[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EDUCATING OUR EDUCATORS:
HOW FEDERAL POLICY CAN
BETTER SUPPORT TEACHERS
AND SCHOOL LEADERS
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
AND THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
AND WORKFORCE INVESTMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND LABOR
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 17, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-36
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: www.govinfo.gov; or
Committee address: https://edlabor.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-330 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman
Susan A. Davis, California Virginia Foxx, North Carolina,
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Ranking Member
Joe Courtney, Connecticut David P. Roe, Tennessee
Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Tim Walberg, Michigan
Northern Mariana Islands Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Bradley Byrne, Alabama
Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Mark Takano, California Elise M. Stefanik, New York
Alma S. Adams, North Carolina Rick W. Allen, Georgia
Mark DeSaulnier, California Lloyd Smucker, Pennsylvania
Donald Norcross, New Jersey Jim Banks, Indiana
Pramila Jayapal, Washington Mark Walker, North Carolina
Joseph D. Morelle, New York James Comer, Kentucky
Susan Wild, Pennsylvania Ben Cline, Virginia
Josh Harder, California Russ Fulcher, Idaho
Lucy McBath, Georgia Van Taylor, Texas
Kim Schrier, Washington Steve Watkins, Kansas
Lauren Underwood, Illinois Ron Wright, Texas
Jahana Hayes, Connecticut Daniel Meuser, Pennsylvania
Donna E. Shalala, Florida William R. Timmons, IV, South
Andy Levin, Michigan* Carolina
Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Dusty Johnson, South Dakota
David J. Trone, Maryland Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Haley M. Stevens, Michigan
Susie Lee, Nevada
Lori Trahan, Massachusetts
Joaquin Castro, Texas
* Vice-Chair
Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director
Brandon Renz, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, Northern Mariana Islands, Chairman
Kim Schrier, Washington Rick W. Allen, Georgia,
Jahana Hayes, Connecticut Ranking Member
Donna E. Shalala, Florida Glenn ``GT'' Thompson,
Susan A. Davis, California Pennsylvania
Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Mark DeSaulnier, California Van Taylor, Texas
Joseph D. Morelle, New York William R. Timmons, IV, South
Carolina
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE INVESTMENT
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California, Chairwoman
Joe Courtney, Connecticut Lloyd Smucker, Pennsylvania,
Mark Takano, California Ranking Member
Pramila Jayapal, Washington Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
Josh Harder, California Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Andy Levin, Michigan Elise Stefanik, New York
Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Jim Banks, Indiana
David Trone, Maryland Mark Walker, North Carolina
Susie Lee, Nevada James Comer, Kentucky
Lori Trahan, Massachusetts Ben Cline, Virginia
Joaquin Castro, Texas Russ Fulcher, Idaho
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Steve C. Watkins, Jr., Kansas
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Dan Meuser, Pennsylvania
Northern Mariana Islands William R. Timmons, IV, South
Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Carolina
Alma S. Adams, North Carolina
Donald Norcross, New Jersey
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 17, 2019.................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Allen, Hon. Rick W., Ranking Member, Subcommittee Early
Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education............. 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Davis, Hon. Susan A., Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Higher
Education and Workforce Investment......................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Sablan, Hon. Gregorio Kilili Camacho, Chairman, Subcommittee
Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education....... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Smucker, Hon. Lloyd, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Higher
Education and Workforce Investment......................... 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
Statement of Witnesses:
Brosnan, Michael, Teacher and Early Leadership Institute
Coach, Bridgeport Public Schools, Milford, CT.............. 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 11
Daire, Dr. Andrew, School of Education, Virginia
Commonwealth, University, Richmond, VA..................... 35
Prepared statement of.................................... 37
McManus, Ms. Tricia, Assistant Superintendent for Leadership,
Professional Development, and School Transformation,
Hillsaborough County Public Schools, Tampa, FL............. 14
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
White, Mr. John, State Superintendent of Education, State of
Louisiana, Baton Rouge, LA................................. 26
Prepared statement of.................................... 29
Additional Submissions:
Chairwoman Davis:
Link: Principal Pipelines................................ 84
Chairman Sablan:
Prepared statement from National Association of Secondary
School Principals (NASSP).............................. 86
Article: The Freedom Teach............................... 90
Questions submitted for the record by:
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', a Representative in
Congress from the State of Virginia
Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
Mr. Brosnan.............................................. 96
Dr. Daire................................................ 93
EDUCATING OUR EDUCATORS:
HOW FEDERAL POLICY CAN
BETTER SUPPORT TEACHERS
AND SCHOOL LEADERS
----------
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Elementary, and Secondary Education,
Joint with
Subcommittee on Higher Education
and Workforce Investment,
Washington, D.C.
----------
The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:14 a.m., in
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gregorio Kilili
Camacho Sablan (Chairman of the Subcommittee on Early
Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education) presiding.
Present: Representatives Sablan, Davis, Courtney, Wilson,
Bonamici, Takano, Adams, DeSaulnier, Norcross, Jayapal,
Morelle, Harder, Schrier, Hayes, Shalala, Levin, Omar, Trone,
Lee, Trahan, Castro, Allen, Smucker, Thompson, Guthrie,
Grothman, Stefanik, Banks, Walker, Comer, Cline, Watkins,
Meuser, and Timmons.
Also Present: Representatives Scott and Foxx.
Staff Present: Tylease Alli, Chief Clerk; Katie Berger,
Professional Staff; Christian Haines, General Counsel; Ariel
Jona, Staff Assistant; Stephanie Lalle, Deputy Communications
Director; Andre Lindsay, Staff Assistant; Jaria Martin, Clerk/
Assistant to the Staff Director; Max Moore, Office Aide; Jacque
Mosely, Director of Education Policy; Lakeisha Steele,
Professional Staff; Loredana Valtierra, Education Policy
Fellow; Banyon Vassar, Deputy Director of Information
Technology; Rolie Adrienne Webb, Education Policy Fellow; Cyrus
Artz, Minority Parliamentarian; Courtney Butcher, Minority
Director of Member Services and Coalitions; Bridget Handy,
Minority Communications Assistant; Dean Johnson, Minority Staff
Assistant; Hannah Matesic, Minority Director of Operations;
Carlton Norwood, Minority Press Secretary; Brandon Renz,
Minority Staff Director; Alex Ricci, Minority Professional
Staff Member; Chance Russell, Minority Legislative Assistant;
Mandy Schaumburg, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Director of
Education Policy; and Brad Thomas, Minority Senior Education
Policy Advisor.
Chairman Sablan. The Committee on Early Childhood,
Elementary and Secondary Education and Higher Education and
Workforce Investment will come to order.
Good morning, and welcome, everyone. I note that a quorum
is present.
Both subcommittees are meeting today in a legislative
hearing to hear testimony on educating our educators, how
Federal policy can better support teachers and school leaders.
So pursuant to Committee Rule 7(c), opening statements are
limited to the Chair's and the Ranking Members. This allows us
to hear from our witnesses sooner and provides all Members with
adequate time to ask questions. So I recognize myself now for
the purpose of making an opening statement.
So, today, we are looking at the Federal Government's
responsibility to make sure America's children have the
teachers they need. We can all agree that every child in the
United States from the Marianas to Maine deserve quality
instructions from quality teachers. Unfortunately, for our
children, we know that far too many of their most qualified
teachers are leaving the profession.
This departure suffers serious impact on the quality of
education, especially the education of children from low-income
families and especially for children of color. The Learning
Policy Institute reports teacher turnover rates are 50 percent
higher in Title 1 schools which serve low-income children than
in non-Title 1 schools. Mathematics and science teachers
turnover, in particular, is nearly 70 percent greater than in
Title 1 schools.
Children of color are, likewise, disproportionately
impacted. Turnover rates are 70 percent higher for teachers in
schools serving the largest concentrations of children of
color. Furthermore, teachers of these schools often have fewer
years of experience and are often significantly less well
trained.
So as a Nation, we really must do better. We have to
understand how we can train teachers better and to understand
what forces teachers to leave their profession, because our
children's education is at stake.
We do have some research explaining teacher turnover rates.
It shows that teachers are pushed out of their profession
because they are not well enough prepared to begin with because
school systems do not support teachers as they should and
because teachers are underpaid.
Insufficient preparation and weak support systems are areas
where there may be a Federal role. So in the last Congress,
committee Democrats introduced the Aim Higher Act, a
comprehensive reauthorization of Federal higher education
policy. One goal of the Act is to strengthen programs for
teachers. Specifically, the Act requires identification of
those preparation programs that are not producing the teachers
who do not stick with the profession and provides technical
assistance to fix those problems. The Act also prepares those
who will later support other teachers within their schools by
including leadership development as part of any teachers
training.
