In & out of step with top ed systems
PISA official: Common Core holds promise
Updated at 2:45 pm, April 2
Andreas Schleicher looks the part of a diplomat. Tall and slim, with thick gray hair, and impeccable English spoken with a European accent. He is also the consummate diplomat when it comes to assessing the United States’ standing in education. In most countries, low results on the Programme for International Student Assessment, known as the PISA exam, led to contemplation and action. In the United States, not so much; at least not initially.
“I don’t think there was really much of an impact in the year 2000 when the results came first,” said Schleicher, who oversees PISA for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. That year the United States ranked 15th in literacy, retrieving information, and interpreting texts; and 11th in reflecting on texts. The U.S. was behind what have come to be the usual suspects, including Finland, Canada, Korea and Japan, as well as some nations that give the U.S. a collective wince, such as Iceland, Ireland and, mon Dieu, France.
U.S. score on 2000 PISA in Reading. (Source: PISA) Click to enlarge.
Schleicher said the big impact came after the 2006 results. That’s when U.S. 15-year-olds scored 21st in the world in science literacy, 19th in identifying scientific issues, 23rd in explaining phenomena scientifically, and 22nd in using scientific evidence. That got the attention of politicians, which informed the development of Common Core standards and Race to the Top, the competitive $4.35 billion federal program to give states money to improve student achievement through innovative strategies.
“I think the Common Core standards hold a lot of promise. I wouldn’t underrate the potential impact they can have eventually on what happens in classrooms,” Schleicher said. “I think the challenge is to translate that into instructional practices.”
Schleicher discussed these optimistic notes and more during a video interview (click here for part 1 and here for part 2) with Thoughts on Public Education when he was in California for a conference at Stanford University on the Finnish educational system, which we wrote about here.
Valuing teachers
Some of the biggest differences between the United States and the better scoring nations on PISA is in the prestige of the teaching profession. “Pay in the United States is comparatively low,” said Schleicher. Although U.S. teachers may earn more money than those in other countries, the compensation is significantly lower than for other professions. That’s not the case in places like Singapore, where teachers are paid on par with other civil servants, including lawyers.
Salary is one aspect of teacher satisfaction, but it isn’t solely responsible for the high attrition rate among new teachers, which is 30% in the first five years, according to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
In other countries, teachers are given time during the school day to collaborate with their colleagues and to observe master teachers, and they receive high-quality professional development. They also have a career ladder that isn’t just aimed at administration.
“If you tell a person who’s 25 years old, you are in school, you are going to be a math teacher, and 25 years from now you’re still going to be in that school as a math teacher, you’re telling young people that there is no future for them,” explained Schleicher. Other countries have professional progressions that could lead to the principal’s or superintendent’s office, but also include training other teachers, going into curriculum development, and other non-bureaucratic positions. “That way,” said Schleicher, “you’ll retain your best teachers in the profession.”
Factoring for diversity
When asked what three steps the United States should take to propel itself back onto the top of the charts, Schleicher was quick with an answer.
- Common Core standards: The U.S. has already begun this process of developing a set of clear goals detailing what good performance looks like.
- Building capacity for delivering Common Core: Attracting the best people into the teaching profession and providing the resources, support and professional develop to retain them.
- Developing an equitable system: This takes the second step even farther by attracting the best teachers and principals to work in the most challenging classrooms and schools, and ensuring that the money gets where it can make the biggest difference.
Critics of the PISA rankings cite the vast differences between the United States and some of the countries at the top of the list as significant challenges to employing some of these measures. Singapore and China have powerful central governments. Finland lacks racial and ethnic diversity, and the entire population of the country could fit into California’s public schools with a million seats left over.
Schleicher said that PISA does consider the environment in comparing countries, including diversity in wealth, language, ethnic background, and religion. The United States isn’t alone in dealing with diversity, “there are a lot of countries that are a lot more successful than the United States in moderating socio-economic diversity,” he said. “The context of an education system is a challenge, but the test of truth for an education system is how it moderates that context.”
I’m confused by the last paragraph. Wouldnt you want your best teachers in the classroom?
