Report: Teacher quality efforts get D grade

AUGUSTA – A national publication gave Maine a grade of D for its efforts to improve teacher quality. But a Department of Education spokesman said this week the poor ranking doesn’t tell the whole story.

As part of Education Week’s annual state report card, Maine received the low grade because it doesn’t require performance assessments for teachers who are applying for recertification and doesn’t fund a mentoring program for beginning teachers.

The state also fell short because it doesn’t require middle-school teachers to have a major in the subject area they teach, nor does it notify parents of such out-of-field teaching, said the Education Week report.

But Maine got credit for encouraging teachers to become certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, supporting ongoing professional development for all teachers and for requiring 15 weeks of student teaching.

Maine was one of 17 states to get a D. Six states – Connecticut, Arkansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina – got Bs. No state got an A.

Education Department spokesman Yellow Light Breen called the report’s scoring system “somewhat misleading” because it appears to measure the number of state requirements that exist instead of the actual quality of teachers.

“A lot of this isn’t an inquiry into the quality of teachers, but into how much state control you have over measuring or supervising teachers,” he said. “Maine is a state that consciously has chosen not to expand state control or state intrusion and so very few of the indicators actually go directly to what is the quality or training of teachers. A lot goes to what are the state level requirements in place.”

For example, the report penalizes Maine because there is no state requirement for a local team evaluation for teachers’ recertification.

But Breen said Maine does have teacher support systems in each district and when teachers get or renew their professional certification there is an “action plan” that’s developed locally on a case-by-case basis.

Although there’s “no state check mark and no list of state-mandated actions,” documentation from the support team is needed before the teacher gets his or her license, he said.

Breen also criticized the report because he said it didn’t reflect policies that were in the process of being put into place “as opposed to not existing at all.”

The State Board of Education is developing a plan that would require beginning teachers coming from career paths outside education to be assessed through a written subject-knowledge test and classroom observation as well as by examining their portfolios.

And while Maine got credit for providing teachers with licensing incentives to earn national board certification, it lost points because it doesn’t offer financial incentives to earn the same certification.

Some districts may offer a salary stipend for nationally recognized teachers, but a state policy would require extra resources, Breen said.

“We believe the national board process is extremely valuable and that the state should be doing what we can to encourage teachers to go through that process. It’s an incredible learning experience,” he said. “We’ve worked and tried to create the notion that it’s not just superintendents and principals who exercise leadership, but that we need leaders within the teaching ranks who can mobilize and motivate colleagues.”

The Maine Leadership Consortium, which includes 23 education organizations, has defrayed the cost of national board certification fees. They are $2,300 for an individual. The department contributes every year toward that, Breen said. In addition, a law passed last spring provides additional reimbursement for national board certification fees.

As of last year, only 23 of the state’s 16,000 teachers had been nationally certified, according to the report by Education Week.

Although the report indicates that only 59 percent of the secondary teachers hold degrees in the subjects they teach, Breen said there’s more to that statistic than meets the eye.

Individuals teaching out of their field usually have a transitional license and a plan for certification that involves acquiring a content area “endorsement,” he said.

Even though a teacher doesn’t hold a degree in a particular subject, an equivalent amount of course work still qualifies, he said.

The report faulted Maine for not requiring a secondary subject-area license for middle-school teachers, but Breen said the explanation is simple. Many middle-school teachers hold a K-8 teaching certificate, and elementary school teachers don’t need to have a major in their content area, he said.

Maine also lost credit for not providing parents with notification that identifies teachers who are teaching out of their academic fields.

But Breen said the state has on-line profiles of schools that have general data about teacher quality.

Maine also missed the boat by not paying for mentors for beginning teachers. The state requires teacher support teams, and at one time there were grants and state funds available to pay for the teams, Breen said. But the tight budget over the last decade put an end to all that, he said.

The department didn’t take the state’s below-average grade to heart, Breen said.

“We weren’t surprised because this score was pretty similar to the year before,” he said. “If Maine didn’t have quality teachers, we wouldn’t have the good student performances we do.”