When educational reform is in the air, some organizations make strong, positive adjustments and others spin their wheels in the bog of indecision. Teach For America has read the wind and is making the right adjustments so that TFA teachers are able to cause children to succeed in a performance-based world that demands increased academic performance. Teach for America infuses growth modeling into its teacher preparation and teacher supervision practices and is moving the metrics of student learning.
Growth models for improving student learning are a significant tool for planning, monitoring and evaluating the cause and effect relationships between instruction and learning, according to a Pearson white paper. Growth models
• “conceptually align well with one of the fundamental goals of education – student learning,
• provide richer information on student learning than a single score at one point in time because they connect scores from multiple assessments, and
• focus on the educational development of individual students.”
http://www.pearsonassessments.com/hai/Images/tmrs/Student_Growth_WP_083111_FINAL.pdf
A general rule states that if you always do what you always have done, you only will get more of what you always have gotten. Educational reforms demand improvements in student learning achievement. Improvements typically are not achieved through typical and usual efforts, but require commitment to and intentional execution of actions focused on desired results. Getting schools and school districts to adopt new strategies has not been easy.
“Since 2005, 15 states have been approved (by the US Department of Education) to implement a growth model pilot. The states adopted one of four distinct models—Trajectory, Transition Tables, Student Growth Percentiles, and Projection—each with some drawbacks,” reports the American Institute for Research in their study of the effects of the No Child Left Behind legislation. The report says that each model has drawbacks as well as virtues. However, the data derived from these pilots have become bogged with comparisons of incomparable models, a federal definition of school proficiency based upon the percentage of students passing a single test, the inadequacy of state tests, the inadequacy of state academic standards, and the politicization of public knowledge of a teacher’s record in causing assigned students to achieve proficiency on state tests. The result is a general understanding that growth modeling can validate changes in educational achievement if policymakers can settle upon a clean set of rules. In the absence of correlated policy and program, individual organizations have had to find their own way forward.
“Teach For America now unabashedly defines effectiveness in terms of how its teachers’ students perform. All corps members are expected to reach at least one of these goals: move student learning forward by 1.5 grade levels, close achievement gaps by 20 percent, or ensure that 80 percent of students have met grade-level standards.”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/09/11/03tfa_ep.h29.html
Taken separately, the TFA expectations for what quality teaching should do are wholly aligned with most school district goals.
1. Moving student learning forward by 1.5 grade levels understands that typical regression from the previous summer vacation means that a gross growth of 1.5 grade levels per school year nets at about 1.0 grade levels of growth. Setting the metric for growth in student learning at 1.5 years fits into the reality of a child’s educational experience.
2. In addition, past learning achievement has not moved most children forward at 1.0 grade levels per school year. In fact, by the time most children reach sixth grade their tested achievement levels typically are still in the fourth grade. By the time children reach tenth grade, their tested achievement levels are still in the middle of middle school. Setting the metric for growth in student learning at 1.5 can counterbalance underachievement in prior school years.
3. Achievement gaps are closed over time by combining growth models instruction with instruction that strengthens vocabulary, background information, and developmental skills sets. This is not accomplished in a single school year or, in fact in several. Achievement gaps that derive from learning disabilities, non-English backgrounds, and poverty and its educational distractions require many years of consistent and constant work.
4. In combination with 1 – 3, ensuring that 80 percent of children successfully can perform grade-level standards keeps a forward instructional press for quality instruction. To restate this TFA expectation, at least 80 percent of children in a grade level will be able to successful perform all of the learning standards relevant to that grade level.
The Teaching for Leadership Comprehensive Rubric combines many aspects of the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching. Dr. Danielson is a nationally-recognized leader in identifying and validating effective instructional practices of classroom teachers. Many school districts have adopted the Danielson Framework in their professional development programs. TFA moves beyond teacher knowledge of effective teaching practices to evaluating teachers on student learning growth based upon quality teaching practices.
http://www.teachingasleadership.org/sites/default/files/TAL.Comprehensive.Rubric.FINAL.pdf
http://www.danielsongroup.org/userfiles/files/downloads/2013EvaluationInstrument.pdf
The TFA improvement strategy will not immediately reverse the history of under- or poorly-achieving schools. As Stephanie Hirsh, executive director of the National Staff Development Council, states “If you build the strongest possible induction model for people that come with this background, and equip them with the technology of teaching, will that help individuals improve? Yes, and I think TFA shows evidence of that.” TFA assures that teachers trained under its design have the skills to be effective teachers, but TFA does not address the professional development of veteran teachers. TFA leadership believes that, “Ultimately, our schools and districts should be taking that on.”
The common denominator in developing educational accountability systems is an annual measurement of student learning growth. Teach For America is demonstrating that criterioned-teaching focused upon criterioned-learning growth is a very viable strategy for causing improvements in student learning.