LET’S GET SERIOUS ABOUT TEACHER QUALITY: THE NEED FOR A NEW CAREER ARCHITECTURE FOR AUSTRALIA’S TEACHERS Dean’s Lecture 27th September 2011

Professor Stephen Dinham OAM Chair of Teacher Education |

Director Learning and Teaching

Melbourne Graduate School of Education

This old house ...

When you bought your house it was old but sound. It suited your needs.

Over the years it served you well but maintenance was allowed to slip and problems began to appear – floor coverings, leaks, electrical, rot, painting, paving, fencing.

You are now faced with a decision. Do you patch it up yet again, invest some serious money in

bringing the house back into good working order or do something more drastic?

Until the mid-1960s the view was that schools made almost no difference to student achievement, which was largely pre-determined by socio-economic status, family circumstances and innate ability (Coleman Report, 1966). However, research has powerfully refuted that

view. We now know that teachers, teaching and

schools [can] make a significant difference to student learning and development.

Background: Teachers and Schools Do Make a Difference

As a result, there has been a major international emphasis on improving the quality of teachers and teaching since the 1980s. We now know how teacher expertise develops

and we know what good teaching looks like. However we also know that teacher quality varies widely within schools and across the nation. A quality teacher in every classroom is the

ultimate aim, but how to achieve this is the big question and challenge.

Teachers and Schools Do Make a Difference

Teachers and Schools Do Make a Difference

'Thus, the major challenge in improving teaching lies not so much in identifying and describing quality teaching, but in developing structures and approaches that ensure widespread use of successful teaching practices: to make best practice, common practice.'

– Dinham, Ingvarson & Kleinhenz (2008)

The Declaration articulates two important goals for education in Australia: ◦ Goal 1: Australian schooling promotes equity and

excellence ◦ Goal 2: All young Australians become:

■ successful learners ■ confident and creative individuals ■ active and informed citizens.

The Melbourne Declaration (2008)

*Dinham (2008) ACER Press http://shop.acer.edu.au/acer-shop/product/A4066BK

' …the focus of every school, every educational system and every education department or faculty of education – [should be] student learning and achievement.' (Dinham, 2008: 1).

What are we here for?

Four Fundamentals of Student Success (Dinham, 2008)*

FOCUS ON THE STUDENT

(Learner, Person)

LEADERSHIP

QUALITY

TEACHING

PROFESSIONAL

LEARNING

The Importance of the Teacher

‘... the most important factor affecting student learning is the teacher. ... The immediate and clear implication of this finding is that seemingly more can be done to improve education by improving the effectiveness of teachers than by any other single factor’.

Wright, S.; Horn, S. & Sanders, W. (1997). 'Teacher and Classroom Context Effects on Student Achievement: Implications for Teacher Evaluation', Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 11, pp. 57-67.

It’s the Teacher …

It’s the Teacher …

‘The quality of teaching is the main driver of successful student learning outcomes.

Australia’s teaching profession and its schools constitute an infrastructure that is critical to its survival in an increasingly global economy.

Every student deserves teachers who are suited to teaching, well trained and qualified, highly skilled, caring and committed to moving forward the learning of their students.’

– Dinham, Ingvarson & Kleinhenz (2008)

' … school improvement by itself has potential to make an enormous difference in the lives of children even if broader social change is slow in coming. The children who depend most on good schooling for academic growth are the least likely to receive it. If school improvement begins early in life and if sustained, the most disadvantaged children stand to benefit most. This reasoning suggests that increasing the amount and the quality of schooling to which these children have access would reduce inequality in academic achievement.'

Raudenbush, S. (2009). ‘The Brown Legacy …’ , Educational Researcher , 38(3), 171.

Teachers’ Professional Learning: The basis for student learning

'… teacher professional learning needs to be built upon an evidential foundation of what works in teaching, not fad, fantasy, idealism, ideology or rhetoric'.

– Dinham, S. (2008). Innovative and effective professional learning for student accomplishment, Curriculum Corporation of Australia

conference, Melbourne, 19th June.

