Recognising and Rewarding Accomplished Teaching: Where are we at?

1. Recognising and Rewarding Accomplished Teaching: Where are we at? Lawrence Ingvarson Australian Council for Educational Research

2. AITSL: Current developments • Certification of Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers: Principles and Procedures, April 2012 • Australian Teacher Performance and Development Framework: Consultation Proposal, April, 2012

3. AITSL: Current developments • One-off bonus payments in 2014 for 8000 teachers who have been assessed against the standards in 2013; $7500 for Highly Accomplished and $10,000 for Lead Teachers. • Annual appraisal of every teacher in every school

4. Teacher Quality Assurance Filters/Mechanisms Teacher Education Induction PD Entry standards Accreditation Professional certification standards Registration standards Graduate standards

5. Current context: The COAG National Agreement on Quality Teaching Priority areas for reform: • Developing and enhancing the skills and knowledge of teachers and school leaders throughout their careers • Retaining and rewarding quality teachers and school leaders • Improved mobility of the Australian teaching workforce and equitable distribution of quality teachers across schools

6. There is a disconnect between policy rhetoric about the importance of teacher quality and the reality

7. Table 12: Share of Year 12 offers by ATAR band for each field of education, February 2012

9. Current Salary Structures • Limitations • Low ceiling: top of incremental scale less than 1.5 times starting salary (More than 2.5 in Korea and Japan) • Salary and status turn off able graduates who would make good teachers • Weak incentives and recognition for professional development • Weak instrument for ensuring widespread use of successful teaching practices and lifting student learning outcomes • Does not create a strong market for accomplished teachers • Advantages • Predictable costs • Easily administered • Stabilizes teaching force

10. Productivity Commission Report, April 2012 Considerable rigidities in remuneration arrangements remain. In most jurisdictions, teachers still reach the top of the pay scale in around 10 years. And there is relatively little explicit differentiation in teachers’ pay on the basis of either performance or shortages in particular subject areas. Increases in teachers’ pay do not appear to have kept pace with those in other professions. Indeed, the evidence is that, since 1995, there has been no increase in the average real salaries of Australia’s more experienced teachers.

11. ATTITUDES TO TEACHING AS A CAREER: A SYNTHESIS OF ATTITUDINAL RESEARCH (DEST, 2006) • The most significant factors influencing people not to choose teaching, and to leave the profession were extrinsic factors such as remuneration, workload, employment conditions and status. • Secondary students who did not want to become teachers said that teaching is highly demanding, draining work with long hours, badly behaved children, low pay, and critical parents (DEST 2003). • High academic achievers (DEST 2003) especially cited the salary, promotional pathways and status of teaching as too low. Students who weren’t considering teaching as a career said they would be more likely to do so if it paid more, the workload was reduced, it provided better prospects for promotion, and there was more mobility within the profession (DEST 2003). DEST 2002 also emphasised the importance of a career path. • A survey of teachers (MCEETYA 2003) identified improved remuneration, promoting image/status of teaching, improved teacher training and improved teaching conditions other than pay, as important in attracting new teachers.

12. OECD TALIS International Survey of Teachers In Australia • 63% of teachers believed appraisals were largely done to fulfil administrative requirements; • over 90% of teachers did not think they would receive increased rewards (financial or non-financial) if they improved the quality of their teaching, or were more innovative in their approach; • 42% of teachers stated that persistent poor performance of a teacher would be tolerated by the rest of the staff and 70% stated that in their school these teachers would not be dismissed; and • 61% of teachers reported that teacher appraisal had little impact on the way they teach in the classroom.

13. There is a disconnect between international research on high performing countries and current practice in Australian education

14. Building a High-Quality Teaching Profession Lessons from around the World Designing effective pay systems and career pathways for promoting and rewarding accomplished teaching Background Report for the International Summit on the Teaching Profession 2011 http://fulltextreports.com/2011/03/16/building-a-high-quality-teaching-profession-lessons-from-around-the-world/

15. Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education Lessons from PISA (OECD 2010) As a country’s goals move from the delivery of basic skills and rote learning to the delivery of advanced, complex skills, they increasingly need: • more educated teachers, • more professional forms of work organisation and accountability, • more developed forms of professional practice, and • high status career paths for accomplished teachers. The consistent message: Strengthen teaching as a profession

17. Reward Payments for Great Teachers REWARD PAYMENTS FOR GREAT TEACHERS A re-elected Gillard Labor Government will implement Australia’s first national system of performance assessment and pay to reward the very best classroom teachers.

