School districts across the country long have been experimenting with innovative teacher-personnel policies, including merit-pay plans and contracts that allow for factoring student-performance data into teachers' evaluations. But bold reforms no longer are happening only at the local level. Several states are making significant overhauls in this realm, too.
What's impressive is that such reforms are accumulating bipartisan support. People on both sides of the aisle realize that it's common sense to rethink antiquated systems that protect teachers' seniority above classroom effectiveness and that tie hiring, professional development, compensation and dismissal of teachers to factors unrelated to student achievement. With hundreds and possibly thousands of teacher layoffs sweeping the state, Ohio simply can't afford to sit on the sidelines for this one.
Consider these examples of what's possible.
The Washington, D.C., public schools, under the control of Democratic Mayor Adrian Fenty, and the Washington Teachers Union have reached an agreement on a new teacher contract that installs a voluntary merit-pay component, removes forced hiring and transfers and instead requires "mutual consent" hiring, and reduces seniority's role in layoff decisions to just 10 percent of the equation. Teachers opting into the merit-pay system would be eligible for salaries of $140,000 or more a year. Talk about professionalizing an educator's craft.
Harrison School District 2, in Colorado, just announced that it will replace the traditional salary schedule with a system that bases compensation entirely on two factors: observations of teachers in action and student-achievement data. The district also will create a results-based pay plan for principals after the teacher system is in place.
Also, Colorado lawmakers have approved a bill that requires teachers and principals to be measured by their students' performance. Evaluations will be yearly, and at least 50 percent of the measurement will incorporate student growth data. Tenure for teachers is contingent on effectiveness; teachers receive it after three years of their students' making adequate academic growth. Teachers whose students don't show progress for two years could lose tenure. The bill also requires principals to consent to new hires, rather than those teachers being forced on them. Several Democrats supported the measure, as does Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter (who has indicated he will sign the legislation).
In New York, the state education department and state teachers unions have reached an agreement to tie teachers' evaluations to students' test scores. The new evaluation system will rank teachers into four categories: highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective. New York's system will require that 20 percent of the evaluation be based on students' scores on state exams. And local districts will decide how to measure students' progress on local tests, which will count for another 20 percent.
These reforms of the teaching profession are being implemented at both local and state levels and reflect bipartisan support. Recently a broad coalition of national education groups - the Children's Defense Fund, Democrats for Education Reform, the Education Trust, the National Council on Teacher Quality and the New Teacher Project - came together in support of eliminating "last hired, first fired" policies for teacher layoffs.
The coalition argues that the proposed $23 billion federal "Keep Our Educators Working Act of 2010," which would help stave off the national tidal wave of teacher layoffs, should be paired with a requirement that states and districts put an end to seniority-based dismissals.
As teachers' pink slips paper Ohio, the state should give superintendents the freedom to keep their best teachers, regardless of whether they are outstanding young educators or high-performing veterans. And as Ohio continues to grapple with cuts to education funding, it should take a cue from other districts and states and implement reforms that fundamentally alter the way we recruit, compensate and retain our most effective teachers.
Jamie Davies O'Leary, a former public-school teacher, is a policy and research analyst at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.