… an age of evidence

Pre-Service / In-service Education

• What is needed: – Strong evidence base to education of teachers and

students – Close, respectful, productive and meaningful partnerships – Producing critical and informed users and gatherers of

research and data – Put fads, superstitions, habits, ‘trendy nonsense’ to the test – Know every student as a learner and person – Clinical approaches – Break cycle of teachers thinking and teaching as they were

taught – Above all: impact on student learning and development

• See http://www.education.unimelb.edu.au/mteach/

Traditional • Formal pre-service • ad hoc, on the job • Professional associations • Informal self-directed • Formal in-service • Formal postgraduate study

Types of Teacher Learning

Alternative Approaches • Action research • Action learning • Formal mentoring • Professional standards/certification (mandatory,

voluntary) • Professional learning modules • Learning communities • Communities of practice

Types of Teacher Learning

From …………….….…….… To Centralised Decentralised System responsibility Individual, collective responsibility Off the shelf Tailored Generalised Contextualised Off site, apart On site, embedded Input Outcomes Passive Interactive External expert External partner Individual learning Community learning Theory based Problem based Transactional Relational Changing things Changing people Learning by seeing, hearing Action learning Using research Doing research Broad focus Student/learning focus

Trends in Teacher Learning

Leadership - the ‘Big Enabler’

Leadership is Important

The more leaders focus their influence, their learning, and their relationships with teachers on the core business of teaching and learning, the greater their influence on student outcomes. (Robinson, Lloyd & Rowe, 2008).

Instructional leadership refers to those principals who have their major focus on creating a learning climate free of disruption, a system of clear teaching objectives, and high teacher expectations for teachers and students. … It is school leaders who promote challenging goals, and then establish safe environments for teachers to critique, question and support other teachers to reach these goals together that have the most effect on student outcomes. (Hattie, 2009).

Leadership is Important

Ask anyone who has had one or more years working in a school whether leadership has made a difference in their work and the answer will be an unhesitating ‘Yes’. No matter who the respondent is … they all seem to know good (and bad) leadership when they experience it. (Wahlstrom & Louis, 2008).

Leadership matters and is changing … School leadership needs to be smart; it needs to be evidence-based and shared. (Mulford, 2008)

Leadership is Important

I … advance the following three arguments. First, leadership matters …Second, leadership is inclusive …Third, leadership practices can be taught and learned. (Reeves, 2008)

Today, the prime focus for any educational leader must be on the academic, personal and social advancement of his or her students. Everything done in a school should be geared to impact in some way on facilitating student achievement, the true core business of teachers and schools. ... The challenge for educational leaders is thus to make things happen in their school and to penetrate the often closed classroom door. While principals are important leaders, they are not the only leaders in schools. Other leaders, formal and informal, through distributed leadership, also play important roles in facilitating student learning. (Dinham, 2009).

Quality teaching matters Leadership is the big enabler Professional Learning is essential The best classrooms, departments, schools, and even

systems have a central focus on students as learners and people

Educational systems, leaders and teachers need to plan, proceed, assess, evaluate and modify as necessary ON THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE.

Data is not just about compliance – it is about improvement Vision is important but it must rest on evidence.

The Essential Messages

Driving, recognising and rewarding quality teaching: Engaging with the AITSL Agenda

Overview

• The key role of standards • Salary and career structures that drive, recognise and

reward professional accomplishment: a new architecture is needed

What is a Standard?

What is a Standard?

• Standards for products and technical processes: minimum specifications

• Standards for people: professional knowledge, capabilities, actions

‘First Generation’ Professional Standards (after Leithwood & Steinbach)

• Bottom up • ‘Shopping list’ of duties • ‘Atomised’ • Competencies • Check lists • Compliance (minimal) • Standardisation • Judgement

‘Second Generation’ Professional Standards (after Leithwood & Steinbach)

• Top down • Start with broad, over-arching policies, goals

– Domains (major aspects of role) – Capabilities (aspirational/developmental) – Elements (illustrative, not exhaustive)

• Frameworks preferred to standards – Less prescriptive – Dynamic – Future focussed/aspirational – Contextual

• Higher order than duty statements or codes of practice

In Australia

• Much work over past decades by professional associations, employers, jurisdictions has led to many sets of standards/frameworks for teachers, leaders, principals

• Mixture of content and performance standards • Different models • Various uses and misuses • This work hasn’t been wasted • Migration to ‘second generation’, generic standards

Driving Improvement in Teacher Quality and Student Learning: The Major Outcome

• Previous attempts to drive improvement in teacher quality and to attract, retain, recognise and reward accomplished teachers (e.g., AST) have largely failed.

