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Teacher-reward system credited in schools' rise

When the scores stagnate or go down, will the teacher-reward system be blamed?

By Kristen Holland

When Mike Savage came to Richardson's Audelia Creek Elementary in March 2005, he found the campus in disarray.

The PTA was struggling, the campus's top two administrators had been reassigned, and the school's combined average passing rate for the third- and fifth-grade reading TAKS tests was the lowest of the district's 40 elementary schools.

Two years later, the principal says, the school has made remarkable progress, partly because of its participation in the state's Teacher Advancement Program. An initiative of the Milken Family Foundation, it gives teachers bonuses for improved student performance. Richardson was the first district in Texas to implement it.

The foundation was formed by Mike Milken, the convicted former junk bond king, and his brother.

Whether the teacher-advancement program brought the performance gains is hard to gauge, but district leaders, including Mr. Savage, credit it with helping boost scores and retain staff.

"It's basically been on-site development for my teachers," Mr. Savage said. "It gets you into the art of teaching."


Test scores improve

In the two years since Audelia Creek became a TAP campus, TAKS scores have jumped 9 percentage points in reading, 11 percentage points in math and 15 percentage points in science. The campus's teacher retention rate has grown from 55 percent to 92 percent.

Thurgood Marshall Elementary and Forest Meadow Junior High, Richardson's two other TAP campuses, have also seen double-digit gains on test scores.

Tonia Alexander, who directed Richardson's TAP program until she was named principal of Thurgood Marshall a few weeks ago, acknowledged that student test scores are rising districtwide. She said the gains at Audelia Creek, Thurgood Marshall and Forest Meadow are significant, though, because the students face more obstacles.

"We struggle with recruiting teachers even, because our population is a little bit more challenging," Dr. Alexander said. "It's an at-risk population. We have a 100 percent mobility rate because it's 100 percent apartments."

The area's makeup leads to a more transient population. School officials say they get new kids all the time and that some are gone within six weeks.

Created in 1999, TAP has grown from a few schools to more than 130 nationwide. Nine Texas schools have implemented the program. Another dozen will probably add it during the 2007-08 school year, according to a Texas Education Agency official.

Teacher salaries have traditionally been tied to years in the classroom, and the most common way for teachers to substantially increase their pay was to move into administration.

Teachers in TAP schools, however, choose specific professional paths – career teacher, mentor teacher or master teacher – so they can advance professionally without leaving the classroom. They receive professional development, evaluations that focus on instruction, and supplemental pay based on performance.

They also receive time and instructional support to address classroom needs and the needs of individual students.

Richardson planned to shutter its program last month because of a funding shortage but got a reprieve thanks to a $1.4 million grant that the University of Texas System recently received from the U.S. Department of Education. A portion of the grant will fund Richardson's program for another five years.

Sandy Kress, a lobbyist and former education policy adviser to President Bush, said the good news for Richardson is that state leaders have begun setting aside funds to encourage pay-for-performance programs.

"We're very much for this because we think that rewarding effective teaching is just an important thing to do," said Mr. Kress, an educational consultant for the Austin-based Texans for Excellence in the Classroom, which has lobbied for such programs. "Low-income kids in Texas are in such desperate need of effective teachers. We are mindful that it is not just about the money, but it doesn't preclude the money."

Mr. Kress said he likes Richardson's program because leaders worked hard to get teachers to buy into it.

"There's a lot of teacher involvement in the development of the plans," he said. "They really are pushing for differentiated roles and rewards, but they also pay attention to professional development and other individual needs. They really do a very good job of it."

Charles Bruner, Forest Meadow's principal, said the pay-for-performance program isn't for everyone, but those who embrace it reap huge benefits.

"We've become much more collaborative," Mr. Bruner said. "Our conversations are much more instructionally focused. We're all on the same page with vocabulary and terminology and direction and vision."

Dr. Alexander said being a TAP campus is time-consuming, but it helps to have everyone on campus – including the art, music and physical education teachers –focused on helping students achieve. It benefits the student, she said, when the teachers in the noncore classes understand the student's overall academic progress and needs.

"Usually the specials teachers are kind of left out of the loop," she said. "In art, you can incorporate math ideas. The same is true in P.E."


Multiple evaluations

Teachers at TAP campuses also are evaluated differently and much more often.

Rather than being assessed once a year by their administrators, as the state mandates, TAP teachers are evaluated three times a year – once by an administrator, once by their mentor teacher and once by a master teacher. "Last year, we got evaluated four times," Dr. Alexander said.

Campus administrators aren't the only ones bragging about the gains made at their schools.

Fran Phillips, the incoming PTA president at Forest Meadow, said the school has changed for the better since being designated a TAP campus. The biggest difference, she said, is that the school is focused on education instead of discipline.

"It's phenomenal to see these teachers who are so enjoying their work and also being rewarded for the work that they're doing and the extra hard work that they're doing," Ms. Phillips said. "They're making sure every student succeeds."



— Kristen Holland
Dallas Morning News
2007-06-25


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