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Minnesota House of Representatives

State Representative Matt Dean

301 State Office BuildingState Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-3018

For more information contact: Jodi Boyne 651-296-0640

Posted: 2005-02-04 00:00:00
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NEWS COLUMN

TEACHER ADVANCEMENT PROGRAM HELPS STUDENTS



By Matt Dean
State Representative, District 52B

Building a better education system in Minnesota takes a broad, cooperative effort. Legislators, parents, school board members and teachers must work together. As a community, we need to make sure schools have the money they need. We also have a responsibility to make sure money is being spent in the best way possible. As a member of the House Education Policy and Reform
Committee, I am working on several initiatives to improve funding and accountability.

One proposal that has shown results is the Quality Compensation - or QComp - plan. QComp is part of the Governor's overall education reform package that focuses on improving student results through teacher development and compensation. It would create multiple career paths for teachers, put a quality assessment system in place, and align professional development with
classroom needs in addition to paying teachers partly on classroom performance. As an incentive, the Governor proposed $60 million in additional K-12 funding available on a first-come, first-serve basis for schools willing to embrace the new accountability measures.

At Hartley Elementary in Waseca, the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) is showing strong results. TAP is based on four principles: Multiple Career Paths; Ongoing, Applied Professional Growth; Instructionally Focused Accountability; and Performance-Based Compensation. Sound familiar? It should, because it is the basis for QComp. But does it work? Student vocabulary skills increased as much as nine times using the instructional strategies in TAP. Test scores increased in other areas as well, showing that TAP is more than another teaching fad.

Although teachers earn extra dollars through the program, they say the real motivation comes from the results they are seeing in the classroom. I had an opportunity to sit in on a team meeting called a "cluster group" at Hartley. About six teachers watched as the presenting teacher showed a video of her teaching the lesson. The group then reviewed the week's plan and helped each other with individual plans for their classrooms. This approach for teachers to learn from and be accountable to each other creates results according to the teachers at Hartley.

Teachers are evaluated by one another and also on the performance of the children in the classrooms. For the purposes of determining growth, students are compared to their own record over a period of time, not other students or an established standard. This ensures the most accurate measurement of a student's learning.

"I was leery of it at first" said a long-time Hartley teacher, "but teachers love to learn and it is working for our kids."

There is no single solution to bridging adequate funding with accountability. Innovative districts like Waseca provide a model for trying new things and measuring results.

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