Anyway, far be it from me to ever quote something from the gates foundation, but they recently released a teacher survey on the teaching profession. Here is what teachers had to say about the things that impact teacher retention (the number is the teachers who said that particular metric was absolutely essential or very important in teacher retention):
97% – Supportive leadership
93% – More family involvement in students’ education
91% – More help for students who have behavioral or other problems that interfere with learning
90% – Access to high-quality curriculum and teaching resources
89% – Time for teachers to collaborate
85% – Clean and safe building conditions
83% – Collegial work environment
78% – Professional development that is relevant to personal and school goals
79% – Teachers are evaluated based on multiple measures
77% – Greater decision-making role for teachers in regards to school policies and practices
75% – Higher salaries
73% – More autonomy for teachers to decide on curriculum and teaching methods
59% – Opportunities for additional responsibility and advancement while staying in the classroom
53% – In-school teaching mentors/coaches for first 3 years of teaching
16% – Pay tied to teachers’ performance
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Navigio, Schleicher’s point is that many of the best teachers, or those with the potential to become great teachers, leave the profession because the only way to advance as a professional is by going into administration. Teachers who aren’t interested in that path, but do want professional advancement, have few options in the United States. Other countries have created positions that keep these teachers in education as master teachers, curriculum developers, etc.
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Thanks for the clarification Kathryn, and I agree that that is something that might be appealing to some teachers, however, notice how far down the list opportunities for additional responsibilities lies as an incentive in teacher retention. It seems a bit of putting the cart before the horse to be talking about providing opportunities to progress in a system that is effectively unable to provide teachers what they need to succeed in the first place. If the goal truly is teacher retention, I think its fair to say we have our answers in the first and third items on that list above. Once some of those other items are addressed I would expect additional responsibility to percolate up to a higher position on the list, and only then deservedly so. IMHO, of course..
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‘“Pay in the United States is comparatively low,” said Schleicher. Although U.S. teachers may earn more money than those in other countries, the compensation is significantly lower than for other professions. That’s not the case in places like Singapore, where teachers are paid on par with other civil servants, including lawyers.’ Wouldn’t this be a function of either relatively higher or lower pay for professionals in other countries? Here is a table of teacher pay according to the Singapore Department of Ministry. Teachers make about $2000 a month. Their Connect Plan also deposits $127,000 over 30 years which can be withdrawn by teacher in 3 to 5 year increments. And they have performance pay. http://www.moe.gov.sg/careers/teach/career-info/salary/geo2/
And here is an article about the dearth of attorneys in Singapore possibly due to relatively low pay; $4000/ monthly to start, averaging $8500, much higher than teachers. http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1109&Itemid=34
So what statistics are true? Singapore does value teachers, but they also are very discriminate in who can teach.
Thesystems are hardly comparable, read here:. http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/oecd/singapore.htm
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navigio- additional responsibilities ON TOP OF being in the classroom is not appealing because it just means more work- and probably with no more pay. Opportunities to teach part-day and mentor or fulfill other needs of a school/district with another part, to get sabbatical to develop new curriculum, etc., that’s the kind of opportunity teachers want. Just more stuff to do on top of what they do now sounds like torture to most overworked teachers.
Time to collaborate is sorely missing in our current system. More and more it’s “we gave you the materials, all you have to do is follow the script” so that schools can do more with less, and because of the misguided idea that providing all students with “an equal” script will guarantee “equal” results in terms of test scores. Collaboration is largely done by teachers “on their own time,” that time outsiders are convinced are free afternoons and vacations for teachers, and on top of all their other obligations. We don’t expect lawyers or scientists to do research “on their own time.” Teachers are professionals working with live humans that act and learn unpredictably, and where various methodologies may need to be evaluated and used in the appropriate places. This takes time to do it at all, and much time to do it well. Many teachers go on to get a Masters after their credential(s) in California, which provides new skills and opportunities to try new things but comes with a price tag borne by the teacher. Not all district are even offering the pay raise for completion, either.
And Andreas is right. To teach your heart out year after year is what most teachers do. But in year 3 when you are dealing with feelings of burnout and you appear to have nothing to look forward to except more bureaucracy, edicts you have no say in handed down from on high whether the feds or the state, a new crop of needy students every year, new budget cuts and “doing without” every year, the idea of just more of the same until retirement in 30+ years makes some think “I should get out while I can, before my general skills are considered obsolete by private industry” and before retirement is ruined. You can collect teacher pension or Social Security but not both, so many that evaluate want to get out before their retirement plans get more complicated. Others take a leave and a private job to recharge and realize it’s easier work for better pay and don’t come back.
