Another disappointing study on extended time

Yet another negative study that finds that extended time made little difference in terms of achievement or teacher attitudes.

This one, from Abt Associates, examined the results of the much-touted Massachusetts expanded learning time initiative, which provides state funding to selected schools to increase their class time 25-30% over the district average.

So far the research is quite thin that this is the answer to low student achievement, despite the fact that the Gates folks (and their think tanks) continue to push it.

In a summary of the studies on extended time in "School Reform Proposals: The Research Evidence”, noted researcher Gene Glass found that increases in the time allocated for schooling would be expensive and would not produce appreciable gains in academic achievement – especially as compared to smaller classes. Glass concluded:

”Within reason, the productivity of the schools is not a matter of the time allocated to them. Rather it is a matter of how they use the time they already have.”

Yet even when citing the Abt study, Elena Silva of Education Sector persists in claiming, “Research on the need for expanded learning opportunities for low-income kids is incontrovertible—without extra learning achievement gaps are sure to persist.”

Really? As yet another review of the literature on extended time concluded a few years ago:

“Research reveals a complicated relationship between time and learning and suggests that improving the quality of instructional time is at least as important as increasing the quantity of time in school.”

Indeed, the quality of classroom time, not quantity, is what counts most. Guess who wrote the above statement in 2007? Elena Silva of Education Sector.

Federal Funding for Teacher Quality Innovation?

This is a follow-up to my post of two weeks ago about the use of Title II, Part A funding under NCLB. In these tight economic times, it is inevitable that the focus will move from spending more money on education to spending existing dollars more wisely. Currently, most school districts are not using these federal dollars in particularly innovative, let alone effective or impactful ways.

An article by Stephen Sawchuk ('Grants in NCLB to Aid Teaching Under Scrutiny') was published in this week's edition of Education Week. In part, it discusses the findings of a recent Education Sector report on this topic.

For those of you who aren't Ed Week subscribers and may not be able to access the story, here is a peek at the story:

The Teacher and Principal Training and Recruiting Fund—better known as Title II, Part A of NCLB—is the federal government’s second-largest K-12 investment, after the Title I grants for disadvantaged students. Ninety-five percent of the funds flow to school districts, and they come with few strings attached.

Although the fund has promoted some promising local practices, Title II, in general, “is not especially aligned with leading-edge [teacher-quality] efforts, and it’s the federal government’s big entry in this sweepstakes,” said Andrew J. Rotherham, the co-director of Education Sector, a Washington think tank, and the report’s author.

...

In his paper, Mr. Rotherham stakes out one conceptual approach that Mr. Obama and legislators could consider when they revise the program as part of the reauthorization of the NCLB law: to transform Title II into a fund for seeding innovations to the education human-capital continuum, and to disallow a handful of currently authorized activities, including class-size reduction.

...

Nationally representative U.S. Department of Education survey data show that districts in 2007-08 spent 6 percent of their Title II funds on professional-growth initiatives—such as mentoring programs or incentives for teachers to pursue certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards—and 4 percent on recruitment, including performance-based pay and teacher loan-forgiveness programs.

More than three-quarters of districts’ Title II allocations subsidize professional development and smaller class sizes. In his paper, Mr. Rotherham deems those activities “low leverage” because they typically lack quality-control mechanisms and reinforce traditional human-capital structures, rather than altering them.

Teacher Quality and Title II

Education Week published an incredibly important story this week by Stephen Sawchuk ("Spending On Federal Teacher-Quality Funds Questioned") and Education Sector issued an incredibly important report (Title 2.0: Revamping The Federal Role in Education Human Capital) on Title II, Part A dollars in No Child Left Behind. The notion of better utilizing existing resources is especially critical in light of the economic downturn and budgetary challenges which will make new resources harder to come by.

As I wrote in two recent posts ($29 Billion Buys You A New Education System? and Will The New President Support New Educators?), it is abundantly clear that Title II, Part A's $3 billion are not flowing toward the most impactful initiatives in schools and districts. Most are going to class-size reduction and professional development (of questionable quality).