And I am sure there is more we could do, which is why I
welcome today's witnesses, all teachers themselves, for joining
us today to share their perspective on these issues.
My two youngest are themselves public school teachers, and
I never stop listening. Sometimes I ignore listening to them.
That is all they talk about when they have nothing else to say.
So now I yield to the distinguished chair of the
Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Investment
hearing, Congresswoman Davis, for her opening statement.
Okay. I take it back.
I now yield to the Ranking Rember of the subcommittee, Mr.
Allen, for his opening statements. I apologize.
[The statement of Chairman Sablan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Chairman,
Subcommittee Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education
Today, we are looking at the federal government's responsibility to
make sure America's children have the teachers they need.
We can all agree that every child in the United States--from the
Marianas to Maine--deserves quality instruction from quality teachers.
Unfortunately for our children, we know that far too many of their
most qualified teachers are leaving the profession.
These departures have a serious impact on the quality of education,
especially the education of children from low- income families, and
especially for children of color.
The Learning Policy Institute reports teacher turnover rates are 50
percent higher in Title I schools, which serve low-income children,
than in non-Title I schools. Mathematics and science teacher turnover
is nearly 70 percent greater in Title I schools.
Children of color are likewise disproportionately impacted.
Turnover rates are 70 percent higher for teachers in schools serving
the largest concentrations of children of color. Furthermore, teachers
at these schools often have fewer years of experience and are, often,
significantly less prepared.
As a nation, we must do better.
We have to understand how we can train teachers better and to
understand what forces teachers to leave their profession. Because our
children's education is at stake.
We do have some research explaining teacher turnover rates. It
shows that teachers are pushed out of their profession because they are
not well prepared, because school systems do not support teachers as
they should, and because teachers are underpaid.
Insufficient preparation and weak support systems are areas where
there may be a federal role. That is why in the last Congress,
Committee Democrats introduced the Aim Higher Act--a comprehensive
reauthorization of federal higher education policy. One goal of the Act
is to strengthen preparation programs for teachers.
I am sure there is more we can do.
Which is why I welcome today's witnesses, all educators themselves,
for joining us today to share their perspective on these issues.
______
Mr. Allen. That is no problem. Where I come from, it is
always ladies first, but I will do my thing here.
And thank you for yielding, Mr. Chairman, and holding this
hearing today.
I am the son of two educators and, of course, our dinner
conversations were typically about education. And I just wish
that the problems we had then are the only problems we have
now. It is quite a big difference, but I know firsthand how
important it is for K-12 teachers and school leaders to have
the tools they need to succeed. When educators are well-
prepared and able to meet the growing demands of our
classrooms, children are better able to learn and thrive.
Unfortunately, the current system is failing to provide the
K-12 education system with an adequate number of teachers
equipped to meet the challenges of modern classrooms. In
addition, communities around the country are facing teacher
shortages, particularly in rural areas and hard-to-staff areas,
such as special education, English learners, science,
technology, engineering, and math and STEM subjects.
Ultimately, we can only expect our students to be as
successful as the teachers and school leaders who educate them.
The K-12 educator pipeline needs attention and reform in our
schools if our schools are going to flourish. Most importantly,
I believe that the Federal Government needs to get out of the
classroom, needs to allow our teachers to do what they are
called to do, and that is to teach and not deal with all of
this regulatory compliance requirement.
Today's discussion will provide incredibly valuable insight
as we work to improve the educator pipeline. I want to thank
our witnesses here today and to the educators in this country
who dedicate their lives to helping America's children learn
and succeed.
My sixth grade teacher, Ms. Ward, changed my life, and I
went from a C student to an A student because of Ms. Ward. So I
owe her a great debt of gratitude, as I would assume most
everybody in this body had some similar experience in their
time in school.
And with that, I yield back.
[The statement of Mr. Allen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Rick W. Allen, Ranking Member, Subcommittee
Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education
As the son of two educators, our dinner table conversations were
typically about education. So I know firsthand how important it is for
K-12 teachers and school leaders to have the tools they need to
succeed. When educators are well-prepared and able to meet the growing
demands of our classrooms, children are better able to learn and
thrive.
Unfortunately, the current system is failing to provide the K-12
education system with an adequate number of educators equipped to meet
the challenges of modern classrooms. In addition, communities around
the country are facing teacher shortages, particularly in rural areas
and hard-to staff areas such as special education, English learners,
and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects.
Ultimately, we can only expect our students to be as successful as
the teachers and school leaders who educate them. The K-12 educator
pipeline needs attention and reform if our schools are going to
flourish. Most importantly, I believe the federal government needs to
get out of the classroom and let teachers do what they are called to
do: teach. Today's discussion will provide incredibly valuable insight
as we work to improve the educator pipeline. Thank you to our witnesses
here today and to the educators in this country who dedicate their
lives to helping America's children learn and succeed.
I yield back.
______
Chairman Sablan. Thank you very much, Mr. Allen.
And so now I recognize the distinguished chairwoman of the
Higher Education and Workforce Investment Subcommittee, Mrs.
Davis, for the purpose of her making an opening statement.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ranking Member Allen,
for yielding as well.
I am pleased that we are having today's hearing on how to
best support our educators and provide our children with high-
quality classroom and school instruction.
So, today, we are not only discussing the need to invest in
teacher preparation, but also the need to invest in school
leader preparation. In fact, studies show that effective school
leadership is one of the most consistent factors behind
teachers' decisions to stay or leave a school or the profession
entirely. Teachers who feel unsupported by their school leaders
are nearly twice as likely to leave, and at the same time, we
know that effective school leadership significantly improves
teacher academic performance, particularly in reading and math.
So despite the clear benefits of strong school leadership
for both teachers and students, school leader preparation
receives little attention compared to teacher preparation, and
that is why our Aim Higher Act last Congress expanded key
teacher preparation grants to include proven school leader
preparation programs that provide participants with graduate-
level coursework, as well as ongoing support while on the job,
that we know is critically important.
We also know that professional training for teachers and
school leaders can only go so far without support to help
educators overcome the significant cost barriers through
entering and staying in the profession. Today, the gap between
teacher wages and the wages of other college graduates is wider
than it has ever been.
One recent study found that teachers with as much as 10
years of experience and who are their family's breadwinners may
need Federal financial support, and this gap is particularly
devastating for teachers of color who already shoulder
disproportionately more student debt than their White peers. As
a result, our teacher workforce lacks diversity, which research
shows can hurt students' academic outcomes.
For decades, Congress has recognized its responsibility to
eliminate cost barriers to serving as a teacher, particularly
regarding student loans, and today, qualified teachers can
receive Federal student loan relief through public service loan
forgiveness for teaching in low-income schools and for teaching
in the special education and STEM fields.
But nevertheless, despite that continued financial barriers
to becoming a teacher, we just have to do more. As this
committee works to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, we
must consider the provisions included in the Aim Higher Act to
make college more affordable and student debt easier to repay
for our educators. These provisions include streamlining
student loan repayment and expanding the loan forgiveness
program to ensure that educators and other public servants are
not burdened by debt.
Each day, we rely on teachers and school administrators to
shape the future of our country. So if we are to provide our
children with the best education possible, we must ensure that
educators do not face overbearing cost barriers and inadequate
preparation that prevent them from doing what they do best:
empowering our children to reach their full potential.
I want to thank our witnesses here today. We look forward
to your comments. We look forward to hearing your expertise and
your insight into all of these issues.
I now yield to the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Higher Education and Workforce Investment, Mr. Smucker, to make
an opening statement.
[The statement of Mrs. Davis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Susan A. Davis, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Higher Education and Workforce Investment
Thank you, Ranking Member Allen, for yielding. I am pleased that we
are having today's hearing on how to best support our educators and
provide our children with high-quality classroom and school
instruction.
Today, we are not only discussing the need to invest in teacher
preparation, but also the need to invest in school leader preparation.
In fact, studies show that effective school leadership is one of
the most consistent factors behind teachers' decisions to stay or leave
a school, or the profession entirely. Teachers who feel unsupported by
their school leaders are nearly twice as likely to leave. At the same
time, we know that effective school leadership significantly improves
students' academic performance, particularly in reading and math.
Despite the clear benefits of strong school leadership for both
teachers and students, school leader preparation receives little
attention compared to teacher preparation.
That is why our Aim Higher Act last Congress expanded key teacher
preparation grants to include proven school leader preparation programs
that provide participants with graduate-level coursework as well as
ongoing supports while on the job.
But we also know that professional training for teachers and school
leaders can only go so far without support to help educators overcome
the significant cost barriers to entering and staying in the
profession.