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In this piece in a debate over “How to Raise the Status of Teachers”, the writer noted the racial and ethnic differences in this country’s international test performance.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/27/how-to-raise-the-status-of-teachers/consider-cultural-differences
Here’s a paper on the subject: “US Educational Achievement on International Assessments: The Role of Race and Ethnicity”
http://www.rti.org/pubs/op-0005-1105-dalton.pdf
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If you read research papers from Singapore and Finland re: teacher program admissions, competitive degrees, and evaluation, I think you’ll find that the money and prestige is tied to an extremely competitive admissions system, and a ‘weeding out’ process during the course. Unfortunately, in the US that is not the case at all. In the UK it was the case, but really weakened in the mid to late 1980s. I went to college with students from Singapore, visited the country and the university (my friend’s father was a founding faculty member), and have to note that the culture is so profoundly different that there would be an outcry about some issues, etc., if they were introduced here. Having said that, the math system is excellent, and I found that Singapore Math (used it when home-schooling) served my son well because the emphasis upon mathematical reasoning and problem solving is exactly what my kids lack here. The Science Curriculum for elementary age children is very user-friendly, and I much prefer the layout of the books.
To make K-12 education attractive for highly educated, skilled young graduates here, the profession would have to be completely shaken up. I just don’t see CTA, NEA, AFT, etc., as being willing for radical change. I know that because my son and his friends won’t go near K-12 education as a career because they know it is about time served and seniority, not coming in with the latest knowledge in science and technology, as well as their experience as TAs, and student leaders. We are stuck in the mid-20th century, and that is a disservice to the majority of students.
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pamzilla, I’m not sure why you interpreted my comments as an attack on teachers, that was the furthest thing from their intent. And I clearly did not say that teachers dont teach their hearts out. Not sure where you got that.
My point was what teachers apparently want most right now are things that allow them to be effective. If we ignore those things and instead provide additional ways to merely avoid the system’s insanity, then we will be continuing to not provide their greatest need, and worse, would be leaving the insanity intact. I’m really not clear on how that would help anything. And as I said, I even dont disagree that alternative paths are important, my point is questioning whether it is more important right now than these other needs (that not only have a real, but very direct and immediate impact on learning).
I also think its ironic that your post was followed by another that is essentially saying that the system (specifically surrounding teacher employment) cannot work until it is first destroyed and then rebuilt. Perhaps it may be moot to be discussing the things we can hope to convince the general public that teachers need, when teachers cant even agree that the current system is worth improving upon.
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I don’t know which district you work for but every district I’m familiar with provides collaboration time (which many teachers complain about-preferring to plan alone!) weekly. Plus students are present for 6.5 hours leaving an additional 1.5 hours per day for collaboration and prep.
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Wow. You managed to write the whole article without once mentioning poverty. So, no matter how often it is documented as a causative factor, if it doesn’t suit your political agenda, just turn your head? Oh, look. You’re already looking away!
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Richard, I do mention diversity of wealth. In addition, there is a larger discussion of poverty in the video interview with Andreas and you can read it in the transcripts that can be linked from the video page if you don’t want to watch the videos. I don’t really know what you’re referring to with regard to agenda. I don’t have one. The totality of the two video interviews, the article and the word for word transcripts of the videos offers a sweeping discussion of the issues, including socio-economics.
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Kathy, thanks for the pointer to the transcripts and thanks for asking the questions about poverty. I think its interesting that he said he doesnt think the US has a particularly difficult environment in that regard, and even that other countries with a more difficult one do a better job at managing it. That is a bit surprising to hear, and to be honest, I think I would disagree with him. Its also interesting to hear him say Germany is in a similar boat. I spend a lot of time there, and from my understanding, Germany is much better integrated than in the US, where we really have a highly segregated school environment. I also think that is bears (re)mentioning that in CA elementary schools we have about 75% of african americans and 85% of latinos identified as SED, compared to 25% for whites (and below 40% for asians). Given our segregated residence and schooling patterns, this means many schools are even higher concentrations of any one of those metrics, very likely to the detriment of minorities and kids in poverty.
It seems difficult to discount the impact of those things on not only classroom effectiveness, but even in funding decisions, administration and teacher stereotypes (eg discrimination, unintended or not) and general system trust (another item which I appreciate you bringing up because I think its probably at the root of many of our problems). So while I agree that the issue of poverty was broached in the context of reform and how we react to test results, I think the issue has much wider reach than that. Regardless, your conversation was valuable. Thanks for that.
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Navigio,
My sense is that a lot of people disagree with Schleicher’s analysis of the United States as not having more at play in education than other developed nations. That being said, there are lessons from some of the top performers, at least with regard to how we value teachers.
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I would agree with navigio that I think poverty is a bigger problem in the US than some of the other countries. I would agree with Schleicher that maybe it shouldn’t be. He mentioned Sweden and its immigrants, but I suspect the Swedish immigrant student population isn’t moving to a new school every three months nor do those kids go without health care. One of the challenges we have in the US is the idea that we can solve poverty with book learning, with little recognition that children are not in control of their own environments.
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