How Can We Ensure a Caring,
Competent, Qualified Teacher for Every Child?

Strategies for Solving the Dilemmas of
Teacher Supply, Demand, and Standards



Prepared by:
Linda Darling-Hammond
National Commission on Teaching & America's Future

Prepared for:
"Shaping the Profession that Shapes the Future,"
an AFT/NEA Conference on Teacher Quality
September 26, 1998
Washington, DC


INTRODUCTION
Every September, parents ask the same, important questions. Who is teaching my child? Will my child's teacher inspire her? Will she look after his individual needs? Will the teacher help her learn all the necessary basic skills, as well as how to think and problem solve as she will need to in the years ahead? Will my child's teacher be knowledgeable about the subjects he teaches and about the children he teaches as well?

Much progress has been made over the last few years toward answering these questions in the affirmative. However, much more work needs to be done. More parents need to demand that their children and other children are taught by well-prepared and qualified teachers. More business leaders need to demand that schools invest in teacher development, just as they invest in their own employees. More policy makers need to make quality teaching and the recruitment of well-prepared teachers their number one education priority.

The creation of new and more rigorous standards for teachers is one sign of progress. These include standards that ensure teachers will know the subjects they teach and how to teach them to children; that they will understand how children learn and what to do when they are having difficulty; and that they will be able to use effective teaching methods for those who are learning easily, as well as those who have special needs. These standards include those of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS or National Board), which has developed challenging examinations to document and recognize accomplished teaching among veteran teachers, and related standards of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), a group of more than 30 states that has banded together to create more rigorous licensing standards and assessments for beginning teachers. The national accrediting body for teacher education, NCATE (the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education), has incorporated both of these sets of standards into its framework for evaluating teacher education programs. This means that accredited programs must now demonstrate that they prepare teachers with deep knowledge of the content areas they teach and with solid understanding of learning, teaching, curriculum, assessment, and the uses of technology, among other things.

While new teaching standards may pose possibilities for raising the quality of teacher preparation, these advances will have little import for students ­p; and especially the education of the nation's most vulnerable children ­p; if school districts continue to hire teachers who are unprepared and assign many teachers outside of their field of expertise. Furthermore, the uphill climb to staff the nation's schools with qualified teachers is made that much steeper if new teachers leave in large numbers in the face of difficult conditions and few supports. Although many affluent districts have long waiting lists of extremely well-qualified teachers, in central cities and poor rural areas disparities in salaries and working conditions make teacher recruitment more difficult, and many schools hire individuals who are seriously under-prepared for their work. And, many governments continue to lower or eliminate standards for entry rather than create incentives that will attract an adequate supply of teachers to the places they are needed.

CAN WE RAISE STANDARDS AND HAVE ENOUGH TEACHERS, TOO?

A legitimate question can be raised as to whether improving standards for teachers will create teacher shortages. Is it really possible both to require more extensive training and to encourage enough people to enter and remain in teaching, especially at a time of growing demand? In an historical analysis, Michael Sedlak and Steven Schlossman found that the answer has tended to be "yes." They note:
Contrary to what many modern-day educators tend to assume, teacher shortages have been commonplace throughout the twentieth century. Not only has the raising of standards not exacerbated teacher shortages, it may even ­p; at least where accompanied by significant increases in teachers' salaries ­p; have helped to alleviate them (and, at the same time, enhanced popular respect for teaching as a profession). (Sedlak and Schlossman, p. 39)

In the current context, the answer to this question depends on a range of policies currently in place and yet-to-be-adopted by federal, state, and local education agencies. There is substantial evidence in states and districts which pay attention to teaching quality, as well as in other countries that have highly developed systems of teacher recruitment and support, that it is quite possible to create an adequate supply of teachers while simultaneously ensuring that they are well-prepared to teach.

What is the prognosis? There is no doubt that teacher demand will continue to increase over the next decade. Growing enrollments of students caused by increased birthrates and immigration, coupled with a large wave of retirements and turnover of younger teachers, have created the largest growth in the demand for teachers in America's history. The most well-reasoned estimates place the total demand for new entrants to teaching at 2 million to 2.5 million between 1998 and 2008, averaging over 200,000 annually. About half of these are likely to be newly prepared teachers, and about half will be migrants or returnees from the reserve pool of teachers.