18. Types of performance pay • Merit pay • Bonus pay • Quota based • Emphasis on VAM • Standards-based • Certification linked to career stages • Emphasis on quality of teaching

19. ALP Federal Election Policy“Reward Payments for Great Teachers” • AITSL to develop the performance management system (“The Australian Teacher Performance Management Principles and Procedures”) • Performance bonus of $8000 for 10% of teachers each year • Methods; • Lesson observation • Analysis of student performance data (e.g. NAPLAN) • Parental feedback • Teacher qualifications and professional development • $1.25billion over five years • $50million to states and territories “to make necessary changes”

20. Do financial incentives improve teacher effectiveness? Several recent studies indicate that teacher ONE-OFF BONUS performance pay schemes do not raise student test scores E.g. • National Centre for Performance IncentivesVanderbilt University http://www.performanceincentives.org/index.aspx • N.Y.C. Ends Merit-Pay Program • Texas Merit Pay Pilot Fails to boost student scores • Chicago: Performance-Pay Model Shows No Evidence of lifting student achievement on math and reading tests

21. OECD Findings from PISA • No clear link between performance pay for teachers and raising standards in schools. • Top-performing school systems on PISA are likely to have teachers who are well-paid and have high social status. • Raising achievement in schools depended on attracting the best students into teaching with "status, pay and professional autonomy". • Raise teacher status to improve schools

22. THE CHALLENGE: A Profession-run national certification system Developing a profession of teaching capable of: • defining standards for effective teaching based on successful teaching practices, • promoting development toward those standards • identifying those who reach the standards, and • providing recognition and reward for them

23. Needed: Leadership at the level of the profession • While leadership at the level of each school and the school system is important, another kind of leadership is needed – one that operates at the level of the profession and can speak with authority and on equal terms with policy makers.   • The ability to develop and apply teaching standards is the main means by which teachers can prove their credentials as a profession • A professional certification system provides a means by which the teaching profession can provide valuable leadership

24. A Standards-Based Professional Learning and Certification System

25. A Standards-based Professional Learning and Certification System Main components: • High Teaching standardsthat articulate what teachers should get better at and provide direction for professional development over the long term • A rigorous, voluntary system of advanced professional certificationbased on valid methods forassessing teacherperformance against the standards • Career pathsthat value good teaching and provide substantial incentives and for teachers to attain the standards for certification • An infrastructure for professional learningthat enables teachers to gain the knowledge and skill embodied in the teaching standards

26. What is Professional Certification? An endorsement that a professional body gives to a member who has attained a specified set of performance standards Certification system: • a system for defining high-quality teaching standards, promoting development towards those standards and identifying those who reach them for recognition by employers

27. Characteristics of Advanced Professional Certification Systems • Profession-wide– provided by an independent professional body, not employer (e.g Engineers Australia) • Voluntary and available to all members of that profession • Based on assessment of performance; it is not an academic qualification • Portable, not specific to particular employing authorities • Belongs to the person; it is not a job or position specific to a school or employer

28. Example: Chartered Engineer Engineering Australia offers members a professional career structure from graduate engineer through to Chartered Engineer. “Chartered Status stands for the highest standard of professionalism, up-to-date expertise, quality and safety, and for the capacity to undertake independent practice and to exercise leadership within the engineering team.” Through its Chartered status, Engineering Australia aims to provide a certification that employers value. In fact it aims to provide members with an ‘internationally recognised badge of competence, benchmarked and transferable with standards applicable in other parts of the world’. A professional career is not necessarily the same as a career with a particular employer

29. If a standards-based certification system was working well, what would we see? • Teachers would regard the standards as challenging and worth pursuing as a guide to professional learning. • Most teachers would seek professional learning experiences that helped them reach the standards • Teachers would regard the assessment methods as valid, reliable and fair • Employing authorities would regard certification as a reliable basis for recognising and rewarding accomplished teachers • It would lead teachers who could not attain the standards to consider other occupations

30. What would a rigorous national professional certification system mean for your school? • Groups of teachers help each other prepare for certification • They seek feedback about how well they meet the standards • Builds a stronger professional community – deprivatisation of teaching • Greater incentives to update professional knowledge • Provide a more valid and fairer basis for “high stakes” teacher assessment • Removes the onerous task of high stakes assessment of staff members from principals • Provides a respected professional qualification • Teachers who realise they will not attain the standards may consider other occupations • Lift quality of learning opportunities for students

31. A Standards-Based Professional Learning and Certification System

32. Steps in developing teaching standards Defining good teaching Capturing good teaching Assessing good teaching • Describing the standards • Domains • Standards • Elaborations • Standards-based assessments: • Methods for gathering evidence about knowledge and practice • Setting standards: • Training assessors • Defining levels of performance • Benchmarks and rubrics

33. The decathlon as an example of what is involved in developing a standards-based performance assessment system

34. Who is the World's Greatest Athlete? The Decathlon decides • The decathlon is an athletic event consisting of ten track and field events. Events are held over two consecutive days and the winners are determined by the combined performance in all. Performance is judged on a points system in each event, not by the position achieved. • Traditionally, the title of World's Greatest Athlete has been given to the man who wins the decathlon.

