Washington's Race to the Top Plan | Partnership for Learning

Washington's Race to the Top Plan
The Washington STEM Initiative: Answering a National Call to Action
National Council on Teacher Quality Releases Report on Seattle Public Schools

Washington's Race to the Top Plan

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was designed to stimulate the economy and create jobs, as well as provide critically needed funding for many sectors of the economy, including education. The ARRA provides $4.35 billion for the Race to the Top (RTTT) Fund, a competitive federal stimulus package designed to drive education reform across the country—and provide an unprecedented opportunity for meaningful reform in Washington.

Washington state education advocates are applauding Governor Gregoire, State Superintendent Randy Dorn and the State Board of Education, all of whom have committed to apply for the first phase of RTTT funding. With strong leadership from our state leaders, there is no reason why Washington cannot enact the right policies and bold plans needed to win.

Partnership for Learning, along with a number of state education advocates, stresses that even if money were not on the table, the RTTT reforms – setting high expectations for students, getting great teachers and leaders, using data for improvement, and helping struggling schools – are the right thing to do to make sure every Washington student is set up for success after high school.

If our state leaders put forth bold RTTT plans and we make two legislative changes this coming session, we will be an even stronger contender for federal support.

The two legislative barriers to be addressed are:

(1) Washington’s teacher evaluation system can’t distinguish between the most and least effective teachers, and;
(2) State law prohibits intervention in chronically underperforming schools.

The combination of a robust RTTT application and the needed legislative fixes will help ensure our students receive the effective teachers and academic rigor they deserve regardless of where they live.

To learn more about Washington’s Race to the Top application, please visit the following websites:

U.S. Department of Education Race to the Top website
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction website--a special link from the main page is being developed for RTTT updates and information.
The Governor’s Office is establishing a special RTTT website that is expected to be active in a few weeks. The site will include a Question and Answer link, specific avenues for public and stakeholder group input and the most current information on the state application process. Go to www.recovery.wa.gov. This page will have a RTTT link once it is active.

The Washington STEM Initiative: Answering a National Call to Action

Speaking before the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan outlined the Obama administration’s commitment to dramatically improving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education throughout our nation’s public schools.

The case for STEM is strong, particularly in a state like Washington with our robust information technology, aerospace and global health industries. Students with strong math and science skills, and the abilities associated with STEM fields—such as critical-thinking and problem-solving—are more likely to succeed in college and careers. Job growth in STEM industries is a bright spot in the current economic downturn.

Washington state is not currently prepared to offer students the opportunities they deserve. Too many of our students are not meeting rigorous math and science standards, and too many students are bored or intimidated in these classes. We need many more well-trained math and science teachers who can bring STEM to life for students. Our state ranks fourth in the country in technology-based corporations, but 46th in participation in science and engineering graduate degree programs. Students of color earn less than 5 percent of postsecondary STEM degrees in Washington.

According to Duncan, great teachers are the key to success. As a country and a state, we need effective teachers who are passionate about STEM fields and possess deep content knowledge. Great teachers can raise students’ excitement, performance, and college and career readiness. Duncan urged states to make sure they are attracting, supporting and rewarding the best and brightest STEM teachers.

To support a focus on effective teaching, Duncan called for the following:

The creation of a national STEM educational network to encourage innovation and scale best practices within and across states;
Great principals who create the conditions for excellent teaching;
Rigorous, relevant and engaging curricula; and
Business community partnerships to encourage real-world internships for students and training with STEM industry professionals for teachers.

(Watch Duncan’s Webcast)

We could not agree with Secretary Duncan more. That’s why Partnership for Learning has been working closely with business, education and community partners to design an initiative to improve STEM instruction throughout Washington. Through its focus on effective teaching, the Washington STEM Initiative will catalyze innovative models of teaching and learning and share best practices from around the state, country and world.

The goals of this initiative are: Higher math and science achievement; making sure every student is prepared for college, work and life; and increasing the number of students succeeding in postsecondary STEM degree programs or jobs.

To learn more about the Washington STEM Initiative visit our website.

National Council on Teacher Quality Releases Report on Seattle Public Schools

Last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) issued a report on the ability of the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) to attract, develop, retain and evaluate teachers, concluding that many SPS and Washington state teacher policies hinder improved student achievement.

The report includes the first in-depth look at the new Seattle Education Association and Seattle Public Schools contract, which sets many of the policies that govern teachers' work lives.

To reach its conclusions, NCTQ spent four months analyzing the rules and regulations governing Seattle teachers, including the most recent teacher contracts. It also talked with local stakeholders, examined personnel data and trends, and compared what it found with other public school districts both in the Puget Sound area and across the nation.

The 81-page report only focuses on the four areas governing the profession that can be transformed by better local and state policies, including: 1) compensation; 2) transfer and assignment; 3) the teacher work day and year, and 4) developing effective teachers and exiting ineffective teachers.

Among the primary findings:

In nearly every respect, Seattle students are shortchanged on learning time, receiving fewer school days this year than state law requires and suffering high teacher absentee rates (an average of 16 days per teacher). Seattle elementary students have the shortest school day in the region and theirs is among the shortest in the nation.
After a number of significant recent pay raises, Seattle's teacher salaries are now largely competitive with other Puget Sound districts, but only if teachers agree to take a lot more advanced coursework than what is typically required of teachers. In fact Seattle spends 22 percent of its annual teacher payroll to incentivize teachers to take more courses, despite research that requiring teachers to do so does not necessarily improve student learning.
When teachers receive their annual pay raises, the biggest pay raises are reserved for the longest serving teachers, an inequitable system that works against retention of newer teachers and which is a practice not found in most other large districts in the nation.
Seattle does better than other districts across the nation in attracting teachers with stronger academic backgrounds but does not do enough to aggressively recruit teachers early enough in the year, especially in shortage areas.
In spite of a policy that gives principals final say over who can teach in their buildings, principals are often forced to take teachers they have not chosen or approved.
Seattle is not doing a thorough job evaluating teachers’ performance, giving short shrift to teachers’ impact on student learning and identifying 99.5 percent of the workforce as satisfactory in the most recent school year.

NCTQ's recommendations for specific action by both the district and Washington state include:

Guarantee students 180 days of instruction. The state should not waive this requirement absent unforeseen emergency.
Immediately lengthen the elementary school day for teachers to 7.5 hours and work towards an 8 hour on-site work day for all teachers.
As other districts are doing, rethink teacher pay by gradually eliminating more pay for any coursework and experimenting with pay outside the traditional salary schedule. The state should abandon its own failed efforts to equalize pay across districts, such as the TRI pay structure.
Reform teachers’ traditional seniority rights so that no school is forced to accept a teacher who may not be a good fit and so the district can factor in teachers’ performance when layoffs must occur.
More closely monitor teacher absentee patterns at each school and hold principals accountable for improving teachers' attendance.
Make teacher evaluations a meaningful process that requires principals to differentiate the levels of talent in their buildings, rewards the highest performing teachers and generates support and real consequences for under performers. Meaningful evaluation will also require that the Washington State legislature rewrites its burdensome and costly laws on teacher dismissal, and that both the state and district lift existing prohibitions on pay for performance.

To read the report and learn more, visit the National Council on Teacher Quality’s website.