Although the recruitment challenge is sizable, it is not at all impossible to achieve success. In fact, the number of new teachers currently prepared each year is more than enough to satisfy this demand. The U.S. prepares nearly twice as many new teachers each year as the number who actually enter teaching, and many states have large surpluses of teachers whom they cannot hire. Although there is no absolute shortage of teachers, there are distributional problems that create apparent shortfalls in specific fields and locations. Spot shortages occur in part because some states prepare relatively few teachers but have rapidly growing student enrollments and/or high teacher turnover, and because there is little reciprocity in licensing across states. As a result, it is difficult to get teachers from where they are prepared to where they are needed. In addition, smaller than desired applicant pools occur in some communities due to inequalities in salaries and working conditions across states and districts, inattention to planning and recruitment, inadequate national and regional information about vacancies, and inadequate incentives for recruiting teachers to the fields and locations where they are most needed.

Some states and districts create their own shortages. The National Commission on Teaching & America's Future (NCTAF or National Commission on Teaching) found that the hiring of under-qualified teachers in many communities was less a function of labor market shortages than it was of cumbersome hiring procedures that chase away good candidates and prevent efficient and timely hiring. Before its overhaul in recent years, the 62-step hiring process in Fairfax County, Virginia mirrored those of many other large districts that have plenty of qualified applicants but a bureaucracy that cannot find a way to hire them. Other barriers include late budget decisions on the part of state and local governments and teacher transfer provisions that push new hiring decisions into August or September, lack of pension portability and credentials across states, and loss of salary credit for teachers who move. Unfortunately, it is also still the case that some districts engage in patronage hiring, and others would rather hire an untrained teacher who costs less than a well-qualified teacher with greater education and experience.

However, in some fields like mathematics, physical science, special education, and bilingual education, real shortages do exist, largely because the knowledge and skills required by teachers command much greater compensation in fields outside of teaching and because there are inadequate numbers of slots in schools of education to prepare an adequate supply of teachers in these fields. Finally, nearly 30% of new teachers leave within five years of entry. With even higher attrition rates in the most disadvantaged districts that offer fewest supports, this revolving door of recruits leads to continual pressure for hiring.

As a consequence of all of these factors, large numbers of under-prepared teachers are hired each year. In 1994, 27% of all new entrants to teaching had no license or a substandard license in the field they were hired to teach, indicating that they lacked one or more of the subject matter or education requirements for a license in the state in which they were hired. A disproportionate number of these individuals were assigned to teach the most vulnerable students in the lowest income schools. This number is substantially larger than a decade earlier, due to rising demand with few policies in place to increase and manage supply. Depending on how states and districts manage recruitment, and on the policies that are enacted in the coming years, the number of under-prepared entrants could grow substantially larger or smaller.

It is also true that standards that count can be uncomfortable, because they highlight shortcomings in current policies and practice, and meeting them requires change. Thus, it is often the case that as standards are raised, loopholes are created. This has occurred in a number of states as they have raised licensing standards: the higher standards simultaneously gave rise to temporary or alternative routes that allow many candidates to avoid meeting the new standards. In virtually every case, the less prepared candidates are hired to teach to the least advantaged students, thus denying them the benefits of the intended reforms. Similar efforts to avoid the discomforts of change associated with higher standards have occurred with regard to teacher education accreditation. As NCATE has raised its standards, alternative accreditation proposals have been put forward to allow schools to continue to practice with the imprimatur of accreditation, without having to meet external scrutiny against rigorous, professionwide standards.

On the other hand, some states have simultaneously enacted incentives and created development opportunities while raising standards, thus enhancing the quality of practice and equality of opportunity across the board. States and communities that have succeeded in raising standards and expanding learning opportunities for all teachers and their students have equalized resources for teachers salaries and have created proactive recruitment and induction systems with appropriate incentives and supports for teaching in high-need areas.

A key question is whether other states and communities are willing to invest in these kinds of strategies in lieu of lowering standards for the teachers of the most vulnerable and least powerful students.