Today, the gap between teacher wages and the wages of other college
graduates is wider than it's ever been. One recent study found that
teachers with as much as 10 years of experience and who are their
family's breadwinners may need federal financial support. This gap is
particularly devastating for teachers of color, who already shoulder
disproportionally more student debt than their white peers. As a
result, our teacher workforce lacks diversity, which research shows can
hurt students' academic outcomes.
For decades, Congress has recognized its responsibility to
eliminate cost barriers to serving as a teacher, particularly regarding
student loans. Today, qualified teachers can receive federal student
loan relief through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, for teaching in
low-income schools, and for teaching in the special education and STEM
fields.
Nonetheless, continued financial barriers to becoming a teacher
demonstrate that Congress must do more. As this Committee works to
reauthorize the Higher Education Act, we must consider the provisions
included in the Aim Higher Act to make college more affordable, and
student debt easier to repay, for our educators. These provisions
include streamlining student loan repayment and expanding the PSLF
program to ensure that educators and other public servants are not
burdened by debt.
Each day, we rely on teachers and school administrators to shape
the future of our country. If we are to provide our children with the
best education possible, we must ensure that educators do not face
overbearing cost barriers and inadequate preparation that prevent them
from doing what they do best: empowering our children to reach their
full potential.
Thank you, again, to our witnesses for joining us today. I now
yield to the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Higher Education and
Workforce Investment, Mr. Smucker, to make an opening statement.
______
Mr. Smucker. Thank you for yielding.
As the Ranking Member from Georgia, Mr. Allen, noted that
educator pipeline is critical to the success of our Nation's
teachers, school leaders, and most importantly, to our
students. Ensuring that America's educators are prepared when
they enter their classrooms so that their students can hit the
books is one of the most important ways to guarantee a
successful school system in the United States.
Title 2 of the Higher Education Act funds a program that
seeks to do just that. It awards competitive grants for teacher
and school leader preparation, but it falls short of providing
school systems an adequate pipeline of talent. Title 2 provides
funding to a limited number of institutions in exchange for a
significant reporting burden that offers limited insight into
program effectiveness.
Republicans have proposed eliminating Title 2 because of
its ineffectiveness, but if Title 2 continues as part of a
reformed HEA, we must ensure that it supports State efforts to
reform their teacher and school leader preparation systems.
States must lead the way in reforming the preparation system
that most of us agree is currently failing too many teachers
and students. The success of our preparation programs is
directly tied to our students' success. If we truly want
America's teachers and students to prosper, we need to work
together.
Today's hearing touches on the overall health of the
education system in the United States from K-12 through higher
education. So I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses
about how we can better prepare our schoolteachers and leaders
so American students are successful at every stage of
education.
Thank you. I yield back.
[The statement of Mr. Smucker follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Lloyd Smucker, Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Higher Education and Workforce Investment
As my colleague from Georgia, Mr. Allen not ed, the educator
pipeline is critical to the success of our nation's teachers, school
leaders, and most importantly, students. Ensuring America's educators
are prepared when they hit the classrooms so their students can hit the
books is one of the most important ways to guarantee a successful
school system in the United States.
Title II of the Higher Education Act (HEA) funds a program that
seeks to do just that. It awards competitive grants for teacher and
school leader preparation, but it falls short of providing school
systems an adequate pipeline of talent. Title II provides funding to a
limited number of institutions in exchange for a significant reporting
burden that offers limited insight into program effectiveness.
Republicans have proposed eliminating Title II because of its
ineffectiveness. But if Title II continues as part of a reformed HEA,
we must ensure that it supports state efforts to reform their teacher
and school leader preparation systems. States must lead the way in
reforming the preparation system that most of us agree is currently
failing too many teachers and students. The success of our preparation
programs is directly tied to our student students' success. If we truly
want America's teachers and students to prosper, we need to work
together.
Today's hearing touches on the overall health of the education ion
system in the United States - from K-12 through higher education. So I
look forward to hearing from today's witnesses about how we can better
prepare our school teachers and leaders so America's students are
successful at every stage of education.
______
Chairman Sablan. Thank you very much, Mr. Smucker.
And without objection, all other Members who wish to insert
written statements into the record may do so by submitting them
to the Committee Clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format
by 5 p.m. on July 31, 2019.
I will now introduce our witnesses. Michael Brosnan is the
early leadership institute coach at Bridgeport Public Schools
in Connecticut. He attended a traditional education preparation
program at Fairfield University in Connecticut, and last taught
high school history at Bridgeport Public Schools his entire
teaching career of 14 years. Having served as a cooperating
teacher to student teachers, mentor for two induction programs
over his tenure, and peer observer for beginning teachers in
2017, he became the learning and development coordinator for
all teachers from years zero to four. He partners with local
universities to secure placement for student teaching and seats
some two local university advisory councils.
Michael coordinates and delivers professional development
for all first-year teachers to Bridgeport in partnership with
the Connecticut Education Association. He is a district
facilitator for the TEAM induction program that is nationally
recognized as an excellent program for beginning teachers.
Welcome, Mr. Brosnan.
Next, Ms. Tricia McManus--I got that right--is the
assistant superintendent of leadership, professional
development and school transformation at Hillsborough County
Public Schools in Tampa, Florida. Ms. McManus supports the
professional learning of leaders, teachers, and instructional
support staff, and oversees improvement efforts of the
district's lowest performing schools. She received her
bachelor's and master's degree from the University of South
Florida.
For 17 years, she served as a teacher, assistant principal,
and principal in Hillsborough County Public Schools. For 6 of
those years, she served as a turnaround principal in two high-
needs elementary schools where she significantly advanced
student outcomes and raised school grades, resulting in
recognition from the Florida Department of Education. For 8
years, she served as executive director of leadership
development for Hillsborough County Public Schools, and in this
role, she provided training and support for school and district
leaders and developed and oversaw the Hillsborough Principal
Pipeline, a comprehensive talent management system for
recruiting, selecting, hiring, developing, and evaluating
schoolteachers.
Welcome, Ms. McManus.
Mr. John White was named Louisiana's State Superintendent
of Education in January of 2012. Prior to being named State
Superintendent, Mr. White served as superintendent of the
Louisiana Recovery School District, overseeing the Nation's
first system of policy, a publicly funded charter and nonpublic
schools in New Orleans, and launching the Baton Rouge
Achievement Zone to replicate successes in New Orleans.
Prior to moving to Louisiana, Mr. White worked in New York
City as deputy chancellor under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and
Chancellor Joel Klein. He previously served as executive
director of Teach for America Chicago and Teach for America New
Jersey. He began his career as an English teacher in Jersey
City, New Jersey. Mr. White received a B.A. in English, with
distinction, from the University of Virginia, and a master's in
public administration from New York University.
Welcome, Mr. White.
And finally, Dr. Andrew Daire, has been the dean of the
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education since in
2016, and came to VCU from the University of Houston where he
served as the College of Education's associate dean for
research for nearly 2 years. His resume includes more than 25
years of experience in higher education, 13 of which came at
the University of Central Florida, where he cofounded the
university's Marriage and Family Research Institute, among
other accomplishments.
Combining an academic and clinical background in counseling
and psychology with expertise in research, Dr. Daire's style of
transformative leadership emphasizes personal and professional
development and for motivating faculty, staff, and students
towards excellence, innovation, and impact in their work every
day.
So we appreciate all the witnesses for being here today,
and look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses
that we have read your written statements and they will appear
in full in the hearing record.
Pursuant to Rule 7(d) and committee practice, each of you
is asked to limit your oral presentation to a five-minute
summary of your written statement.
Let me remind you, all of you, that pursuant to Title 18 of
the United States Code, Section 1001, it is illegal to
knowingly and willfully falsify any statement, representation,
writing, document, or material fact presented to Congress or
otherwise conceal or cover up a material fact.
Before you begin your testimony, please remember to press
the button on the microphone in front of you so that it will
turn on and the Members can hear you. As you begin to speak,
the light in front of you will turn green. After four minutes,
the light will turn yellow to signal that you have one minute
remaining. When the light turns red, your five minutes have
expired, and we ask that you please wrap up.
We will let the entire panel make their presentation before
we move to Member questions. When answering a question, please
remember to, once again, turn your microphone on.
I will now recognize Mr. Brosnan.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BROSNAN, TEACHER AND EARLY LEADERSHIP
INSTITUTE COACH, BRIDGEPORT PUBLIC SCHOOLS, MILFORD, CT
Mr. Brosnan. Good morning, Committee Chairs Sablan and
Davis, Ranking Members Smucker and Allen, and committee
Members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today
regarding challenges facing the teaching profession.
While there is certainly room for growth in many areas, the
recruitment and retention of a high-quality teaching force is
an excellent place to start.
My name is Michael Brosnan, and I have been teaching in
Bridgeport Connecticut's public schools for the past 16 years.
