Milken Family Foundation National Education Conference: How Stakeholders Can Support Teacher Quality

By John Snyder, 1992 Nevada Milken Educator

Following Lowell Milken's keynote speech on Wednesday, "Why Teacher Quality?" was a panel discussion led by Foundation Chairman Lowell Milken on the role of the private sector in enhancing teacher quality.  Six distinguished panelists joined Lowell in providing their perspectives on the issue.

Sandy Kress, a partner in the law firm Aken Gump and a former senior advisor to President Bush on education, agreed that teacher quality is as significant as any single factor can be.  He cited studies that indicate that if a student has a good teacher for five years, the achievement gap closes between the socio-economical haves and the have-nots.  Setting teacher standards was a good start.  Some states are doing better than others in that area, but all could improve.

The private sector's most central role is to influence policy dramatically along the lines that are being addressed at this Conference.  Some of the NCLB "fixes" are weakening the effort; "fixing", he suggested, should involve toughening. He stated that we need some new directions.  Student growth and student achievement is where we should be emphasizing.  We need the private sector to insist that these trends continue.  We need to stress accountability and consequences.

He came up with three areas in which the private sector can make the most significant contribution:

• We need to develop far more effective methods of measurement. They need to be fair and comprehensive.  If we don't know what we need, we can't address the problem.
• We need content-driven professional growth.  We need to communicate research and to put that research into the hands of teachers.
• We need radically different pre-service programs to improve teacher education at the college level.

We also need to address compensation, he said.  When we do, we need to differentiate between high-quality teachers and the rest.  For instance, Texas has passed a bill that provides $100 million to schools that significantly improve performance at low-achieving schools.  Another bill with even more money will go to those who can develop methods for differentiated pay.

Russlyn Ali, the founding director of the Education Trust-West, told us that the teacher quality gap is huge, particularly among students who are Hispanic, black and/or belong to a low socio-economic group.  Home support is admittedly critical, but the difference in funding is enormous between the more affluent schools and the inner city schools.  In addition, things like cost-averaging mask even more differences.  We need to pay attention to research.  The differences between these groups and their more affluent contemporaries include all sorts of things like health care and housing.

We need to restructure our system of data collection so we can draw meaningful conclusions—and on a more timely basis.  She likened the current system of testing to an autopsy:  by the time we have the results, the students are gone for the summer and we can't do anything with what we've learned. Also, reporting to parents is subject to "games."  For instance, she cited a law that states that parents must be informed if their child is being taught by a substitute for four weeks or more.  What actually happens is that the schools simply switch the subs after 19 days, so that no notification is required.

Finally she stressed that we've got to get past blaming and into solutions.  And we've got to have the courage to there.

Richard Lee Colvin, director of educational issues for the Hechinger Institute, said that  skillful, knowledgeable teaching is critical.  He suggested that writing about a problem does not generate much action.  Any question about the media's role must address which media we're talking about—newspapers, TV or magazines.  And in any given medium, which orientation are we dealing with?  News?  Entertainment?  Documentaries?  We also have to consider whether the media has a real role in this process.  Media just reports; it's not the function of media to form public policy.

He suggested five ways the media can help:

• We need to do a better job explaining what good teachers really do in their classroom.
• We need to describe the conditions in schools that are conducive to good teaching.  We don't have a recruitment problem—we have a retention problem.
• We need to highlight the things that really, really bad teachers do.
• Media can write about every policy from the perspective of whether it supports good teaching.
• Media needs to get out a sense of urgency.  We can't allow ourselves to think that nothing can be done.

Jay Greene, head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, related a conversation he had with a taxi driver.  The driver asked Greene what he did, and Jay said he was an educational researcher.  The taxi driver said there are two ways to improve education:  the natural way vs. the miraculous way.  The natural way involves God coming down and making instant changes in teacher quality and student achievement.  The miraculous way involves turning the whole system over to educational researchers.

He points out that funding has been going up, but test scores remain flat.  Why is there such small investment in R&D, he asks.  Why is professional development so weak?  Why is pay so low? The reason, he says, is because we have an improper set of assessments.  We don't reward wise choices vs. poor choices.  We have a faulty theory of philanthropy:  we think that schools that lack resources should just get more money for resources.  Some think that good ideas will naturally be funded, and that once the funding is gone, the schools will take over.  In reality, private philanthropy represents a relatively small percentage of the funds available.  What we've got to ask ourselves, he pointed out, is that if the need is so critical, why are we not already focused on that?The only way philanthropy can effect a systemwide change is to reorganize the incentive system.  Right now, 84 percent of this funding now is just subsidizing programs, rather than providing new solutions.  We need to redirect how public dollars are spent.  He believes that we will be able to do this because there is so much good will among the people in education.  TAP is a major player in this game, but it still has some things left to do, like ramping up publicity and supporting efforts with more rigorous research.  It will enhance credibility, he said, when trying to win support.

Dan Katzir, director of program development at The Broad Foundation, began by saying simply, "Our missionis to improve student achievement."

He stated that Teach for America does an extraordinary job of attracting good teachers and retaining them.  He added that TAP is one thing that his group is helping to get into urban schools.

Compensation incentives is another area in which his foundation is active.  They're looking at discrepancies between "average" salaries and actual salaries.  In a similar panel discussion several months ago, he heard someone assert, "Every survey shows that teachers resist differentiated pay."  Lew Solmon, president of the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, replied at the time,  "Maybe they're interviewing the wrong teachers."  The implication was that they might find other opinions from those who leave the profession, or from those who don't enter it in the first place.

The Broad Foundation is also looking also at data collection and teacher preparation in higher education.  He suggested that we might do well to reconsider the data we have decided to collect, and ended with an intriguing example:  "How much better off would we be if we found out how well the graduates of a given teacher prep program actually do in the classroom?"

Rod Paige, former U.S. Secretary of Education, suggested that we should minimize the difference between public and private funding.  He credited the late U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Jordan with the observation that "We may have come here on different ships, but now we find ourselves in the same boat."

Public education, he pointed out, is for everyone.  We've got to improve our facilities, because good people will not work in bad circumstances.  Content knowledge is important, but he is frustrated that significant parts of the teacher's day must be spent with counseling and paperwork and such.  Simply put, he said, we must gain the civic and political will to effect the change.

The private sector has an intense commitment to purpose and the ability to change directions.  We in the education sector need to learn from that.

Panels like this are a step in the right direction.

For more information on the Conference—including the agenda, bios of Conference presenters, photos and videos—please visit the Milken Family Foundation Web site at www.mff.org.

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this