada. I am National Board Certified and have a Presidential 

Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. Currently, I 

am President of the Pershing County Classroom Teachers Association. I am honored to offer my insights on how performance pay 

can boost quality in the teaching profession. 

As a member of the Virtual Teachers Leaders Network, I am 

part of a team of 17 other accomplished teachers from across the 

Nation who authored the recent report, Paying Teachers for Performance: Designing a System That Students Deserve. My 

TeacherSolutions colleagues are also award winners. We are 

NBCTs, Milken winners, national, State and district teachers of 

the year and Carnegie Fellows. We wrote this report because, all 

too often, accomplished teachers are left out of the debates about 

our profession and the students in communities we serve. 

Performance pay is the first of many teaching issues that we 

hope we can tackle through our collective voices at Teacher Leaders Network and with our TeacherSolutions module. We worked in 

the spring of 2006 through the use of technology. We had meetings 

over Illuminate, an Internet program in which we could listen and 

talk with national experts and read the research on performanceand merit-based plans in which some are in existence around the 

country and others are comprehensive ideas. 

Through our work in promoting performance pay for teachers 

three critical points surfaced: 

One, make sure the base pay is right and competitive. Teachers 

should be able to work in the communities and live in those communities; 

Two, do not place a cap on participation so all teachers have a 

chance to grow and lead; and 

Three, involve teachers in designing whatever system you create. 

22

Our report does not offer a prescriptive formula, but a comprehensive framework that proposes to pay teachers more when 

they help students more over time, using credible classroom data; 

Work in small teams to improve student achievement; 

Gain relevant knowledge, like what is needed to serve a growing 

number of second language learners; 

Teach in high-priority schools, subject and assignments; 

Demonstrate their expertise, for example, when they earn National Board Certification; and 

Serve as mentor coaches and teacher educators for after-school 

programs. 

Our own investigation into performance pay issues have led to us 

to conclude that we need to measure teacher effectiveness in multiple ways. Why? Because there are many influences on student 

learning. 

Identifying effective teachers requires evaluating their teacher 

practices, assessing their performance and examining the different 

ways they get academic results for students. Only about one in 

three students can have a value-added test score ascribed to them. 

Many of the tests are not very good, especially in terms of measuring 21st century learning. 

And large test companies routinely have to invalidate scores because of technical errors. They do not measure much of what I 

teach, like when I offer daily laboratory exercises for my students 

from coaching them to extract DNA, to investigating water quality 

of a 200-mile stretch of the Humboldt River. 

We need to focus on rewards on teachers spreading their expertise to others, not creating unhealthy competition among colleagues. Because understanding that science is not always easily 

accessible to my diverse students, I frequently develop cooperative 

projects with my colleagues in art, shop, English and computer 

science. Together with my colleagues, I have developed into the 

teacher that I need to be. 

We need to reward teachers who earn National Board Certification. The process helped me learn to be the teacher I need to be. 

And now I mentor colleagues in my district to help them to be successful, too, in achieving their certification. 

As the first teacher in my school to use computers and technology in the classroom, I discovered a powerful tool to help reach 

my English language learners and special needs students. I then, 

in turn, gave workshops to my colleagues in the entire school district to pass on my new knowledge and skills to help other educators be more effective. 

How performance pay plans can boost the quality in teaching: 

Aspiring teachers rarely go into teaching for money. However, 

once hired, they quickly see who does what and for how much. 

There is a great disparity in pay. Experience does not equate with 

quality and, likewise, the pay. The talented teachers shouldn’t have 

to wait 25 years to earn a reasonable salary that a talented engineer might earn in the private sector in 8 years. 

Not much skill, if any at all, is required to have students do book 

work in class. It is like managing cattle. However, it takes great 

skill and effort to lead a pumpkin catapult contest every fall involving more than half the student body, as well as parents, business 

23

people and others from throughout the community and the region. 

This hands-on project nurtures skills and cooperation, teamwork 

and friendly competition, the 21st century skills we need, as well 

as providing motivation for seniors to take a challenging science 

elective instead of free period or study hall. This type of plan, a 

good plan that rewards people with skill can keep effective people 

as teachers in the classroom. 

In order to lead and earn more money, teachers are forced to become administrators where their teaching expertise is often not 

used. Can’t we encourage our best to stay in teaching by offering 

them chances to work with teacher education students, mentor 

novices, train colleagues while still teaching children part time? 

Our best surgeons perform an operation one day and prepare future doctors the next. Why can’t our pay systems do the same for 

teachers? A country needs world-class learners with the global 

skills necessary to take this great nation into the 22nd century. 

I highly encourage you to read our full report. We do not have 

all the answers, but we do have teacher solutions from some of the 

Nation’s most accomplished teachers, and I am just one of many. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Ms. McLean follows:]

Prepared Statement of Valdine McLean, Chemistry, Physics, and Biology 

Teacher, Pershing County High School, Lovelock, NV 

Boosting Quality in the Teaching Profession through Performance Pay Plans 

Thank you Mr. Chairman. My name is Valdine McLean and I have taught for 18 

years—in both inner-city and rural schools. I currently teach physics, chemistry, 

and biology to students in grades 10—12 at Pershing County High School in 

Lovelock, Nevada. I am a National Board Certified Teacher and have earned a Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. Currently I am the 

President of Pershing County Classroom Teachers Association. I am honored to offer 

my insights on why and how performance pay can boost quality in the teaching profession. 

As member of the virtual Teacher Leaders Network I am part of team of 17 other 

accomplished teachers from across the nation who authored the recent report, Paying Teachers for Performance: Designing a System That Students Deserve. My 

TeacherSolutions colleagues are also award winners—NBCTs, Milken winners, national, state, and district teachers of the year, and Carnegie Fellows. We wrote this 

report because all too often accomplished teachers are left out of the debates about 

our profession and the students and communities we serve. Policymakers hear from 

administrators, business leaders, researchers, policy analysts, and top-level union 

officials. 

Performance pay is the first of many teaching issues that we hope we can tackle 

through our collective voices at Teacher Leaders Network and with our 

TeacherSolutions module. We worked in the Spring of 2006 through the use of technology. We had meetings over Illuminate, (an Internet program in which we could 

listen and talk with national experts and read the research of performance and 

merit based plans in which some are in existence around the country and others 

that are comprehensive ideas.) 

Through our work in promoting performance pay for teachers, three critical points 

surfaced: 

1. Make sure the base pay is right and competitive; 

2. Do not place a cap on participation—so all teachers have a chance to grow and 

lead; and 

3. Involve teachers in designing whatever system you create. 

Our report does not offer a prescriptive formula, but a comprehensive framework 

that proposes to pay teachers more when they: 

1. Help students learn more over time, using credible classroom data; 

2. Work in small teams to improve student achievement; 

24

3. Gain relevant knowledge like what is needed to serve growing numbers of second language learners; 

4. Teach in high priority schools, subjects, and assignments 

5. Demonstrate their expertise—e.g., when they earn National Board Certification; and 

6. Serve as mentors, coaches, and teacher educators—and lead much needed afterschool and parent education programs. 

Our own investigation into performance pay issues has led us to conclude that we 

need to measure teacher effectiveness in multiple ways. 

Why? Because there are many influences on student learning, identifying effective 

teachers requires evaluating their teaching practices, assessing their performance, 

and examining the different ways they get academic results for their students. Only 

about 1 in 3 teachers can have a valued-added test score ascribed to them. And 

many of the tests are not very good (especially in terms of measuring 21st century 

learning)—and large test companies routinely have to invalidate scores because of 

technical errors. They do not measure much of what I teach—like when I offer daily 

laboratory experiences for my students, from coaching them how to extract DNA, 

to investigating the water quality of a 200 mile stretch of the Humboldt River. 

We need to focus rewards on teachers spreading their expertise to others, not creating unhealthy competition among colleagues. • Because understanding that science is not always easily accessible to my diverse students, I frequently develop cooperative projects with colleagues in art, 

shop, English, and computer science. Together with my colleagues, I’ve developed 

into the teacher I need to be. • We need to reward teachers who earn National Board Certification. The process 

helped me learn to be the teacher I need to be, and now I mentor colleagues in my 

district to help them be successful too in achieving their certification. • As the first teacher in my school to use computers and technology in the classroom, I discovered a powerful tool to helped me reach English language learners and 

special needs students. I then in turn, gave workshops to my colleagues in the entire school district to pass on my new knowledge and skills to help other educators 

be effective. 

How Performance Pay Plans can Boost the Quality in Teaching 

Aspiring teachers rarely go into teaching for the money, however, once hired, they 

quickly see who does what for how much. There is great disparity in pay. Experience does not equate with quality, and likewise the pay. The talented teacher 

shouldn’t have to wait 25 years to earn a reasonable salary that a talented engineer 

might earn in the private sector in eight years. If any company stifled its employees 

in such a fashion, it would go out of business. 

Not much skill if any at all is required to have students do bookwork in class, 

it’s like managing cattle. However, it takes a great skill and effort to lead a ‘‘pumpkin catapult contest’’ every fall involving more than half of the student body, as well 

as parents, businesspeople, and others from throughout the community and the region. This hands-on project nurtures skills in cooperation, teamwork, and friendly 

competition, as well as providing motivation for seniors to take a challenging science 

elective instead of a ‘‘free period or study hall’’. A plan that rewards those with skill, 

can keep effective people as teachers in the classroom. 

In order to lead and earn more money, teachers are forced to become administrators where their teaching expertise is often not used. Can’t we encourage our best 

to stay in teaching by offering them chances to work with teacher education students, mentor novices, train colleagues while still teaching children part of the time? 

Our best surgeons perform an operation one day and prepare future doctors the 

next. Why can’t our pay systems do the same for teachers? 

Our country needs world class learners with the global skills necessary to take 

this great nation into the 22nd century. I highly encourage you to read our full report. We do not have all the answers—but we do have ‘‘TeacherSolutions’’ from some 

of the nation’s most accomplished teachers. 

Chairman MILLER. Dr. Dale. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JACK D. DALE, SUPERINTENDENT, 

FAIRFAX COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, FALLS CHURCH, VA 

Mr. DALE. I want to thank you, Chairman Miller, for the opportunity to come testify and, with Joel Klein, to recruit. And I am 

hoping at the end of the testimony here I will have two contracts. 

25

I do want to commend you for this series of hearings that you 

are holding on No Child Left Behind, because I do believe that they 

are the most important, at least in my over-30-year career in education. 

Recruitment and retention of the brightest minds in our Nation 

to become teachers who are our next generation of leaders and scientists and educators and entrepreneurs is our greatest challenge 

in the context of strengthening our democracy, growing our Nation 

and being an able competitor in the global economy. And truly, the 

little red school house and those we teach must be our national priority. 

And so it is both an honor and a privilege to attend this hearing 

this morning to share with you the concept of teacher leadership 

that I started when I was a Superintendent in Maryland, and I am 

now implementing in Fairfax. 

Across our Nation teacher workforce solutions tend to be on the 

margins. We pay additional stipends, we pay additional per diem 

rates of pay, workshop rates of pay, curriculum rates of pay and 

the list goes on. And when I was negotiating in the State of Washington in labor contracts I did some of those, so I know that they 

are there. 

But we work on the margins simply because we have not created 

a compelling vision of a compensation system built on teachers as 

the leaders in our schools. Even the No Child Left Behind approach 

on teacher quality takes a narrow view by focusing almost exclusively on credentials and other paper qualifications and not on the 

art and success of teaching. 

Our systems will never change unless we create a focused effort 

to do so. So I believe we must stop working on the edges of this 

issue and restructure the teacher and work compensation system 

that is part of our Nation. 

Today, I wish to share the new system we are creating in Fairfax 

County. At the core of our redesign we recognize that many adults, 

not just single-career people, but many adults aspire to have multiple careers inside and outside of education, and maybe even some 

of the members of the committee as I hear. We recognize that people enter the profession to work with kids. Typically, teachers do 

not aspire to become administrators, yet they want to have a voice 

in the decisions that impact their classrooms, their working conditions and the education of today’s youth. 

We expect teachers to teach, perform leadership functions, participate in school improvement decisions, participate in grade level 

and content area analysis of successful practices, coach, mentor, 

monitor progress, involve parents in the classroom and school activities. The list of these expectations and pressures and demands 

is lengthy, and are all issued under the same belief and passion of 

leaving no child behind. 

Within the redesigned work compensation system in the future 

we must recognize, I think, five realities: 

First is, teaching is a full-time job, it is a full-time profession. It 

can no longer be viewed under the ‘‘hourly’’ employment paradigm 

of so many hours per day or even so many days per year. It is fulltime. 

26

Teachers no longer ‘‘just teach.’’ they perform a multitude of duties beyond their interaction with kids in the classroom. 

There are also multiple careers within the teaching profession, 

none of which requires the title of ‘‘administrator’’ or ‘‘principal.’’

Educators must be competitively compensated—not some teachers, but all teachers. 

We must look within a school system’s current resources to make 

most of these changes, and that is a challenge. And only additional 

resources, I think, can come about through creative innovations 

and, potentially, through congressional or State legislative action. 

We must recognize the importance of teachers as key leaders and 

decision-makers in their schools. The new rules I propose are based 

on 12-month contracts instead of the current 10-or-so-month contract. The proposed teacher roles are in addition to the normal 180 

days that they meet with students and include the following different types of roles. 

One is what I would call a School Improvement Teacher Leader. 

This includes working with the school leadership and the principal 

and assistant principal in shared leadership responsibilities in analyzing school performance, program changes, staff development 

needs, et cetera. 

A second role is what we would call Feeder or Cluster Improvement Teacher Leader that focuses on the connections and collaborations in schools that are in the K-12 hierarchy of grades that our 

students progress through. Particularly in this area, we focus on 

content alignment and performance expectations. 

The third area is Instructional Improvement Teacher Leader. It 

includes instructional innovation, curricular mapping, developing 

strong teams of teacher leaders or teaching capacity within the 

classroom, and each of them refining their instructional skills. 

A fourth area is what I would call New Teacher Trainer/Mentor. 

This is dealing with our new teachers that prior to the start of 

school need extensive training, and during the first several years 

of teaching, need lots of support in mentoring and coaching. 

A fifth area is not uncommon, so I call it Extended Student 

Learning. It focuses on tutoring and nurturing students who are 

performing below grade level or who need even some preteaching 

of the content before they start the school year. Such work could 

be done after school, during school breaks or any time, as necessary, to have the kids be successful. 

The sixth area is Student Transition Leadership. It includes 

analysis and coordination of support services for kids as they go 

through the grade level. We currently devote a great deal of money 

to these functions, but rarely on a piecemeal basis. And rarely do 

we strategically group them in the manner I have described to comprehensively compensate teachers. 

And I will invite any questions at the end. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. 

[The statement of Dr. Dale follows:]

Prepared Statement of Dr. Jack D. Dale, Superintendent, Fairfax County 

Public Schools, Fairfax, VA 

Across the nation our teacher workforce solutions tend to be on the margins. We 

negotiate additional stipends, per diem rates of pay, workshop rates of pay, curriculum rates of pay, and other methods of adding bits of time and compensation. 

27

Some states and policy makers are now revisiting merit pay, or performance pay, 

each of which remains on the margin. We work on the margins simply because we 

have not created a compelling vision of a new teacher compensation system, a system based on the real, day-to-day, month-to-month and annual work requirements 

of our nation’s teachers. 

We must stop working on the edges of this issue and restructure the teacher 

work/compensation system. Our current systems will never change unless we recognize the teaching profession has changed drastically. We must create a new paradigm of teaching and the resources must follow that paradigm. 

Our redesign must also recognize that many adults now wish to have multiple careers inside and outside of education. We must recognize that people enter the profession to work with children. Teachers typically do not aspire to become administrators, yet they do seek an active voice in the decisions impacting their classrooms 

and their working conditions. 

First, let’s look at the current job expectations. We now ask teachers to perform 

a multitude of duties outside the classroom. Schools now require a leadership structure that includes people inside and outside the schoolhouse. We expect teachers to 

teach, perform leadership functions, participate in school improvement decisions, 

monitor progress, and involve parents in classroom activities. The list of expectations, pressures and demands is lengthy, and all are issued in the name of either 

‘‘leaving no child behind’’, or in creating world class school systems. It is time to 

redesign the work/compensation structure of our teaching workforce. 

The work/compensation system of the future must recognize five current realities: 

1. Teaching is a full-time profession and can no longer be viewed under an ‘‘hourly’’ employment paradigm of so many hours per day and so many days per year. 

2. Teachers no longer ‘‘just teach.’’ They must perform a multitude of duties in 

and out of the classroom to be successful. 

3. There are multiple careers within the teaching profession, none of which need 

include the title of ‘‘administrator.’’

4. Education must be attractive to large numbers of potential teachers—fresh 

from college as well as career changers. 

5. We must look within a school system’s current resource pool (over time) to 

make changes. Significant additional resources are not universally available. 

Finally, to recognize the multiple set of professional expectations, professional 

roles and professional salaries, we must recognize that the specific work year (and 

day) will vary within schools and across school systems. Just as we now recognize 

that no one instructional approach works for all children, we must recognize that 

no one ‘‘job description’’ encompasses the set of duties for all teachers, nor does one 

work calendar address the variety of necessary roles and functions in any school. 

We must rethink current roles and responsibilities in education and design a system 

that will work in the ‘‘high stakes, high standards for all students’’ environment. 

The New Teacher Workforce Model 

The proposed teacher work/compensation model is based on teachers opting and 

being selected into one of many role options. The options include not only the current set of responsibilities—the Traditional Role—but also, an additional set of role 

options that will form the core of the redesigned school system. The role options are 

designed around the core functions of any school. All schools must provide leadership to the entire school community. This function has moved beyond the confines 

of the principal’s office and typically includes a leadership team comprised of teachers and community members as well as the principal. In addition to school leadership, there must be coordination between school levels—elementary, middle and 

high schools. Both of these leadership functions must occur outside the 180-day 

school year and are best addressed before the school year starts. 

Training and mentoring of new staff is another necessary leadership function, especially with the highly qualified staff requirements. This function begins before the 

school year starts but must also be ongoing throughout the year. The work calendar 

for this function is different than the calendar for the other school and feeder leadership functions. 

The new teacher leadership functions are all in addition to the normal 180-day 

teaching duties. Each recognizes the importance of teachers as key leaders and decision makers for their schools. Because the time demands are different, each will require a different work calendar, but all new roles are based on 12-month contracts 

instead of the current 10-month contract. The proposed teacher roles are in addition 

to their normal 180 days with students and include the following: 

• School Improvement Teacher Leader—includes school leadership responsibilities, shared with the principal including analysis of school performance, program 

changes and staff development needs. 

28

• Feeder/Cluster Improvement Teacher Leader—focuses on connections and collaboration with schools within a K-12 cluster that students would attend during 

their school years, particularly content alignment and performance expectations. • Instructional Improvement Teacher Leader—includes instructional innovation, 

curriculum mapping, developing strong teams of teachers and refining instructional 

skills. • New Teacher Trainer/Mentor—focuses on training new teachers prior to the 

start of school and mentoring new staff during the first several school years. • Extended Student Learning—focuses on tutoring and nurturing students performing below grade level, or who need some pre-teaching of content. Such work 

would be done after school, during school breaks, as needed to leave no child behind. • Student Transition Leadership—includes analysis and coordination of support 

services for children needing social/transition skills, it would also include system 

guidance as students craft learning plans. • Traditional Role—180 school days plus the typical additional 5 to 15 contracted 

days; this includes ‘‘normal’’ duties that are essentially the same as current teaching 

duties. 

Many of these functions are already being addressed in many schools. We currently devote a great deal of money to many of these functions, but we do so on 

a ‘‘piecemeal’’ basis. Rarely do we group them in a manner that creates a comprehensive teacher work and compensation system. We must create such a system 

if we wish to become more intentional about ‘‘leaving no child behind’’—if we expect 

and allow professionals to engage in all the necessary roles and responsibilities for 

sustaining high-performing schools, if we recognize that distributed, aligned leadership is a must in our ever-changing society, and, if we hope to compensate professional teachers for the full-time set of duties that are now part of the profession. 

The new model assumes a portion of the staff will be willing to assume additional 

responsibilities for which they will receive a 12-month contract, representing additional compensation. This also assumes there is enough staff to create a 12:1 ratio 

for such assistance would address the area of greatest need—extended student 

learning. Flexible scheduling of the added time is necessary to meet the needs of 

the students needing help. This means that not all teachers will be working the 

same hours—a paradigm shift for management. 

Other roles—school and cluster leadership—will likewise require different work 

calendars. These staff members would presumably do much of their work prior to 

the start of each school year as their focus must be planning for and leading the 

entire school or set of schools in a cluster. Mentoring the new staff would probably 

be scheduled before the school year, as well as during the school year. Again, this 

would have to be flexible based on the needs of the new staff. 

This is a very different approach from many new compensation models that focus 

on adding stipends/per diem for added knowledge, skills or responsibilities. The 

choice of model belongs to each jurisdiction. This model does make a significant departure from many old models, as well as those being explored in many places in 

our nation. 

Fairfax County Public Schools: Good to Great Opportunities for Teacher Leaders 

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) recently issued a unique grant initiative for 

school-based staff to create a cadre of teacher leaders and advance the professionalism of teaching. The purpose of this pilot initiative is to provide schools with 

flexibility and funding for extended-year teacher contracts so that schools may create solutions to increase student achievement and ensure students reach their highest potential. It is designed to improve school-based instructional activities, thereby 

raising student achievement. Specific goals of the initiative include: 

• Increased numbers of students achieving NCLB standards as well as School 

Board adopted goals covering Academic Achievement, Essential Life Skills and Responsible Citizenship. 

• Support for innovative and exemplary approaches to develop and utilize teachers as leaders in meeting the instructional needs of students. 

• Support for the tenets of Professional Learning Communities. 

• Support to strengthen the link between Professional Learning Communities and 

improved student achievement, life skills, and citizenship. 

• Improvement of the efficiency, cost, and time of teacher training and use at the 

school and/or pyramid level. 

Sixty-two schools representing a wide range of elementary, middle, and high 

schools responded to the Teacher Leadership Request For Proposal (RFP). All 

schools and centers had the opportunity to apply for the grant. Schools responding 

to the RFP were distributed across all clusters with Cluster III submitting slightly 

more proposals (21% of all proposals) than other clusters (7% to 15% of all proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
29

posals). The largest percentage of proposals came from elementary schools: 68% of 

the proposals were from elementary schools, 13% were from middle schools, 16% 

were from high schools, and 3% were from secondary schools. From the proposals, 

twenty-two schools were selected as grantees or Teacher Leadership initiative sites. 