I taught history at Warren Harding for 14, and for most
recently the past 2 years, I have been responsible for
supporting new educators across the city. I coordinate
partnerships with educator preparation programs and place
student teachers, coordinate and deliver over 25 hours of
professional development for all first-year teachers, observe
and support beginning teachers as their peer, and facilitate
the State teacher induction program.
Essentially, my main goal is to not have a job in a few
years. I am hoping that our efforts are so successful that we
will be able to retain most, if not all, of our new educators.
Bridgeport is the largest district in Connecticut, serving
more than 23,000 students and employing slightly more than
1,500 educators. Because this former industrial city has seen
very difficult times, the number of students qualifying for
free and reduced lunch is so high that the meal program is
fully subsidized throughout the district for all students.
Bridgeport schools are also among the State's most diverse. In
fact, the school where I taught most recently, at Warren
Harding High School, over 95 percent of our students are
students of color and represent more than 100 nations.
Our city is ripe for reinvention and culturally rich, but
the fact is we are plagued by perpetual underfunding, and that
means we face many obstacles. Recruiting teachers and retaining
them is one of them. Effectively retaining teachers will
significantly close our shortage problem. Bridgeport currently
has an annual attrition rate of 10 to 12 percent, and many of
those who leave the profession are educators with under 5 years
in the district.
The hope is that through expanded professional development
specifically geared toward teachers' needs, additional peer
supports, and an innovative approach to mentorship, we will be
able to significantly reduce that attrition rate.
Recruitment of new educators is also a challenge for our
district. Despite being a large urban district, the surrounding
towns' salaries far surpass ours, and realistically, our
working conditions are far more challenging. While Bridgeport
Public Schools does have the highest number of teachers of
color in Connecticut, the faculty is still far from a mirror
image of our students. It is important for our students of
color to be able to see themselves in their teachers.
In addition, there are certainly barriers for entering the
profession, and one of these is obviously the cost of higher
education. In most States, including Connecticut, teachers are
required to have multiple degrees in order to continue
practicing; however, there is a large gap between the amount
degrees cost and the salaries earned.
To that end, it is vital that we invest in perspective
educators by protecting Federal loan programs like the Public
Loan Service Forgiveness Program, the Teacher Loan Forgiveness
Program, and TEACH Grants.
Despite some recent progress in recruitment and retention,
there are systemic challenges that certainly go beyond my
purview, and I thank you for seriously considering ways to
improve our educational system and the lives of our educators.
Certainly, there is much work to be done, and I appreciate your
time this morning and your work on these items. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Brosnan follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Sablan. Thank you very much, Mr. Brosnan. Wow, you
saved us a lot of time.
So, Ms. McManus, you have five minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF TRICIA MCMANUS, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR
LEADERSHIP, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND SCHOOL
TRANSFORMATION, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, TAMPA, FL
Ms. McManus. Good morning, Chairman Sablan, Chairwoman
Davis, Ranking Members Allen and Smucker, and Members of the
committee. My name is Tricia McManus, and I am the assistant
superintendent for Leadership, Professional Development, and
School Transformation in Hillsborough County Public Schools. In
this role, I oversee our Principal Pipeline, professional
development for schoolteachers and leaders, and 50 of our
schools who have historically struggled with performance. I am
truly grateful for the opportunity to testify about the
importance of preservice training and ongoing support in
development of school leaders. The success of our schools and
the students entrusted upon us greatly depend on the
effectiveness of the adults that have chosen this noble
profession of education.
I come before you today as an educator with 28 years of
experience with one goal in mind throughout my career: to make
the lives of our students better and to strengthen access and
opportunities for students who have been underserved in order
to close achievement gaps and give every student the future
they so greatly deserve.
A strong educational experience for each student requires
system and school change that is driven by equity and the
belief that we must differentiate resources and supports to
level the playing field if we are going to provide every
student a chance at a better tomorrow. It means that equal
opportunity for high-quality, on-grade level, and rigorous
coursework and instruction exists for every student regardless
of race and ZIP Code. It means that exposure to electives and
extracurricular activities that promote positive social,
emotional, mental, and physical health and can lead to future
college and career choices are available to every student, and
it means that facilities that house every one of our students
are equipped with updated technologies and are safe and
inviting places to learn. It means that racial and other biases
and disparities are addressed and eliminated and that all
students have a voice. None of this can be achieved absent
great leadership.
Research has shown over and over again that student
achievement doesn't improve in our schools without an effective
school principal. Strong leadership allows teachers to
flourish, which leads to improved student outcomes. These are
the leaders we are working hard to develop, support, and
retain.
Hillsborough County Public Schools is the eighth largest
district in the country. We serve nearly 218,000 students in
more than 300 schools. A majority of our students are students
of color and qualify for free and reduced lunch.
Seven years ago, Hillsborough partnered with the Wallace
Foundation to study whether student outcomes could be
positively impacted if we built the comprehensive principal
pipeline that ensured the placement of strong principals into
school leader vacancies. After implementation in our district
and five others, a RAND report found that principal pipelines
do work. The study showed that schools with prepared and
supported principals, via a principal pipeline, markedly
outperformed similar schools in comparison districts in both
reading and math.
Before the pipeline, Hillsborough had a preservice program
that was not grounded in strong leader standards, which
resulted in principals not ready to lead in high-need schools.
In tackling this and other issues, we developed a system that
addressed four key components: leader standards, preservice
training, which included recruitment and selection processes,
selective hiring, and on-the-job evaluation and support. We
identified five standards that make an effective school leader:
achievement and results focused, instructional expertise,
strong people management and development skills, the ability to
build relationships and positive school culture, and strategic
change management with problem-solving targeted at the root of
an issue.
From here we designed two preservice programs and two on-
the-job support programs grounded in the five leader standards.
All of the leadership development programs have been extremely
impactful for AP and principal readiness, an early success in
the role. We work closely with five local universities who
shifted their coursework to allow with our standards.
Our Preparing New Principals program takes place over 2
years, and coursework and on-the-job learning experiences teach
our aspiring leaders how to lead from an equity-focused place
and in a culturally responsive manner, challenging implicit
bias, established and restorative school environments, leading
a school equity audit, and having hard conversations, among
many other things. Our principals also participate in a 2-year
induction program with monthly cohort sessions that build upon
the learning from the PNP program and allow them to share
problems of practice and solve them together. Every new
principal is assigned a full-released, high-performing
principal as an induction coach who provides ongoing--
onboarding and transition coaching.
The role of school principal is complex, and the
expectations set upon them require that they are developed
prior to the job, while on the job, and throughout their time
in the role. Principals are the ones that set the right
conditions for staff and students to be successful, and we must
ensure they have the tools needed to accomplish this heavy
lift. This is why it is critical that Federal policy support
the development of school principals the same way it does for
classroom teachers. The magic happens in our schools when
leaders and teachers work together in support of our students.
The results have been positive in HCPS. New leaders have
shown commitment to equity by closing graduation rate gaps,
decreasing student of color discipline referrals and
suspensions, and increasing the number of support programs
available to students.
We must make school leadership a priority as we think about
ways to improve schools across the country. We are a Nation
with vast resources, and we should prioritize funding to States
and districts to support the preparation, development, and
ongoing support of leaders who have been given the charge to
create brighter outcomes for students they serve.
The Higher Education Act should reflect what practitioners
already know to be true: Effective school leadership is one of
the most important levers to ensure an equitable education for
all students.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. McManus follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Sablan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McManus.
I now recognize Mr. White for five minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF JOHN WHITE, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION,
STATE OF LOUISIANA, BATON ROUGE, LA
Mr. White. Respective Chairmen, Ranking Members, and
Members, I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you
today about the Higher Education Act.
I have been blessed to serve as State superintendent of
education for Louisiana for nearly the last 8 years. Our State
has implemented its plan for improvement called Louisiana
Believes, in partnership with the Federal Government, and we
have utilized the tools that Congress has given our State to
develop a plan by and for our State. Among those tools is Title
II of the Higher Education Act, the goals of which are
laudable, but the effect of which is not, in its current
iteration, profound at improving educator preparation programs.
While our national conversation focuses frequently on
whether today's teachers are effective, we have come to think
that if a teacher is ineffective after four years of
preparation in a college of education funded by Federal and
State tax dollars, it should not be shame on him, it should be
shame on us. We owe it to teachers to prepare them in a
professional manner and to declare them effective before they
take a full-time job in the classroom.
Research shows that aspiring teachers who prepare for the
job alongside mentors with proven track records of success
demonstrate classroom performance akin to teachers with 2
additional years of classroom experience. With high-quality
preparation, we can end the tragic phenomenon of the hapless
first-year teacher. However, research also shows us that there
is wide variation in the quality and effectiveness of educator
preparation programs.