35. Main components of a set of standardsfor great all-round athlete (decathlon) Guiding conception: the “great all-round athlete” • Content standards • What constitutes a great all-round athlete? • strength • speed • stamina • endurance • perseverance • How will we gather evidence? • Day 1 • 100 metres • Long jump • Shot Put • High Jump • 400 metres • Day 2 • 110 Metres Hurdles • Discus • Javelin • Pole Vault • 1500 Metres • Performance standards • Setting standards • Levels of performance (benchmarks) • Training assessors

36. Benchmark levels needed to earn1000, 900, 800, and 700 points in each sport.

37. Example of a Poorly Written Standard Accomplished teachers use a variety of teaching strategies

38. Example of a Well-Written Standard (for teaching science) • Highly accomplished teachers of science guide their students in active inquiry which leads students to observe and measure phenomena, formulate hypotheses, record data and reach tentative conclusions consistent with data collected. Their students reflect on the knowledge that results and consider ways to refine the investigation. They analyse and evaluate the evidence they have collected in order to check the validity of their findings.

39. Driven by a vision of high quality learning of something worth learning Point to a large, meaningful “chunk” of teachers’ work Context-free: something teachers should be able to do no matter where they teach Non-prescriptive about how to teach Point to something measurable Characteristics of Well-Written Standards

40. National Professional Standards for Teachers

41. A Standards-Based Professional Learning and Certification System

42. Independently gathered: Classroom observations Student rating forms Standardised tests of student achievement (e.g. Value-added) School records Supervisor reports Teacher provided: Student learning over time Videotapes of classroom interaction Subject-specific pedagogical knowledge Records of contribution to school operations Types of evidence about teacher knowledge and performance Passive role for teacher Active role for teacher

43. Examples of portfolio entries for primary teachers • Provide evidence of a unit of work, with student writing samples, in which you have developed student’s writing ability over time. • Develop an inter-disciplinary theme and provide work samples that show how you engage students in work over time that deepens their understanding of an important idea in science. • Provide a videotape and commentary illustrating how you create a climate that supports students’ abilities to understand perspectives other than their own. • Provide evidence, through a videotape, written commentary, and student work samples, of how you have help build students’mathematical understanding. • Provide documented evidence that you have presented two of the above portfolio entries to a group of colleagues at a staff seminar in your school. Comment on what you learned.

44. Example of a Portfolio Entry Assessment Task:Active Scientific Inquiry To the candidate for certification: Provide evidence, through both a videotape and a written commentary, of how you engage and support students in a discussion that involves the interpretation of data collected during an investigation of an important scientific concept.

45. Portfolio entry:Teaching a major idea in science Activity 1 Introductory phase Activity 2 Development phase Activity 3 Summation phase Student A Student B Student A Student B Student A Student B

46. Links between teaching standards and performance assessment tasks Knowledge of subject Ability to plan for effective learning Knowledge of students Portfolio entry: Engaging Students in Scientific Inquiry Ability to reflect insightfully on effectiveness of their teaching Ability to engage students in a sequence of learning activities Ability to assess student progress and provide helpful feedback

47. Example of an Assessment of Professional Knowledge Exercise 1: Supporting Reading Skills • In this task teachers are asked to demonstrate their ability to analyse and interpret student errors and patterns of errors in reading. • Teachers are asked to analyse and interpret a transcript of a given student's oral reading of a given passage. Teachers are also asked to identify and justify appropriate strategies to address the identified student's needs.

48. Assessing Professional KnowledgeAn example from CHILE (Primary) 1. Describe (a) the “Whole language” approach and (b) the “Phonics approach” to teach how to read during the first years of schooling. 2. Design an activity that integrates both approaches in a first grade classroom.

49. A Standards-Based Professional Learning and Certification System

50. Research on Motivation (Daniel Pink) For simple, routine predictable tasks – bonuses work But, for tasks requiring even rudimentary cognitive skill – the higher the incentive the worse the performance The secret to high performance is not extrinsic rewards and punishment but intrinsic drive to do things better because they matter.