Schools presented individualized pilot projects with extended-year teacher contracts to meet the unique needs of their staff and student population. Nearly all 

schools (91%) proposed initiating a curriculum development project. These projects 

included general curriculum development projects (64%) and specific curriculum development projects such as integrating arts and technology into the curriculum (1%), 

remediation programs for at-risk or struggling students (18%), enrichment programs 

for advanced learners (14%), and summer school programs (18%). Nearly half of the 

schools (45%) proposed school-based staff development activities as a component of 

the Teacher Leadership initiative. Schools also proposed activities targeted to the 

needs of their individual school communities, including the review and use of data 

to inform instruction and staff development (23%), development of common assessments across grade levels (18%), involvement of the community in the school (18%), 

resource development (9%), and support to increase enrollment in advanced level 

courses (9%). 

Through the RFP process, FCPS gained invaluable insight into the ideas and 

plans generated by schools. The following sections provide a brief overview of the 

challenges and issues that surfaced through the two year development of the Teacher Leadership initiative. 

Challenges in Revamping the Teaching Profession—the Paradigm Shift 

Change always brings challenges. The most significant challenge was to fully understand the philosophical change that underlies the structural issues. While teaching has traditionally been viewed as a profession, the reality is that teacher work 

days and work year are really not viewed from a professional perspective. Neither 

is teacher compensation viewed from a professional perspective. Decades of discourse on teaching, the evolution of collective bargaining, and the ongoing policy debate in districts across the nation have lead us all to a paradigm of teacher work 

and compensation that is very piecemeal in its approach. We regularly talk about 

the teacher work day, the number of days in the work year, the daily rate of pay, 

the additional ‘‘piecemeal pay’’ for additional duties, etc. All of these are examples 

of how well ingrained the paradigm of a ‘‘piecemeal’’ work and compensation system 

is within education. This is true in union and non-union environments. In all cases, 

conversations about teacher work invariably deal with numbers of work days, work 

hours and rates of pay for particular sets of duties. 

The first challenge is to completely re-think the teaching profession. Is it possible 

to view the teaching profession as a set of duties and responsibilities that are fully 

compensated for with one salary? If it is possible to conceive of such a set of professional responsibilities for which a given compensation is appropriate, what are all 

the natural changes in the school system? Let us explore a few of the key issues 

that any school system must address if/when the new paradigm is embraced. For 

the sake of organization clarity, let us examine these issues within the traditional 

organizational structure found in any school system. 

Human Resources/Personnel 

The major challenge for HR is determining how to create, support and monitor 

the new contract for those teachers moving to full-time employment status. While 

most school systems do have teaching contracts of varying lengths, many have simply used additional ‘‘per diem’’ contracts to add additional days of work to selected 

teachers. Annual extensions of the basic contract could be used in this circumstance, 

but that methodology does not have the impact on the revamping the teaching profession being proposed here. There are substantive benefits for changing the work 

and compensation structure that go well beyond ‘‘tweaks’’ on the edges. The most 

significant is the permanent change in the profession that is contemplated in this 

proposal. Nevertheless, even this proposed permanent change in teacher work and 

compensation results in a host of issues within HR/Personnel. The issues that must 

be addressed include: 

1. Time and attendance record keeping—how to determine days worked, days off, 

sick leave accrual, vacation or ‘‘non-work’’ days, eligibility for workman’s compensation. 

2. Continuing contract rights—for ‘‘normal’’ teacher contract or for the full-time 

contract. 

3. Flexible length days during year vs. required time each day. 

4. Teachers with different contracts within the same building. 

5. Employment decisions for those not choosing full-time positions. 

30

6. Decisions on contract length in subsequent years—management decisions as 

well as employee decisions. 

Budget Planning 

There are two major issues for the budget office. One is to determine the ‘‘savings’’ 

if we no longer utilize stipends, per diem pay, or any other compensation strategies 

for the work that is now subsumed in the full-time contract. Additionally, many 

school districts currently pay for teachers attending workshops during non-school 

days as well as paying for substitutes when teachers are released to attend training 

during the school day. Depending on how these are scheduled—potentially during 

the extended contract time—there is a potential for substantial savings. 

The second issue is determining the gross cost for the longer contract. Multiple 

methodologies are possible. One can simply calculate average salaries for regular 

and full-time contracts, and multiply that difference by the number of expected fulltime contracts. One can also determine the actual pay difference on a person by person basis after the staff selection has occurred. So, in summary, the budget issues 

include: 

1. Calculating potential savings from: stipends, per diem, reduced substitute demand, and other compensation that would not be necessary. 

2. Added cost for full-time contracts. 

3. Added employer costs—retirement, social security, benefits (life insurance). 

4. Change in overhead costs to administer full-time contract vs. regular contract 

plus ‘‘added pay for added duties.’’

5. Developing a multi-year budget for phase-in period. 

Unions and Employee Groups 

There are major issues to address when you are altering wages and hours, not 

to mention working conditions. Depending upon retained management rights in a 

union environment, a district may have the latitude to create longer employment 

contracts for teachers and have those contracts specified for a different set of teaching duties—teacher leadership duties. Even in ‘‘right to work’’ environments, there 

are a host of management policies that probably define the flexibility of districts to 

create full-time contracts. At the very least, there are clearly a set of past practices 

that create the current norms or employment culture within a district. Changing the 

teacher contract in any environment is challenging, simply because it is a change. 

Prior to any logistical changes to HR and Budget, there must be extensive conversations with key stakeholders—School Board, principals, teachers, parents, employees who are not teachers, etc. The notion that the teaching profession has profoundly changed over the past decade(s) resonates with all of these groups. Teachers 

will especially agree that their jobs have changed drastically and will begin to help 

determine the pros and cons of making changes to a full-time contract. Besides the 

obvious discussions with stakeholders, some of the issues for unions include: 

1. Right/expectation to negotiate pay, length of contract, etc. 

2. The splitting of members into those with full-time contracts vs. those with regular contracts. 

3. Adding time (number of days) vs. a long standing desire to reduce the time demands on teachers—limit length of work day, limit meetings, increase planning 

time during the school day, etc. 

4. Union leadership, Board of Directors and member’s view of additional compensation for additional time—is there alignment? 

5. Where multiple associations exist, there is the issue of how the other association are positioning themselves—competition for membership. 

6. Process for selecting those with full-time contracts. 

Principals and the Schools 

The most important element in this new paradigm is school. The whole purpose 

is to ensure schools have significant time to address the needs of the students and 

the community. As noted in the stated goals of this initiative, it is to provide significant additional time for teachers to address student achievement needs and to do 

so in the environment of a professional learning community. To that end, significant 

planning must be done at the school level. That planning must be done with the 

school leadership team and in alignment with the goals of the school and school district. Since this is such a significant increase in teacher time, it is not unusual for 

such planning to take an entire year. As a school creates a plan to utilize full-time 

teaching positions, the issues to address include: 

1. A purposeful school improvement plan must exist. Such a plan must specify the 

expectations, duties and functions that are needed in the school. 

2. The plan can (and perhaps should) be multi-year to allow significant culture 

changes, necessary modifications to school plan, resource acquisition. 

31

3. Clear job descriptions must be developed for each type of full-time position 

needed to support the school plan. 

4. A master calendar must reflect the common working days for the appropriate 

teams of full-time teachers. This calendar must encompass scheduling the appropriate time for the teachers to fulfill the jobs expectations specified in the school 

plan. 

5. Some duties may include time after the ‘‘regular’’ day (for example, student tutoring or enrichment) in lieu of added days. 

6. The process for selecting staff to fill each of the full-time jobs. 

7. In concert with HR, the clear identification of which of the current supplemental payments would now be subsumed into the full-time contract. Some of these 

will be required—no longer will stipends be given to team leaders, department 

chairs, etc. 

8. A clear delineation of duties for full-time teachers vs. regular contract teachers 

must be articulated and adhered to during the implementation phase. 

9. While some of the additional time will be used for ‘‘prep time’’ the major added 

time should be devoted to working with other adults on the school initiatives. 

10. Not every school has the culture that is compatible with this change. 

District and Community 

There is usually a positive response from parents when we acknowledge the significant changes in the demand on teachers. School Board members likewise understand the significant challenges teachers face in the classroom, in preparation for 

the classroom and in time demands for a variety of other issues. In fact, there is 

usually a strong push from unions and teacher spokespersons to the School Board 

to reduce time demands. This paradigm shift has the potential to help the school 

board respond to the time issues by significantly increasing compensation while recognizing the added duties that would go with the added salary. And, in many cases, 

teachers are already performing some of the added duties and this allows school 

boards and the community to give recognition for that work. Some of the public policy issues include: 

1. Added compensation (and time) for (potentially) only one group of employees. 

This can be viewed positively—supporting teachers—or negatively by other employees. 

2. Are there related time and compensation issues with other employee groups? 

3. Supports a school-based leadership paradigm. 

4. Provides an opportunity to mesh summer curriculum work and other extended 

time needs with full-time contracts. 

5. Significantly increases teacher pay and gives district greater competitive advantage for recruitment and retention. Full-time contract is also potentially more 

attractive to career changers. 

Summary 

As a leading innovator of education practices and reform, Fairfax County Public 

Schools is moving to advance the professionalism of teachers and the education 

field. The Teacher Leadership initiative provides FCPS Leadership Team members 

a unique opportunity to cultivate talent from within the school division, create philosophical shifts that ensure only effective programs and practices are implemented 

to meet the needs of a changing student population, and share evidence of successful 

practices with the national education community. 

Chairman MILLER. Ms. Bibeau. 

STATEMENT OF JOAN BIBEAU, TEACHER, EAGLEVIEW 

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, GRAND RAPIDS, MINNESOTA 

Ms. BIBEAU. Chairman Miller, Mr. McKeon and members of the 

committee, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to testify before the committee today. 

I offer my experience as a veteran classroom teacher and as a 

member of Education Minnesota, an affiliate of both the AFT and 

NEA. I am a teacher of 34 years and an enrolled member of the 

White Earth Band of Ojibwe. I was awarded the Minnesota Indian 

Education Association Teacher of the Year Award in 2006. 

32

I have often been asked how did I succeed in becoming a teacher 

and making it my profession. The answer is that there were two 

major influences. One was my parents and the other is my recruitment into the Northern Plains Indian Teacher Corps. 

Let me share the views of many of my colleagues and myself 

about NCLB. We often feel as though the rules were made without 

regard to the actual needs of our students and the realities of our 

work as teachers. If I had one suggestion for the committee it 

would be this. Improve the law so that it recognizes the actual 

world we teach in, and then provide educators with the tools and 

resources we know that are essential to help our students succeed. 

Allow me to provide a snapshot of the environment where I live 

and teach. My home is in rural northern Minnesota in Itasca County with a population of 44,000. Our county encompasses three 

small, remote communities on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. 

I teach preschool and kindergarten at Eagleview Elementary. 

The student population is 64 percent American Indian and has a 

60 percent graduation rate. We are a Title I school with a poverty 

rate of 82 percent. 

The challenge for NCLB and educators is to support and educate 

all children, especially those who are struggling academically. We 

certainly need the best teachers we can find for our student population in northern Minnesota, but I don’t see the evidence that 

NCLB is particularly helpful in this regard. 

In Minnesota, nearly all teachers already meet the Federal requirements to be considered highly qualified when they enter the 

profession because of Minnesota’s high standards for licensure. 

Funding is a significant challenge in my district. We hire good 

teachers, but we can’t afford to keep them. Our student enrollment 

is declining as in many Minnesota districts. As a result, many of 

our teachers, including me, have been laid off multiple times for 

budgetary reasons. 

The solution to improving high teacher quality is not to make the 

highly qualified requirements stricter or to make teachers jump 

through more hoops to prove their qualifications. What is really 

needed to ensure high quality teaching is the presence of professional supports that will allow us to keep the good teachers we 

have. States and schools should provide all teachers with professional pay, school-based professional development and adequate 

working conditions in order to attract and retain qualified teaches, 

especially in hard-to-staff schools. 

Legislation such as Chairman Miller’s TEACH Act and the 

Teacher Center Act recognize the importance of these issues and 

create partnerships with local school districts to meet these challenges. 

In closing, I want to highlight the importance of improving teacher and learning conditions in schools as a strategy for recruiting 

and retaining excellent teachers. A recent study by the California 

State University found that teaching and learning environments 

was even more significant than salary in the teacher’s decision on 

whether to stay or leave the profession. 

I encourage the committee to look at the issue of teacher quality 

through the eyes of experienced, highly qualified teachers like myself and ask us what actually works in the classroom and what we 

33

need to be great teachers who can produce great results for all our 

students. We are more than happy to assist you. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify today. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Bibeau follows:]

Prepared Statement of Joan Bibeau, Education Minnesota 

Chairman Miller: I’m very pleased to have this opportunity to testify before the 

Committee. I bring to you today my experience not only as a veteran classroom 

teacher, but also as a member of Education Minnesota, an affiliate of both the 

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association 

(NEA). 

To get to Washington, D.C. from my home in northern Minnesota this week 

meant a one-hour drive to Hibbing, then a 7 a.m. flight to Minneapolis and another 

flight to D.C. Our county has not had airline service for two years. It took the better 

part of a day to get here. But I was willing to make this journey because I believe 

it is very important for members of Congress to hear from practicing teachers as 

you consider the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

First I want to tell you something about myself. I am a teacher of 34 years and 

an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. I’ve been asked: ‘‘How did 

you succeed in becoming a teacher?’’ The answer is that there were two major influences—my parents and my recruitment into the Northern Plains Indian Teacher 

Corps. I have earned Minnesota teaching licensure in Early Childhood, Early Childhood Family Education, Early Childhood Special Education, Kindergarten, and first 

through sixth grade. I earned my Masters Degree in Elementary Education in 1984 

from the University of North Dakota. I was awarded the Minnesota Indian Education Association Teacher of the Year Award in 2006. 

Here is my view of NCLB, and the view of many other teachers: It often seems 

as though the rules were made without regard to the actual needs of our students 

and the realities of our work as teachers. If I had one suggestion for the Committee, 

it would be this: Improve the law so that it recognizes the actual world we teach 

in and then provide educators with the tools and resources we know are essential 

to helping our students succeed. 

Let me share with you some of the realities that will help describe where I live 

and teach. My home is in rural northern Minnesota in Itasca County, with a population of 44,000. Our county encompasses three small remote communities on the 

Leech Lake Indian Reservation. I teach preschool and kindergarten at Eagleview Elementary on the Leech Lake Reservation. This community is 64 percent American 

Indian and has a 60 percent graduation rate. The median household income is 

$11,875 and half of our population is living below the poverty line. We are a Title 

I school, with 82 percent of our students receiving free or reduced price lunch. Many 

of our families do not have reliable transportation, telephone service, or adequate 

housing. They need to travel great distances for health care, employment (unemployment is 30.9 percent), and access to stores. 

The challenge for NCLB and educators is to support and educate ALL children, 

especially those who are struggling academically. We certainly need the best teachers we can find for our student population in northern Minnesota. But I don’t see 

the evidence that NCLB is particularly helpful in this regard. 

In Minnesota, nearly all teachers already meet the federal requirements to be considered ‘‘highly qualified’’ when they enter the profession because the state Board 

of Teaching has established high standards for teacher preparation and licensure. 

My district’s biggest challenge is funding. We hire good teachers, and we can’t afford to keep them because our student enrollment is declining, as it is in many 

northern Minnesota districts. As a result, many of our teachers—including me—

have been laid off multiple times for budgetary reasons. Most of our new teachers 

start out in part-time positions or as substitute teachers, waiting for a full-time 

opening. 

Three districts in my region have had major budget deficits and have had to dramatically cut staff and educational opportunities. We now have large class sizes and 

are continuing to cut critical services for students at all levels. 

Appropriate licensure is also a problem under these conditions. To meet students’ 

educational needs with the staff we have, some teachers are provisionally licensed 

to teach outside their current instructional area—especially in areas of unique student needs—while they complete the necessary coursework. For this reason, it is essential that NCLB retain the current highly qualified teacher definition and the 

34

flexibility to allow rural teachers like me to demonstrate, via the HOUSSE provisions, subject matter competence in the multiple subjects we are required to teach. 

The solution is not to make the ‘‘highly qualified’’ requirements stricter or to 

make teachers jump through more hoops to prove their qualifications. What’s really 

needed to ensure high-quality teaching is funding that allows us to keep the good 

teachers we have. States and communities should provide all teachers with professional pay and adequate working conditions in order to attract and retain qualified 

individuals in the teaching profession. Also, the federal government should provide 

incentives to attract and retain teachers in hard-to-staff schools and subjects, as you 

have proposed with the TEACH Act, Chairman. Miller. 

In the area of professional development, we need more resources in programs that 

we know work to help teachers do their jobs, including mentoring and induction, 

systemic school-based professional development, and incorporating research-based 

programs and curricular supports for teachers and paraprofessionals. For example, 

my local union has included in our contract with the school district a mentoring program to support and retain new teachers. Each new teacher has a mentor, is able 

to observe an experienced teacher, and receives two additional workshop days. Programs like these have been shown to reduce teacher turnover and improve student 

outcomes and I encourage you to think about these kinds of initiatives as you make 

improvements to NCLB. 

Additionally, Minnesota requires all school districts to set aside 2 percent of their 

revenue for professional development that is determined by teacher-led committees 

at the district and school site level. My state-level union, Education Minnesota, has 

a statewide training program to educate our members about this law and help them 

advocate for quality professional development. However, many of our school districts 

are facing budget crises, and all too often, some or all of this professional development money is used elsewhere. For example, our district teachers sacrificed the 2 

percent set aside for staff development to the general budget this year. 

The federal government could contribute greatly to improving teacher quality if 

it would support bills such as the Teacher Center Act, introduced last year by 

Chairman Miller to fund first-rate professional development programs. 

In the higher education arena, Education Minnesota is beginning a collaborative 

effort with the state Department of Education, colleges and universities, and other 

professional groups to support professional learning for teachers at all stages of 

their careers. We held an Induction Institute in St. Paul this past week to train 

teams of local educators to set up high-quality induction programs in their district. 

It would be wonderful if the federal and state governments would make this kind 

of professional development partnership a funding priority. 

Improving all of these other programs won’t matter unless we also improve teaching and learning conditions in schools. This includes providing smaller class sizes, 

ensuring that schools are safe and orderly, and maintaining adequate facilities and 

materials to reduce teacher turnover and make it possible for teachers to do their 

best work. 

A recent study by California State University’s Center for Teacher Quality found 

that the teaching and learning environment was even more significant than salary 

in teachers’ decisions on whether to stay in the profession or leave. The study pointed to such things as adequate time for planning and professional development, reliable assistance from the district office, the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and have a meaningful role in school decision-making, and adequate facilities and equipment. These factors also apply to our schools in Minnesota. (The 

CSU’s Center for Teacher Quality study can be accessed at: http://

www.calstate.edu/teacherquality/documents/possible—dream.pdf.) 

The federal government can help remedy these problems by supporting programs 

and policies that support teachers as they work to ensure that all students meet 

high academic standards. These include: 

• Financial Incentives: The federal government should fund programs that provide financial incentives for qualified individuals to enter the teaching profession, 

and for collaboration among school districts, teacher unions, and institutions of 

higher education for the development of programs that would facilitate the recruitment and retention of a qualified diverse group of teacher candidates. 

• Mentoring and Induction: All newly hired teachers should receive quality induction and mentoring services from trained veteran teachers to ensure a successful experience in the first years and decrease the turnover of new teachers. Incentive 

grants to districts to develop peer assistance programs that focus on the improvement of staff knowledge and skills should be available to help struggling teachers 

improve professional practice, retain promising teachers, and build professional 

knowledge to improve student success. 

35

Chairman Miller’s TEACH Act recognizes the importance of giving teachers across 

the nation access to high-level, ongoing, high-quality professional development programs that are designed and delivered by expert practicing teachers, as well as to 

mentoring with modeling, demonstration, weekly coaching, training, and stipends 

for mentors. Congress should incorporate these ideas into ESEA reauthorization. • Professional Development: Teachers must be intimately involved in every phase 

of their ongoing training, with high-quality professional development programs focusing on pedagogy and helping teachers develop the deep understanding of how 

students learn. The information needs to be timely, research-based, and relevant—

information that one can use immediately upon returning to the classroom. These 

programs should be developed in a collaborative fashion between school districts’ 

leaders and the local teachers to ensure that teachers—and other educators—receive 

professional development that is directly linked to their and their students’ needs 

and tied to the school’s and district’s curriculum and instructional needs and strategies. 

Chairman Miller’s Teacher Centers Act would give all teachers opportunities for 

ongoing, high quality intensive professional development that is available at the 

school site. • Teacher Leaders: Teachers who earn advanced certification by passing the demanding performance-based assessments of the National Board for Professional 

Teaching Standards, who agree to teach in hard-to-staff schools, and who take on 

additional roles such as mentoring, peer support, and other professional development activities should be paid for their leadership roles. 

The federal government should continue to provide support for the National Board 

for Professional Teaching Standards to assist more teachers to obtain National 

Board Certification. In addition, the federal government could provide financial incentives for board-certified teachers to go to and stay in hard-to-staff schools. • Collaboration: NCLB should include a grant program to states willing to encourage skills- and knowledge-based staffing arrangements in schools. This program 

should encourage collaboration between the school administration and the local organization representing teachers and other educators, as well as increased collaboration among teachers and between teachers and other education staff, to promote 

innovation in the way teachers’ and support professionals’ roles and responsibilities 

are defined. • Teaching and Learning Conditions: The TEACH Act acknowledges the importance of teacher working and student learning conditions by calling for a number 

of useful assurances such as improved working conditions, reduced class size, incentives for attracting a critical mass of qualified teachers, and school repair, renovation, and modernization. 

The federal government also should require states to develop a ‘‘learning environment index’’ for all schools, and require districts and states to address the problem 

areas identified for schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP). Many of the 

schools not making AYP do not have adequate facilities, safe conditions, teacher retention incentives, or the necessary financial and professional supports. The learning environment index should identify and measure teaching and learning conditions in each school. 

Furthermore, Title II (the Teacher Quality State Grant program) should be 

amended to include an independent, targeted class size reduction program. It also 

should be amended to allow districts to work with local teacher unions to survey 

principals, teachers, and other school staff about their working conditions. Such surveys can be powerful tools to obtain information that can identify improvements 

needed in schools throughout the district to help spur student achievement. North 

Carolina has been a leader in using teacher working condition surveys. Other states 

that have utilized this tool include Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, Ohio, and Mississippi. 