• Seemingly simplistic measures such as paying teachers on ‘merit’ or by ‘results’ are also doomed to fail. One-off bonuses don’t work. (see later)

• Rewarding/punishing schools makes little sense when teacher quality varies more within than between schools.

• Present incremental salary and career structures for teachers are 19th-century industrial artefacts that see teachers’ salaries peak too soon and at too low a level.

What’s wrong with the current system?

• At present, more than three-quarters of Australia’s teachers are at the top of incremental salary scales where they earn less than one-and-a-half times the salary of a beginning teacher. This difference is too small.

• There is a hidden resignation spike associated with the top of salary scales.

• David Berliner has suggested that moving from novice status to achieving competence as a teacher takes around two to three years. The development of a high level of skill, however, takes five to seven years and a great deal of work.

What’s wrong with the current system?

What’s wrong with the current system?

‘Present arrangements in teaching do not encourage, reward or indeed require advanced professional learning.

It is clear that there is a broad consensus that action is needed to radically strengthen procedures for recognising and rewarding teachers who reach high teaching standards.’

– Dinham, Ingvarson & Kleinhenz (2008)

• We need to address teacher quality at every step of the teacher career progression i.e., at every key point of leverage.

– Dinham, S. (2008). ‘Driving Improvement in the Quality of Australian Education: Points of Leverage’, Australian College of Educators, Victorian Branch Oration, University of Melbourne, 15th August. http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079&context=stephen_dinham&sei-redir=1#search=%22Driving+Improvement+in+the+Quality+of+Australian+Education:+Points+of+Leverage%22

• Assessing teachers’ performance in valid, reliable and credible ways is far more difficult and complex than many people realise, especially when this is intended to take place across the Australian educational landscape, as it should. It can be done, however (see later).

What’s wrong with the current system?

A National Bonus Scheme for Teachers?

• ‘Top’ 10% • One-off • Cost (bonuses only) = $425m • Issues:

– How to select/identify/assess? – Quotas? Nomination? Principal selection? How many need to be

assessed to select c25,000 recipients? 50,000? 70,000? More? – Potentially a (costly) nightmare to administer. – Default/easy way out: school quotas – Will possibly recognise and reward if the processes are sound, but won’t

help attract, retain, and drive overall improvement in teacher quality. – However, could have negative consequences.

• No one plans their career and professional development on the basis of a possible, unknown cash bonus some time in the future.

1. Introduction of national teaching standards and certification.

2. Attracting, developing, retaining, rewarding our best teachers.

Can Two Agendas be Combined?

Dinham, Ingvarson & Kleinhenz (2008) BCA

• In a report for the BCA, Dinham, Ingvarson and Kleinhenz (2008) suggested that equilibrium in a national certification system for Australia’s teachers would see around 30% of teachers at the Highly Accomplished level and 10% at the Lead (Teacher) level. The remaining 60% of teachers would be seeking or have gained certification at the mandatory Proficient/registered level.

• After 10 years, approximate equilibrium would be reached at which time retired teachers and/or teachers not retaining higher optional certification would be balanced by newly certified teachers.

A new national salary career structure for teachers

A Standards-based Career Structure (BCA, 2008)

A Pipe Dream?

• Universities have had such a broadly consistent and (inter)nationally recognised model for many decades, with five levels (Tutor [A] - Professor [E]), around 25 salary steps, along with allowances and rewards for higher duties and positions of responsibility.

• The system still allows for flexibility. • A Professor typically earns 2.75 times the salary of a first

step Tutor, a ratio consistent with the differentiation between the salary of a first year teacher and a Lead(ing) Teacher suggested in Figure 1 / BCA report.

• Need for performance standards (not just content) • Capabilities (not just competencies) • Contexts of teaching/leadership • How assessed • Who assesses • Portability (mutual recognition; retention) • Currency e.g. 5 years • Maintenance i.e. demonstrated professional learning,

accomplishment • Integration into existing awards and salary/career structures • Cost (although savings as older teachers exit)

Other Issues

• It is essential that the assessment processes at each level are valid, reliable and credible within and across the profession. The assessment process should be based upon the national standards and include observation of teaching and school visitations as well as ‘off-site’ assessment and validation across school and systems.