VARIATIONS IN STANDARDS ACROSS STATES

Despite evidence that student learning depends substantially on what teachers know and can do (for a review, see What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future), states differ greatly in the extent to which they invest in teachers' learning as a key policy lever. At the front end of the career, there is extremely wide variation in the standards to which entering teachers and teacher education institutions are held. Licensing standards are noticeably different from state to state. Some high-standards states require a college major in the subject to be taught, plus intensive preparation for teaching ­p; including well-defined studies of learning and teaching, and 15 or more weeks of student teaching. Some low-standards states require no particular program of studies in the field to be taught, only a handful of education courses, and a few weeks of student teaching.

In Wisconsin or Minnesota, for example, a prospective high school teacher must complete a bachelor's degree that includes a full major in the subject area to be taught, plus coursework covering learning theory, child and adolescent development, subject matter teaching methods, curriculum, effective teaching strategies, uses of technology, classroom management, behavior and motivation, human relations, and the education of students with special needs. In the course of this work, she must complete at least 18 weeks of student teaching in Wisconsin (at least a college quarter or semester in Minnesota) under the supervision of a cooperating teacher who meets minimum standards. In Minnesota, this experience must include work in a multicultural setting and with special needs students. If a teacher were asked to teach outside the field of her major for part of the day, she must already be licensed with at least a minor in that field, and could receive a temporary license in the new field only briefly while completing a major. By contrast, in Louisiana, a prospective high school teacher could be licensed without even a minor in the field she was going to teach. The state would not require her to have studied curriculum, teaching strategies, classroom management, uses of technology, or the needs of special education students, and she could receive a license with only six weeks of student teaching.

In addition to differences in the standards themselves, there are great differences in the extent to which they are enforced. Whereas some states do not allow districts to hire unqualified teachers, others routinely allow the hiring of candidates who have not met their standards, even when qualified teachers are available. In Wisconsin and eleven other states, for example, no new elementary or secondary teachers were hired without a license in their field in 1994. By contrast, in Louisiana, 31% of new entrants were unlicensed and another 15% were hired on substandard licenses. At least six other states allowed 20 % or more of new public school teachers to be hired without a license in their field. Because of these differences in licensing standards and enforcement, more than 80% of high school teachers of academic courses in Wisconsin and Minnesota have fully met state licensing requirements and have at least a college major in the field they teach. The comparable proportion in Louisiana is only 64%. Not surprisingly, students in Minnesota and Wisconsin achieve at the top of the distribution on national assessments, while those in Louisiana score at the bottom.

More than thirty states allow teachers to be hired on temporary or emergency licenses without having completed preparation or having met other licensing requirements. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, at least 50,000 emergency or substandard licenses were issued annually by states. Even the rigor of these restricted licenses varies. States like Minnesota will issue a restricted license only to a teacher who has already been fully prepared in a teaching field but who needs to complete additional coursework in order to enter from out-of-state or switch to a new field or teaching level. Such a license is good for one year only while the necessary coursework is completed. Others, like Louisiana and Texas, will issue an emergency license to a person who does not even hold a bachelor's degree, and will renew it for several years while the candidate makes little progress toward becoming licensed.

States also differ greatly in the levels of funding they allocate to preservice and inservice teacher education, in the standards they apply to teacher education institutions and to schools, in the types and extent of professional learning opportunities and the incentives for professional study they make available to educators, and the extent to which they require or fund induction supports for beginning teachers. As some examples of these differences, in 1997 only three states ­p; Arkansas, North Carolina, and West Virginia - required professional accreditation for schools of education; only nine funded induction programs that provided a structured program of mentoring for beginning teachers, including trained, state-funded mentors. Student teaching requirements ranged from 5 weeks in Massachusetts to 18 weeks in Wisconsin.

Whereas twelve states required a major in the field to be taught in addition to education training, nearly as many did not require even a minor in the subject area for prospective teachers. As of 1994, the proportions of mathematics teachers teaching with less than a minor in the field ranged from less than 10 % in Missouri to more than 55 % in Alaska. Similarly, the proportions of academic high school teachers teaching with both a license and a major in their field ranged from a low of 52 % in Alaska to more than 80 % in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wisconsin ­p; all states that routinely score near the very top of the distribution on rankings of student achievement in reading and mathematics on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This means that a student in one state might have only a 50/50 chance of being taught by a teacher who is well-prepared in his field, while in another state, nearly all students are guaranteed a fully prepared teacher.