Additional information on teacher working conditions surveys can be obtained from 

the Center on Teacher Quality at: http://www.teachingquality.org/twc/

whereweare.htm 

• Compensation: To attract, retain, and support the highest quality teachers, 

paraprofessionals, and other school employees, schools must have a healthy environment, supportive climate, and working conditions that support success and provide 

professional compensation and benefits. All educators—including both teachers and 

paraprofessionals—require an adequate compensation system with competitive base 

pay and benefits for all. 

Teachers also should be provided with opportunities to improve their salary 

through the performance of additional responsibilities. Many teachers possess a 

high degree of teaching knowledge and skills. They know and do what is required 

to make sure all students reach high academic standards. Now we need to make 

sure that these and other accomplished teachers are utilized as teacher leaders who 

36

support effective practices in their schools, communities, and states. To attract and 

retain qualified teachers in hard-to-staff schools, we need to provide teachers an 

array of financial incentives by giving them different professional opportunities. 

Furthermore, the federal government should reward states that set a reasonable 

minimum starting salary for teachers and a living wage for support professionals 

working in school districts that accept federal funds. For example, the nation and 

the states could demonstrate their commitment to educators by ensuring that no 

teacher in America makes less than $40,000 and no public school worker makes less 

than $25,000 or a living wage. 

To sum up, I encourage the Committee to look at teacher quality not just in the 

policy arena—and not just in terms of rules and requirements—but also through the 

eyes of experienced, highly qualified teachers. Ask us what should be done and then 

listen to what we say about what actually works in the classroom. Also, we urge 

you to hear our ideas about what we need to be great teachers who can help our 

students achieve at high levels. We are more than happy to assist you. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify today. 

Chairman MILLER. Dr. Ritter. 

STATEMENT OF DR. GARY W. RITTER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, 

ENDOWED CHAIR IN EDUCATION POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF 

ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE, AR 

Mr. RITTER. Thank you, Chairman Miller, Mr. McKeon and members of the committee. 

My testimony here will focus on how to use teacher compensation 

as a policy lever to encourage the most qualified teachers to enter 

classrooms across the country and work to improve achievement of 

all students, especially that of needy students. There are a variety 

of ways that school leaders might attempt to do this. I will focus 

on performance pay which might be awarded to teachers who are 

particularly effective at the ultimate objective of our schools. Nurturing student learning and performance pay is particularly important, I would argue, in drawing teachers into the field. 

Despite the conventional wisdom, starting salaries today for 

teachers are quite competitive and growing even more so. The key 

compensation problem many argue is that we underpay effective 

teachers as they move throughout their career, and this is the reason that many of them leave. 

So what is performance pay and what do we know about the impact of performance pay on teacher quality and on student performance? And you have heard a lot about that this morning. Essentially performance pay plans pay some fraction of a teacher’s salary 

on objective measures of student achievement; and a well-crafted 

plan that connects teacher pay to student performance could positively impact classrooms across the country in two ways. 

In the short term, teachers currently in the classroom may be 

motivated to work more effectively, try more innovative ways on 

enhancing student learning due to the very direct connection between performance rewards and student learning. In the longer 

term, the impact of performance pay may be even greater by affecting the overall composition of the teaching force. 

If performance pay were implemented in a widespread manner, 

talented individuals motivated by high achievement recognition 

might be more likely to consider teaching as a viable career option. 

Instead, in the current context of the single salary schedule, the 

teaching profession may well be attractive to individuals who are 

not comfortable with evaluation of their teaching effectiveness. Of 

37

course, this is not the case with most or all teachers, but it may 

be attractive to those types and we do not want this to be the case. 

Indeed, colleges of education are currently unable to attract the 

most talented students. The evidence shows that the SAT and ACT 

scores of undergraduate education majors are typically lower than 

the scores of their peers in other fields. Thus, it is important that 

we implement innovative strategies to draw our brightest young 

people into this field as many have said on this panel earlier today. 

It is quite possible that one of the barriers that is keeping talented 

individuals out of the field is the fact that there is little recognition, monetary or otherwise, for effective job performance. 

So is there any empirical support for the potential effectiveness 

of performance pay plans implemented in actual schools across the 

country? And, yes, there is. Three recent studies highlight this evidence. First—and most of this is highlighted in the written testimony in front of you—Michael J. Podgursky and Matthew Springer 

reviewed eight teacher performance pay programs implemented 

throughout the United States since the 1990s. Six of these showed 

a positive correlation between incentives and student performance. 

Second, David Figlio and Lawrence Kenny published a comprehensive study in 2006 on the effects of teacher incentives on 

student performance throughout the Nation. Figlio and Kenny conclude that students in schools where teachers are offered individual 

financial rewards for effective teaching have students who perform 

better on standardized tests and learn more. 

Finally, along with several colleagues at the University of Arkansas, I recently conducted a study of a teacher performance pay plan 

implemented in several schools in the Little Rock school district. 

We found that students in the performance-pay schools showed an 

improvement of nearly 7 percentile points as compared to their 

peers in similar schools. Moreover, teachers in a performance-pay 

plan, counter to the conventional wisdom, reported no loss in teacher collaboration, reported that they were more satisfied with their 

salaries than were comparison teachers, and that their work environment had, in fact, become more positive over the past year rather than deteriorated. 

So how should performance-pay plans be constructed if we were 

to attempt them? Well, one of the rare places of consensus in educational research is that good teaching matters. And indeed, some 

teachers consistently induce greater student learning gains than do 

their peers. Clearly, these are the teachers that school leaders 

should want to reward, retain and attract. Accordingly, performance-pay plans should be focused on student achievement so that 

these effective teachers are recognized. In this way, our system will 

encourage teachers to engage in behaviors that lead to greater student learning and we will discourage teachers whose efforts do not 

lead to improved student learning. 

Perhaps the easiest and most objective way to fairly measure 

student learning is student performance on well-designed achievement tests that are fairly aligned to the schools’ States’ learning 

standards. All of this presumes that we have assessments that we 

are comfortable with and are well aligned and are well designed. 

The Teacher Incentive Fund program, the Federal effort which 

supports efforts locally to develop and implement performanceVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
38

based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-needs 

schools provides guidelines within which these systems are to be 

constructed. And this seems an appropriate vehicle for Federal policymakers to encourage performance pay for teachers and thus induce improvements in teacher quality and student achievement. 

Finally, if performance pay is effective, why hasn’t it been implemented more widely in the past? Instead of the performance-pay 

schedule we operate under generally, the single salary schedule 

which pays teachers mostly on the basis of seniority and degree, 

and this operates within the vast majority of school districts 

around the Nation. 

This salary schedule offers no incentive to work toward enhanced 

student performance. A teacher in her 10th year with a master’s 

degree who is extraordinarily effective in engaging students and 

nurturing student learning receives a salary that is identical to 

that of her peer with the same level of education and experience 

who no longer works hard to energize students and is simply there 

for the paycheck. This is simply not equitable. 

However, it is not surprising that this uniform salary schedule 

remains intact in most districts. Teacher groups are powerful and 

leaders of these groups intend to represent all teachers. Such 

groups are not likely to encourage a salary structure that highlights some teachers over others, and this limits the ability of administrators to use salary as a strategy to encourage better teaching. As a result, the single-salary schedule which is used generally 

in the name of equity for teachers may in fact lead to less equity 

and less effective teaching for our students. And this is clearly inequitable as the students who are most likely to suffer from ineffective teaching are those attending and studying in our most disadvantaged schools. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Ritter follows:]

Prepared Statement of Gary W. Ritter, Associate Professor, Endowed Chair 

in Education Policy, Department of Education Reform, College of Education and Health Professions, University of Arkansas 

My testimony here will focus on how to use teacher compensation as a policy tool, 

or lever, to encourage the most qualified teachers to enter classrooms across the 

country and work to improve student achievement of all students, and particularly 

of needy students. There are a variety of ways that school leaders might use teacher 

compensation policy as part of a strategy to increase teacher quality in targeted 

areas. Additional compensation could be offered to teachers able to teach hard-tostaff subjects such as middle school and secondary mathematics, secondary science, 

or special education. Extra pay might also be offered to teachers willing to serve 

in economically disadvantaged areas or otherwise hard-to-staff geographic regions. 

Finally, performance pay might be awarded to teachers who are particularly effective at the ultimate objective of our schools: nurturing student learning and student 

achievement. The sections that follow will focus on the potential of performance pay 

for enhancing teacher quality and thus increasing student performance. 

What is the Impact of Performance Pay on Teacher Quality and Student Achievement? 

Essentially, performance pay plans refer to teacher compensation strategies that 

base a portion of a teacher’s total compensation on some evaluation of the teacher’s 

performance, which is generally based—at least in part—on objective measures of 

student achievement. A well-crafted plan that connects teacher compensation to student performance could positively influence classrooms across the United States in 

two ways. 

In the short term, teachers currently in the classroom may be motivated to focus 

their work more effectively on enhancing student learning due to the performance 

39

1October 24, 2006, working paper submitted to the National Center on Performance Incentives, http://www.performanceincentives.org/ncpi—publications/PodgurskyandSpringerTeacherPerformancePay.pdf 2David N. Figlio and Lawrence Kenny, NBER Working Paper Series, ‘‘Individual Teacher Incentives and Student Performance,’’ National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 

12627, http://www.nber.org/papers/w12627

rewards directly connected to student achievement. In the longer term, the impact 

of a performance pay plan may be even greater by affecting the overall composition 

of the teaching force. The type of salary schedule currently employed in most schools 

across the country relies on no connection between pay and performance; thus, the 

teaching profession today may well be attractive to individuals who are not comfortable with any evaluation of their teaching effectiveness. Alternatively, if performance pay were implemented in a widespread manner, talented individuals motivated by high achievement and recognition might be more likely to consider teaching as a viable career option. 

Unfortunately, there is evidence that a change in the composition of the teaching 

corps is needed because colleges of education are currently unable to attract the 

most talented students. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics and 

numerous other sources show that the SAT and ACT scores of undergraduate education majors are typically lower than the scores of their peers in other fields. Thus, 

it is important that we implement innovative strategies to draw our brightest young 

people into this field. It is quite possible that one of the barriers keeping some talented individuals out of the field is the fact that there is currently little recognition, 

monetary or otherwise, for effective job performance. 

Thus, there is a reasonable theoretical justification for the concept of performance 

pay and empirical evidence that our current system of pay does not appear attractive to the most talented college students. But, is there any empirical support for 

the potential effectiveness of performance pay plans implemented in actual schools? 

As a matter of fact, yes. Three recent studies highlight this evidence. 

First, in their examination of the literature on teacher incentive programs, 

‘‘Teacher Performance Pay: A Review,’’ Michael J. Podgursky and Matthew G. 

Springer1 note that the current literature on teacher incentive plans is slender and 

typically focused on short-run motivational effects. This small, but growing body of 

work is quite diverse in its methodologies, target populations, and types of programs. In their review of the evaluations of eight teacher performance pay programs 

implemented throughout the United States since the 1990s, Podgursky and Springer 

find that six programs revealed a positive correlation between incentives and student performance. Overall, the authors argue that recent research on incentive pay 

has consistently found positive effects, but much more robust research must be undertaken in order to proscribe how programs should best be designed. That is, how 

large should bonuses be, and how should programs mix individual with group incentives? 

Second, David N. Figlio and Lawrence Kenny2 published a comprehensive study 

in 2006 on the effects of teacher incentives on student performance throughout the 

United States. The authors used data from the National Education Longitudinal 

Survey supplemented with data from their own survey conducted in 2000 exploring 

the use of performance incentives. Figlio and Kenny conclude that students in 

schools that offer teachers individual financial rewards for effective teaching perform better on standardized tests. While the authors do not view performance pay 

as a ‘‘silver bullet’’ for improving student performance, they see incentives as one 

way to attract more highly-skilled applicants into the teaching profession. 

Finally, along with several colleagues at the University of Arkansas, I recently 

conducted a study of a teacher performance bonus program implemented at several 

schools in the Little Rock School District. Based on data reported by the District 

as well as data collected from the surveys of teachers, we find that students in the 

performance pay schools in 2005-06 showed an improvement of nearly 7 percentile 

points as compared to their peers in comparison schools. Moreover, teachers in the 

performance pay program reported no loss in teacher collaboration, that they were 

more satisfied with their salaries than comparison teachers, and that their work environment became more positive than the environment in comparison schools. 

How Should Performance Pay Plans be Constructed? 

One of the rare places of consensus in educational research is that good teaching 

matters. However, there is less agreement on the characteristics of excellent teachers. That is, the research is not clear on the extent, if any, to which teacher certification leads to greater student performance. Similarly, while much of the research 

points to the conclusion that brand new teachers do get better after a couple of 

40

years of teaching experience, there is debate over how long these ‘‘experience premiums’’ persist. Further, although many teachers across the country work to earn 

post-graduate degrees—and get paid higher salaries for these degrees—there is not 

much evidence to suggest that these additional degrees contribute to enhanced student learning. 

In short, it’s difficult to identify a good teacher based on credentials, but some 

teachers consistently induce greater student learning gains than do their peers. 

Clearly, these are the teachers that school leaders should want to reward and retain. Therefore, performance pay plans should be constructed in such a way that 

these effective teachers are recognized. In this way, with the focus on student 

achievement, we will encourage teachers to engage in behaviors that lead to higher 

student achievement and we will discourage teachers whose efforts do not lead to 

improved student performance. 

Since effective teaching and student learning are the fundamental goals of teachers, a performance pay plan should primarily be focused on student achievement. 

One way to fairly and objectively measure student learning is student performance 

on well-designed achievement tests that are aligned to the school’s (or state’s) learning standards. Consequently, it follows that teacher performance in performance pay 

plans be measured by student achievement on well-designed and well-aligned assessments. 

If Performance Pay is Effective, How Can Federal Policymakers Encourage It? 

Many researchers and analysts advocate strongly that teacher pay be connected, 

at least to some extent, to student performance. However, there is no single best 

method to achieve this goal. Even among existing performance pay plans, there exists a great deal of variety with respect to the details of the plans. While some plans 

focus on individual teacher performance and individual rewards, others rely on 

school-wide performance and school-wide rewards. While some plans base teacher 

performance ratings on student achievement on national norm-referenced exams, 

other plans rely on the results of state-developed, criterion-referenced assessments. 

While some plans base rewards on one year of academic improvements, others rely 

on academic results over multiple years. 

Indeed, there is no optimal plan, but there are general guidelines that should be 

followed for a plan to have a chance to succeed. In this situation, the proper federal 

role may be to encourage, via grant-funding options, states and localities to develop 

their own performance pay plans based on local preferences and assessments. In 

fact, we can also be quite sure that any performance pay plan that is not supported 

by a majority of educators within a school is likely to face serious obstacles and will 

not be optimally effective. 

Thus, the Teacher Incentive Fund program, which supports efforts to develop and 

implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in highneed schools, and provides guidelines within which these systems must be constructed, seems an appropriate vehicle for federal policymakers to encourage improvements in teacher quality and student achievement. 

If Performance Pay is Effective, Why has it Not Been Implemented More Widely? 

The single salary schedule (or lock-step schedule), which pays teachers solely on 

the basis of seniority and educational attainment (degree level), operates within the 

vast majority of school districts around the nation. Thus, most school leaders are 

not choosing to use teacher compensation as a policy lever to encourage good teaching. In fact, there are no incentives in the current salary schedule for teachers to 

work toward enhanced student performance. A teacher in her 10th year with a Masters Degree who is extraordinarily effective at engaging students and nurturing student learning receives a salary that is identical to that of her peer with the same 

level of education and experience who no longer works hard to energize students 

and is simply there for the paycheck. 

However, it is no surprise that this uniform salary schedule remains intact in 

most districts—teacher groups are powerful and leaders of these groups intend to 

represent all teachers (not students). Thus, teacher group leaders are not likely to 

encourage a salary structure that highlights some teachers over others. This is understandable, however, it limits the ability of administrators to use salary as a 

strategy to encourage better teaching. In the end, if this single-salary schedule limits the ability of school leaders to enhance teacher quality—and many have made 

this claim vehemently and effectively—then the single salary schedule used in the 

name of equity for teachers may in fact lead to less effective teaching for our students. This is clearly inequitable as the students most likely to suffer from ineffective teaching are those attending school in our most disadvantaged schools. 

41

Chairman MILLER. Dr. Burke. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JOSEPH P. BURKE, SUPERINTENDENT OF 

SCHOOLS, SPRINGFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS, SPRINGFIELD, MA 

Mr. BURKE. Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Chairman, Mr. 

McKeon andmembers of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. 

No Child Left Behind is landmark legislation, no doubt. It has 

sparked impassioned debate about the depth and breadth of its 

mandate, the range of the impact of testing and accountability and 

the punitive effects on district schools and staffs in many of the 

States. 

The passions of the debate were predictable. NCLB definitely 

challenged the public will to educate all of our children to levels of 

proficiency once obtained by more privileged student populations. 

The insistence that students of all colors and ethnic groups, all income levels and all language groups must be educated to a uniform 

set of academic standards is laudable. 

Embedded in the goals and intended outcomes of NCLB is a principle dearly held by my colleagues in Springfield. The principle is, 

there is no excellence without equity. We cannot consider the education system in America to be excellent unless we are attaining 

equitable outcomes for all children—poor children, children of color 

and children whose first language is not English. NCLB represents 

a systemic commitment to accomplish this. 

I would like to express my thanks to Congressman Miller for the 

TEACH Act and to Congressman Price for the Teacher Incentive 

Fund. The TIF provides unique opportunities for school districts to 

reward excellence in teaching based on actual results in student 

achievement. The stability and continuity of this program are critical to advancing the efforts to improve teacher effectiveness. 

The teacher quality provisions currently in NCLB focus on 

knowledge and credentials. However, there are no explicit provisions regarding results with students. This seems to be a glaring 

omission when the emphasis of NCLB accountability provisions are 

on results and student achievement. Since student achievement is 

the primary driver of AYP and the overarching goal of public policy, shouldn’t teacher quality be connected to student achievement 

results in a sensible and responsible manner? 

The Teacher Incentive Fund creates the opportunity for highly 

motivated and courageous school reformers to change tightly held 

traditions in education. In fact, the TIF could serve as a catalyst 

for reforms in Springfield and in other school districts. Working in 

collaboration with our local teachers union, we have created ways 

to measure teacher performance based on a teacher’s ability to improve student achievement. We recently incorporated a way to recognize teacher effectiveness in our new contract by adding two new 

positions, an Instructional Leadership Specialist and a Teacher 

Leader, that have student achievement results as a required criterion for appointment. Teachers who are selected for appointment 

to these positions must have demonstrated more than a year’s 

growth in student achievement on a value-added measure. 

Additional criteria include demonstration of best practices, exemplary performance on teacher behaviors and excellent attendance. 

42

However, the inclusion of student results for these highest paid 

teaching positions recognize that teacher quality has to include and 

be connected to student learning. It alters the equation in favor of 

student outcomes. 

Our long-term goal is to appoint highly successful teachers to 

these positions and empower teachers to lead a transformation in 

the acceleration of student learning. Building high-powered teams 

of leaders, redeployed to serve schools with the greatest needs, is 

intended to produce the kind of learning necessary for our students 

to succeed in the 21st century. 

This Springfield model intentionally rewards qualitative results 

with students. Our goal is to attract and retain the highest quality 

teachers and provide them with interesting, exciting and challenging career paths for which they will be amply compensated. 

Additionally, the district and the union have agreed to differential 

compensation for critical shortage teachers certified in math, 

science, special education and English language learning. 

Having successfully negotiated those items, we recently concluded a far-reaching agreement with the teachers union on the 

new Commonwealth pilot schools. In this agreement, pilot school 

faculties are freed up from most labor contract provisions and local 

district requirements in lieu of commitments to obtain substantial 

achievement improvements. 

Teacher quality in urban districts takes on particularly significant and urgent dimensions in high minority and high probability 

schools provisionally located in urban districts of larger numbers of 

novice teachers and lower percentages of fully credentialed teachers than schools in other communities. The work of Sanders demonstrates that quality teachers have the greatest impact on low 

achievement and high probability achievement. 

Springfield is aggressively pursuing an approach where the definition of highly qualified includes demonstrated results with students. Our ability to place highly effective teachers in schools with 

the most needy students may give our thousands of low-income students a fighting chance to reach the high level of achievement that 

they need and that they deserve. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Burke follows:]

Prepared Statement of Dr. Joseph P. Burke, Superintendent of Schools, 

Springfield, MA 

No Child Left Behind is landmark legislation in the history of public education. 

It has sparked impassioned debate about the depth and breadth of its mandate, the 

range of the impact of testing and accountability, and the punitive effects on districts, schools and staffs in many of the states. The passions of the debate were predictable. NCLB has inexorably and definitively challenged the public will to educate 

ALL of our children to levels of proficiency once obtained by more privileged subsections of our student population. The unique insistence that students of all colors 

and ethnic groups, all income levels, and all language groups must be educated to 

a uniform set of academic standards is laudable and historic. It is my belief that 

embedded in the goals and intended outcomes of NCLB is a principle dearly held 

by me and my colleagues in Springfield, Massachusetts. The principle is ‘‘There is 

no Excellence without Equity.’’ We cannot consider the education system in America 

to be excellent unless we are attaining equitable outcomes for all children—poor 

children, children of color, children whose first language is not English. 

NCLB represents a systemic commitment to rally the political will to educate ALL 

children to high standards. However, we are not yet there—neither in experiencing 

the public will for the success of all children, nor in experiencing the tangible reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
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sults of significant closing of the achievement gap. It will take more time. But it 

will also take more focused effort, more transformational work at the state, district 

and school level, and more targeted resources aimed at improving the quality of 

teaching and the conditions in which teachers work. NCLB must be reauthorized—

and soon. 

At the outset of my comments on the teacher quality issues of NCLB, I want to 

express both my thanks and gratitude to Congressman Price for his thoughtful legislation on the Teacher Incentive Fund. The program provides unique opportunities 

for school districts to reward excellence in teaching based on actual results in student achievement. 

The teacher quality provisions of NCLB currently focus on knowledge and credentials. Knowledge of content is implied in the highly qualified provisions, and the expectations of licensing credentials is evident. However, there are no explicit provisions regarding results with students. This seems to be a glaring omission when so 

much of the emphasis of NCLB accountability provisions are on results in student 

achievement. As student achievement is the primary driver of AYP and the overarching goal of public policy, shouldn’t teacher quality (and by extension, administrator quality) be connected to student achievement results in a sensible and responsible manner? I believe it should. 

There is broad acknowledgement in the education profession that the quality of 

instruction has huge impact on the amount of student learning. Indeed, this has 

been at the center of agreements to steadily raise the professional compensation of 

teachers connected to our growing knowledge about the complexity of the teachinglearning process and its challenges. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education recognized the significance of teacher quality and its connection to student results 

through the Teacher Incentive Fund grants. This major grant program holds great 

promise for examining the teacher quality issue from the meaningful perspective of 

student results, and deserves careful attention and support. 