• The profession must be meaningfully involved. • Assessors/observers must be fully trained and over time,

would have been certified as Highly Accomplished/Lead teachers themselves.

Assessment for Certification

• The requirement that all teachers participate in the framework is best achieved by having all Australian teachers certified at some point of the teacher career continuum from Graduate – Proficient - Highly Accomplished - Lead teacher (and possibly beyond).

• Whilst the lower levels could be assessed on a nationally consistent basis, because of the prestige and importance of the Lead teacher level, this should be truly national and conducted by or on behalf of AITSL. The Highly Accomplished level being far larger could follow. Should also be national and not left to employers.

• A poor process could lead to a salary blow-out with little credibility or gain from the exercise.

A National Framework

• Measure teacher performance and growth against the standards (threshold performance for each level).

• Performance standards for each level linked to evidence of student learning, i.e., the impact of teaching.

• Multiple measures of student learning: – Class, year, school-based assessments – Teacher Portfolios (needs careful consideration) – NAPLAN (only where relevant; poor proxy) – Other standardised/available measures/data – Use key docs such as Melbourne Declaration (2008),

Charter for the Teaching Profession (AITSL) as frames.

Key Principles

Valid Assessment of Teacher Performance must ...

'Allow for the variety of forms sound practice takes in a variety of contexts, sample the range of ways teachers know their content and provide appropriate contexts for assessments of teaching knowledge and skill.

The most valid assessment processes engage teachers in the activities of teaching - activities that require the display and use of teaching knowledge and skill and allow teachers the opportunity to explain and justify their actions.'

– Joan Baratz-Snowden (1990)

• Assessment for teacher learning and development. • As well as the standards themselves for the various

levels of certification, protocols, resources, support documents and professional development will need to be developed to guide teachers, their mentors, supervisors and their assessors in the gathering and presentation of suitable evidence of performance and achievement.

• Aside from student achievement, contributions to the school community including development of other teachers, contributions to extra-curricular activities, student support and school leadership along with engagement and leadership with the profession need to be considered and therefore assessed.

Support Documentation, Resources, Programs

Time for Action

After many years of false starts the key pieces of the quality teaching and learning puzzle are coming together quite quickly. The new national standards for teachers (and the standard for principals) have the potential to drive, recognise and reward professional learning and development from the graduate through to the ‘expert’ level of teaching.

We are on the cusp of a new era of national teacher professionalism and the AITSL standards and their application are integral to that development.

With the increased expectations placed upon schools and teachers it is vital we have a clear understanding of the sorts of qualities and capabilities needed to meet these and whether they are in fact being demonstrated and achieved.

Time for Action

However, it is vital that the new national standards and the associated measures for assessment and certification are integrated into salary and career structures across the profession to form a new architecture for professional learning.

This can’t be mandated centrally and will be a matter for negotiation from state to state and from award to award.

‘Pushback’ from some jurisdictions and sectors a concern. This will not be cost-neutral and will probably require

Commonwealth financial assistance but if it doesn’t occur, we will be left with the current loosely connected, ramshackle, outdated, increasingly unattractive, ambiguous and weak system for driving improvement in the quality of teaching in our schools.

Time for Action

Applications for teacher education places fell by 9% in Victoria 2010/2011. Have we reached a tipping point? Have we left it too late?

We need more than the avoidance or touch-up maintenance of the past. Papering over the cracks won’t suffice.

We need a major renovation of teachers’ salary and career structures to take us into the 21st century.

‘It’s time we got serious about teacher quality’.

'The biggest equity issue in Australian education today isn’t computers, new buildings or equipment. It’s each student having quality teachers and quality teaching in schools supported by effective leadership and professional learning in mutually respectful local community contexts.

Life isn’t fair, but good teaching and good schools are the best means we have of overcoming disadvantage and opening the doors of opportunity for young people.'

Dinham, S. (2011)., ‘Improving the Quality of Teaching in Australia’,

Education Canada, 51(1), 34-38. Available at: http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/improving-quality-teaching-australia

The last word ...

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