In 2014, Louisiana surveyed its teachers in order to gather
feedback on teacher preparation experiences. More than 6,000
responded, overwhelmingly saying that they were not fully
prepared to teach in their first years in the classroom and
that they wished they had more time to practice actually
teaching under the tutelage of a mentor educator. We soon,
thereafter, launched Believe and Prepare, providing the State's
most innovative school systems and colleges of education with
grants and with support to develop residency models in which
aspiring teachers gain a full year of practice as college
seniors, under the supervision of a certified mentor educator.
Believe and Prepare began with just seven school systems and
seven preparation providers.
In 2017, after years of hard work, however, our State Board
of Elementary and Secondary Education codified the Believe and
Prepare model into State regulation, requiring all aspiring
teachers in Louisiana to experience a full-year residency under
a State certified mentor.
Revisions to Title II of the Higher Education Act could
further support models like Believe and Prepare, enabling
States to use work study and teacher quality partnership grants
to support comprehensive visions for improving educator
preparation.
Alternative certification provided by universities and
others must be part of the discussion as well. While there are
some outstanding alternative certification programs, some still
provide minimal practice and minimal mentoring during the
transition to the classroom. Eight rural school systems in
Louisiana are currently piloting cost-effective models of year-
long mentorship for alternative certification candidates.
In the first year of the pilot, the amount of time
alternative certifications candidates spent with mentors
radically increased. On average, these candidates are spending
one period per day every day during the entire school year with
their mentor, a practice we hope will soon be expanded
statewide.
Again, teacher quality partnership grants would have been a
beneficial funding source, but the program has been tailored to
small and narrow partnerships rather than to statewide
improvement efforts.
Finally, the complement to developing and supporting better
educator preparation programs is defining what programs must
achieve in the first place and identifying both positive
performance and evidence challenges.
In 2016, Louisiana developed an accountability system for
both traditional and alternative preparation programs. Our
system identifies programs, strengths, and weaknesses in three
factors: an onsite review, the percentage of candidates who are
placed in high-need settings and subject areas, and the
learning outcomes of students taught by program alumni. When
combined, these measures create a summative rating for all
programs in the State.
Revisions to Title II of the Higher Education Act could
simplify the complex data reporting requirements, focusing
States on the limited set of measures that set shine light on
States' true effectiveness. Fortunately, other States are also
making important steps forward on these issues, frequently
supported by the Council of Chief State School Officers, Chiefs
for Change, and Deans for Impact. The Higher Education Act can
best support such plans by requiring clear reporting of the
facts and by funding plans for systemwide improvement.
I appreciate greatly the chance to share Louisiana's story
and look forward to today's discussion.
[The statement of Mr. White follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Sablan. Thank you very much, Mr. White.
And now, Mr. Daire, you have five minutes, please. Thank
you.
STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW DAIRE, DEAN, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION,
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, RICHMOND, VA
Mr. Daire. Chairman Sablan, Chairwoman Davis, Ranking
Member Allen, Ranking Member Smucker, and Members of the
committee, good morning. I am proud to be dean of Virginia
Commonwealth University School of Education. VCU is an urban
research community-engaged university in Richmond. Based on the
recent U.S. News and World report ranking, our school of
education is our country's 20th best graduate school of
education, 11th best public graduate school of education, and
third best for online programs. We are home to both the
traditional teacher prep program and an innovative residency
program, which together graduates about 250 teaching and school
counseling candidates each year.
We are constantly thinking about how we can do more to
prepare teachers for high-quality and hard-to-staff schools in
our community and across the country. Dr. Martin Haberman said:
Completing a traditional program of teacher education as
preparation for working in urban high-need schools is like
preparing to swim the English Channel by doing laps in the
university pool.
Not everyone wants the challenge of swimming the English
Channel and not every high-need school is the English Channel,
but we must do our best to find and prepare those who are up to
the challenge.
It is imperative that programs better prepare teachers to
meet the needs of our increasingly diverse K-12 student
population. We know that the most effective and successful
teachers understand their students' broader cultural context
and approach teaching in a student-centered way.
Woven throughout our programs are strategies to address the
needs of more racially, ethnically, linguistically, and
economically diverse student populations. Attention to these
items is critical to improving student achievement and teacher
retention.
To further improved teacher preparation, I offer the
following recommendations. First, we need to provide earlier
and extended opportunities for in-classroom experience which
often comes too late. VCU's Richmond Teacher Residency program,
supported by the Teacher Quality Partnership program, addresses
this problem. RTR's intensive yearlong experience places
teaching candidates in high-need schools under the mentorship
of a master teacher. RTR has had positive impacts on teacher
retention, student performance, and diversification of the
teaching workforce.
Additionally, we have successfully leveraged our TQP award
into additional funding commitments from the State legislature,
local school districts, and corporate philanthropic entities to
ensure sustainability after our TQP award ends.
To provide early classroom exposure, VCU has also launched
Substitute Teaching the VCU Way, which recruits and trains
students across campus to substitute teach in high-need school
districts.
Second, we must prepare teachers for reality. The
intersection of poverty, economic immobility, and insecurity in
housing, food and safety have a real impact on the academic
success of underrepresented minority and generationally poor
students. Our teachers must understand these factors.
Third, we must focus on teacher retention as well as
recruitment and preparation. America's public schools are
hemorrhaging teachers. Hardest hit are those serving low income
and minority students forcing schools to hire unprepared
provisionally licensed teachers and spend millions of dollars
each year that they can't afford on recruitment and retention.
This has a severe impact on student achievement. We are
addressing this by providing 2 years of professional
development and induction support for our graduates teaching in
Title I schools, and we are designing a residency program for
principals in high-need schools.
Fourth, we must expand pathways to teaching. This is key to
addressing teacher shortages. One pathway at VCU is RTR.
Another is the VCU Pathways to Teaching career switcher program
which equips and supports second career professionals for the
transition to teach in high-need schools. We are also excited
to offer five new undergraduate degrees in teaching this fall.
The research is clear: The quality of teachers in our
schools is the most important school-based factor in student
achievement.
As you consider improvements to teacher preparation
programs, immediate innovation and action is required to
address the challenges in high-needs and low-performing
schools. The challenges faced by many students in schools are
not average and will not be met with average efforts. As the
late John Stanford said, the victory is in the classroom. We
must prepare teachers to meet the needs of all students.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to answering
your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Daire follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Sablan. Thank you very much, Dr. Daire.
Under Committee Rule 8(a), we will now question witnesses
under the five-minute rule. As Chair, I will go first, and then
we alternate, we yield to the Members on the other side of this
aisle.
So I now recognize myself for five minutes.
Dr. Daire, research suggests that well-designed and well-
implemented teacher residency models can create long-term
benefits for districts, for schools, and most importantly, for
the students they serve. So funding under the Teacher Quality
Partnership grant program under Title II of the Higher
Education Act can be used to support residency models; however,
the Federal Government only invests around $40 million in the
sole Federal program that supports the preparation of our
Nation's teachers.
Can you speak to the importance of increasing Federal
investments in high-quality teacher residency programs?
Mr. Daire. Thank you, Chairman Sablan. The teacher
residency programs we have found to be quite effective in
preparing our educators. Our current cohort is, I believe, at
about 42 percent underrepresented minority, which is more than
double what we see in our traditional programs.
When TQP was originally funded, I believe it was at $300
million, and that funding has decreased. And I think it is a
very strong investment in our teacher preparation because
models--we are learning models and best practices from those
programs that we are actually implementing in our traditional
preparation programs, so I do believe that it has been a strong
investment for us. And when I say us, meaning the surrounding
communities in Richmond that are benefiting from the high-
quality teachers that we are preparing.
Chairman Sablan. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor.
Ms. McManus, what would it mean to school districts if
Congress expanded Title II A funding to include school leader
preparation?
Ms. McManus. Title II is the funding source that is used in
many districts to fund current leader and teacher preparation,
and so to expand it would be more opportunities for the
programs that you have heard across the group today, from
residencies to preservice training programs, to on-the-job
support through coaching and mentoring. Title II is that
funding source we look to for that, and so by expanding it, we
would be able to offer more opportunities so that our leaders
and teachers are more prepared and have the supports they need
once on the job.
Thank you.
Chairman Sablan. Thank you. I come from a district where we
have a community college, but the only two 4-year degrees they
offer are in business and--first one is teacher--in education.
And so many of our students, many who are nontraditional, get
their 4-year degrees either at home or here in the mainland.
And then to continue to develop professional development, they
now attend online courses. I just had a nephew who actually
received his doctorate from--I think it is USC or UCLA, but he
had to move for three summers in a row, actually had to go to
campus and take courses there, do teacher residency or
whatever, but it took 3 years to do that, and finally, he just
got his doctorate in education. So, yeah, these programs are
important, including to my district in the Northern Marianas.