Springfield Public Schools recently incorporated into its new contract with the 

teachers’ union two new positions for which teachers must apply that have student 

achievement results as a required criteria for appointment. Teachers who are selected for appointment to these positions must have demonstrated more than a 

year’s growth in student achievement on a value-added measure. Additional criteria 

include demonstration of best practices, exemplary performance on generic teaching 

behaviors, and excellent attendance. However, the inclusion of student results for 

these highest paid teaching positions recognizes that the highest quality of teaching 

is directly connected to student learning. It alters the equation in favor of student 

outcomes. It is our hope in Springfield to be successful applicants for a TIF award 

that would enhance our capacity to implement our model of rewarding and 

incentivising teachers for results in student learning. Our long-term goal is to appoint highly successful teachers to these new positions, and empower teachers to 

lead a powerful transformation in the way student learning is accelerated in Springfield. Building high-powered teams of teachers, redeployed to serve our schools with 

the greatest needs, is intended to produce ever-increasing numbers of students 

reaching proficiency and mastering the knowledge and skills necessary for success 

in the new ‘‘creative economy’’ of the 21st century. 

The Springfield model intentionally rewards qualitative results with students and 

a high quality of technical work in utilizing best practices. A significant goal is to 

attract and retain the highest quality teachers and provide them with interesting, 

exciting and challenging career paths for which they will be amply compensated. 

Additionally, the district and the union have agreed to differential compensation for 

designated ‘‘critical shortage’’ teachers certified in mathematics, science, special education, and English language learning (ELL). 

High minority/high poverty schools, principally located in urban districts like 

Springfield, have larger numbers of novice teachers and lower percentages of fully 

credentialed teachers than schools with higher income student populations. (How 

and Why Do Teacher Credentials Matter for Student Achievement by Clotfelter, 

Ladd and Vigdor—March 2007) 

• In a recent report from the Education Trust (Teaching Inequality: How poor 

and minority students are shortchanged on Teacher Quality by Peske and 

Haycock—June 2006) it was reported that in Wisconsin, as mirrored in the national 

data collected, minority students/students in poverty are disproportionately assigned 

to novice teachers. In the highest minority schools 1 in 4 teachers compared to 1 

in 10 in low-minority schools had fewer than three years of teaching experience. 

• In a recent research brief (Tennessee’s Most Effective Teachers: Are they assigned to the schools that need them the most?—March 2007) from the Tennessee 

Department of Education, they found that across schools in TN: 

44

- High—poverty schools and high-minority schools have a larger percentage of beginning teachers than low-poverty schools and low-minority schools, and 

- High-poverty schools and high-minority schools have a smaller percentage of 

teachers with master’s degrees than low-poverty schools and low-minority schools. 

‘‘The variation in teachers’ impact on children is probably clearest in the research 

of the statisticians and economists who are studying the relationship between individual teachers and the growth students achieve in their classrooms during the 

school year. This approach is called ‘‘value-added’’ measurement. William L. Sanders, who founded the Value-Added Research and Assessment Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, found that, on average, low-achieving students gained 

about 14 points each year on the Tennessee state test when taught by the least effective teachers, but more than 53 points when taught by the most effective teachers. Teachers made a difference for middle- and high-achieving students as well’’

‘‘* * * we need to move to a more direct measure of teacher quality. What really 

matters is teachers’ effectiveness at growing students’ knowledge. With annual assessments, it is possible to determine how much students have grown during their 

year in an individual teacher’s classroom. By controlling for external variables, we 

can isolate the individual teachers’ contribution, or value-added. This method looks 

at what was taught in a classroom, but doesn’t disadvantage teachers who take the 

toughest assignments.’’

Springfield is aggressively pursuing an approach that recognizes the fullest definition of highly qualified to include demonstrated results with students. We are hopeful of TIF support for this work, but have planned budgets to implement without 

such support in a slower fashion. Our ability to place highly effective teachers in 

schools with students who have the greatest needs may give our thousands of low 

income students a fighting chance to reach the high levels of achievement that they 

need—and that they deserve. 

The overall context for the reauthorization of NCLB should be nothing less than 

a sacred social contract between the public education institutions of this nation and 

the communities they serve. We must mutually elevate the aspirations for what our 

youngest citizens must have in their schooling and must acquire as outcomes. The 

precipitous and persistent drop-off in the status of U.S. students compared to their 

international peers on PISA and TIMSS is appalling, unacceptable and fear-provoking to all of us who care about our nation’s capacity to compete in a global economy. While many other nations are deadly serious about their education outcomes 

advancing their position in the global economy, we quibble over local control versus 

national standards, and that testing and accountability systems place too much 

pressure on students. A rededication to placing U.S. education number 1 in the 

world is critical to our economic and political future as a world leader. Our children 

deserve no less—our citizens must have public policy that places excellence and equity as centerpieces of education outcomes. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. 

I am going to pass at this time and recognize two members, beginning with Mr. Tierney and Mr. Hare, and then we will go back 

to the regular order. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you all for your testimony. 

I particularly want to focus on evaluation of teacher performance. 

While I think it is a concept that everybody would agree with is 

important, I think that how it is done is somewhat critical, but Ms. 

McLean, you touched on the idea about not just focusing on test results of students and the impact that might have. I think we have 

had considerable difficulty in just testing the students, but if a 

teacher is going to be evaluated on how a class performs, what happens to the effect that cohorts are different from year to year and 

the teacher has or may not have the tools that are necessary, given 

what environment he or she is teaching in. What are—how do we 

account or adjust for all of those factor when we are trying to 

evaluate the achievement increases in a student population in a 

given year, how do we factor that in? 

Ms. McLean, if you would comment first, then Mr. Podesta perhaps.

45

Ms. MCLEAN. For me, how you are counted in, I don’t know. That 

is a good question. It is a multiple measure. 

The Nebraska model that they have, the teachers do the classroom assessments and it is statistic-wise and it is valid, and they 

are trained at the State level and they have no problem with that. 

When you are using standardized tests, like nationally, AP level 

teachers, their kids are going to do great because that is where 

they are at. The resource kids, the ESL second language, their kids 

aren’t. When you look at growth model tests, the AP level kids are 

not going to make that teacher look good because they are already 

performing at their max. Not much growth. But the low-level kids, 

if you have an effective teacher, they are going to make that teacher look great because when you are at the bottom, you have a long 

way to go. 

So you have to use rubrics in measuring teaching performance, 

their ability to use all kinds of different methods and tools to reach 

their kids. You have to look at where their kids are going. Some 

of it is very complex, too. 

How I know I am effective is really actually 3 or 4 years after 

they leave the system and they are reported back to me by their 

parents or their success in college or they will come back, you 

know, one girl will go away, and she was going to go be a model 

and she goes, guess what I am doing? I am a wildlife biologist 

studying owls because of you. 

So some of those things, you know, the true effectiveness sometimes you don’t know. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess that is the problem. 

Mr. Podesta, if you would answer the same question, but when 

I looked at the Aspen information, they want to talk about pitting 

teachers against teachers. They want to take the top 75 percent 

and move them along and that another 25 percent and drop them 

off. That is disturbing to me that you pit them against each other 

as opposed to pit them against a standard. Who could perform well, 

could perform well? 

Mr. PODESTA. Let me make four brief points. 

First, as I mentioned in my testimony and in my opening statement, first of all, you need some data and you need better data systems in order to know who is actually—how these students are performing and track that over time. 

I think in terms of evaluation, they have to be fair and transparent. So that both the teachers understand that the evaluation 

system, the principals understand the evaluation system, and there 

is a level of fairness built in. 

How do you achieve that with this complex number of factors? 

I think that teacher input, as I mentioned at the back end of my 

statement, is really critical, and I think the systems that have 

worked the best around the country, if you look at the experiments, 

have used the input of teachers and their representatives in building systems that are fair, are transparent and measure real stuff. 

And then with respect to the kind of 75-25, that seems a little 

bit arbitrary to me, and I think that the question is that you want 

a system in which the low performers, the consistent underperformers either get the professional development they need or they 

get out of teaching. 

46

So there needs to be, again, fairness in that system, but I think 

we have to focus on taking the people who don’t perform getting 

them out and rewarding the people who do perform and giving the 

people the professional development tools that they need to make 

sure that they are achieving the kind of results that we expect. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So Mr. Klein, when we take out of this, when we 

put more emphasis on peer review and evaluation than we would 

on trying to look at the student’s achievement as measured by 

some sort of standardized test. 

Mr. KLINE. Not what I would take out of it. I think a review 

mechanism, whether it is peer or supervisory review is important, 

but I think whatever imperfections there are in a test, and there 

are, the test can be used as a benchmark against which you can 

see real differences. I study this all the time, Mr. Tierney, and I 

will look at two teachers, and I will look at those—where their kids 

came in in the fourth grade and where they left. 

Now, if there is a point or two points difference, I agree that is 

immaterial. But when there is 12 and 14 points difference on these 

tests, that is the power of teaching. 

And the same thing can apply to AP teachers. You look at the 

scores of the kids who are in AP, you look at what they did in prior 

years, and you can develop growth models. We are doing this in 

New York City. 

So in the end, you want a mixture of factors, but the key factor 

has got to be—because it is a key factor in NCLB—the key factor 

has got to be an effective measurement of student performance on 

standardized tests. I will be the first to admit we need to do a better job on standardized tests. 

In my city, when a kid gets a level one, it is not because of the 

test, it is because the kid can’t read and, we have got to put an 

end to that, and we have got to be honest about it. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Heller. 

Mr. HELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of the panels for being here today. I certainly 

appreciate your input. 

Ms. McLean, you said something about a full report on the performance pay. Where can I get a copy of that? Or if you can have 

a copy of that sent to my office, I would appreciate it. 

I had and have had spirited discussions with your chairman of 

your Pershing County School Board over No Child Left Behind. I 

am not sure where those discussions will go, but I am sure we will 

have more of them. 

You said in your testimony that aspiring teachers rarely go into 

the teaching for the money. However, once hired, they quickly see 

who does what and for how much. 

Is that what is driving performance pay? 

Ms. MCLEAN. I think so. A little bit. Just personally, I know 

what I do and I know a couple colleagues that show up for the 9-

to-5 part of the job, and they are making 15,000 more than I am 

a year, because of their experience. And some days when you get 

really frustrated, it is like why am I busting my head. It is way 

easier to pull out a book for the kids than to pull out the labs, mix 

47

the chemicals, and come in an hour or so earlier than the rest of 

my colleagues because mine is a hands-on type of delivery. 

That is driving it. I mean, there is an equity there. 

I think another thing is you have a choice in college. You got to 

make ends meet. The housing market is incredible around the 

country. Teachers are being left out of the middle class, are not 

being able to buy their home, not being able to have the American 

dream. Teachers have to live in other communities and commute 

to work in other places. You know, I am talking west coast like San 

Francisco, Oakland, those colleagues there. They can’t afford to live 

where they work. They have to commute hours in. 

I worked in Tracy public schools in California, and that was my 

drive back to Nevada. I was born in Nevada. But my husband and 

I were ready to have a family and we would have to commute an 

hour and a half to get into a $100,000 home because the $100,000 

homes in Tracy were the ones with the bars on the windows where 

most challenging students live, and that was the drive for us to 

move to Nevada where we could afford property and income and 

teach in a community that was a lot safer. 

So I think just the sheer economics of the teaching profession—

I don’t know if I would have chosen to go in it nowadays because 

you hear all of the negative media. I wish I had time to do ed-op 

pieces for the Reno Gazette Journal because I see a lot of editorials 

that come in that people are really ignorant and unaware of what 

it takes to be a teacher. And I have to turn away from that and 

throw away the papers so I can focus on doing a good job for the 

kids that I have. 

Mr. HELLER. The concern that I have is for, of course, rural Nevada and rural America and getting high quality teachers into 

some of the more remote areas. Does performance pay, in your estimation, help support getting those teachers in? 

Ms. MCLEAN. I think so. My husband and I gained great income 

when we went to Pershing County from California with the insurance rates and their—the salary, the base salary was about the 

same. But the insurance rates were very low. The cost of living is 

a lot lower so we could afford to buy a home there. 

We have—we used to have one of the highest pay scales in Nevada. We are about third now in the State. But we have to drive 

90 miles for clothing. We do have one food store there. You know, 

we are subject to the 2-week day-old bread and very high prices so 

we have to travel for our goods and entertainment. So yeah, you 

need the pay them more. 

And my colleagues in Washoe and Clark County, science teachers 

there, they teach chemistry all day. Or they teach physics all day 

or biology. I teach all three subjects. So I wear multiple hats. I 

have to be multiple certified, and it takes a lot of time. 

So you have to reward people who have to put more into the profession. And I think merit pay is a way to help compensate that. 

I think merit pay or performance pay, too, will attract the people 

who are already in, and if new teachers coming in can see that 

they have a chance to make some really decent incomes to move 

ahead and to sustain, be into teaching and it becomes attractive to 

them. 

48

And when I received all of the awards in 2001, the first thing I 

got pressure from the outside: You need to go be an administrator. 

No one is telling Michael Jordan when he got his MVP, you need 

to go be a coach. Anybody knows you got to play in the game as 

long as you can until your body can’t work. Teaching is the same 

way. 

I love teaching. I have had so many offers to go work for private 

companies. I can’t imagine being without those kids day in and day 

out, that is who I am. So why make me go be somebody else that 

I am not trying to be? 

I think there needs to be a system—like here I am very involved 

with Teacher Solutions Network. I am very involved with leading 

the teachers in my State with standard writing, and why can’t I 

be compensated that way and still be in the classroom instead of 

this drive to push me out? 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Hare. 

Mr. HARE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, and thank you all for testifying. 

Mr. Podesta, it is nice to see you this morning. I had an opportunity to meet with your brother in my office a couple of days ago, 

and he was lobbying hard for your alma matter Knox College, 

home of Stephen Colbert, as I well know. 

I appreciate your testimony talking about recruitment. And retention of teachers. My daughter, you know, sometimes you can’t 

see the forest for the trees. She was a music teacher and she had 

105 kids in band. And she would come over to our house and literally fall asleep sitting at the table. She said, I don’t know how 

much longer I can do this, dad. This is not what I thought it was 

going to be. 

And with student loans and she wasn’t exactly, as you said, she 

wasn’t the highest paid person on the planet. And unfortunately 

she left. And I think part of that was, and I have talked to a lot 

of educators and they talked about teacher mentoring, and I heard 

Dr. Stanford and Dr. Dale talk about it, I would like to know from 

your perspective, or from anybody here on the panel, I was told 

that we lose tremendous amounts of teachers in the first and second year. But when they get a mentoring program—one of the 

school districts in my district said that it goes from like 35 percent 

down to 5 percent because the teachers actually had somebody that 

is with them. 

I would just like to—maybe your thoughts or anybody on the 

panels thoughts on it—and from legislatively, what can we do, from 

your perspective, to be able to not just recruit good teachers, but 

for people like my daughter who wants to go back and will go back 

and teach now because she misses it. She is like you. She doesn’t 

know what to do with herself now that she is not teaching music. 

So what can we do legislatively to not just recruit teachers but 

to keep them, and this mentoring program, while I know it is expensive, while it seems we are going to lose a lot of teachers, we 

can invest in keeping them. 

Mr. PODESTA. Thank you, Mr. Hare. And since my college is 

mentioned, I should say my high school, Dr. Sanford sends his students there. 

49

Mr. HARE. You are taken care of this morning. 

Mr. PODESTA. I think that is why I mentioned the TEACH Act 

as going at all of this through a kind of system-wide approach. I 

think that is what is so powerful about it. It starts with the way 

we educate young people and demanding accountability from 

schools that are producing people who are available to teach. It creates some funds to create innovation in terms of mentoring people 

at the beginning of their careers. We are losing a tremendous number of teachers out of the first 3 or 5 years of teaching. It has the 

pay-for-performance elements that have been talked about up and 

down the panel. It has some very strong tax benefits for teachers 

who are willing to go into hard to place, both discipline, and hard 

to place, you know, teaching schools and districts. 

So it seems to me you got to do a little bit of all of that if you 

want to get the best kind of performance for our kids. 

So I think that you have heard a variety of different perspectives 

from the input side through the performance side to, you know, to 

how you kind of mentor people along the way. How you create a 

mentor of teachers. 

I think, quite frankly, it is kind of all in that act, and I really 

recommend it to the committee, and I hope that it becomes part of 

the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind. 

Mr. HARE. Dr. Dale. 

Mr. DALE. I think we have to look, as he mentioned, from both 

sides on the recruitment side, the training side and the colleges. 

One of the things that perhaps legislatively could be looked at is 

the support for what I would call the—we put together what we 

call professional development schools, but it is basically the support 

of internships, if you will, for people during their last year or 2 

years of college where they are actually in the schools working with 

our teachers, but they are learning the art and craft of teaching. 

But there are tremendous tuition bills that go with that and all of 

the other expenses as you are going through that training process. 

So I think that is one area. 

The other is, as you mentioned, having the mentoring, coaching 

programs at the onset of teaching. We found similar statistics that 

you were citing with our program where we have tremendously reduced drop-out rates, if you will, from teachers during their first 

few years. That didn’t have adequate support and coaching. Our research about why people leave the profession during the first 5 

years is—the biggest reason is the culture and the climate that is 

in the school and the feeling of support, they will stay or lack of 

support they will leave. And so how to help with that is the most 

critical. 

Ms. MCLEAN. At Tracy public schools, there is a teacher induction program that I went through, and that was—it was a 3-year 

program, and it was very, very helpful for me; but one of the things 

that drove me from Tracy, besides the economic issue, was the support, the continued support. As the low person in the science department of 13, I was out in the portables. I was one of six teachers 

teaching biology. I had one microscope where my colleagues had 

one for each student in their labs. They didn’t want to—you know, 

and it was understandable on equipment because that new teacher 

breaks her microscopes taking them out there or bringing them in. 

50

They can’t replace. The budget is very tight not to replace equipment. 

So I felt very frustrated in that aspect so much so that I went 

back and got my primary credential for California because I 

thought well, maybe I am at the wrong level. And they wouldn’t 

let me do—they didn’t want to lose their science teachers so they 

wouldn’t let me do their summer school, first grade, or anything 

like that. So that also drove me out of California to a place where 

I was supported. 

When I came to Pershing County High School, I walked in as the 

only science teacher, and that was nuts 14 years ago. 

But one of the things I did, I looked, the textbooks were 1950s. 

All of the equipment was disarrayed, and I said you know, this is 

going to be difficult to do any job. They said you do a purchase 

order. So I went for the pie, and I turned in an $18,000 purchase 

order, and they did not blink their eye. I had it in 2 weeks. 

So they had the whereabouts and the means to support me to do 

my job. And I think that is a real key point. If you don’t have the 

resources to do your job, especially a young professional when you 

are coming in and you are given one ream of paper and say that 

is all you have, the rest of it is out of your pocket, it drives you 

away. And it almost drove me away. 

Mr. HARE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Castle. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As you know, No Child Left Behind basically calls for standards 

and assessments and the State sets the standards and assessments. Assessments is usually another word for tests. And we hear 

from many people, I hear from many people, that the tests inhibit 

or impinge on the ability to teach. It doesn’t give teachers enough 

artistic flare or whatever it may be. On the other hand, I have also 

been in districts—I am from Delaware. And in my State where 

they have done a wonderful job of taking the standards and taking 

the assessments and looking at them carefully and determining 

how they should teach and going from there. 

I would like to ask Ms. McLean and Ms. Bibeau, 

as teachers, your thoughts about the testing component as being 

as any kind of a limitation in terms of teachers’ ability to teach or 

an enhancement if you think that way. 

Ms. BIBEAU. We just recently completed our spring testing. And 

that does not include my grade level, but I watched the teachers 

in our building and in our district. And the tests ran for approximately 3 weeks and they had 1 week of preparation prior to that 

to help the students become familiar with test taking and the format. And there was great stress among the staff, and it is not tied 

to performance base. It is just preparing students and the length 

of the—the amount of time it takes away from instruction. 

And this week with testing we looked at all of the test results, 

and we looked at the heart of the test results as student growth 

and what does this mean to us as teachers. And we—we are fortunate we don’t have to reflect on am I, you know, is this reflective—

we view it is as it reflected need. 

But we are not having that additional pressure, and we are making changes, and some of the changes we are seeing in our school 

51

is a mentoring program, and we are starting a coaching program 

that continues that process so that teachers feel supported timely 

and——

Chairman MILLER. You are going to have to speak into the mike. 

People in the back cannot hear you. 

Ms. BIBEAU. And I find that the mentoring program is very successful with beginning teachers and the coaching and in-classroom 

modeling assist teachers at all levels in the professional development process. And myself, a long-term teacher, was able to access 

coaching in classroom modeling to learn about the new educational 

research and found that as a very beneficial process to help me improve my classroom instruction. 

In my classroom, we don’t test. So that wasn’t the motivation. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you. 

Ms. McLean. 

Ms. MCLEAN. I work on the State level of writing standards and 

test items. I am aware of the Delaware model because I worked on 

the K-12 Science Assessment Achievement Committee with the National Research Council. Nevada has tried to do a performance base 

as well. That Delaware system is wonderful. You have a performance base so at least in the science area, the kids can prove they 

can do science. 

And we went to Nevada, tried to at least an essay component in 

and a performance component. But the bottom line is those things 

are very costly in rolling out to the classrooms, and then grading 

them, so to speak, evaluating those tests. 

So we scaled back down to multiple choice. 

I think assessments are good if they assess what you want to assess. If they are assessing critical thinking skills in the science, you 

know, the whole part about the kids to innovate, create, think and 

observe and evaluate the data, it is very hard to get those questions on a multiple choice item. So I am not afraid of assessments. 

We did in Nevada, we have this MAPS testing program, which 

is a growth model. We had the kids take all of the science tests off 

the computer the first week of school and they just finished a couple weeks ago. And we showed tremendous growth. So we know we 

are doing our job. 

But the thing is that they do need to be aligned as standards. 

Just as testimony to one thing that can happen. We have test item 

writing teams on the State, and I participated on those teams, and 

they are a great thing. They help you improve what you do in your 

own classroom as well. But people get a little bug in their ear, and 

so our State pulled back from using the teacher test writing items 

and came in and had a testing company and then that gets scary 

because they really don’t take the time, some of them really don’t 

take the time to align properly with the standards. 

As case in point, we are just still piloting our science exams, our 

freshman class, the 2010 will have to pass our science proficiency 

to graduate. Prior to that 4 years ago, we have been piloting, piloting. My students were not tested, but we looked at the test exams 

because I have been very—a part in writing it. This is what a testing company did. We went over each item. I said this is not on our 

standard. This is not on our standard. I am a national board cerVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
52

tified presidential awardee. I can’t answer this question. We went 

through one of A through G forms on this test. 

