News and Commentary


Press Release:

Press release on February 26, 2007 "Statewide Study of Teaching Corps Finds Stability, Inequity and Need for Additional Supports" Click here (PDF 19.7KB) to learn more.

Paul G. Allen Family Foundation committed $2.25 Million over four years to the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP). The current grant will support phase three of a teacher development and support initiative that serves to improve new teacher induction, training and mentoring practices at districts throughout Washington State. In addition, CSTP will receive $750,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support its efforts, for a combined total of $3 million toward the teacher development and mentoring project. Click here to read the entire press release

Articles:

"Teachers aim for national certification - It boosts their skills -- and their pay" by Jessica Blanchard, Seattle P-I, February 2, 2007

"Program aims to keep new teachers in classrooms", by Judy Chia Hui Hsu, The Seattle Times, January 5, 2007 (PDF 127 KB)

"Investing in teachers benefits everyone" Seattle PI - Letters to the Editor, by Jeanne Harmon, November 22, 2005

"Students won't succeed if teachers don't" Seattle PI Commentary, Jeanne Harmon, Guest Columnist, July 1, 2005

Edmonds teachers staying, study finds, By Eric Stevick, Everett Herald, March 31, 2005 (Please Note: Everett Hearld "Clickshare" account will be needed to view this article. You can register online at www.heraldnet.com. Everett Herald charges for this program.)

Teacher turnover an issue, by Lynn Thompson, Seattle Times Snohomish County Bureau

Teacher turnover rate not so bad, study says by Linda Shaw and Cara Solomon, Seattle Times staff reporters, Seattle Times, March 18, 2005

Legislators must boost teaching by Jeanne Harmon and Rita Chaudhuri, The News Tribune, February 25, 2005

Pros and cons of NBPTs Two local citizens with very different opinions about National Board Professional Teachers.

Honoree "teaches from heart" by Lynn Thompson, Seattle Times, December 15, 2004

Informing State Policy Communities About the Quality of the
Teaching Force: An Interactive "Study Session"

On April 14, 2004, CSTP staff and the UW research team presented a summary of findings from our work at the annual AERA conference in San Diego. To see the slides from this presentation, click here.

Bellingham Herald, October 6, 2003

So, exactly who is teaching our children? Do teachers in Washington have the preparation, skills and support they need to ensure that all of our children excel?

This pair of simple questions should be easy to answer but, unfortunately, they are not. We can easily pull together a wide range of information about the state's 1,000,000 students, but we are stymied when we look for key answers about the 57,000 men and women who teach them.

We need to change that.

For the past decade, Washington has steadily pursued a thoughtful strategy to significantly improve schools. The state built consensus around a set of academic standards — what every student should learn to be successful. It developed good tests to measure the progress students are making toward meeting those standards. It has developed an accountability system to ensure progress.

The state invests billions per year in salaries and professional development for its teachers, yet it has not developed the kind of data system that allows education leaders and policy makers to know whether that investment is paying off or is sufficient.

We want all of Washington's students to reach the high standards we have set for them, and it will be the state's teaching force — current teachers and new ones — who get them there. Research and common sense come together to tell us that the single most important thing schools can do to help students learn is provide them with teachers who know their subjects and how to teach.

As our name implies, the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession has a simple mission — making sure Washington has the teaching force our students need to succeed. We are a new, independent organization whose tools are good research and clear communications. We want to build the capacity in this state for using data to inform policy discussions and decision-making, and to amplify teachers' voices in that discussion.

Our first endeavor was to learn from policymakers and education stakeholders what information they need to make good decisions about teaching quality. Many of them had the same response: make better use of the data we already collect. Find out if what we believe to be true is fact or myth. Do we have a shortage of teachers in Washington? Are our best teachers leaving the profession in droves?

So for the past year, accomplished researchers at the University of Washington have been combing through the available data on the state's teachers. They pored through a range of records, some in databases incompatible with other databases, some on old-fashioned microfiche.

Here are some of their conclusions. Several are departures from conventional wisdom:

• There seems to be no statewide shortage of teachers, although there are some school districts facing shortages.
• There may be many places where there are too few teachers of specific subjects such as mathematics or special education but the state has no way to know that, apart from calling up school districts and asking them.
• Relatively new teachers seem to stay in teaching at about the same rate as other new professionals stay in their fields, although some districts have more trouble than others holding onto teachers.
• Although some teachers are leaving Washington to take jobs in other states, more teachers are applying for certification in Washington from other states, particularly Oregon and California.
• It appears that beginning teachers are being assigned to our poorest students, those with the greatest need for accomplished teachers.

The conclusions from this first round of research prompt us to focus our next research and communication effort on aspects of teaching quality other than shortages and recruitment. There is so much more to know. We need to know how teachers are managing and monitoring student learning. We need to know if teachers benefit from the professional development underwritten by the state and school districts. Less than half of our seventh graders achieved proficiency on the 2003 WASL reading and math tests. We need to know what kind of investment in training and support will ensure a teaching force capable of getting these students to the levels of proficiency we're expecting of them by 2008.

These are things we can only know if we invest in more research and better data systems. It's up to Olympia to provide data systems that generate better information on our teaching force. The Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession is committed to making a significant investment in research to improve teaching and learning, and to helping Washingtonians learn about our findings so they can make informed decisions.

Jeanne Harmon is the Executive Director of the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP). For more information on Washington's teaching force, download the full report, Who's Teaching Washington's Children?