And now choose to recognize the Ranking Member of the full
committee, once she gets there--okay, she is there now. Dr.
Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
that.
I want to thank the panelists for being here today.
Mr. White, I don't think I have ever talked--pardon me. I
have my two teachers in Congress here again today, Mr.
Chairman. They are teachers in the Fifth District, and if they
could stand up. So they have a great deal of interest in this
hearing today. Thank you.
Mr. White, I don't think I have ever talked to a teacher
who said that he or she was reasonably prepared to enter a
classroom at the end of their preparation program. Most of the
testimony heard today is about how existing preparation is
insufficient. I am sure part of the challenge is that teaching
is hard, and preparing someone to face a classroom with
students for the first time is really hard.
However, I have a basic and blunt question: Why do you
think so much of the preparation that perspective teachers and
school leaders receive is so poor?
Mr. White. Well, I think that the answer that you have
gotten when you have asked teachers were they fully prepared
and they have said no is because so much of our experience in
being prepared to be a teacher does not involve teaching. And
when I talk to the teachers who are finishing their full year
as residents under the tutelage of a mentor educator as full-
time faculty and they are about to enter the profession on a
full-time basis on their own, they tell me virtually
universally that they feel prepared to do what they are about
to do because they have already done it.
We have a circumstance that is affecting, in particular,
low-income kids and kids in rural environments, where we
routinely place first-year teachers in front of them with no
legitimate prior experience as teachers, and that needs to
stop.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much.
Mr. White, this will relate to my first question, but like
many things in education, governance of the teacher and school
leader pipeline can be confusing. Just on this panel, we have a
representative from a college of education, two school district
representatives, and you from a State agency. Now, I know there
are several other actors not represented here.
Could you explain which entities are involved in the
governance structure in Louisiana and their respective roles?
And then to the extent you are familiar with other States,
could you explain how these governance structures vary across
States?
Mr. White. Well, the State legislatures are where it
starts, of course, in governor's offices who then create rules
for State boards of education, who then create rules for both
school boards and for institutions of higher education. Those
rules at the same time are complemented by boards of regents or
whatever the name of a structure of the commission of higher
education is. And then you have both university systems. Within
them, you have specific universities; within them, you have
specific colleges, and within the colleges you have specific
departments.
And out of all of that, there is an attempt to make for a
high-quality education experience for somebody in whose hands
will be trusting 20, 30 young lives next year.
The governance is where much of the problem starts. And I
hate to say this, but I believe that the rendition I just gave
is the simple version.
In other States, some of those responsibilities are divided
in two or three, making it even more complicated and the
likelihood of a high-quality product being the culmination even
less likely.
Ms. Foxx. Well, I think your description is very
instructive for us to see how complicated it is, and I
appreciated in your remarks, you are talking about
accountability. I think that is where our big problem lies. And
I appreciated again, your comments about changing the structure
of Title II. I think what is lacking, particularly in this very
complicated governance structure, is the avoidance of
accountability. And I think until we can get some clear
accountability measures out there, and I--honestly, this is
what I talk about almost all the time. If we are going to spend
hard working taxpayer dollars well, there needs to be
accountability.
Now, I had the great privilege of teaching for 15 years at
Appalachian State University. I took a master of arts in
college teaching and I did do a practicum in teaching, but I,
frankly, got almost no preparation for teaching in that
classroom, practically none, except the fact that I had sat
through 7 years' worth of taking courses and was expected sort
of to simply to do the same thing. So it is a real hit or miss
issue. But thank you all again for being here today. I
appreciate your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Sablan. Thank you, Dr. Foxx.
Mr. Courtney, questions for five minutes.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to Chairwoman
Davis, for holding this hearing, and the Ranking Members, and
all the witnesses for being here today.
I would like to focus on an issue that we are going to have
before us when we do higher education reauthorization and, Mr.
Brosnan, you kind of referred to it very directly in your
testimony when you said that one of the biggest disincentives
is, quote, the large gap between the amount degrees cost and
the salaries earned.
Twelve years ago, this committee actually reported and
enacted the College Cost Reduction Act, which created the
Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which, again, very
intentionally was focused in terms of trying to help teachers,
as a public service occupation, to be able to at least get the
overhang of student loan debt discharged after 10 years of
faithful payments. The commencement of discharge was supposed
to have started smoothly, hopefully, back in 2017 and 2018 and
2019.
Last week, there was a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court
in Washington against the Department of Education. The
statistics cited in the complaint are stunning. Out of the
75,000 applications for discharge, so far, the DOE has only
processed and discharged about 500 some odd loans. That is less
than 1 percent of the applications. And the lawsuit obviously
is focused on the fact that the loan servicers who, again, are
hardly ever held accountable in terms of just the way they
handle these loans, are just not living up to the requirements
of the law.
I would note that in 2018, on a bipartisan basis, we passed
a measure in the omnibus, the temporary Public Service Loan
Forgiveness Program, which, again, set up a system where people
who were making payments for one version of a loan versus a
direct student loan would get credit for those payments,
because that was one of the obstacles for discharges going
through. Again, as the complaint laid out last Thursday, the
Department is still, even with that additional direction from
Congress and resources, not following through on the intent of
the law.
So I would like to just sort of follow up again on the
point that Chairwoman Davis made that, you know, streamlining
and making the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program actually
functional should be one of the focuses of HEA reauthorization.
Mr. Brosnan, are you hearing from some of your colleagues
about difficulties that they are having, and also whether or
not that was really one of the sort of lights at the end of the
tunnel for people who are taking on teaching that they could
actually make it an affordable occupation?
Mr. Brosnan. Thank you, Representative Courtney. I
certainly agree with the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program. I
think you have heard from all of my esteemed colleagues on the
panel here that bringing in high-quality teachers is a struggle
across our entire country. I think that the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness Program or Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program that
did exist or kind of exists now is certainly a--it is certainly
a benefit for folks who are interested in teaching. I think the
larger population at least in--of course, all State rules are a
little bit different, but I think in Connecticut, folks can
teach with a bachelor's degree and appropriate training, but
they can't advance to the next level's certification
effectively staying in their profession without a master's
degree.
Knowing that there is a loan forgiveness program, I think
it adds an appeal to continuing in the profession and securing
an appropriate master's degree. I can speak from that from
personal experience. I began teaching for the first 5 years on
a bachelor's degree, and it turns out I really liked teaching,
so I figured I better go get a master's and there was a loan
forgiveness program that certainly helped offset some of that
cost.
Anecdotally, just based on my role working with our newer
faculty, I have actually received inquiries from three of my
colleagues whose loan application was denied. I am not sure of
the circumstance or the reason, but at least as an anecdote, I
have received those three.
Mr. Courtney. You are talking about loan discharge
applications?
Mr. Brosnan. I am sorry. Yes. That is right.
Mr. Courtney. And, again, certainly I am sure I am not the
only Member that is getting those calls right now. One from
Coventry, Connecticut, a teacher took almost a dozen tries
through the system before, and it was only because they just
were obsessed with making sure they weren't going to get--take
no for an answer from the Department.
And, again, just in terms of retention, particularly in the
area of STEM, I mean, people have lots of other choices out
there, and if you have got to pay debt payments, you know,
every month, I mean, the fact of the matter is, if you have got
a math degree or an engineering background, you have got much
more options right now in the economy.
Would you agree that--again, you are seeing that temptation
because of costs, you know, draining the ranks?
Mr. Brosnan. Absolutely. Without a doubt, I think
nationwide our highest shortage areas are in the maths and the
sciences and, in some cases, the engineering programs. And the
salaries for a public schoolteacher are not comparable
whatsoever to that of the private workforce with holding those
degrees.
Chairman Sablan. Mr. Brosnan, I am sorry, I am going to
have to interrupt at this time.
And I would now like to--five minutes of questioning to Mr.
Allen, the Ranking Member on this--
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you all for being
here this morning.
And, you know, I have had experience, like I said, growing
up in the public education arena, both parents involved. And
then I have also had some experiences as a Member of Congress,
one, the school system--in an inner city school system that
went to three elementary schools: one went STEM, one went art,
one went leadership. And these young people can recite Stephen
Covey's principles, and I talked to the teachers there and the
teachers are very excited about what they are doing. They are
making a difference.
And we have got another school that is a faith-based
school, private, and basically, the folks going to this school
are inner city kids who are declared losers in the other public
school system, and so their parents have no choice but to send
these kids. And thank goodness we had this school. I talked to
those teachers, and I have never seen teachers so excited about
what they are doing and the difference they are making.