So with the test director, we called the State test director, you 

know, to question the validity of the company and how they aligned 

with our State standards. Well, after that conversation, the legislation, now it is again against the Nevada revised statutes to anybody to look at the tests except for the kids. So we can’t even be 

critical of the process or even evaluate the validity of the tests that 

our kids are receiving. 

So I am not afraid of tests if they are good tests, and they need 

to be good tests, and yes, we have to pay for good tests. 

Mr. CASTLE. Dr. Dale, I was going to ask you, with respect to 

when you recruit teachers, do you—first of all, do you have a teacher of America-type teachers or other ways of entering into the profession and do you focus—to me, the—not just the pay, but the benefits which are there which are not in the private sector as much 

anymore, defined pension, health care, things of that nature, are 

these useful tools now in recruiting teachers? 

Mr. DALE. When we recruit out on the road, most of the firstyear teachers will look at the salary. Try to convince them that 30 

years later you need to be compensated. 

Mr. CASTLE. It is very hard to get their attention. 

Mr. DALE. And we have probably one of the best programs, medical, retirement, dental, that we have ever seen. But when you are 

initially recruiting, it is typically the start of salary where am I 

going to come in and what is the cost of living in your school district. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

In her testimony, Ms. Bibeau referred to the California State 

University Center on Teacher Quality noting that a lot of concern 

among teachers was beyond salary, and we have heard some of 

that this morning in terms of whether to stay in the profession or 

leave. The study points out that things such as adequate time for 

planning and professional development and reliable assistance 

from the district office, an opportunity to collaborate with colleagues, meaningful role in the school decisions, inadequate facilities and equipment. 

One of the things I am quite struck with is from when I traveled 

the country the last 5 years talking to teachers. They will say as 

a result of No Child Left Behind it was the first time they were 

ever asked to participate in a plan for their school. They said we 

always had a plan but we were never asked to be part of it. But 

now, because there is some jeopardy attached to No Child Left Behind that they have been part of the planning. 

This committee is the Education Labor Committee, and very 

often, when we have this discussion, it is suggested you can’t do 

this within current collective bargaining agreements. 

I just wondered if Mr. Klein, Mr. Burke, both of you, have suggested you have done this within the—your current collective bargaining agreements. 

Mr. Dale, you suggested you had to find a lot of different ways 

to categorize your way around the agreement. I just wondered if 

you might comment on how this can be done, because very often, 

53

I think there is a concern that somehow this is going to be arbitrary and teachers are going to lose some of their protections. 

Mr. KLEIN. We have been able to do it, and, you know, it has 

been, as in all labor negotiations, you give a little, you take a little. 

The mayor in New York has increased teacher salaries across the 

board 43 percent. And that has obviously helped us facilitate other 

issues. 

But Chairman Miller, what I think is important is I think the 

Federal Government could help this process is by providing the 

monetary incentives. If there were Federal dollars, then I think 

what would happen, as has often happened, is that the collective 

bargaining process would be facilitated in a way to take advantage 

of those dollars, and indeed, I think there are other ways by tying 

it to Title I for an effective program. 

But if we don’t get serious about making sure that dollars are 

driven where the need is, and one of the things that, quite frankly, 

troubles me, we talk about teachers with schools as if these were 

homogenous things, and they are not. 

So you take a city like mine, we have lots of senior teachers. But 

many of the senior teachers who are very qualified are in one set 

of schools and many of the senior teachers who, quite frankly, are 

not qualified—and seniority alone does not qualify competence. So 

when you talk about mentoring and everything—so when you have 

people who are not qualified, they are not mentors. The best mentor you are going to get is your best teacher in your own school 

that you can watch and observe. 

So to me, where I think the complexity is, the collective bargaining agreement view the teacher fundamentally as fungible 

where there is not a kid in America who thinks teachers are fungible. That is where I think you could actually, through the incentives, you can incent changes in the collective bargaining agreement, which would help us build on the things we have done. Without them, we are going to continue in negotiations to try to continue to put as much as possible into making sure we attract highquality teachers to high-need schools. 

Mr. BURKE. I would like to agree with Joel on the need for the 

incentives. We, through our own devices, we can figure out how to 

carry out some dollars to help do that. But if there was a structured program such as the ones that have been proposed, I think 

it would be extremely helpful to us. 

We started out in our collective bargaining process having a conversation about the fundamental assumption of a teacher is a 

teacher is a teacher. 

So I asked the teachers’ union represented across the table, well, 

what do you think about the statement a principal is a principal 

is a principal. 

Oh, no, no, no. The principals are all different. Different leadership styles. They have different abilities. They have different, you 

know. 

So I basically got into the conversation about the reality that 

there are different teachers who have different qualities and different abilities and can get different results with kids. 

And that is just the fundamental reality. Teachers know that. 

You could go into any school and ask a teacher who the stars are 

54

in terms of getting the work done. And they can tell you. They can 

also tell you the teachers that are not getting the job done because 

they know. They live with it every day. 

And so we got into some of those more fundamental conversations. 

At the end of the bargaining process, we had lots of give and 

take, too. We were able to recognize that we needed teacher leaders 

that were going to be credible, that had been getting results with 

their students, that were real, true professionals in their craft that 

everybody recognized we are using the best practices. And those 

teachers had to be compensated differently, and in some cases, we 

had to actually give them different work to do, mentoring and 

coaching other teachers on a regular basis. 

And that is essentially what our highest end teachers do. They 

are off the salary schedule. They are in a separate set of salary 

band. They are the highest band teachers paid in our district. Their 

salaries at the top of the salary band bump into the early career 

administrators. That was deliberate. We want them to try to keep 

those people in the classrooms rather than they have to make a decision to go into administration for compensation. 

Chairman MILLER. Just quickly, if I might. 

Dr. Sanford, how does this work out on campus in terms of performance pay and how people—what do they feel about the ownership of the idea. 

Mr. SANFORD. Currently in Chicago, we have a provision where 

there is performance pay. And our teachers are quite pleased with 

it. It is very competitive. But I think most of the teachers recognize 

that, as he just indicated, those who are doing the higher work, we 

actually see, then, the results. 

Chairman MILLER. We are looking for that in Congress. I don’t 

know if we are going to get that. 

Mr. Price. 

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chair, although I am—I probably 

ought to respond to that comment, I won’t. 

I want to thank the chairman for having this hearing. This is an 

extremely important issue. 

I am heartened by the testimony I have heard, and Ms. McLean 

and Ms. Bibeau, I am moved by your stories, and I commend you 

and thank you for staying in the profession. 

I represent the 6th District of Georgia, which is northern suburban Atlanta, a wonderful district that doesn’t have many Title I 

schools, but it does have some. I am struck by the education panels 

that I hold at home and the commonality of the stories that I hear 

from the teachers, and it runs across the whole spectrum. So I 

thank you very much. You have energized me. 

I do think that there is remarkable unanimity among the panelists, and I am encouraged by that. We see generalized support for 

a pay-for-performance kind of process. And I think that is encouraging. I do think that there are many similarities between the 

Teacher Incentive Fund that, along with Mr. McKeon and I and 

others have introduced, and the TEACH Act. So I look forward to 

working with the chairman and the ranking member and moving 

forward on that legislation. 

55

I would like to concentrate on two areas, and Dr. Burke and Dr. 

Ritter, if you wouldn’t mind commenting. 

I am interested in how you believe are the best ways to gauge 

teacher effectiveness. As a physician, when somebody says how do 

you find a good physician, much of it is hard and fast numbers. 

Much of it is just a gestalt. You just kind of sense that is a good 

doc. And in my sense about the teachers that I think back about 

that affected my life, it was kind of that way as well. 

So how would you gauge effective—teacher effectiveness, Dr. 

Burke. 

Mr. BURKE. Thank you, Congressman. 

Our model that we are looking at does, in fact, look at a gestalt. 

We have a model that has 70 percent of our decision making on 

effective teacher has to do with the observation, classroom performance, professional development work that teachers are doing and 

what kinds of ratings they actually get on an effectiveness instrument that looks at about 75 behaviors, which is an awful lot. But 

that is the anecdote, the evidence of going into classrooms and 

looking at what teachers are doing in the interaction and the dynamics and learning. 

The other 30 percent is value-added results in terms of student 

achievement. 

What are teachers actually accomplishing using a value-added 

growth model and that comprises 30 percent of the decision making, particularly for these teachers that are going into these new 

positions that we have created? 

And we think that that kind of model is the best way to look at 

it that teach—the act of teaching and the interaction with the 

learners is a very, very dynamic process and has to be looked at 

very carefully as it is happening. 

And then the results need to be calculated into a matrix that 

really gives you a total picture of the effect. And I think you can 

get good data from growth models that can give you a real good barometer of teacher effectiveness. You match that with the actual instrumentation of looking at the teaching and learning in the classroom, and I think you have something that is workable. 

Mr. PRICE. I would love to see that list of the 75 percent. 

Mr. RITTER. Thank you for the question. 

I would agree that mixed model is the way to go, although my 

bias would be to lead toward the majority in student achievement 

growth, although allowing, as we have heard on the panel, that 

these are imperfect measures of the teacher’s work. But I don’t 

think we should let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 

If we don’t measure growth in some way, as we have heard 

throughout the panel, there are teachers who see growth in their 

students year after year after year, and we should accept that, recognize that and reward that. And I think it is important to note 

there is no one best way to do this. Whether you have 55 percent 

on test score growth or 60 or 40. There is no right or wrong way 

to do this. We just have to think are the incentives in the right direction or the wrong direction. 

For example, it was mentioned earlier that some plans have a 

zero-sum game. You know, the top 25 percent of the teachers will 

get it. No one else will get something. Clearly that makes sense 

56

that that is a bad incentive. We could imagine counterproductive 

competition because if I am that 25th percent teacher, the person 

behind me isn’t getting that reward. So that doesn’t make sense. 

And we can see why that would lead to counterproductive competition. On the other hand, if we created such that there is a criterion 

and we all meet it, whoever meets it gets the reward, there is no 

reason for me to want to compete with my colleague. In fact, I 

would want to work together and try and make him or her also 

achieve the award. 

And we can also think of using school-wide rewards in addition 

to individual awards. That is why I like TIF. Different models 

would work in different places, and we need the educator buy-in to 

make it work. 

Mr. PRICE. I appreciate your responses. I look forward to offering 

other questions in writing. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

I don’t know if you mentioned if you have introduced the Teacher 

Incentive Act in this again. 

Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. PRICE. I mentioned I reported working with you in the 

TEACH Act because I think there are many similarities between 

the two. 

Mr. KILDEE. My Congressional district is really a microcosm of 

this country. I have urban, suburban, rural. I have affluent and 

poor. And my school districts, I have many school districts in my 

Congressional district, they run the range also. Some are seriously 

stressed with a concentration of poverty, abject poverty, and some 

scandalously decrepit buildings. They tore a jail down under Federal court order in Flint, Michigan, because it was unfit for human 

habitation and that jail was in better shape than some of the 

schools. 

Yet in my same district, I have middle class, upper middle class 

school districts where, God bless them, when they build a school it 

looks like a Hyatt Regency, and they really tax themselves to do 

that because there is no State aid for buildings. And I go out and 

help cut the ribbon. 

But the disparity just in the physical buildings is outstanding. 

And teachers, for the most part, are attracted to those middle class 

or upper middle class districts. Or they might start out at one and 

go to the upper middle class. 

And then the vicious cycle also is that parents, young parents 

who are middle class themselves, as their children reach school 

age, they move out to the middle class area. 

So the City of Flint, for example, is losing population. It has gone 

from a 190,000 down to about 118,000. 

Dr. Sanford, you discussed the need to provide incentives for our 

best teachers to work in our hardest schools. Can you expand on 

the range of obstacles those schools must overcome to recruit and 

retain the teachers? 

Mr. SANFORD. Well, as I think as you indicated, one of the things 

that is pervasive in inner city schools is that we have young teachers who come to the inner city schools but unfortunately, they need 

additional professional development and they need additional time; 

57

and one of the things that we found is that we must put additional 

emphasis on working with our teachers really to help them over 

time in gaining the skills and the wherewithal to really be effective. 

And so I think it is really incumbent upon us to make sure that 

we address those issues in terms of professional development as 

well. 

Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Klein, New York City, you probably have 

schools of various ages, right? Some old and some new. I know 

when I came here 30 years ago to Congress, there were school business, school buildings in Flint that were well over 50 years old 

then. And they are still being used. 

To what degree is the quality of the workplace for teachers a factor? 

You know, even on Capitol Hill here when people are looking for 

a job, very often they wonder are they going to be put over in the 

Ford annex or work in the Rayburn Building. Those are considerations. 

Mr. KLEIN. It certainly matters, and one of the things we are 

doing—we have got a 13 billion capital plan in the city to really 

try to address a lot of those issues. 

But if you look at the variables, in the end, I think the thing that 

matters most is the colleagues in the buildings. If you have a great 

principal, teacher, you know what Joe said before about principal 

is not only a principal. Teachers want to be with great principals. 

If you have got strong colleagues that people want to learn from, 

teachers want to be with strong colleagues that they want to learn 

from. Class size matters. All of those things matters. 

If you are in an environment where you are respected, where you 

feel you can learn, where you feel like you are part of a team that 

can transform the lives of kids. That is why I don’t mean to single 

him out. We have got many likable—but when you have got guys 

like Dr. Sanford doing the work that he is doing, people want to 

be there. People want to be a part of that. It is an enormously exciting thing. Whatever you think about testing, we could go on forever about it, but I will tell you this: When he got the highest gains 

in his State, people in his school were proud. His parents were 

proud, his teachers were proud, and they wanted to be around him. 

And you know what? He is going to be able to recruit better people 

because he is succeeding. 

Too often in education, we reward the failure and we keep pouring more and more money into the failure. We have got to reward 

guys like this, let them grow his school. Let him attract more adult 

talent there. Let more kids from his community get the education. 

And believe me, when you get that kind of positive feedback, you 

can see it is transformation. 

Now that is, in no way, to say he shouldn’t have a science lab, 

he shouldn’t have a gymnasium. You need all of those things as 

well. 

Mr. KILDEE. I visited hundreds of schools in my 30 years here, 

and the one constant you will find when you find an outstanding 

school, one requirement is that they have a very good principal. 

And that is a constant find. 

58

Mr. KLINE. The magic ingredient in education is the teacher. But 

the magic ingredient in creating a great school is the principal. 

And the same kind of things—that is why I am so excited in New 

York now, I literally can pay principals up to $200,000 with the incentive pay and the pay-for-performance. And that has been a 

major breakthrough. Because if you get people like this, and there 

are other people from new leaders—the first initiative we started 

was a leadership academy. Raised $70 million in private money. 

We have now trained 200 principals who are in our schools 

throughout the city. 

Let us think about it this way: The school is the only unit that 

matters. We in politics, we talk school districts and all this other 

stuff. But we as parents know the thing that matters is which 

school our kid goes to and the school is not going to be better than 

the quality of its leadership. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Ehlers. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

All of this talk of incentives makes me wonder about the Congress itself, where we all get paid the same regardless of what we 

are doing. Maybe, Mr. Chairman, we need some incentives for a 

few of our Members. 

As a physicist, I have a particular interest in science education. 

And this talk of incentives has reminded me of the particular problem. As someone said, it is an imperfect science of setting up a 

merit system and reward-for-pay, but it is not an imperfect system 

to recognize the market outside of the school. And that is the big 

problem you have with good science teachers, to a certain extent, 

also good math teachers. They have much higher paying options 

available to them, if indeed they are good in math and science. 

And I find very few schools are willing to meet the market. And 

that is a very precise measure that you can have: To meet the market for that person. And I think our science teaching in many 

schools has floundered because of the failure to meet the market, 

and you end up with lower quality teachers as a result. 

That is just one factor. 

My main question is about the math-science partnership programs at both the Department of Education and at the National 

Science Foundation. And I am interested how many of you have 

used these programs or have had teachers use them or have participated in them? Let me see a show of hands here. 

Very little. So obviously the word is not getting out. 

But I think this is one of the most important things we have to 

do if we are going to improve math, science education, much of the 

problem resides with the teacher, not because—and it is not the 

teachers’ fault. I personally have worked with a lot of schools to try 

to improve math, science programs. I never criticize the teacher because almost every case that I have met and the people I have 

worked with, the teacher is anxious to teach well and especially to 

teach math and science well. 

But they do not feel competent to do it. They do not feel they 

have the training or the knowledge to do it. And I think this is a 

huge opportunity for professional development. That is why we 

have said at the math-science programs in the Department of EduVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
59

cation and the National Science Foundation, primarily research-oriented in the National Science Foundation to develop good programs, to measure their value and transfer that information to the 

Department of Education. 

Maybe you will be reluctant to comment on this if you have 

never been involved with the programs, but I would appreciate the 

comments about the concepts. 

Am I on track in saying that the best way to get out the problems of math and science teaching is through professional development so far as the Federal Government is concerned? Where can 

we have the most impact with that, and I think we can through 

funding professional development for our teachers. Am I right or 

wrong, and if I am right, do you think the math partnerships will 

work? 

Ms. McLean. 

Ms. MCLEAN. Thank you. 

When the Eisenhower funds were available that we—our district 

used for math and science, we had a tremendous opportunity for 

professional development all the time. With reauthorization of and 

the NCLB, those were taken away from us because the focus was 

on reading. So we had to privately do our own professional development because everything was focused on reading. All resources 

were taken away from us for science. 

And I think it is a valuable use of resources for professional development. Like myself, I teach physics but I was a biology graduate. And if I take enough of the other sciences, I could pass the 

test so that they will give me a license to teach physics. 

In 2003, I went to graduate school at Montana State, was a combination of on-line and on campus, in the summertime, to take 

more physics because even though I was effective, I attracted—over 

50 percent of the graduating seniors take physics with me every 

year and they are doing well. I knew I didn’t have the full background to take them where I should be. I made the course fun and 

attractive and we do all kinds of things. 

But you are right. I wasn’t fully competent. The more like with 

national awards I realize that I really needed to increase my 

knowledge that I could help more students. And biology, even 

though I was undergrad major in biology, it changes so fast with 

our technology, I read Scientific American, and I will get a paragraph and it is way over my head on half the stuff. I want to go 

back. 

The problem with the math-science partnerships is they are connected to universities. And so rural people like me do not have access or opportunities. So these programs are going on and we don’t 

even—we are not even aware. They get the literature out there. So 

we are not aware we can partake in it or often UNR is an hour 

and a half drive from my location. And we are one of the nearest 

local rural communities to the university. When they are running 

programs at 3 o’clock, we can’t take off our work day to go participate in those. 

So it is a great need for us to stay on top of the science fields 

because it is changing very, very fast with technology. And we are 

all left behind on that. 

Mr. EHLERS. Go ahead, Dr. Burke. 

60

Mr. BURKE. Congressman, I agree with what the teacher just 

said about Eisenhower funds. But, you know, the math-science 

partnerships are very much dominated by the colleges and universities. 

My experience with the urban systemic program that was funded 

by the National Science Foundation which had college and universities involved, but was more driven by the districts was that that 

was much more successful in delivering high quality professional 

development directly to the teachers in the schools. 

When I had that responsibility in Miami Dade, we did an increase in test scores that I think was at least in part attributable 

to a lot of professional development work with teachers. But what 

was even more significant was that the course taking pattern for 

students and their success rate in higher level math and science 

courses in high school increased very dramatically, and I think that 

was really a very, very significant event for us. 

And so I would suggest that really take a look at how those programs are structured. I think the professional development for 

math and science teachers is absolutely critical because there are 

not enough in the pipeline anyway. It is just a dramatically soft 

market. And we need to do a lot of work in that area, but we need 

to look at whether the math-science partnership right now is really 

the best delivery model. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you for the comments. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank all of the witnesses for your testimony. 

Dr. Ritter, you are the only, I think, university representative 

here. We are trying to translate quality into effectiveness and increase the number and effectiveness of teachers, and most of the 

focus has been after they have gotten out of college. 

Are there things we can do to increase the effectiveness of the 

courses by changing the course structure and improving the course 

structure to improve to education of teachers, and can we increase 

the number with techniques like targeted scholarships? 

Mr. RITTER. Thank you. I think I will have to be short because 

the evidence isn’t strong on this. 

It is hard to tell what types of courses and what types of training 

lead to optimal teacher outcomes. There are a few things that we 

know. It does make sense that folks who have to teach secondary 

math and secondary science do better if they are trained in this 

content area. And so those sorts of things matter. Learning the 

content. So getting a specific content training, as compared to getting training in general, teaching classroom management, matters 

much more for upper level than for not. 

But also before they even get into the colleges——

Mr. SCOTT. What about for lower levels? 

Mr. RITTER. For lower levels, content doesn’t seem to matter as 

much. Simply getting trained in an education degree is just as 

good. And the intuition there is that higher levels science requires 

more of the content and when you are teaching lower level kids, 

classroom management, these sorts of things, seem to matter more. 

But the evidence is mixed on these questions. 

61

One thing the evidence isn’t mixed on, though, is colleges of education do have a hard time attracting top students. And part of the 

reason might be that highly-motivated folks who want to be recognized might tend to shy away, or folks who are interested in 

science, as we heard earlier, or math, might tend to shy away because they might not be able to receive as competitive as salary as 

they would receive elsewhere. 

There are, of course, folks who will enter the field anyway because they are driven to teach and want to teach and will do it despite the fact they won’t be recognized and rewarded. 

But if we want to open up the pipeline and get even more individuals in, I think the whole theme of this panel on recognizing 

and rewarding good teachers will help in addressing what is going 

on in colleges of education. 

Mr. SCOTT. One of the things that has been mentioned is how to 

assess the teachers. Dr. Dale, you have indicated that teaching is 

an art. Do we have the appropriate measures to decide who is an 

effective teacher and who isn’t? 

Mr. DALE. Let me tell you the story that I think is most compelling, at least from my perspective, that is our partnerships with 

universities in their last years of internship were our teachers, our 

employees, are working as co professors with the professors at the 

universities designing internship quality experiences in the classroom. We find when the student exit that, they are on a par with 

second- and third-year teachers universally. 

Mr. SCOTT. Now in assessing the effectiveness as a teacher, do 

you calculate in there the drop-out rate? We don’t want teachers 

pushing kids out and then scoring those who are left and see their 

scores went up. 

Ms. BIBEAU. The intent was working with kids and keeping them 

in school. 