In every category of possible investment in teachers' knowledge and in every area in which standards for teaching are set (e.g., licensing, accreditation, advanced certification, on-the-job evaluation), there are substantial differences in the policies and practices employed by states, and these differences influence what students learn. In fact, one recent analysis found that, after controlling for student characteristics like poverty and language status, the strongest predictor of state-level student achievement in reading and mathematics on the National Assessment of Educational Progress was each state's proportion of well-qualified teachers (as defined by the proportion with full certification and a major in the field they teach). A strong negative predictor of student achievement was the proportion of teachers on emergency certificates (Darling-Hammond, forthcoming). This is not surprising, given the substantial evidence that teachers without preparation for teaching are generally rated more poorly and produce lower levels of student learning than those who have had the opportunity to learn how to teach (for a review, see What Matters Most). It is common sense that if all students can learn, surely all teachers can, too.

WHAT CAN STATES AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS DO?

Often states and districts respond to shortfalls in their hiring pools by creating backdoor routes into teaching or short-term training programs that provide only a few weeks of preparation before placement in a classroom as teacher of record. Ironically, these strategies exacerbate the problems of supply and demand rather than solve them. Evaluations of truncated alternative certification programs have found that about 60 % of individuals who enter teaching through such programs have left the profession by their third year, as compared to about 30 % of traditionally trained teachers and only about 10 to 15 % of teachers prepared in extended 5-year teacher education programs. Taking into account the costs to states, universities and school districts of preparation, recruitment, induction, and replacement due to attrition, the actual cost of preparing a career teacher in the more intensive 5-year programs is actually significantly less than that of preparing a greater number of teachers in shorter-term programs who are less likely to stay ­p; and, not incidentally, are also less successful in the classroom. Thus, effective long-term solutions to the problems of teacher supply rest on strategies that prepare teachers well.

Among the approaches with the greatest potential for addressing supply imbalances and achieving greater equity in students' access to high-quality teachers are the following, offered in a David Letterman-style Top Ten List for states and school districts to consider:

10. Raise teacher standards while equalizing teacher salaries.
Many states that have successfully eliminated shortages and improved teacher quality have linked increases in salaries to increases in standards. For example: Connecticut's 1986 Education Enhancement Act created a minimum beginning teacher salary level and offered state funds to districts on an equalizing basis (i.e., lower wealth districts received more help than wealthier districts) to reach that target. Meanwhile standards for licensing were strengthened with more rigorous requirements for teacher education, carefully designed teacher licensing examinations, and a beginning teacher internship and assessment program. Within three years, Connecticut's cities went from having shortages to having surpluses of teachers, and the quality of teacher preparation and practice rose steadily, along with levels of student achievement. During subsequent years, Connecticut's student achievement rose to the top of the national distribution in both reading and mathematics.

9. Establish licensing reciprocity across states.
Using common standards and assessments, like those developed by INTASC, would enable new and veteran teachers in states with surpluses (e.g., Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa) to move more easily to states that experience shortfalls (e.g., Alaska, California, Texas, and Florida.) More than 20 states have now adopted the INTASC standards and nearly that many are piloting new assessments of teaching knowledge and skill through the INTASC state consortium. With more portable licenses, states that currently have shortages can take advantage of the fact that 60,000 newly prepared teachers each year do not find jobs in the states where they prepared to teach.

8. Grant a license to out-of-state entrants who have achieved National Board Certification.
National Board Certification ­p; like board certification in medicine, architecture, and accounting ­p; is granted only to highly accomplished teachers who have demonstrated their ability on rigorous assessments. About 20 states have enacted rules granting a license to any teacher who has met the National Board's standards. With about 160,000 public school teachers across the nation who have engaged in professional development to prepare them for Board certification and the prospect of 100,000 Board-certified teachers by the year 2005, such policies would help create a national labor market of excellent teachers and provide incentives for others to develop their skills by pursuing Board certification.