And then I talked to certain other public schoolteachers,
and they had to be so careful. I mean, like, if they have a
child that is having issues or whatever and they can't even
express their value system because they are afraid of the legal
implications.
So we need to get to the bottom of this, because I know
obviously compensation has something to do with it, but have
you really done some surveys to get at the real reason that,
you know, we are not--that public schoolteachers really don't
feel like that they are able to make a difference out there?
Mr. White?
Mr. White. Well, we do surveys every year of all teachers
who leave their jobs. And without question, while I completely
agree with Mr. Brosnan's points about the finances of it,
having lived it myself, it is the teachers whose experience in
the classroom and the supportive environment and the team
relationships that they have create the greatest struggles for
them, those are the ones who are leaving or the most frequently
cited reason for while they are leaving, which I am not laying
on the doorstep of anyone in particular, school leaders least
of all. It is a hard job.
But it is true that where leadership is creating an
environment where teachers are supported as a team, no matter
how difficult the challenges students bring to the classroom,
teachers are feeling persistent and resilient in the face of
it; whereas, when teachers feel isolated and they don't have
that climate of support, they are looking for better things.
Mr. Allen. There has been a huge disconnect that I
recognized once at the beginning of my service on this
community between the employer and the educator, and I blame
that more on the employer than I do the educator, to be honest
with you. I wished I had done more as a business to help
educate young people because I think the employers just expect
the educators to produce great employees, and there needs to be
some teamwork there.
In your particular situation, have you seen those
relationships evolve where, like--for example, I know that if
you are in the third grade and you are not reading at the third
grade level by the time you finish the third grade, you
probably won't graduate, and then things don't go well for
those folks who don't graduate from high school.
Have you seen any energy between the employers, the
business groups, and educators on how to fix this problem?
Mr. White. Yeah. I mean, I think there are certainly places
across the country that are dealing with a couple of these
issues. First, you see great public-private partnerships in
districts across the country in terms of providing basic
support, for example, after-school programming, out-of-school
employees coming in to work with kids on reading skills, for
example. And then I have also been encouraged, and your State
in Georgia has been a leader on this, and employers who are
providing educational experience to students who are not bound
for 4-year universities to help them through apprentice
programs and so on find a role that is appropriate to their
level of education and to the insistence that they probably
need both good jobs and further education. So I would agree
with your premise, Congressman, that when employers take a
systemic role, not just sending volunteers into the classroom
for a nice principal for a day type thing, but really truly
getting their people in to read with kids, or on the back end
of it, providing substantive career-based experiences, that
relationship can have an extraordinary impact.
Mr. Allen. Well, we don't want to lose any young, people
and somehow we have got to stimulate them, now it looks like,
at a very early age to pursue this, and I think the teachers
would welcome that as well.
Mr. White. Yes, sir.
Mrs. Davis. [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Allen.
I am going to move to Mr. Takano.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Chairwoman Davis. Mr. Brosnan, I
want to follow up on some of the things you have said in your
opening statement about the importance of mentors and
educational leaders in terms of shaping whether or not teachers
remain in the profession and whether they can start as
effective teachers. And also the high turnover of principals.
I taught for 24 years, I have watched some teachers ascend
very quickly into those leadership roles without even having
spent more than 2 or 3 years in the classroom. I thought they
were making a mistake, trying to become the principal or
assistant principal so quickly.
So let me just stop there and have you respond to what
makes an importance of mentorship. What makes an effective
mentor?
Mr. Brosnan. Thank you, Congressman. I will say I am really
enthused by hearing Mr. White, Ms. McManus and Dr. Daire with
the programs of a longer period of practicum in the classroom
prior to graduation. Once somebody enters the profession I
think the importance of being paired with a seasoned mentor or
a seasoned teacher is critical. It is very rare in a business
environment that somebody would leave college and be asked to
manage 150 people on a daily basis. And realistically for most
of our high schoolteachers, that is what we are asking them to
do, to interact and manage the behavior and academic
performance for 150 students. Having access to a seasoned
mentor certainly makes that experience more tolerable.
Mr. Takano. I go along with this idea of a longer
practicum. I think I made a mistake in my early years of
teaching. I thought just having a degree from an Ivy League
school was enough to let me go and teach, that the content that
I had in my brain was going to be enough.
But the problem for me was and I think for many others who
were looking into going into a profession that does not pay as
well as other professions the barrier to entry is if we are
going to have a longer practicum, I think we have got to be
able to support these people, we have got to pay them. Much
like the building trades will pay an apprentice to go through
such a long practicum. What do you think about the things I am
saying now?
Mr. Brosnan. I actually fully agree with you. I think that
a longer practicum does prepare students better, college
graduates better for the classroom without a doubt. And I do
agree that potentially looking at a longer program could be
perceived as a barrier, but at the same time the success rate
in the first and second year of teaching for that professional
would be significant.
Mr. Takano. I realize, I am struck by the lack of
partisanship on this panel, I am pleased to see that. I don't
mean to be focusing on only Mr. Brosnan, but--so, this longer
practicum, I look back and I think that is a good idea, that
people need more practice in the classroom. They do need
content area knowledge, but that actual experience--especially
in low-income schools and schools that have a lot of diversity.
There is just a lot of ways in which a young teacher can get
tripped up in that situation. And being trained under a really
good mentor or a good supervising teacher for a longer period
of time I think is a big part of that solution.
Ms. McMahon and Mr. White, any others, any more reactions
to some of the things I brought up here in terms of how we
encourage, how do we pay for this? And do you think that paying
people to go through this practicum is part of the solution
too.
Mr. White. Thank you, Congressman. In our residents and
mentors are both paid. If you are a college student in your
fourth year in college, you are paid as an undergraduate to be
faculty in that school.
Mr. Takano. I like this term residency, because it kind of
echoes what doctors go through. And I think we need to think of
the kind of ways we teach teachers can be no less intensive
than the way we think of teaching doctors, and training
doctors. Do you have a comment about that?
Mr. White. I agree. I think they are called residents for a
reason and it is to draw a parallel with the medical
profession. I think the trick of course comes in alternative
certification models that are done expressly largely because of
cost reasons. They are done to minimize costs both to the
candidate and to the school system. And how we find a way
knowing that those numbers of teachers are increasing? How we
find a way to create a cost effective but also effective
programs in those cases is hard.
Mr. Takano. I hope we might as the questions go on, that
the Members might ask more questions about this residency
model, how it differs that we can't have alternative methods of
certification, meaning skimpier, less effective training.
My time is up. And I am rather frustrated because this is a
very rich topic. And I hope we can get more of what--suss out
more about this residency.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Takano. Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is an issue that I
very much appreciate the committee is investing time to talk
about. An issue that I worked on a little bit at the State
House in Indiana when I served in the State legislature. As the
Indiana State senator in 2013 I wrote legislation that was
signed into law by then governor Mike Pence to establish a
principal leadership institute at Indiana State University.
Since then the Indiana Principal Leadership Institute has
provided school principals with training and leadership,
management, and communications skills to better manage their
school and improve outcomes for teachers and students.
IPLI's direct impact includes 1,900 principals, 70,000
teachers and more than 1 million students in Indiana. As you
can imagine, I am very proud of that piece of legislation that
I was a part of writing and seeing it passed through the State
legislature in my home State.
The institute has been enormously successful. With 94
percent of school superintendents reporting that the leadership
capacity of their principals has increased due to them going
through the course work at the IPLI. In addition, 20 of the 56
principals in the first cohort were able to increase their
school level grades after just 1 year. Simply put, this
institute has led to measurable and positive outcomes for
principals, teachers, and students.
So my question, Mr. White, would you agree that we need
more State level initiatives like the IPLI to better prepare
principals to leave their schools and improve student outcomes?
And are you aware of other State-led initiatives like the one
in my State across the country that might be--might have an
effective story to tell as well?
Mr. White. I am, I do believe that what you have done in
Indiana is representative of the need for States to assert a
view on this. A good principal in one setting should be--have
essential skills that are the same as principals in other
settings. And when I think about high quality models, and I
would look at the National Institute for School Leadership for
example which has done some fantastic work to do something to
what you are describing in Louisiana, but also in Kentucky, and
also in Pennsylvania and in States across the country there,
founded on the best models across the world, and I am very
impressed with what they have done.
I would also look at the New York City Leadership Academy,
which was founded under mayor Bloomberg about 15 years ago to
try to centralize the training of principals in New York City
and has now expanded its model, a system that is the size of
some States and some States many times over to try to scale an
efficient management centric model that produces high quality
leaders at scale.
Mr. Banks. I appreciate that. With the two minutes I have
left, I am going to yield the remainder of my time to Dr. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Banks.
