EACH Teacher

Goal: Prepare, recruit, support and retain highly effective educators.

2.1) TRANSFORM THE PIPELINE: REINVENT THE SYSTEM FOR RECRUITING AND TRAINING NEW TEACHERS.

a. Recruit great people in greater numbers.
The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. California will need about 100,000 new teachers in the next ten years, or 1/3 of the State's entire teaching workforce. The state should invest in an aggressive outreach program to recruit great people into teaching. The current teacher recruitment and training funnel in California is too limited, chasing away qualified potential teachers and failing to actively attract people into the profession. California should invest in a teacher recruitment campaign and expand its partnerships with organizations that recruit the best and brightest into the profession.
b. Train them well, and prove it. California must improve its teacher preparation programs and support development of alternate pathways and career ladders to train teachers. Beginning in 2011-12, the new longitudinal data system should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of each pathway and as a decisive factor to certify or decertify credential issuers. Accreditation of teacher preparation programs should be rigorous and results-based, not perfunctory, automatic, or self-reported.

2.2) ELEVATE THE PROFESSION: ENSURE TEACHER SUPPORT, DEVELOPMENT, AND SUCCESS.

a. Support each teacher's ability to do his or her best work over the long term.
The time is right for change in the teaching profession. Teaching must be highly-valued, rewarding work with meaningful opportunities for professional growth and advancement. Each effective teacher should be valued, challenged, and provided with opportunities to deepen his or her practice, and provided with career ladders that encourage progress as a professional. To catalyze change in this area, the State should create an innovation fund to provide long-term, competitive grants that support the reinvention of teaching as a dynamic, highly-valued 21st century profession. Financial incentives should be provided to districts willing to re-negotiate their practices in recruiting, placing, supporting, and evaluating teachers.
b. Professionalize teacher compensation.
Pay is not the only thing that matters to teachers – but it does matter. Now is the time for California to join the national megatrend toward reinvention of teacher pay. Pay systems should provide incentives to attract and retain the teachers that each district needs in the schools and subjects where they can help the most. Compensation should support and reinforce district-based, locally-negotiated systems of professional support and evaluation. To make room for such strategic rethinking about the purpose of pay, the state should encourage each district to eliminate incentives for things that make no difference to student learning, such as exact number of years in the profession and numbers of school credits earned. Differentiation of teacher compensation should be linked to things that matter, such as effectiveness with students and willingness to take on difficult assignments or additional responsibilities.

Report

EACH: A Vision for California's Future
Full Circle Fund, January 2010
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