Mr. SCOTT. And Dr. Sanford, if teachers have problems teaching 

certain categories of students, racial, income, nationality, and had 

a consistent differential, that is they had problems dealing with 

kids of a different race or kids of low income, is there something 

that you could do to improve that through professional development? 

Mr. SANFORD. Well, I think it is not only professional development but it is also in the mentoring that we spoke of earlier and 

just ensuring that individuals who go through a program have a 

residency component, and that residency component should include 

them working with a mentor or a master teacher who can help 

them be more effective in the classroom. 

Mr. SCOTT. You will have desegregated data. If you notice the 

differential in certain teachers, should a principal do something 

about that? 

Mr. SANFORD. Most definitely, but the No Child Left Behind Act 

will help them empower them to do more by making it feasible to 

really help and replace those teachers who are least effective. 

Mr. SCOTT. And very quickly, we have heard about the role of the 

principal being so important. How do we get some measure of that 

into the law? 

Mr. SANFORD. I think working with smart individuals like these 

over here. 

62

Mr. SCOTT. My time is just about up. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. McKeon. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This has been very, very interesting to me. I feel almost like I 

am in a time warp. I will trying to pinch myself and see how what 

I am hearing relates to my past experience. 

I was a school board member for a number of years in California, 

in a high school district. But in California, none of you are from 

California so I don’t know if California has changed since I was on 

the board, or if we still have some of the similar problems, but 

talking about teacher pay and paying different teachers different 

amounts, you just couldn’t do that in California. In fact, we 

couldn’t get rid of a teacher that is having problems. 

I am wondering how, if teachers aren’t functioning, you move 

them out. The protections in California, it just was like impossible 

to do that. Made it very hard to do some of these things. I remember when we first tried to have a mentor teacher program, there 

was going to be a $2,000 stipend for a mentoring program and the 

union wouldn’t let us do that. 

I am hopeful that California has made some of these changes, 

too, because you have all alluded to it, the fact that you have one 

teacher getting paid the same amount, a teacher next door doing 

a lot less work, a lot less productivity, who is getting the same 

amount or even more because the pay scale, the way it worked, 

was just based on steps and columns, how long you had been doing 

it and your education level. So a 15-year teacher who maybe was 

burned out was getting paid more than a 5-year teacher who just 

is so excited and cannot wait to get into the classroom each day. 

I think that unless we break that cycle and do a lot of the things 

that I am hearing here today, we are never going to be able to be 

productive in the process. 

I was really happy to hear Mr. Scott asking Dr. Sanford about 

principals, because all of the focus has been on teachers, which I 

think is very, very important, but if you do not have a leader on 

the campus who is doing a job—each of those areas is very, very 

important, and I know that there is talk about teachers having to 

move into administration to make more money, you know, where 

the pay scales are close, because, in my experience, the top pay for 

a teacher after 15 years, with a Ph.D., was still lower than the 

entry-level administrator’s, so it forced people—if you had to make 

more money to buy the house and provide—money is not the most 

important, but you have to have a certain amount to live, and so 

it would force people to go into administration who maybe were 

some of the better teachers. 

So I do not know if any of you want to respond to any of that 

kind of meandering, but this has been really exciting to me. 

Mr. PODESTA. Mr. McKeon, I think that we spend a lot of time 

on the pay for performance, which I think there is unanimity on; 

that providing financial incentives to good teachers is really critical—and to principals, as Joel so eloquently stated. 

I think the other question that we spend a little bit less time on 

is the distribution of those teachers into the hard-to-staff schools 

and the hard-to-staff subject areas. 

63

In response to Mr. Scott’s questions, it seems to me that we have 

got accountability now being driven down into the school system. 

We ought to have accountability and the teacher preparation system at the college level so that we track what is happening and 

that grant money ends up being looked at with respect to those 

measures of accountability to see that you are producing performance. 

I think, on the technical question, going back to some of the earlier questions, Dr. Ritter noted that for the people going into the 

profession, the gap is smaller, although in the technical majors, it 

is still pretty significant, but 10 years out—and by 2003 when we 

did a study of this—there is a $28,000 gap if you have a technical 

major going into teaching versus going into a different kind of profession. So I think, unless you do something directly about that, 

which the TEACH Act does and some of these other ideas—TIF, et 

cetera—begin to provide performance pay, to provide—particularly 

in these hard-to-staff subject areas in schools, we are not going to 

attract good teachers into those places for those majors. So I think 

these direct incentives are really critical. 

Mr. KLEIN. If I could just add one point, because what I think 

you are putting your finger on is so important. And I want to give 

you a concrete example of this. 

In New York City, we are short highly qualified math and 

science, meaning teachers who are certified in math and science. 

When I am short those teachers, I am not short those teachers in 

my middle class schools. I am short those teachers in my highneeds’ schools, and it is just a matter of supply and demand. There 

is no way around this. Every university—I have talked to Matthew 

Goldstein, the president of CUNY. He has to pay math and science 

teachers more than he pays English teachers. It is not that he 

wants to; he just has to if he is going to draw them, given the realities in the market. And if I am going to get enough math and 

science teachers for my kids in high-needs’ communities—because 

if you do not know math and science, the kid is not going to learn 

math and science. You cannot stay a day ahead of a kid in math 

and science. If I am going to do that, I have got to say to a teacher 

‘‘The normal pay scale would be $55,000 for you to teach. I am willing to pay you $75,000 or $80,000 if you can prove your worth, and 

you will go to one of my most challenging schools.’’

That is where, I think, Congress could have enormous value, Mr. 

McKeon, because you can supply the kind of incentives that will, 

I think, move collective bargaining agreements in the right direction and in a way that I think would actually help unions, because 

there would be, in a sense, a congressional incentive to move the 

thing forward. And I am just going to tell you—and I will come 

back every time you want to have this hearing—I am going to be 

short math and science teachers for my kids in high-needs’ communities, and that ain’t right. 

Mr. MCKEON. You cannot be from California because they cannot 

pay them more there, so I do not want that secret to get out, 

but——

Mr. KLEIN. How do you tell the parent of a kid whose only hope 

and only future is through education—and Yvette knows this in 

Bed-Stuy in Northern Manhattan and in the South Bronx. How do 

64

you tell a kid that we just do not have a math and science teacher 

for you? But I cannot get enough at an entry—and I cannot raise 

everybody’s entry-level salary to $80,000. They do not give me 

enough for that either. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. Just before I recognize Ms. Hirono, let me 

just say that there is also another reason. In looking at the Alliance for Excellent Education, they have put as an estimate of replacing those teachers who have dropped out of this profession at 

about $2.5 billion a year in districts, and then if you take the other 

shuffling of teachers that takes place, they increase that to almost 

$5 billion a year that is spent on this turmoil that is taking place 

because people are leaving the profession, retraining people to 

come back in the profession and moving people around within the 

profession. Whereas, if you can develop this corps of teachers who 

are interested in that school for those students who want to pay 

them and can perform, there is a huge savings for the States that 

they could also put back into professional development and pay if 

we could get out of this revolving door. 

Ms. Hirono. 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

As we focus on teacher effectiveness and NCLB, definitely pay 

for performance is on the table, which generally is, I think, seen 

as tying teacher pay to student test scores. And I think there are 

limitations and dangers to that because you could set up a situation where the teachers then begin to just work with those students who are going to score high. 

I am particularly interested in hearing what Ms. McLean and 

Ms. Bibeau have to say after hearing from Dr. Burke and Dr. Ritter about what are the ways that we can best measure effectiveness. And Dr. Burke said, well, 70 percent of their model looks at 

classroom performance/observation and 30 percent on what, I 

think, is student performance on tests. 

I would like to hear from the two teachers who are on the ground 

day after day in the classrooms of what you think are the appropriate ways that we can measure the effectiveness of a teacher. 

Ms. MCLEAN. I thought Dr. Burke’s model was interesting, but 

the one thing about the value-added measures is that people before 

me have a great impact on the students. So, if the junior high 

teacher does her job adequately, she builds a foundation and a vocabulary. Good teachers know that it takes three, four or five experiences on the same topic for you to really understand and learn 

and know it, and so my success also depends upon the success of 

the prior educators that the kids have. So maybe those seeds were 

planted in seventh grade, and then I get the reward because I 

made them flower at the right moment. 

So that can be a little bit of a problem with the value-added 

measures. We do have to show results, though, and I agree that if 

you do not have testing, if I am not bringing the kids along and 

doing my job, then I should not be paid for that. 

Again, back to my point, though, those tests do need to be valid 

tests. Money needs to go in them to measure what we really want 

the kids to know, not just what is the easiest to test, which are a 

65

bunch of facts.You know, to me, I think we are creating a generation of who wants to be millionaires but not a generation of engineers or innovators with the way the testing is driving. 

There is a good colleague of mine on the Teachers Listening 

Team, Anthony Cody out in Oakland. He is a middle school science 

teacher—well, he was put into science this year—and they are so 

test-driven in his performance base that he confessed; he said, 

‘‘Well, I had to do strictly direct teaching.’’ he did not have any opportunity to do inquiry or labs with them to engage the kids. 

So we are here at a balance. Do we want great test scores? Because we can give it to them and we can teach directly and feed 

them and bore them inside and out. Then we are never going to 

get our science and math engineers. 

Ms. BIBEAU. We have a very good beginning teacher evaluation 

process where teachers are observed in the classroom by the administration and by their peers, and there is a rubric involved in 

this, and part of it also includes a self-reflection and a self-growth 

piece. The ongoing assessment is not as clear at this point in our 

district—but we look at the assessment procedures, at the tests 

that the students take, and do the kind of reflection that Ms. 

McLean is mentioning that I teach the students before they enter 

the time when they are taking the standard tests, but when I see 

their test scores in third grade, I start thinking about those test 

scores just as seriously as the third-grade teacher, because it does 

not just happen in third grade, the effectiveness of the students. 

A staff development process that I was able to be part of as an 

ongoing teacher included self-assessment, peer assessment, and an 

outside assessment that was nonbiased. But I had the availability 

to discuss it with an individual who was an expert from a university and reflect on the observations of myself in the classroom, and 

that was very, very, very helpful for me to see where I was as a 

teacher now. And the evaluation we were looking at is what was 

some of the current research in teaching, and was I doing it in my 

classroom. 

I think that a lot of teachers, when I explained that I was doing 

this and that I was volunteering, were, you know, pretty nervous. 

I mean, they thought,you know—and when I talked to them, I said 

this was one of the best things I ever did because I cannot see what 

I saw before that. I did not see that on myself. So I do not think 

we are always afraid of, you know, what is the assessment going 

to be if it is an assessment that helps us grow and become better 

teachers. 

Ms. HIRONO. Would it be accurate for me to conclude, while the 

testing of the students has a place in your evaluation, that these 

other evaluative tools are much more important? Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Bishop. 

Mr. BISHOP OF NEW YORK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have read the rules of our committee, and I realize that, until 

I have been here for 45 minutes, I do not have the right to ask a 

question. So, in lieu of that, can I yield to Mr. Ehlers? 

Chairman MILLER. The gentleman yields. 

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Whether the 

rule is that or not, I deeply appreciate it. 

66

First of all, let me express my utter delight. For the first time, 

I have a panel before me which seems to totally agree with me that 

we have to have differential pay for math and science teachers in 

order to maintain a good workforce, and it is very heartening for 

me. I have been preaching it for 10 years. I have never had a panel 

totally agree before. 

The second point. Ms. McLean, you commented about the Eisenhower funding, and the math and science partnerships were supposed to be the substitute. I have to tell you that for several years, 

I almost single-handedly had to keep the Eisenhower funding going 

because there just was not support for it in the Congress anymore. 

Math and science partnerships were supposed to replace them. The 

bill—as the No Child Left Behind and as it left this committee—

I thought was excellent, and it provided more funding for math and 

science partnerships than we had had for the Eisenhower program. 

Unfortunately, when it came back from the Senate and from conference, it did not have that. And we have been trying to get it 

back up here ever since, and I hope in this next iteration of No 

Child Left Behind, we can do it right. 

Let me raise a different question which several of you have alluded to. I did not get into the business of trying to improve math 

and science education. I centered on the elementary schools because I thought the high schools were, really, in fairly reasonable 

shape, and so I spent all of my efforts on the elementary schools. 

It is a totally different area because you do not have teachers 

trained in a discipline so much, and I just wonder about your ideas. 

How can we more effectively train the elementary schoolteacher, 

the average one—not the science specialist, but the average elementary schoolteacher—to do a better job of teaching science? Because the action starts there. If the kids are not excited about 

science through the first through eighth grades, you are not likely 

to see them selecting your classes, other than the required ones in 

your high school courses. And if they do not take the high school 

courses, they are automatically excluded from a very large number 

of professional programs when they get to the university. What 

comments do you have on that? 

Ms. MCLEAN. I work with our elementary teachers. I do basically 

a volunteer program where we go in, and I meet with them once 

a month, and it is volunteer. I will take the standard—one standard for the day and bring in real cheap equipment that they could 

buy from home, and we will just start talking about the ideas and 

how to teach and the misconceptions. They do not have that. Right 

now, I am very concerned about this for our district because, with 

the Reading First—we are a Reading First school—the instructional time has been taken away, so most of our teachers are not 

even doing science. So I am terrified about getting these students 

in a few years and trying to make up that difference that those colleagues should have done for the last 5 years. 

The best of our elementary teachers are doing science for only 

half the year and social studies for the other half of the year because there is so much emphasis and direct time structured for the 

reading, and we are under one of those programs where they have 

to be scripted. All of the other textbooks and resources and literature had to be put in closets, and they are not allowed to use 

67

them. If they are on a science theme, they cannot get out a butterfly—if they are reading about butterflies, they cannot get out a 

butterfly and do the whole metamorphosis thing. So I am very concerned, and so are the teachers, so they voluntarily work with me 

after school once a month, and we look at how we can integrate it 

and how we can work it in, very simple things. 

I am not sure what to do at the college level with that, if they 

need to be put through the steps of a modified biology course and 

a modified chemistry course to get some more of that content, because—and they are very uncertain. One of the reasons they do not 

teach science, the ones who do not, is they are so unsure of themselves, and you know, they will ask me a question to take it to a 

deeper level, and I will just model for them, and say, ‘‘Well, I do 

not know, but what are you seeing?’’ you know, just to get them—

to encourage them to play with the stuff, to play with their kids. 

I mean, it is a start, and I always find it disheartening when I 

ask—you know, when I am trying to teach about photosynthesis 

and respiration and transpiration, and I say, ‘‘Well, remember 

when you put celery in colored water, and the leaves turned purple?’’ they are all ‘‘What?’’ you know, the sophomore kids say, ‘‘Let 

us do that,’’ and that is a simple experiment that should be happening. 

So our districts, we are looking at realigning so that we can have 

eight authentic experiments at each level all the way up, so at 

least the kids are coming with common backgrounds. So even if 

they cannot spend the time that they want to when they hit junior 

high and high school, at least we have something to build from—

we have experiences to build from—and I am not sure how to do 

that in the college setting. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you for the example you are setting for a 

lot of other teachers. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Ms. Clarke. 

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I have to add my remarks to those of my colleagues already stated. This has been a really very important hearing, and certainly 

the comments that have come from each and every one of you will 

help us to embark upon the types of reform and the types of deep 

inquiry into the redevelopment as we go forth with No Child Left 

Behind. 

It is very clear with respect to the research that good teachers 

do make good students, and students who get several effective 

teachers in a row will soar no matter what their family backgrounds are, while students of even two ineffective teachers in a 

row rarely recover from that. 

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, every State and every 

school district must ensure that low-income students have their 

fair share of qualified and experienced teachers. However, the reality of it is that classrooms in highly deficient or high poverty rate 

schools and oftentimes largely minority or immigrant community 

schools are far more likely to be taught by teachers out of their 

field of expertise. 

I just wanted to sort of draw on some of my own experiences, 

having come from the New York City School System. In my formative years, outside of my parents and perhaps my immediate famVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
68

ily, my teacher was the most profound adult in my life. And today, 

there are so many socioeconomic factors that go into the psyche of 

teaching in communities that have these deficiencies. 

I wanted to raise a couple of questions because we are trying to 

get some tangibles here, but so much of what happens in the classroom there is not a measure for. And I wanted to ask what we 

could do in particular around what I would call ‘‘acquaintance and 

engagement.’’

For many new teachers, no matter what the incentive, if you are 

unacquainted and you are not engaged in the communities in 

which you are placed to educate children, the disconnect has a profound effect on that child’s ability to really love learning. And I say 

‘‘love learning’’ because you are developing students at the elementary, going into the middle school stage, and being a student is 

very important in the exchange between the teacher and the pupil. 

I wanted to get some feedback from whomever on the panel 

about what is being done at that level. You know, we have talked 

about how expensive it is. In New York City, you know, for teachers to live there and be engaged in that way is a huge, huge challenge. And I have to applaud the chancellor because he has been 

working it out, but for a long time that has been a challenge. And 

even things like parking for teachers in our town is a challenge. 

So as to just some things that can ease those burdens, can we have 

some conversations around that and perhaps how we can address 

those types of engagements in No Child Left Behind? 

Everyone nodded. Do not all jump first. 

Chairman MILLER. Anyone? Ferris Bueller? Anyone? 

Mr. RITTER. I will react quickly to your initial question, Congresswoman Clarke. 

You mentioned that incentives do not affect us, and I would suggest that it takes a special person to do both, for example, to be 

able to know—I mean, we all have limited amounts of skills, and 

to be really smart analytically, scientifically, and mathematically 

and then to have the personality that makes us want to engage 

with kids and these sorts of things, that is unique, I would imagine, amongst the populace. And you have to pay for unique skills. 

So I would argue that incentives do matter. 

As the teachers earlier had mentioned, you know, you might feel 

like coming in and just handing out a worksheet or you might feel 

like really engaging with the students and trying to give a lesson 

that they can get into. And that takes more energy, and it is possible that the incentives created by differential pay might tilt the 

balance.You know, one day, I come in and I am tired, and I am just 

not sure if I can give that extra effort today. And I think that is 

part of the goal of performance-based pay. It is to encourage us, 

when we are on the border, to give that extra effort and to do this 

extra work. And if the work involves being engaged, and I know 

that if I get engaged and go out into the community and get the 

students engaged in a lesson and then they are more likely to 

learn, performance pay would encourage me to do that as well. 

So I would suggest there is not a total disconnect between the 

incentive-based pay and the issue you describe. 

Ms. MCLEAN. In our report, we do have a piece centered around 

community involvement and after-education programs because that 

69

does take a tremendous amount of time. And so you can pay people 

for doing that and for going the extra mile. With some people, depending on where they are in their career and if they are a new 

mother as well, they are not going to have time to do that, so they 

will not seek out that pay. But for someone whose children have 

gone off to college, you have the time to devote to that, and you 

could be rewarded in that kind of aspect. But I cannot speak for 

New York because I am rural, so I am in the community, and I go 

grocery shopping, and I see my parents, and I go to church, you 

know. So I do not know how to solve the city issue. 

Mr. DALE. One of the roles that I outlined in my earlier testimony deals with this particular area, and that is making connections with kids in the community. And much as Ms. McLean was 

saying, you have to recognize that if you are asking people to do 

that as part of their extended roles from the classroom, you pay 

people for it. Which is why I have tried to move into these full-time 

teaching contracts so that outside of the classroom, then, that is 

one of the roles, is to begin to work with the members of the community and whatever it takes to make those kinds of, I will say, 

really strong connections. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

I think this hearing has been helpful, partly because we do not 

have bells going off, and we actually can concentrate. 

Chairman MILLER. That is one of the advantages of staying and 

working until 1:30 in the morning. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Exactly. Exactly. 

Thank you all for being here. 

One of the, I think, models is that we are always looking for best 

practices, and I got attracted, actually, as a school board member 

and then as a State legislator to the National Board Certification 

Program because I know that when my kid is sick or hurts himself 

or needs surgery, I want to go to a board-certified physician, and 

I want to go to a good teaching hospital. So it seems to me that 

there was sort of a connection there between how people think 

about teachers and how they would think about other professions 

that they seek out in their lives. 

So I wonder if you could, without going into a great deal of detail, Ms. McLean—there is something about the National Board 

program that attracts a certain kind of teacher, I think. It is also 

teachers who want to be very reflective in their teaching, very, very 

positive, I believe, but it has not really spread nationwide in the 

way that I would have thought perhaps it would happen. If you 

could, address that very briefly. 

Getting back to Chancellor Klein and that environment that is 

respectful of teachers, how do you think we could best utilize a program like that? I would also ask whether we need to have principal 

academies that kind of reflect National Board principal certification 

and if that would even make a difference. Is that something that 

we ought to use as a model and try and expand and think about? 

There have been some—I do not know. I am not sure exactly 

what the obstacles to that have been, but some people—somehow 

70

this ‘‘national’’ in the title seems to throw people off. Is it worth 

pursuing that or—I do not believe that all teachers who are great 

teachers have to be nationally board-certified. It is not a panacea, 

but it does provide this reflective model that seems to make sense, 

and it also could be a model for getting nationally board-certified 

teachers, who happen to be certified in math and science at the 

best schools, if that became the standard that Federal dollars 

would go towards. 

Could you help me out with that? 

Would any of you like to comment as well? 

Ms. MCLEAN. From National Board certification, what drove me 

to seek it is, I was the president of our State Science Teachers Association at that time, and it was just coming on the front, and people were forming opinions. I do not like to have an opinion without 

an experience, so I put myself through the process so I could speak 

for or against or whatever. 

Going through that process really transformed me. I learned how 

to be really self-reflective. You have to videotape yourself. So you 

think you are doing these things, and then when you start watching the videotape, you realize what else is going on. So I was my 

own personal critic, and I can make those types of changes. 

So the process of that certification helped change me, and so people can do that process outside of the certification. Plus, I worked 

with—it helped me become stronger with my colleagues because 

they had to be critics and help me. They had to help judge me, and 

I had to have them come in. So our district does not have a program where we self-reflect or review each other, so we did that on 

our own, and I think it was very valuable. 

Mr. KLEIN. I think it is an important point. 

I guess, with the principalship I think in particular, I would suggest that a place where I think Congress could make a difference 

is with the kind of program like New Leaders for New Schools. You 

are probably familiar with John Schnyer, who used to work for 

Vice President Gore. After he left, he started this program, and he 

is training principals throughout the country. It is very hands-on. 

It is not academic. We have a version of it called the ‘‘Leadership 

Academy’’ that we started, and we called it ‘‘boot camp for principals.’’ again, I think Congress could put real seed money in this. 

