First, teacher licensure should be competency-based . At each step, teachers are expected to demonstrate their competencies with a portfolio of their work, a series of in-class observations, action research, teaching demonstrations, and testing. Teachers are required to renew their license every five to seven years. Second, schools need to support every teacher with a continual improvement coaching team . Every teacher, no matter how long or how successfully they have been teaching, can improve.
Few actors work without directors honing their skills on stage.
No great athlete competes without a coach. Yet, for most of our history we have provided teachers either with no coaching or with the illusion that the principal would handle it. While principals need to be part of the coaching team, they are so overwhelmed themselves that we cannot count on them exclusively. The plan lays out areas for improvement, action steps, measures of success based on standards of effective instruction, and a schedule for periodic review. The coaching team recognizes and rewards teacher success, provides support and assistance to improve performance, directs teacher action or even intervenes if improvement is not forthcoming, and recommends outplacement or a new career if poor performance and inaction to correct it persist.