7. Create national recruitment initiatives, streamline hiring procedures, and develop on-line information technologies.
This is useful for reaching teachers who are interested in moving and for managing their applications in a timely, efficient way, as districts like New Haven, California (Snyder, in press) and Fairfax, Virginia (NCTAF, 1996) have done. Rather than trading calls with overtaxed personnel officers, standing in line, or being put on hold, candidates who want to teach in these districts can gain access to information about the specifics of vacancies over the internet, apply by email, be interviewed by videoconference if necessary, have their credentials evaluated by state and local officials, and receive an answer from the district within days rather than months of application. Because personnel functions have been streamlined and are supported with up-to-date technology, school personnel can manage a quick response information system rather than thousands of individual file folders that must be passed around, are easily lost, and require enormous quantities of clerical time to maintain. Communication between school-level managers and candidates is also facilitated by readily available two-way information about the characteristics of vacancies and candidates.

6. Create service scholarship programs to prepare high-ability candidates in shortage fields.
Research has found that scholarship programs that function like forgivable loans have been very successful in getting fully prepared candidates into high-need fields and high-need locations in professions like medicine as well as teaching. One of the most successful state programs is the North Carolina Teaching Fellows, which fully underwrites the college education of hundreds of high-ability students annually. These students receive special supports as they prepare to teach, and they commit to teaching for at least 4 years in North Carolina public schools. This program has increased the supply of male and minority teachers as well as individuals in shortage fields like mathematics and science. Evaluations show that the candidates are pleased with their preparation and are highly evaluated by local school principals. This approach can produce results quickly when it is used for recruiting candidates through graduate level MAT programs, who can be encouraged to enter teaching by having their training subsidized and who can prepare to teach in only a year or two.

5. Expand teacher education programs in high-need fields.
Currently, the funding of teacher education seats is not driven by the need for teachers in particular fields. While there are surpluses of candidates in elementary education, English, and social studies in many states, for example, there are inadequate numbers of teacher training slots in high-need areas like mathematics, physical science, special education, and English as a Second Language. Targeted incentives from federal and state governments to expand the number of slots offered in shortage fields would ensure that there are programs available for candidates to attend. There is substantial precedent for this in the medical field where the federal government subsidizes the creation and expansion of training programs to increase the supply of physicians in high-need areas. During the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government sponsored a number of programs, including training grants to colleges and universities and subsidies for candidates in fields like mathematics and science, which successfully eliminated shortages in those fields while the programs were in operation.

4. Provide incentives for the establishment of more extended (e.g., 5-year and 5th year) teacher education programs.
Studies have found that teachers prepared in extended teacher education programs enter and remain in teaching at higher rates than teachers in traditional 4-year programs, and remain at much higher rates than those prepared in short-term, alternative certification programs. The National Commission on Teaching estimated that, based on the number of teachers remaining in the field after 3 years, it actually costs about $1000 less to prepare a candidate in an extended program than it does to prepare candidates in shorter programs who leave much sooner. States that want to develop a stable, high-quality teaching force can invest their training resources more wisely by emphasizing program models that prepare effective, career teachers.

3. Provide incentives for community college/college pathways that prepare paraprofessionals for certification.
Another high-yield source of teacher supply, especially of minority teachers, is the pool of current paraprofessionals who are not yet in college. These teaching assistants often live in the communities where they work and know the students' languages and cultures. A number of successful programs now exist to help these individuals who are already committed to education complete their undergraduate education and certification requirements in a streamlined, supported fashion through pathways that take advantage of both community colleges and universities working in partnership. Studies show that such programs have a very high yield in terms of the numbers of participants who complete the program and enter teaching (Recruiting New Teachers, 1996).

2. Create high quality induction programs for beginning teachers.
Beginning teachers who have access to intensive mentoring by expert colleagues are much less likely to leave teaching in the early years. A number of districts, like Cincinnati, Columbus, and Toledo, Ohio and Rochester, New York, have reduced attrition rates of beginning teachers by more than two-thirds (often from levels exceeding 30% to rates of only 5%) by providing expert mentors with released time to coach beginners in their first year on the job. These young teachers not only stay in the profession at higher rates but become competent more quickly than those who must learn by trial-and-error.