The only caution I have—and I know John said it and I know 

we have here—is that we have lots of needs in education, but we 

have chronic needs in our high-needs’ communities. And if we are 

going to close the achievement gap, we have got to be somewhat 

more selective about these programs. So what I tell the people—

we provide them 4 months of intensive training and then a school 

year of mentorship with our best principals, and they walk in their 

footsteps. And then the next year, we make them a principal. It is 

a 13-month type of program, and I tell them, ‘‘I am willing to pay 

for this training on the condition that you will go to work in one 

of my high-needs’, high-poverty schools.’’ that is what John has 

done. Dr. Sanford came out of that program. 

John is now doing that in D.C. and in other cities, and it is having a very powerful effect, but I think you have got to understand 

that it has got to be nonacademic, very hands-on, and get to the 

question that Ms. Clarke asked before. These people have got to get 

71

into the community, and they have got to understand the challenges. This is an enormously successful model which, I would 

think, we could put a lot more dollars against in return for people 

taking on the tough challenges. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Does anybody else want to comment? 

Yes. 

Mr. DALE. Let me just reinforce that one very quickly, because 

part of New York, and then Dr. Burke and I are all part of a philanthropic effort to provide and create leadership training opportunities. And we found it to be, just like Joel has talked about, very 

effective. It has to be an intentional program, though. It was driven 

by, in this case, philanthropic contributions to a variety of school 

systems that were engaged in developing leaders. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. 

I guess the one thing I would say, Mr. Chairman, really quickly 

is that I do think the comment was made by Mr. McKeon that 

somehow there is a perception that, in fact, teachers do not support 

any kind of performance pay. I do think that, if we can find that 

area where they do—the National Board of Certification is supported by teachers in some States, and they actually get quite a 

bonus. And there are some incentives, I think even in California 

now, for those teachers to go into the low-performing schools. 

I really appreciate the comments of how it has got to—you know, 

it cannot be just any kind of program that you create. I mean, it 

has to be something that actually does have a link with performance, and that can be done. I would think that it could be done everywhere if we could get the right incentive at the Federal level. 

Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this very important and interesting hearing. 

As a former teacher myself—of course, we were not doing 200 g’s a year at that time. As a matter of fact, my first salary was $3,899 

a year. It was not a log cabin either. But things have certainly 

changed, that is for sure. I taught for about 10 years in both the 

secondary and middle and elementary schools. I also was the president of an elementary school PTA, which is a question that I have 

not heard very much mentioned. 

What about the parent involvement? I mean, I know that is separate from teachers’ performance, but just in general—and perhaps 

our principal would know. We in the old days had standing room 

only in the auditorium when we had a PTA meeting. Things have 

certainly changed a lot. There are a lot of demands on people, especially living in inner cities, and it is tough to make it. As I mentioned, in my district, I have, like Mr. Kildee, a very diverse district. I have probably the most affluent community in the United 

States in one part—in Milburn, south of Short Hills in New Jersey. 

And in the other part, I have Newark. Believe it or not, the 

school—I spoke at their graduation last year—will be 160 years old 

next year. It was built in 1848. A number of the schools were built 

before the 1900s. So we see the disparity. Of course, we have a 

school that is maybe 125 years old, Harriett Tubman in Newark, 

that is putting out students who are excellent. So the age of the 

72

school does not necessarily always—of course, that is a very unique 

place, Harriett Tubman. That is probably why it has that name. It 

is not a typical school in Newark, but it is a public school with public school teachers, a teachers’ union and all the rest. They are 

doing a fantastic job. 

So, just quickly, about—oh, and incidentally, I did my graduate 

work at Springfield College. During the summers, I drove up there, 

and so I certainly have an appreciation for your fine town. 

Would anyone like to comment on the parent involvement? 

Mr. SANFORD. One of the things that I have heard over and over 

throughout the panel this morning and even to your question, Ms. 

Clarke, is it is the high-quality principal programs as well as highquality teacher training programs. 

In all of those programs, one of the things that they emphasize 

is that the parental involvement is key, and it is critical. But also, 

one of the things that I think is really important for us to recognize 

is these programs teach you to do that. 

One of the things that Mr. Klein said earlier is that we have 13 

months where we work side by side with a principal who has been 

doing a fantastic job, and I think that one of the things that I 

learned is that they emphasize over and over again that you cannot 

do it without the parents. So one of the things that I teach my 

teachers is that at the beginning of the school year, we spend time 

going into the community, learning the families, learning exactly 

who they are, and building those relationships that really will take 

us throughout the year. 

Mr. PODESTA. Mr. Payne, you mentioned that the buildings are 

more than 100 years old. We also have a school calendar that is 

more than 100 years old. 

I think one of the things that has been successful—Dr. Dale mentioned this—in terms of thinking about teachers is, in having a 

full-time, year-round job, the programs that are successful at bringing people in have extended the day, and they extend the school 

calendar. The experiments, I think, that are very promising in 

terms of actually bringing the parents into the system have really 

utilized kind of a different model of teaching rather than sort of the 

9:00 to 3:00, very long intersession break in the summer. 

Mr. BURKE. I would like to also comment. 

One of the things that we are starting to do in Springfield is create a home visitation program. Our teachers’ union has actually 

been interested in doing that. There was a big project out in Sacramento, California that was evidently very successful, and we 

have several groups locally that have been interested in developing 

a partnership to really make that happen. So we are just getting 

that underway now. 

Connected to the question that Congresswoman Clarke asked 

earlier, you know in our situation there is a disconnect. Sixty percent of our teachers do not live in the city, and 80 percent of our 

teachers—78 percent are white—78 percent of our students are not 

white. So you know, there is a community disconnect there that 

has to be bridged, and we are really hopeful that this home visitation program, as we get it underway and really look at it carefully, 

might be helpful in that regard. 

73

Mr. PAYNE. Well, let me thank you all, and I think that that is 

an excellent idea. In the old days, it was just something that you 

did. You know, if a kid was acting up, you went by the house and 

rang the bell at 6 o’clock. You saw the parent, had a discussion. 

The next day, the kid was doing much better—he came in limping, 

but he was better—but you know, those days have changed. The 

rules have changed, you know, but I think that those kinds of programs definitely work. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. BIBEAU. I have just started reviewing the mentorship plan 

in our district, but as we get new teachers at my school—I have 

never thought of it in the mentor role, but that was a very important part, that new teachers in our school would start talking 

about the community, and I often—then at certain points, they will 

drive you around, give you a tour, you know, and will start—we 

will see families out. Where do families go? We go to some of those 

places where they can meet families in a neutral place, and then 

we look at ways like the home visit factor. But we look at ways of 

how do we get into the homes, you know, whether it is helping 

some families, assisting them with computer access—because a lot 

of people would buy a computer and would not have the basic background—or bringing a book on the child’s birthday or, you know, 

some of those little things that a teacher could do to just get into 

the community and meet the families. 

Chairman MILLER. Well, thank you very much, and—yes, Susan. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Could I just for a second——

Chairman MILLER. You are now on their time. You do whatever 

you want. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Okay. This is part of the discussion, 

because—I mean, it is that cultural kind of congruency because a 

lot of kids grow up, and it is very congruent for them to go right 

on to school; and for other children, it is not necessarily in the 

same context. And so sometimes I do not think it is so much as just 

bringing the parents in, but we really do—it is the visits, but it is 

really an attitude about bringing what comes from the home into 

the school and finding ways of making those connections. 

And I think that we can teach people how to do that, and some 

schools do a great job at it; but as for others, I do not think they 

quite get that connection about why it is important because of that 

movement of kids into the school system that may not necessarily 

be as natural as it is for some children. 

So thank you. I appreciate that. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. Let me say that my watchword 

for education at the moment is ‘‘engagement.’’ You clearly have engaged the members of this committee, and I thank you for doing 

that. I think you will find that you have been testifying at a defining hearing in terms of our reconsideration and reauthorization of 

No Child Left Behind, and I really thank you for your expertise, 

your experience, and all of your suggestions. And we look forward 

to working with you as we get down to the hard part here in reauthorization. Thank you again for your time before the committee. 

The committee will stand adjourned. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Altmire follows:]

74

Prepared Statement of Hon. Jason Altmire, a Representative in Congress 

From the State of Pennsylvania 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing on how to boost 

quality in the teaching profession through the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. 

I would like to extend a warm welcome to today’s witnesses. I appreciate all of 

you for taking the time to be here and look forward to your testimony. 

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, which was observed earlier this week, I 

would first like to take this opportunity to thank all of the great teachers across 

the country. Teachers do a remarkably hard and important job. The vast majority 

of them do this job extremely well and there good work is overlooked far too frequently. 

There is nothing more important to the education of this nation’s children than 

ensuring that they are taught by excellent teachers. Research has shown that the 

single most important factor in determining a child’s success in school is the quality 

of his or her teacher. 

The reauthorization of NCLB provides this committee with the opportunity to reexamine how effective the law has been in promoting teacher quality. I look forward 

to working with the members of this committee to build on the successes that NCLB 

has had in promoting teacher quality and in improving the aspects of NCLB that 

have not helped advance teacher quality. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I yield back the balance 

of my time. 

[Additional submissions by Mr. Miller follow:] 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Darling-Hammond follows:]

Prepared Statement of Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun 

Professor, Stanford University School of Education 

I thank Chairman Miller and the members of the Committee for the opportunity 

to offer testimony on the re-authorization of ESEA, in particular the ways in which 

we measure and encourage school progress and improvement. My perspective on 

these issues is informed by my research, my work with states and national organizations on standards development, and my work with local schools. I have studied 

the implementation of No Child Left Behind,1 as well as testing and accountability 

systems within the United States and abroad.2 I have also served as past Chair of 

the New York State Council on Curriculum and Assessment and of the Chief State 

School Officers’ INTASC Standards Development Committee. I work closely with a 

number of school districts and local schools on education improvement efforts, including several new urban high schools that I have helped to launch. Thus, I have 

encountered the issues of school improvement from both a system-wide and local 

school vantage point. 

I am hopeful that this re-authorization can build on the strengths and opportunities offered by No Child Left Behind, while addressing needs that have emerged 

during the first years of the law’s implementation. Among the strengths of the law 

is its focus on improving the academic achievement of all students, which triggers 

attention to school performance and to the needs of students who have been underserved, and its insistence that all students are entitled to qualified teachers, which 

has stimulated recruitment efforts in states where many disadvantaged students 

previously lacked this key resource for learning. 

The law has succeeded in getting states, districts, and local schools to pay attention to achievement. The next important step is to ensure that the range of things 

schools and states pay attention to actually helps them improve both the quality of 

education they offer to every student and the quality of the overall schooling enterprise. In order to accomplish this, I would ask you to actively encourage states to: 

• Develop accountability systems that use multiple measures of learning and 

other important aspects of school performance in evaluating school progress; 

• Differentiate school improvement strategies for schools based on a comprehensive analysis of their instructional quality and conditions for learning. 

Why Use Multiple Measures? 

There are at least three reasons to gauge student and school progress based on 

multiple measures of learning and school performance: 

• To direct schools’ attention and effort to the range of measures that are associated with high-quality education and improvement; 

75

• To avoid dysfunctional consequences that can encourage schools, districts, or 

states to emphasize one important outcome at the expense of another; for example, 

focusing on a narrow set of skills at the expense of others that are equally critical, 

or boosting test scores by excluding students from school; and 

• To capture an adequate and accurate picture of student learning and attainment that both measures and promotes the kinds of outcomes we need from schools. 

Directing Attention to Measures Associated with School Quality 

One of the central concepts of NCLB’s approach is that schools and systems will 

organize their efforts around the measures for which they are held accountable. Because attending to any one measure can be both partial and problematic, the concept of multiple measures is routinely used by policymakers to make critical decisions about such matters as employment and economic forecasting (for example, the 

Dow Jones Index or the GNP) and admission to college, where grades, essays, activities, and accomplishments are considered along with test scores. 

Successful businesses use a ‘‘dashboard’’ set of indicators to evaluate their health 

and progress, aware that no single indicator is sufficient to understand or guide 

their operations. This approach is designed to focus attention on those aspects of 

the business that describe elements of the business’s current health and future prospects, and to provide information that employees can act on in areas that make a 

difference for improvement. So, for example, a balanced scorecard is likely to include 

among its financial indicators not only a statement of profits, but also cash flow, 

dividends, costs and accounts receivable, assets, inventory, and so on. Business leaders understand that efforts to maximize profits alone could lead to behaviors that 

undermine the long-term health of the enterprise. 

Similarly, a single measure approach in education creates some unintended negative consequences and fails to focus schools on doing those things that can improve 

their long-term health and the education of their students. Although No Child Left 

Behind calls for multiple measures of student performance, the implementation of 

the law has not promoted the use of such measures for evaluating school progress. 

As I describe in the next section, the focus on single, often narrow, test scores in 

many states has created unintended negative consequences for the nature of teaching and learning, for access to education for the most vulnerable students, and for 

the appropriate identification of schools that are in need of improvement. 

A multiple measures approach that incorporates the right ‘‘dashboard’’ of indicators would support a shift toward ‘‘holding states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student achievement’’ as has been urged by 

the Forum on Education and Accountability. This group of 116 education and civil 

rights organizations—which include the National Urban League, NAACP, League of 

United Latin American Citizens, Aspira, Children’s Defense Fund, National Alliance 

of Black School Educators, and Council for Exceptional Children, as well as the National School Boards Association, National Education Association, and American Association of School Administrators—has offered a set of proposals for NCLB that 

would focus schools, districts, and states on developing better teaching, a stronger 

curriculum, and supports for school improvement. 

Avoiding Dysfunctional Consequences 

Another reason to use a multiple measures approach is to avoid the negative consequences that occur when one measure is used to drive organizational behavior. 

The current accountability provisions of the Act, which are focused almost exclusively on school average scores on annual tests, actually create large incentives for 

schools to keep students out and to hold back or push out students who are not 

doing well. A number of studies have found that systems that reward or sanction 

schools based on average student scores create incentives for pushing low-scorers 

into special education so that their scores won’t count in school reports,3 retaining 

students in grade so that their grade-level scores will look better,4 excluding lowscoring students from admissions,5 and encouraging such students to leave schools 

or drop out.6

Studies in New York,7 Texas,8 and Massachusetts,9 among others, have showed 

how schools have raised their test scores while ‘‘losing’’ large numbers of low-scoring 

students. For example, a recent study in a large Texas city found that student dropouts and push outs accounted for most of the gains in high school student test 

scores, especially for minority students. The introduction of a high-stakes test linked 

to school ratings in the 10th grade led to sharp increases in 9th grade student retention and student dropout and disappearance. Of the large share of students held 

back in the 9th grade, most of them African American and Latino, only 12% ever 

took the 10th grade test that drove school rewards. Schools that retained more students at grade 9 and lost more through dropouts and disappearances boosted their 

76

accountability ratings the most. Overall, fewer than half of all students who started 

9th grade graduated within 5 years, even as test scores soared.10

Paradoxically, NCLB’s requirement for disaggregating data and tracking progress 

for each subgroup of students increases the incentives for eliminating those at the 

bottom of each subgroup, especially where schools have little capacity to improve the 

quality of services such students receive. Table 1 shows how this can happen. At 

‘‘King Middle School,’’ average scores increased from the 70th to the 72nd percentile 

between the 2002 and 2003 school year, and the proportion of students in attendance who met the proficiency standard (a score of 65) increased from 66% to 80%—

the kind of performance that a test-based accountability system would reward. 

Looking at subgroup performance, the proportion of Latino students meeting the 

standard increased from 33% to 50%, a steep increase. 

However, not a single student at King improved his or her score between 2002 

and 2003. In fact, the scores of every single student in the school went down over 

the course of the year. How could these steep improvements in the school’s average 

scores and proficiency rates have occurred? A close look at Table 1 shows that the 

major change between the two years was that the lowest-scoring student, Raul, disappeared. As has occurred in many states with high stakes-testing programs, students who do poorly on the tests—special needs students, new English language 

learners, those with poor attendance, health, or family problems—are increasingly 

likely to be excluded by being counseled out, transferred, expelled, or by dropping 

out.

TABLE 1.—KING MIDDLE SCHOOL: REWARDS OR SANCTIONS?

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEST SCORE TRENDS AND STUDENT POPULATIONS 

2002–03 2003–04

Laura ........................................................................................ 100 90

James ....................................................................................... 90 80

Felipe ....................................................................................... 80 70

Kisha ........................................................................................ 70 65

Jose .......................................................................................... 60 55

Raul ......................................................................................... 20 ...............................................

Ave. Score = 70

% meeting standard = 66%

Ave. Score = 72

% meeting standard = 80%

This kind of result is not limited to education. When one state decided to rank 

cardiac surgeons based on their mortality rates, a follow up investigation found that 

surgeons’ ratings went up as they stopped taking on high-risk clients. These patients were referred out of state if they were wealthy, or were not served, if they 

were poor. 

The three national professional organizations of measurement experts have called 

attention to such problems in their joint Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, which note that: 

Beyond any intended policy goals, it is important to consider potential unintended 

effects that may result from large-scale testing programs. Concerns have been 

raised, for instance, about narrowing the curriculum to focus only on the objectives 

tested, restricting the range of instructional approaches to correspond to the testing 

format, increasing the number of dropouts among students who do not pass the test, 

and encouraging other instructional or administrative practices that may raise test 

scores without affecting the quality of education. It is important for those who mandate tests to consider and monitor their consequences and to identify and minimize 

the potential of negative consequences.11

Professional testing standards emphasize that no test is sufficiently reliable and 

valid to be the sole source of important decisions about student placements, promotions, or graduation, but that such decisions should be made on the basis of several different kinds of evidence about student learning and performance in the classroom. For example, Standard 13.7 states: 

In educational settings, a decision or characterization that will have major impact 

on a student should not be made on the basis of a single test score. Other relevant 

information should be taken into account if it will enhance the overall validity of 

the decision.12

The Psychological Standards for Testing describe several kinds of information that 

should be considered in making judgments about what a student knows and can do, 

including alternative assessments that provide other information about performance 

and evidence from samples of school work and other aspects of the school record, 

77

such as grades and classroom observations. These are particularly important for students for whom traditional assessments are not generally valid, such as English language learners and special education students. Similarly, when evaluating schools, 

it is important to include measures of student progress through school, coursework 

and grades, and graduation, as part of the record about school accomplishments. 

Evaluating Learning Well 

Indicators beyond a single test score are important not only for reasons of validity 

and fairness in making decisions, but also to assess important skills that most 

standardized tests do not measure. Current accountability reforms are based on the 

idea that standards can serve as a catalyst for states to be explicit about learning 

goals, and the act of measuring progress toward meeting these standards is an important force toward developing high levels of achievement for all students. However, an on-demand test taken in a limited period of time on a single day cannot 

measure all that is important for students to know and be able to do. A credible 

accountability system must rest on assessments that are balanced and comprehensive with respect to state standards. Multiple-choice and short-answer tests that are 

currently used to measure standards in many states do not adequately measure the 

complex thinking, communication, and problem solving skills that are represented 

in national and state content standards. 

Research on high-stakes accountability systems shows that, ‘‘what is tested is 

what is taught,’’ and those standards that are not represented on the high stakes 

assessment tend to be given short shrift in the curriculum.13 Students are less likely 

to engage in extended research, writing, complex problem-solving, and experimentation when the accountability system emphasizes short-answer responses to 

formulaic problems. These higher order thinking skills are those very skills that 

often are cited as essential to maintaining America’s competitive edge and necessary 

for succeeding on the job, in college, and in life. As described by Achieve, a national 

organization of governors, business leaders, and education leaders, the problem with 

measures of traditional on-demand tests is that they cannot measure many of the 

skills that matter most for success in the worlds of work and higher education: 

States * * * will need to move beyond large-scale assessments because, as critical 

as they are, they cannot measure everything that matters in a young person’s education. The ability to make effective oral arguments and conduct significant research 

projects are considered essential skills by both employers and postsecondary educators, but these skills are very difficult to assess on a paper-and pencil test.14

One of the reasons that U.S. students fall further and further behind their international counterparts as they go through school is because of differences in curriculum and assessment systems. International studies have found that the U.S. 

curriculum focuses more on superficial coverage of too many topics, without the 

kinds of in-depth study, research, and writing needed to secure deep understanding. 

To focus on understanding, the assessment systems used in most high-achieving 

countries around the world emphasize essay questions, research projects, scientific 

experiments, oral exhibitions and performances that encourage students to master 

complex skills as they apply them in practice, rather than multiple-choice tests. 

As indicators of the growing distance between what our education system emphasizes and what leading countries are accomplishing educationally, the U.S. currently 

ranks 28th of 40 countries in the world in math achievement—right above Latvia—

and 19th of 40 in reading achievement on the international PISA tests that measure 

higher-order thinking skills. And while the top-scoring nations—including previously low-achievers like Finland and South Korea—now graduate more than 95% 

of their students from high school, the U.S. is graduating about 75%, a figure that 

has been stagnant for a quarter century and, according to a recent ETS study, is 

now declining. The U.S. has also dropped from 1st in the world in higher education 

participation to 13th, as other countries invest more resources in their children’s futures. 

Most high-achieving nations’ examination systems include multiple samples of 

student learning at the local level as well as the state or national level. Students’ 

scores are a composite of their performance on examinations they take in different 

content areas—featuring primarily open-ended items that require written responses 

and problem solutions—plus their work on a set of classroom tasks scored by their 

teachers according to a common set of standards. These tasks require them to conduct apply knowledge to a range of tasks that represent what they need to be able 

to do in different fields: find and analyze information, solve multi-step real-world 

problems in mathematics, develop computer models, demonstrate practical applications of science methods, design and conduct investigations and evaluate their results, and present and defend their ideas in a variety of ways. Teaching to these 

78

assessments prepares students for the real expectations of college and of highly 

skilled work. 

These assessments are not used to rank or punish schools, or to deny promotion 

or diplomas to students. In fact, several countries have explicit proscriptions against 

such practices. They are used to evaluate curriculum and guide investments in professional learning—in short, to help schools improve. By asking students to show 

what they know through real-world applications of knowledge, these nations’ assessment systems encourage serious intellectual activities on a regular basis. The systems not only measure important learning, they help teachers learn how to design 

curriculum and instruction to accomplish this learning. 

It is worth noting that a number of states in the U.S. have developed similar systems that combine evidence from state and local standards-based assessments to ensure that multiple indicators of learning are used to make decisions about individual 

students and, sometimes, schools. These include Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wyoming, among others. However, many of these elements of state systems are not currently allowed to be used to gauge school progress under NCLB. 

Encouraging these kinds of practices could help improve learning and guide 

schools toward more productive instruction. Studies have found that performance 

assessments that are administered and scored locally help teachers better understand students’ strengths, needs, and approaches to learning, as well as how to meet 

state standards.15 Teachers who have been involved in developing and scoring performance assessments with other colleagues have reported that the experience was 

extremely valuable in informing their practice. They report changes in both the curriculum and their instruction as a result of thinking through with colleagues what 

good student performance looks like and how to better support student learning on 

specific kinds of tasks. 

