Joe Morton: Attracting and retaining the “best and brightest” teachers is key
Regardless of whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, a conservative or a liberal, all of us want to see improved student achievement year after year after year across all grades and in all schools in Alabama. Attracting and retaining talented educators is a key to achieving that goal, so, in 2015, the Business Education Alliance of Alabama (BEA) commissioned a research report titled “Teachers Matter: Rethinking How Public Education Recruits, Rewards and Retains Great Educators.” A key section of our report concentrated upon teacher evaluations and compared Alabama’s methodology to those of other states across the nation. We discovered that virtually every state, including ours, uses student improvement in academic achievement as a portion of their teacher evaluations. In some states, student achievement counts for as much as half of a teacher’s evaluation, while in Alabama the pilot program that has not been fully developed comprises just 25 percent, but our study revealed that all states feel it is integral to the overall score. Any state utilizing student academic growth for teacher evaluations must have quality assessments that are fair, relevant and remove any hints of bias. Alabama currently utilizes three such assessments – the ACT exam given to all high school students; the ACT Aspire given to all students in grades 3-8; and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) funded by Congress and given to a fair sampling of students in grades 4 and 8 in all 50 states. The NAEP is called the “Nation’s Report Card,” and it is the only assessment that measures student progress in every state against a true national norm, but it cannot be used for teacher evaluation purposes since it is a “sampling” assessment. The high school ACT and the ACT Aspire can be used for the student academic growth portion of teacher evaluations, and both are already adopted by the State Board of Education. Alabama has a good student assessment program that provides excellent insight into our areas of strength and areas needing improvement. The latest ACT results from Alabama high schools show that roughly 16 percent of our students were ready for college-level coursework by scoring at benchmark levels in English, Mathematics, Reading and Science. The national average of students making benchmark scores on the ACT is 28 percent. The RAISE Act, which stands for “Rewarding Advancement in Instruction and Student Excellence,” is being sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (R – Anniston) and calls for several “firsts” in Alabama while also supporting actions already taken by the State Board of Education. If enacted into law, the RAISE Act will make first year teachers the highest paid in the Southeast and attract more young people to the profession of teaching, provide funding to a first year mentoring program to ensure our new teachers are supported by a veteran teacher, create a rewards program for entire school faculties which gives incentives for either maintaining or improving already high quality results or for schools that show notable improvements in student achievement gains and provide bonuses to teachers who work in hard to staff positions in low performing schools, rural schools or both. It also changes the length of time provided for new teachers to attain tenure from the current three years to five. By combining quality teacher evaluations, a recruitment plan for hard to staff teaching jobs, a program for enhancing first year teacher success with a mentoring program, and a school-based rewards program based upon results, the RAISE Act can build a solid pathway to improved student achievement. If we continue to implement needed education reforms and innovations like the RAISE Act in Alabama’s public schools, every student can one day become career and college ready, and the better prepared workforce that results will allow our state’s economy to continue to grow. Teachers Matter! —- Dr. Joe Morton is a former state superintendent of education and currently serves as chairman and president of the Business Education Alliance of Alabama. He may be reached at jmorton@beaalabama.com.
Joe Morton: Alabama children’s education path clearly is before us
The Business Education Alliance of Alabama unites business and education with dual goals of providing the best education opportunities and skills training available for Alabama’s students and encouraging growth for teachers. The BEA helps provide tools that prepare students for the competitive 21st Century workforce. We at the BEA are pro-business and pro-education because both communities have a shared goal of propelling Alabama into a position of national and international leadership in economic development and education excellence. Recently the TimesDaily and the Decatur Daily encouraged the Alabama Education Association to right its ship, as it likely will. All Alabama education organizations with a goal of uplifting children and supporting professional teachers are invited to work with the BEA towards creating an education system that does not keep children hostage to the past. The BEA works to unite, not divide, business and education so that students and parents are better served and our economy is improved. We are committed to providing accurate and unbiased information to leaders in both the public and private sectors to better determine and implement the best public policies for our state. For example, our August 2015 report, “Teachers Matter: Rethinking How Public Education Recruits, Rewards, and Retains Great Educators,” is a blueprint for reaching the next level. Within the last several years, the forward-looking Alabama Legislature has passed important and effective new education tools that will help Alabama’s students see a brighter future that will uplift them, their families, and the businesses which employ them. One vision was to allow parents to take charge of their children’s educations and create a pathway for students to escape the limited education opportunities within their zip code. Change began in 2013 with passage of the important Alabama Accountability Act. With this law, Alabama joined 12 other states on a new path toward education modernization and excellence. The law provides the opportunity for low-income students to apply for tax credit scholarships that are funded by individual or corporate taxpayers and administered by scholarship-granting organizations. Virtually all of the scholarships in 2014 went to children who qualified for free or reduced-price lunches. In 2015, the Legislature followed up with a public charter school law that local school systems may use to create innovative options and best serve students whose needs are currently unmet. The law allows local school boards to develop public charter schools to help all students. And legislators have made wise investments in high quality pre-Kindergarten, Dual Enrollment, Advanced Placement, Distance Learning, and Career Tech, which prepare students for success on the front end and ensure pathways to college and careers on the back end. These are examples of Alabama’s wishes enacted through our elected officials who see an Alabama moving toward a quality 90 percent high school graduation rate, skilled training for those who do not want to attend traditional college, and education funding free of systemic and crippling proration. Alabama must continue to recruit the jobs of tomorrow that will hire skilled and educated students. To do that, Alabama must concentrate on all students meeting high standards and at a minimum graduating from high school career- and or college-ready. With skilled and educated graduates, Alabama employers can be guaranteed the trained and effective workforce they need in order to remain here, for Alabama’s economy to grow, and for the Education Trust Fund to prosper. Former Alabama State Superintendent of Education Joe Morton, Ph.D., is chairman and president of the Business Education Alliance of Alabama.
