My previous blog discussed several reasons why schools aren’t making the grade with poverty as a key player. Today there is a new education initiative that attempts to boost scores in low-income schools. In an attempt to rectify an imbalance in the distribution of excellent teachers, certain school districts, the federal government, and nonprofit groups are renewing efforts to develop strategies for matching high performing teachers with students in low-performing high poverty schools.
The Talent Transfer Initiative is an intervention that identifies a district’s highest performing teachers and offers them incentives for moving and staying in low performing schools for at least two years. Earlier attempts to achieve high quality teachers in poverty areas did not use sophisticated techniques to target and identify high quality teachers. These teachers are classified as high performing because they have the highest value added scores for over three years in reading/language arts, and math instruction in grades 3 through 8.
This initiative began as a study in 2009 and addressed financial incentives, success of the transferred teachers, and the continuance of the high performing teachers after the issuance of payment. Studies have shown that teachers with lesser qualifications teach low income and minority students. Research is now being generated toward looking at a teachers’ ability to boost students’ academic achievement in low-income schools with highly qualified educators. Questions arise to the factor of a positive match between school culture and the teacher and the possible pressure to perform with new colleagues that are aware of the incentive pay.
Schools in Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston identified positions in high-poverty schools with test scores around the 30th percentile for reading and math. The transfer teacher earned $20,000 in five installments for two years regardless of how well the new students performed. So far, studies reported a success in the program with a positive impact on math and reading scores in the elementary grades and little evidence of raising scores in the middle grade levels. Currently analyses are underway for more briefs to be released in 2013 and the spring of 2014.
With many discussions on merit pay for educators along with politicians belittling their ability by blaming teachers for students’ test scores not meeting standards, this program is a way for our highly qualified teachers to make additional money, raise scores in areas of low poverty, and have children grow academically. Our students need a level playing field for opportunities. As I heard President Obama say in a recent speech, “These opportunities need to be real for our children so they become a productive part of society.” It is proven that teacher quality matters. Education in recent years has strived to improve through expanding standards and through teacher accountability with increased mandated testing. Let’s give this new initiative a chance to see if it proves effective. Who knows, maybe the next step is to move the highly effective administrators into low-poverty schools to determine if they will produce an additional impact.
Additional information on the actual study can be found at- http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20144003/pdf/20144003.pdf
