Issues

It is undeniable that teachers and support staff play an essential role in providing a high-quality education for students. Therefore it is necessary to provide our students with highly qualified teacher in every classroom. This requires that the state help recruit, train, and retain a highly qualified teaching, paraprofessional, and support staff force.

Every student should have access to a teacher who holds students to high expectations, knows the subject matter, cares deeply about their students, can differentiate instruction, understands how to assess student, uses data to inform instruction, works collaboratively, is supported by a quality administration, and participates in the evaluation and development plans that inform student learning.

There has been much debate recently about what are the characteristics of a quality teacher. Research shows that those who performed best are ushered into the profession through a practical, proven and realistic training process that includes mentoring and professional development. A study conducted by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research found that teacher credential (being highly qualified) and having at least 3 years of teaching experience were positively correlated with student achievement. (Clotfelter et al. 2007) Similarly, Huang and Moon 2009) found that teaching experience at a particular grade level was significantly associated with increased student reading achievement. These are important finding, especially now that trendy policy solutions seek to plug inexperienced teachers into classrooms.

Actions

The following areas will ensure that every student learns from high quality teachers and support staff.

*Professional Teaching Standards: Teaching requires instructors to be masters of content, engaging facilitators, and leaders of a classroom community. Including all stakeholders in developing professional teaching standards will ensure that the expectations and values we set on teachers are reflected in how they are evaluated and how they are supported.

*Teacher Evaluation: When done effectively, evaluating teachers is an extremely important professional development tool. Moreover, every evaluation system must ensure that evaluation and development is designed to improve teaching and learning. As educational experts, a teacher's perspective is essential for deciding what constitutes the principles of "good teaching" and what it takes to improve student achievement. Therefore, it is essential that teachers are involved in developing and implementing evaluative tools including peer assistance and review. Teacher evaluation, like student evaluation, should include mixed measures of success and consist of a combination of teaching standards and student learning variables.

*Positive Learning and Work Environments: Safe, modern, and healthy working environments are conditions that maximize teachers and support staff abilities and are essential for attracting and retaining highly qualified educators.

*Professional Development: Effective teachers are cultivated through high quality, job-embedded professional development that is aligned with appropriate standards and curriculum. Even extraordinary teachers benefit from meaningful professional development that is research-based. Support staff also benefit from meaningful professional development. Investing funds in purposeful professional development is investing in student learning.

*Prepared for Challenges: Working with children requires a variety of skill sets, especially because challenging situations often arise quickly and unpredictably. Therefore staff should receive training in conflict resolution and other techniques to support student and group behaviors.

*Professional Salaries and Benefits: Fairly compensating teachers and staff is essential to retaining quality educators and attracting others to the profession.

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