These goals are not well served by external testing programs that send secret, secured tests into the school and whisk them out again for machine scoring that produces numerical quotients many months later. Local performance assessments provide teachers with much more useful classroom information as they engage teachers 

in evaluating how and what students know and can do in authentic situations. 

These kinds of assessment strategies create the possibility that teachers will not 

only teach more challenging performance skills but that they will also be able to 

use the resulting information about student learning to modify their teaching to 

meet the needs of individual students. Schools and districts can use these kinds of 

assessments to develop shared expectations and create an engine for school improvement around student work. 

Research on the strong gains in achievement shown in Connecticut, Kentucky, 

and Vermont in the 1990s attributed these gains in substantial part to these states’ 

performance-based assessment systems, which include such local components, and 

related investments in teaching quality.16 Other studies in states like California, 

Maine, Maryland, and Washington,17 found that teachers assigned more ambitious 

writing and mathematical problem solving, and student performance improved, 

when assessments included extended writing and mathematics portfolios and performance tasks. Encouraging these kinds of measures of student performance is critical to getting the kind of learning we need in schools. 

Not incidentally, more authentic measures of learning that go beyond on-demand 

standardized tests to look directly at performance are especially needed to gain accurate measures of achievement for English language learners and special needs 

students for whom traditional tests are least likely to provide valid measures of understanding.18

What Indicators Might be Used to Gauge School Progress? 

A key issue is what measures should be used to determine Adequate Yearly 

Progress (AYP) or the alternative tools that are used for addressing NCLB’s primary 

goals, e.g. assuring high expectations for all students, and helping schools address 

the needs of all students. Current AYP measures are too narrow in several respects: 

They are based exclusively on tests which are often not sufficient measures of our 

educational goals; they ignore other equally important student outcomes, including 

staying in school and engaging in rigorous coursework; they ignore the growth made 

by students who are moving toward but not yet at a proficiency benchmark, as well 

as the gains made by students who have already passed the proficiency benchmark; 

and they do not provide information or motivation to help schools, districts, and 

states improve critical learning conditions. 

This analysis suggests that school progress should be evaluated on multiple measures of student learning—including local and state performance assessments that 

provide evidence about what students can actually do with their knowledge—and on 

79

indicators of other student outcomes, including such factors as student progress and 

continuation through school, graduation, and success in rigorous courses. The importance of these indicators is to encourage schools to keep students in school and provide them with high-quality learning opportunities—elements that will improve educational opportunities and attainment, not just average test scores. 

To these two categories of indicators, I would add indicators of learning conditions 

that point attention to both learning opportunities available to students (e.g. rigorous courses, well-qualified teachers) and to how well the school operates. In the 

business world, these kinds of measures are called leading indicators, which represent those things that employees can control and improve upon. These typically 

include evidence of customer satisfaction, such as survey data, complaints and repeat orders; as well as of employee satisfaction and productivity, such as employee 

turnover, project delays, evidence of quality and efficiency in getting work done; reports of work conditions and supports, and evidence of product quality. 

Educational versions of these kinds of indicators are available in many state accountability systems. For example, State Superintendent Peter McWalters noted in 

his testimony to this committee that Rhode Island uses several means to measure 

school learning conditions. Among them is an annual survey to all students, teachers, and parents that provides data on ‘‘Learning Support Indicators’’ measuring 

school climate, instructional practices, and parental involvement. In addition, Rhode 

Island, like many other states, conducts visits to review every school in the state 

every five years, not unlike the Inspectorate system that is used in many other 

countries. These kinds of reviews can examine teaching practices, the availability 

and equitable allocation of school resources, and the quality of the curriculum, as 

it is enacted. 

Ideally, evaluation of school progress would be based on a combination of these 

three kinds of measures and would emphasize gains and improvement over time, 

both for the individual students in the school and for the school as a whole. Along 

with data about student characteristics, an indicator system could include: 

• Measures of student learning: both state tests and local assessments, including 

performance measures that assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding, 

including student work samples, projects, exhibitions, or portfolios. 

• Measures of additional student outcomes: data about attendance, student gradeto-grade progress (promotion / retention rates) and continuation through school (ongoing enrollment), graduation, and course success (e.g. students enrolled in, passing, 

and completing rigorous courses of study). 

• Measures of learning conditions, data about school capacity, such as teacher 

and other staff quality, availability of learning materials, school climate (gauged by 

students’, parents’, and teachers’ responses to surveys), instructional practices, 

teacher development, and parental engagement. 

These elements should be considered in the context of student data, including information about student mobility, health, and welfare (poverty, homelessness, foster 

care, health care), as well as language background, race / ethnicity, and special 

learning needs—not a basis for accepting differential effort or outcomes, but as a 

basis for providing information needed to interpret and improve schools’ operations 

and outcomes. 

How Might Indicators be Used to Determine School Progress and Improvement Strategies? 

The rationale for these multiple indicators is to build a more powerful engine for 

educational improvement by understanding what is really going on with students 

and focusing on the elements of the system that need to change if learning is to 

improve. High-performing systems need a regular flow of useful information to 

evaluate and modify what they are doing to produce stronger results. State and 

local officials need a range of data to understand what is happening in schools and 

what they should do to improve outcomes. Many problems in local schools are constructed or constrained by district and state decisions that need to be highlighted 

along with school-level concerns. Similarly, at the school level, teachers and leaders 

need information about how they are doing and how their students are doing, based 

in part on high-quality local assessments that provide rich, timely insights about 

student performance. 

Some states and districts have successfully put some of these indicators in place. 

The federal government could play a leadership role by not only encouraging multiple measures for assessing school progress and conditions for learning but by providing supports for states to build comprehensive databases to track these indicators 

over time, and to support valid, comprehensive information systems at all levels.19

If we think comprehensively about the approach to evaluation that would encourage fundamental improvements in schools, several goals emerge. First, determinaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:33 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-34\HED131.000 HBUD1 PsN: DICK
80

tions of school progress should reflect an analysis of schools’ performance and 

progress along several key dimensions. Student learning should be evaluated using 

multiple measures that provide comprehensive and valid information for all subpopulations. Targets should be based on sensible goals for student learning, examining growth from where students start, setting growth targets in relation to that 

starting point, and pegging ‘‘proficiency’’ at a level that represents a challenging but 

realistic standard, perhaps at the median of current state proficiency standards. 

Targets should also ensure appropriate assessment for special education students 

and English language learners and credit for the gains these students make over 

time. And analysis of learning conditions including the availability of materials, facilities, curriculum opportunities, teaching, and leadership should accompany assessments of student learning. 

A number of states already have developed comprehensive indicator systems that 

can be sources of such data, and the federal government should encourage states 

to propose different means for how to aggregate and combine these data. In addition, many states’ existing assessment systems already provide different ways to 

score and combine state reference tests with local testing systems, locally administered performance tasks (which are often scored using state standards), and portfolios.20

For evaluating annual progress, one likely approach would be to use an index of 

indicators, such as California’s Academic Performance Index, which can include a 

weighted combination of data about state and local tests and assessments as well 

as other student outcome indicators like attendance, graduation, promotion rates, 

participation and pass rates or grades for academic courses. Assessment data from 

multiple sources and evidence of student progression through / graduation from 

school would be required components. Key conditions of learning, such as teacher 

qualifications, might also be required. Other specific indicators might be left to 

states, along with the decision of how much weight to give each component, perhaps 

within certain parameters (for example, that at least 50 percent of a weighted index 

would reflect the results of assessment data). 

Within this index, disaggregated data by race/ethnicity and income could be monitored on the index score, or on components of the overall index, so that they system 

pays ongoing attention to progress for groups of students. Wherever possible these 

measures should look at progress of a constant cohort of students from year to year, 

so that actual gains are observed, rather than changes in averages due to changes 

in the composition of the student population. Furthermore, gains for English language learners and special education students should be evaluated on a growth 

model that ensures appropriate testing based on professional standards and measures individual student growth in relation to student starting points. 

Non-academic measures such as improved learning climate (as measured by 

standard surveys, for example, to allow trend analysis over time), instructional capacity (indicators regarding the quality of curriculum, teaching, and leadership), resources, and other contributors to learning could be included in a separate index on 

Learning Conditions, on which progress is also evaluated annually as part of both 

school, district, and state assessment. 

Once school progress indicators are available, a judgment must be made about 

whether a school has made adequate progress on the index or set of indicators. If 

the law is to focus on supporting improvement it will be important to look at continuous progress for all students in a school rather than the ‘‘status model’’ that has 

been used in the past. A progress model would recognize the reasonable success of 

schools that deserve it. Rather than identifying a school as requiring intervention 

when a single target is missed (for example, if 94% of economically disadvantaged 

students take the mathematics test one year instead of 95%), a progress model 

would gauge whether the overall index score increases, with the proviso that the 

progress of key subgroups continues to be examined, with lack of progress a flag 

for intervention. 

The additional use of the indicators schools and districts have assembled would 

be in the determination of what kind of action is needed if a school does not make 

sufficient progress in a year. To use resources wisely, the law should establish a 

graduated system of classification for schools and districts based on their rate of 

progress, ranging from state review to corrective actions to eventual reconstitution 

if such efforts fail over a period of time. States should identify schools and districts 

as requiring intervention based both on information about the overall extent of 

progress from the prior year(s) and on information about specific measures in the 

system of indicators—for example, how many progress indicators have lagged for 

how long. This additional scrutiny would involve a school review by an expert 

team—much like the inspectorate systems in other countries—that conducts an inspection of the school or LEA and analyzes a range of data, including evidence of 

81

individual and collective student growth or progress on multiple measures; analysis 

of student needs, mobility, and population changes; and evaluation of school practices and conditions. Based on the findings of this review, a determination would 

be made about the nature of the problem and the type of school improvement plan 

needed. The law should include the explicit expectation that state and district investments in ensuring adequate conditions for learning must be part of this plan. 

The overarching goal of the ESEA should be to improve the quality of education 

students receive, especially those traditionally least well served by the current system. To accomplish this, the measures used to gauge school progress must motivate 

continuous improvement and attend to the range of school outcomes and conditions 

that are needed to ensure that all students are educated to higher levels. 

ENDNOTES

1See, e.g. L. Darling-Hammond, No Child Left Behind and High School Reform, Harvard Education Review, 76, 4 (Winter 2006), pp. 642-667. http://www.edreview.org/harvard06/2006/

wi06/w06darli.htm

L. Darling-Hammond, From ‘Separate but Equal’ to ‘No Child Left Behind’: The Collision of 

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Stanford, CA: Stanford University, School Redesign Network. 3 Allington, R. L. & McGill-Franzen, A. (1992). Unintended effects of educational reform in 

New York, Educational Policy, 6 (4): 397-414; Figlio, D.N. & Getzler, L.S. (2002, April). Accountability, ability, and disability: Gaming the system? National Bureau of Economic Research. 4W. Haney (2000). The myth of the Texas miracle in education. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8 (41): Retrieved Dec. 8, 07 from: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n41/ 5Smith, F., et al. (1986). High school admission and the improvement of schooling. NY: New 

York City Board of Education; Darling-Hammond, L. (1991). The Implications of Testing Policy 

for Quality and Equality, Phi Delta Kappan, November 1991: 220-225; Heilig, J. V. (2005), An 

analysis of accountability system outcomes. Stanford University. 6For recent studies examining the increases in dropout rates associated with high-stakes testing systems, see Advocates for Children (2002). Pushing out at-risk students: An analysis of 

high school discharge figures—a joint report by AFC and the Public Advocate. http://

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state education reform on schools and classroom. CSE Technical Report. Los Angeles: UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. 18Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, and Pecheone, Multiple Measures. 19M. Smith paper (2007). Standards-based education reform: What we’ve learned, where we 

need to go. Consortium for Policy Research in Education. 20 At least 27 states consider student academic records, coursework, portfolios of student work, 

and performance assessments, like research papers, scientific experiments, essays, and senior 

projects in making the graduation decision. Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, and 

Pecheone, Multiple Measures. 

[Letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) follows:]

May 10, 2007. 

Hon. GEORGE MILLER, Chairman, 

Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. 

Hon. HOWARD ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, Senior Republican Member, 

Ranking Member, Committee on Education and Labor 

Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

RE: Letter for the Record on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Hearing—‘‘Boosting 

Quality in the Teaching Profession’’

DEAR CHAIRMAN MILLER AND RANKING MEMBER MCKEON: On behalf of the 95,000 

school board members who serve the nation’s 48 million students in our local public 

school districts, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) respectfully requests that this letter be entered into the record in conjunction with tomorrow’s important hearing on teaching quality. We commend your leadership in holding a 

hearing on this matter that is inextricably linked to the ability of schools and districts to fulfill the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), particularly raising achievement for all students. 

The research on this matter is clear: no other school-related factor has a greater 

impact on student achievement than the ability of the student’s teacher. In short, 

teachers matter. School districts and states are striving to recruit and retain qualified and effective teachers but face significant targeted staffing challenges. The 

Highly Qualified Teacher requirements within NCLB have added to those challenges in some instances. 

While hiring decisions remain the responsibility of local school boards, NSBA believes that Congress does have a role to play in assisting local school districts and 

83

states in their ongoing efforts to attract, support and retain qualified and effective 

teachers. The needs are particularly acute in high-poverty schools and for certain 

subjects in which teacher shortages are too common, including math, science, special 

education, and classes for English Language Learners. 

NSBA’s legislative recommendations cover recruitment and retention, professional 

development, needed improvements to the Highly Qualified provisions in NCLB, and 

strengthening teacher preparation. While we recognize that there may be several 

legislative vehicles in which Congress can assist districts and states in strengthening teacher quality—including the reauthorizations of NCLB and the Higher Education Act, the TEACH Act, and legislation on U.S. economic competitiveness—we 

wish to take this opportunity to outline our recommendations since your committee 

will be leading efforts on this matter. 

Recruitment and Retention 

Through federal incentives and funding for existing programs, Congress can provide important assistance to supplement districts’ and states’ teacher recruitment 

and retention programs. For example, adequate funding for Title I and especially 

Title II (Improving Teacher Quality State Grants), as well as incentives like the 

Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program need continued support. NSBA also supports 

newer concepts, such as the Teacher Incentive Fund, which can assist district programs that reward teachers and principals who demonstrate positive results in 

high-poverty schools. Such programs can also help foster the creation and expansion 

of differential pay initiatives for teachers of high-need subjects and hard-to-staff 

schools. We also are encouraged by efforts in Congress to provide scholarships for 

undergraduates who commit to teach for several years in hard-to-staff schools or 

high-need subjects, and for experienced teachers who further their education and 

take on added responsibilities, including mentoring. 

Professional Development 

Improving professional development or in-service training is critical to supporting 

and retaining teachers. We recommend partially redirecting NCLB’s focus and funding requirements from unproven sanctions to supporting comprehensive professional 

development programs that can improve teaching and raise student achievement. 

Comprehensive professional development would include analysis of students’ learning needs, intensive induction and mentoring support, and peer collaboration. This 

approach would also result in additional Title I monies available for professional development. 

Highly Qualified Improvements 

States and school districts have made strong progress in their efforts to meet the 

Highly Qualified Teacher requirements within NCLB. Those requirements have also 

added to pre-existing recruitment and retention challenges, particularly for rural 

schools and areas such as special education. The Department of Education has recognized this by granting some flexibility to districts and states, and clarified in the 

IDEA regulations that states can develop a single multi-subject High Objective Uniform State Standards of Evaluation (HOUSSE) to allow special education teachers 

of multiple core subjects to demonstrate subject matter competency in every core 

subject they teach. We recommend that Congress make that provision permanent, 

or permit a special education teacher with full state special education certification 

and a bachelor’s degree to be considered highly qualified. 

Additionally, Congress should streamline existing highly qualified requirements 

by requiring instructional personnel employed by supplemental service providers to 

meet the same requirements as public school educators. Under current law, they are 

not held to the same standard. 

Finally, some states and school districts are attempting to develop accurate and 

appropriate methods, such as ‘‘value added’’ models, for determining and rewarding 

teacher effectiveness. It is a costly and complicated process that requires extensive 

collaboration among key stakeholders, including school boards, administrators and 

teachers, in order to develop a system that is viewed as fair and accurate. Congress 

can assist in this progress by providing funding (through matching grants) for states 

to develop the necessary data systems. Although value-added assessments provide 

information on student performance, they should never be the sole determining factor in evaluating teacher performance, which must include other factors including 

peer and principal evaluations. 

If Congress considers amending the highly qualified definition to take into account a teacher’s effectiveness, NSBA recommends that it be added only as an alternative method by which teachers can meet the standards, not as an additional requirement. This approach could allow teachers who have a track record of success 

in raising student achievement but who may not meet all the current credentialing 

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or subject matter requirements, to be deemed highly qualified. However, because of 

the complexity in developing such systems, Congress might consider creating a demonstration program for interested states wishing to utilize or create a value-added 

model for this purpose. 

Teacher Preparation 

Quality teacher preparation programs, whether traditional or alternative, are an 

integral component to ensuring the nation has an adequate supply of outstanding 

teachers today and in the future. Few would disagree that the nation’s teacher preparation programs have room for improvement. Congress should encourage schools 

of education to collaborate with local school districts to ensure appropriate alignment with NCLB requirements and state academic standards, as well as the proper 

education needed to enable teachers to effectively reach and educate today’s increasingly diverse student body. NSBA also recommends that Congress increase accountability for teacher preparation programs by providing incentives to states to develop 

accountability programs which track the preparedness and success of graduates of 

its teacher preparation programs in raising student achievement (e.g. Louisiana’s 

Teacher Preparation Accountability System). 

Again, we appreciate your leadership and interest in strengthening the efforts of 

school districts and states to recruit, support and retain quality teachers. We look 

forward to working with the Committee on this issue as you consider legislation to 

address these challenges. 

Sincerely, 

MICHAEL A. RESNICK, 

Associate Executive Director. 

[Letter from the National Writing Project follows:]

RICHARD STERLING, 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL WRITING PROJECT, 

May 11, 2007. 

Hon. GEORGE MILLER, Chairman, 

Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

RE: Written Testimony Submitted by the National Writing Project to the House Committee on Education and Labor 

DEAR CHAIRMAN MILLER: Quality professional development can be elusive and 

hard to define, even for an expert teacher. One of our veteran teachers in the National Writing Project, Barbara Smith from Berlin Center, Ohio, confessed to a career-long search for the most useful experience. ‘‘I have participated in more than 

one hundred professional development activities,’’ she said, ‘‘including universitysponsored workshops, national conventions, regional seminars, scholarly presentations, teacher study groups, and two days of teacher inservice training provided 

by my local board of education each school year.’’ In 2000, Barbara found in the 

writing project the program she had been seeking. She describes it this way: ‘‘For 

eight hours each day, and often long into the evenings by choice, we worked together to understand deeply what it takes to be effective in the classroom. We identified barriers to our own learning, and then we broke those barriers to merge into 

a cohesive, caring learning community. We discovered the value of the support our 

colleagues offered. The directors of the institute wove throughout the sessions a 

strong program of theory, academic reading, and analysis of research. We worked 

to design and produce standards-based lessons that reflected the best practices identified in today’s reading and writing research. We became readers and writers and 

researchers of our own teaching practice.’’

Barbara’s summer institute took place at Kent State University. The principles 

behind that institute emerge from the National Writing Project’s 33 years of work 

and experience in the field. These principles also take NCLB into account: 

• Quality professional development programs recognize the complexity of teaching 

academic subjects. The first definition of ‘‘high quality’’ in NCLB is that professional 

development ‘‘improve and increase teachers’ knowledge of the academic subject 

they teach.’’ One way to increase teachers’ knowledge is to give them firsthand experience in their content areas. In other words, teachers need practice ‘‘doing the 

work’’—practice at being a historian, a scientist, a mathematician, or a writer. Writing project summer institutes offer participants the chance to write in multiple 

genres for multiple purposes to gain firsthand knowledge of the kinds of writing 

they teach and the kinds of intervention students may need. To be able to think 

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*Darling-Hammond, L. (1998). Policy and change: Getting beyond the bureaucracy. In A. Hargreaves, A. Lieberman, M. Fullan, & D. Hopkins (Eds.), The international handbook of education 

change (pp. 642-646). The Netherlands: Kluwer. 

and act as writer (or a mathematician or scientist) is essential to effectively teaching complex subjects. 

• Quality professional development programs extend over time. NCLB admonishes that professional development should not be ‘‘short-term workshops or conferences.’’ One example of NCLB’s definition of ‘‘sustained, intensive, and classroomfocused’’ professional development is the writing project summer institute, which 

lasts four weeks. School-year professional development, while less intensive, can run 

from 15 or 30 hours to 2 to 3 years, in the case of school partnerships. The goal 

is that teachers have enough time to develop a repertoire of strategies for teaching, 

to participate in the content of what they teach, and to begin to become researchinformed decision makers. 

• Quality professional development programs take place in a community of professionalism. The assumption here is that teachers have questions and that they do 

think about their practice. During writing project summer institutes, for instance, 

each participant demonstrates a successful lesson or approach, with the theory and 

research to back it up. In a collegial environment, the discussion that follows is both 

supportive and questioning so that all participants can rethink and revise their own 

strategies. Respect for teacher knowledge is key to helping teachers be continuous 

learners. 

• Quality professional development programs intentionally build teacher capacity. 

Linda Darling-Hammond* urges policy makers to shift from ‘‘designing controls intended to direct the system, to developing capacity that enables schools and teachers 

to be responsible for student learning and responsive to diverse and changing student and community needs.’’ In the case of the writing project, writing, researching, 

reflecting on practice, studying student work, examining both the ‘‘how’’ and the 

‘‘why’’ of classroom strategies, talking about how to embed standards—the combination of these activities develops teacher capacity to become informed designers of 

curriculum and of effective techniques for teaching writing and improving student 

learning. 

• Quality professional development programs are co-constructed. Working with 

schools demands that professional development providers co-construct the program 

with those who interact on a daily basis with students. NCLB recognizes this need 

when it recommends that professional development programs be ‘‘developed with extensive participation of teachers, principals, parents, and school administrators.’’ 

Writing projects involve the school community in designing partnerships which 

often include job-embedded activities that teachers find most helpful, for example: 

collaborative planning, classroom coaching, demonstration teaching, study and research groups, school-based writing assessment, curriculum development, inservice 

workshops, and college prep activities. 

On behalf of teachers like Barbara Smith and the over 130,000 others who participated in National Writing Project programs last year, I am pleased to be part of 

the NCLB hearings. The subject of quality professional development is one about 

which we at the National Writing Project know a great deal and are always ready 

to discuss. 

[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

Æ