First Annual Implementation Report
Analysis Of Strategic Goal IV:
Goal IV. Enhance the quality and accountability of all educational personnel.
Introduction.
In the end, each school's ability to educate its students to high standards depends more than anything else on the quality of its professional staff. Just as the standards of the Common Core of Learning articulate common expectations for students, professional standards describe commonly held beliefs about effective teaching and school administration. Like those for students, professional standards will be rooted in national efforts and lead to fair, authentic, and meaningful accountability tools that will drive the type of systemic changes that Education Reform requires. Also like the standards of the Common Core of Learning or the Foundation Budget, the new professional standards require a significant departure from past practices.
The development of professional standards was delayed for much of the first year of implementation because the initial changes to the certification statute included in the Education Reform Act required major changes. In January, after months of work, consensus was finally reached with all major stakeholders and corrective legislation was signed into law. Developmental work began on professional standards in the Spring. When completed, these standards will form the base for the two main elements of Strategic Goal IV: professional licensure and employment.
Professional Licensure
The license to be legally employed is a minimal standard regulated by the state. There are three stages to the new state licensure process:
- provisional certification,
- full certification, and
- recertification.
Beginning in October, 1994, all new teachers or administrators must first receive provisional certification for an initial "residency" before going on to full certification. The main objective of provisional certification is to screen potential educators to ensure that they have requisite content knowledge necessary to become effective teachers or administrators. Since it is difficult for teachers or administrators to be either trained fully or evaluated authentically prior to entering their profession, the emphasis of this stage will be on knowledge of subject matter and foundations of teaching/school administration. As such, provisional certification will measure each potential educator's content knowledge, but will include only minimal pedagogical or administrative requirements.
In the five years following the granting of a provisional certificate, teachers/administrators who plan on remaining in the profession will engage in the majority of their formal professional training and obtain full certification. Since content knowledge will have been assessed through the provisional certification process, the focus of this training will be on effective pedagogy/administration. Provisionally certified educators will remain under the supervision of a mentor while being trained through a higher education or district-based program. These programs would be evaluated by the state to determine if they fulfill the state's professional standards.
Interim regulations were adopted by the Board of Education in May to establish the first two stages of the license process. Next year, further regulations will be developed to align these two stages more closely to the descriptions of effective teaching / administrating included in the professional standards.
In May, the Board also accepted the basic outline for the third stage of state licensure, recertification. Unlike the previous two steps, recertification is an ongoing requirement for all educators, including those currently in the field. The objective of recertification is to increase educators' professional currency by setting a minimal standard for the amount of professional development activities that all educators engage in. Every five years all educators will now be required to submit to their supervisor or to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education appropriate documentation to show that they have successfully completed an individual development plan. The plan must include at least 120 point/hours of professional development activities for the educator's primary area of certification and at least 30 point/hours for each additional certificate. Educators maintain the option of putting any additional certificates "in storage" to be reactivated within two years of moving into the dormant certificate area. An informational booklet further explaining recertification requirements will be distributed to all educators during the summer and regulations will be completed in the Fall.
Employment of Educational Professionals
The second main area in which professional standards are important is in the district's authority to make employment decisions with regards to its educational personnel. One of the basic assumptions of the Education Reform Act is that a new system is needed to enhance professional performance. The Act directs the Board of Education to set statewide "guidelines for establishing systems of evaluation, including teacher performance standards."
Like the system for student assessments, these guidelines must be fair, authentic, and comprehensive. In addition to direct observation, surveys of parents, professional development objectives, and other authentic evaluation techniques will be explored. Work has only begun on these guidelines and will take most of next year to complete.
Once completed, the Board's guidelines will form a base for collectively bargained local performance standards. Teachers with professional status may be dismissed for failure to meet these performance standards. Contested dismissals are appealable only to arbitrators who are provided by the American Arbitration Association through the Commissioner. In reviewing contested dismissals, arbitrators are to " consider the best interests of the pupils in the district and the need for elevation of performance standards."
Professional Development.
Education Reform presents tremendous new challenges to educators. For many teachers, the curriculum frameworks will describe a new ways of teaching. For many administrators, school-based management will be a new way of running schools. Not only does Education Reform create many major changes, it more importantly sets the stage for an education system that will have to continuously change to keep pace with the evolutions of the information age. In this system, ongoing development of professional skills is absolutely essential. A substantial commitment to professional development will need to be made at all levels of the education system.
All certified educators must begin to develop ongoing Individual Professional Development Plans. The professional development activities included in these plan need not be higher education courses. As much as possible, the IDPD should focus on school-based activities directly connected to improving student learning. In-service workshops, cooperative professional projects, mentoring, and peer coaching are all acceptable professional development activities that count towards an educators recertification requirements.
The primary responsibility for planning and providing professional development lies at the individual school and district levels. School councils should include a total professional development strategy in their School Improvement Plan. Superintendents should work with school committees to develop a District Professional Development Plan and budget to support these professional development activities that approximates 3% of the total salary budget for the district. From these District Plans, the Commissioner of Education will formulate a Statewide Professional Development Plan to determines how the state can be most supportive. While the state will provide a certain amount of professional development activities, it should be stressed that the major financial responsibility to provide these activities lies at the district level.
Previous || Next
Return to Table of Contents
|
State Government · State Services 