In a nutshell, Education Sector recommends shifting "the federal government’s role from enabler of existing activities largely irrespective of quality to a driver of reform through strategic investments in new initiatives, institutions, and policy schemes to recruit, train, support, and evaluate and compensate teachers."

Easy stuff, right?

Teacher Mentoring and Student Achievement

UPDATE (6/28/2010): "Positive Effects of Comprehensive Teacher Induction"


Friday afternoon's blog post on Education Sector's The Quick and The Ed offers a surprisingly negative take on a new teacher mentoring study, but does raise some shrewd points about the importance of a shared vision around supporting new teachers.

As I recently discussed, last week the American Enterprise Institute featured an event at which Columbia University economist Jonah Rockoff spoke about his study of teacher mentoring in New York City. One of the principal findings in Rockoff's study is that students' math and reading achievement was higher in the classrooms of new teachers who received more hours of mentoring, supporting the notion that time spent working with a mentor does improve teaching skills.

Rockoff writes:

The magnitude of these effects are substantial, with an additional ten hours of mentoring expected to raise student achievement by 0.05 standard deviations in math (0.10 in the survey sample) and 0.04 standard deviations in reading (0.06 in the survey sample). If truly causal, these effects would lend considerable support for the notion that mentoring has an impact on student achievement.

In her blog post, Laura Guarino speaks of "slight increases" in student achievement and Rockoff's overall "tepid" results. I think that understates this finding in his study. However, I think some of Guarino's other counsel is wise and her perspective as a new teacher tremendously valuable.

Guarino writes:

If the purpose of mentoring is to provide support in order to keep good teachers and make them better, then the responsibility of a mentor must be clear to both parties involved. When there are numerous goals and assorted models of mentoring, it is clear that we need to find “a best practice” in carrying out these programs. Mentoring is one of those good ideas in theory, but is far more complicated than it seems.

As a first-year TFA teacher in Charlotte, it sounds like Guarino experienced some sporadic and haphazard mentoring. It’s an experience from which we can learn. She references four different mentors giving her advice with four different visions of what their roles were. Four mentors?!?! Egads! That might sound like an embarrassment of riches, but certainly it isn't if the mentors are operating at cross-purposes and if they haven't been trained for the role.

Guarino is correct in saying that "Mentoring is more complicated than it seems." That’s a lesson that policymakers and district leaders need to learn. It is not enough simply to require mentoring. It’s not enough merely to assign a mentor to every new teacher. There’s much more that goes into designing induction and mentoring programs to produce the desired impact on teaching and learning.

A well-designed induction program pairs a carefully selected, intensively trained mentor with each first- and second-year teacher. It provides protected time for a mentor to meet regularly with a new teacher for 1.25-2.5 hours per week. Induction is not an old-fashioned buddy system that makes everyone feel good but doesn’t provide the regular, structured, contextualized and substantive support and feedback to the beginning teacher. I cannot underestimate the importance of mentor training and time in this regard. A prepared mentor is the necessary engine to ensure that the mentoring relationship focuses on improving teaching practice rather than on providing psychological and social support alone. Like it or not, that costs money, but it’s an investment that pays dividends if done right.

A strong induction program also has a clearly articulated vision shared by all stakeholders. Key stakeholders are not just the mentor and new teacher--but also the program site administrator, instructional coaches, school principal, and district superintendent. The program vision should include supporting new teacher development and strengthening student learning—not simply reducing teacher attrition and improving teacher morale.

Finally, I should note that the despite the positive results, New York City did take some shortcuts in implementing this program. Its decision to provide mentor support only during the first year of teaching may have been a fundamental flaw. It's a short cut that many states and districts take, sometimes for financial reasons and sometimes because they fail to understand that second-year teachers have unique needs as they continue to develop into veteran educators. In the Big Apple, this decision could well have depressed the potential for additional student learning gains. New Teacher Center research [see Figure 1, page 2] from California shows that greater student achievement gains are realized as a result of intensive induction sustained over two years. That's a finding that should be investigated further in different school and district contexts.

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UPDATE: Here is Alexander Russo's post on this topic.