1. "Just say no" to hiring unqualified teachers.
School districts often have disincentives to hire qualified teachers or have inadequate systems for doing so. On the financial side, some districts refuse to hire more experienced qualified teachers who cost more when they can hire less expensive unqualified teachers. Some let go of large numbers of qualified teachers in early retirement buyouts to reduce salary costs, and then hire unqualified new teachers.

Many have cumbersome, unautomated hiring procedures with built-in delays that make early, efficient hiring almost impossible, thus losing qualified candidates. Some prefer to hire patronage candidates rather than qualified teachers. States that do not allow the hiring of unqualified teachers have careful management systems and legislated incentives to ensure a highly qualified teaching force. Among these are policies that allow salary reimbursements only for qualified teachers; require districts to hire qualified teachers who have applied or to reassign other fully certified teachers not currently in classrooms before hiring less qualified teachers; and require specific procedures for recruiting and advertising before an uncertified teacher can be hired. In addition, states can provide assistance for districts to automate and streamline their personnel functions to facilitate early, efficient identification and hiring of qualified personnel. School districts can expand their outreach, create partnerships with local universities for preparation and hiring, increase the efficiency of their hiring procedures, change internal policies that prevent early hiring, and devote more resources to the personnel function. Efforts to do all of these things helped New York City reduce its hiring of unqualified teachers from 4500 candidates each year to less than one-third that number, with the goal of ensuring all children access to well-qualified teachers by the year 2000.

States and communities that have chosen to invest in the recruitment support and retention of well-prepared teachers in all schools have been able to pursue excellence and equity in tandem. These efforts appear to have substantial payoff. With carefully crafted policies that rest upon professional standards, invest in serious preparation, and make access to knowledge a priority for all teachers, it is possible to imagine a day when each student will, in fact, have a caring, competent, and qualified teacher working in a school organized to support his or her success.

ACTION STEPS

For any wide-scale reforms to succeed, there must be a congruence of effort. What goes on in classrooms between teachers and students may be the core of education, but it is profoundly shaped by what parents and principals do and by what superintendents, school boards, chief state school officers, state boards of education, governors, and legislatures decide. If the actions of federal and state governments do not support the work of local school districts, and if school districts do not support the work of schools, very little of worth can be accomplished. When various parts of the system are working at cross purposes, the enterprise lurches around like a carriage pulled by horses running off in different directions.
State and local education leaders are the gatekeepers. They can use policies to encourage highly qualified people to enter teaching careers, assure quality in teacher preparation programs, and set high standards for licensing and certification. State and local leaders also can develop policies that reduce, even eliminate, inequities in access to quality teaching. They can direct resources to professional development and reward excellence in teaching. Governors and state legislators, state boards of education, state education agencies, professional standards boards, state and local school board members, superintendents, teacher unions, colleges and universities, subject matter associations, parents, community members, and business leaders all have a role to play.

Governors and State Legislators State Boards of Education, State Education Agencies, and Professional Standards Boards Local School Boards and Superintendents Colleges and Universities Subject Matter Associations Teacher Unions Parents, Community Members, and Business Representatives END NOTES

The information contained in this report draws from:

Berry, B., Darling-Hammond, L. & Haselkorn, D. (in press). Teacher recruitment, selection, and induction: Strategies for transforming the teaching profession. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.). Teaching in the Learning Profession: Handbook of Policy and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Darling-Hammond, L. (November 1997). Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching. New York: National Commission on Teaching & America's Future.
(0-9654535-3-7)

Eubanks, S. (May 1996). Urban Teacher Challenge: A report on teacher recruitment in selected Great City Schools. Belmont, MA: Recruiting New Teachers.

National Commission on Teaching & America's Future (September 1996). What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future. New York: Author. (0-96543535-0-2)

Sedlak, M. & Schlossman, S. (1986). Who Will Teach? Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. (R-3472CSTP)

Snyder, J.D. (in press). New Haven Unified School District: A Teaching Quality System for Excellence and Equity. New York: National Commission on Teaching & America's Future.

Visit the Commission on Teaching's Web site at:
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/~teachcomm