I want to add that I believe it is probably at least 40
years old that North Carolina has had a principals institute or
principals program established through the Institute of
Government. And my understanding over the years and we might
not have time to respond to this, but that what makes a great
school is the principal and parental involvement. We really
haven't talked much about that today, but that is my
understanding.
But I want to respond to the discussion we had a few
minutes ago on teacher loan forgiveness and the public service
loan forgiveness program. There is a lot of concern right now
from Members of Congress, teachers, and other student loan
borrowers that the PSLF program is not being run in good faith
by the loan servicers and Secretary DeVos. It is time to set
the record straight. It is Congress who sets the terms and
conditions borrowers must meet to receive PSLF.
If the program is not working, it is because the design was
poorly done by Members of Congress. This program was designed
under a Democrat administration, under a Democrat majority in
the Congress. It was made unnecessarily complicated, not unlike
what we have heard today about teacher preparation programs.
Furthermore, the previous administration had 8 years to
spread the word about PSLF requirements that borrowers and
contractors must meet and they failed to do an adequate job.
Additionally, Congress set the terms and conditions of the
TEPSLF program which expands PSLF to borrowers in the wrong
repayment plan. We remain committed to fixing the errors of
previous Congresses to help all borrowers. It is time to stop
blaming the administration for the inaction and incompetence of
the laws that were written by the Congress.
I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Dr. Foxx, and that really is an
issue, an area for us to explore, because as we know so much of
this takes part in ruling making. And at the same time both
administrations I think had a role in that so it has got to be
fixed. It is just not working the way it is.
Ms. Jayapal.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you all so
much for being here. I am grateful to all of you for
recognizing the dire need not only to recruit teachers but also
to retain them if we are going to provide our kids with the
education that they need to succeed.
And I wanted to focus specifically on the barriers to the
people of color face to entering and remaining in the teaching
profession. While half of public school students are non White,
eight of 10 American teachers are White. And it is hurting
student achievement because minority students perform better on
standardized tests, have improved attendance and are suspended
less frequently when they have at least one teacher of the same
race.
And the research shows that Black teachers are much more
likely to recommended high achieving Black students for
talented and gifted programs, virtually eliminating the gap in
access to those programs. And I just want to take a minute to
recognize my incredible colleague Jahana Hayes from Connecticut
because I think she is the perfect example of what is possible
if we were really able to eliminate some of the barriers that
we see.
So I wanted to start with you, Dr. Daire. I saw you
recently participated in a task force or diversifying Virginias
educator pipeline. And it revealed that one of the main factors
hurt, barring people of color from entering the teaching
profession is the length and cost of the teacher preparation
pathway compared to salary.
Could you just expand a little bit on that and suggest how
Congress could make a teaching career more financially feasible
for people of color?
Mr. Daire. Thank you so much for that question. That task
force, one of the recommendations that came out of that task
force was for Virginia to change legislation, to go back to
allowing undergraduate teacher preparation programs. And we are
excited that has happened, June 20 the first round of programs
were approved.
So at VCU we are actually starting five new undergraduate
degree programs, because as you indicated in your question, you
know, having candidates obtain a master's degree adds an
additional cost that I think further exacerbates that
difference that we are seeing in salaries.
So I think being able to do that in terms of us having
undergraduate degree programs, which then really positions us
to strengthen and bolster teacher pipeline programs where we
are partnering with our local community colleges and pipelines
even going from our schools to community colleges to
universities. I think we also have to look at the financial aid
support, the student loan support, and I think as we look at
integrating more culturally responsive practices, not only does
it benefit the students, I think it also benefits the school
climate where you have more educators that are more culturally
responsive to each other, which is one factor that has been
identified in terms of attrition of under represented minority
educators.
Ms. Jayapal. Very important, thank you. I wonder Mr.
Brosnan if you wanted to add anything to this because you, in
your testimony, talked about the cost of higher education and
the importance of protecting public service loan forgiveness,
other things. Do you want to add anything to that?
Okay.
We also know student debt is a factor and there is an
unprecedented and unequal level of student debt among Black
graduates that makes it even harder for them to be able to
afford to live on a teacher's salary as it is today. On average
before they have even earned their first dollar, Black college
graduates already have $7,400 more student loan debt than White
graduates.
Dr. Daire or Ms. McManus, I saw you responding to that, if
either of you want to speak to that. Dr. Daire would you like
to start?
Sorry, I didn't ask the question. What can Congress do
specifically to address student debt for teachers?
Mr. Daire. Well, I think that looking at addressing some of
the challenges that has been identified and the implementation
or the servicing of the student loan forgiveness programs, I
think that is going to be an important consideration.
We also know that more students of color are actually going
to for-profit universities, which are costing a lot more and
increasing the student loan debt. And so I think that is
something that we all need to look at.
I think in terms of higher Ed, we need to look at more what
are the standards--I shouldn't say standards, but what are the
processes, and how can we be more responsive and understanding
to some of the differences and challenges that we see in under
represented minority students so we can increase that pipeline.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
Ms. McManus, did you want to add anything?
Ms. McManus. I am not that knowledgeable about student loan
debt or loan forgiveness, but I can say that I think States and
districts need to also in Federal Government look at teacher
salaries in general so that they as they do need to pay back
loans, if they have accrued them, they have the means to do so.
Ms. Jayapal. Great. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Ms. Jayapal.
Mr. Comer.
Mr. Comer. Thank you very much and let me begin by thanking
you all for your service in public education. I am a big
proponent of public education. My wife and I went to public
schools, our kids are currently enrolled in public schools. So
I think that is a very important role that government plays,
especially State government is providing the funding for public
education.
As I talked to a lot of teachers in my congressional
district in southern Kentucky, the big issue--one of the many
issues they have is obviously teacher shortage, one of things
that we are discussing today. And I wanted to ask Mr. White
when--what can we do to attract more teachers into the major
shortage areas where we have with respect to STEM in the
classroom?
Mr. White. Thank you, Congressman. I want to say two
things, I want to echo the sentiments of Mr. Brosnan and others
on the panel today who have emphasized that our teacher
shortage it as much if not more a retention problem than a
recruitment problem. And I think largely that is about our
practice as educators, are we aware of what is happening in our
system, are we aware of what is running through our teacher's
minds and are we talking to them about their plans.
However from a policy perspective I do agree with you,
there need to be changes. And I think we would be naive. In my
State, somebody can go and work at Exxon Mobil in Baton Rouge,
and work in east Asia, and work in sub-Saharan Africa and all
do it for a salary three times, just out of college, what a
teacher would make. It is naive for us to think that we can
compete with that job if we are not making legitimate changes
to the finances of it.
And the States are going to have to step up and have to
change the way they distribute our tax dollars within the way
we compensate educators, if we are going to legitimately
address that 21st century challenge you are describing.
I will qualify this by saying I am an English teacher. In
my State, as in most, we don't have a shortage of English
teachers. English teachers should be able to acknowledge and
other teachers like us that STEM is a different beast, that
those teachers with those qualifications are able to compete
for a different set of jobs, and that our school systems and
States need to step up and find a way to finance an adequately
competitive salary for STEM majors.
Mr. Comer. Right. Let me make sure I understand this. Who
establishes the curriculum for a preparation program? And are
there particular skills you think those programs should do a
better job of teaching?
Mr. White. It is a combination of the State boards of
education, the boards of regents and the universities
themselves, as well as Deans in colleges of education. So it is
different pieces of the curriculum are delegated to different
entities.
But if I had to pick one, as an English teacher I think I
can say this, the basic science of teaching reading is
something that every teacher in America should understand. And
the basic practice of teaching the foundations of reading to
nonreaders is something that everyone should understand. And we
all should bear responsibility from Congress on down for the
fact that there are many, many, many teachers in America today
who have never really been prepared to teach a child to read.
Everyone who is interested in education policy should read
Emily Sanford's reporting on teacher preparation and why
America's teachers too frequently do not know how to teach
children to read.
Mr. Comer. All right. One of the challenges that I think
Mr. Brosnan or one of panelists mentioned in attracting and
retaining teachers is I think I understood this right, my
teachers in Kentucky say this, the excessive amount of degrees
or certification or continuing education that is required to be
a teacher, is that too much?
As we look forward, look ahead into the future of
education, obviously we have to have a good supply of quality
prepared teachers, but are we requiring too many degrees? Is
that costing too much money, running up their student loan
debt? Is it necessary, Mr. White, to have all of the degrees
that a lot of teachers are required to have before they ever
begin teaching.
Mr. White. Well, I don't begrudge any educator for pursuing
continued education. I think everybody on this panel has
evidence of that, some more than others, perhaps. But at the
same time, I do think that we need to recognize as States and
certainly here in Congress as well, every time we levy one of
these requirements on to a school system or onto a school we
are putting in financially on the shoulders of educators. And
yes, it is true that very often schools systems have found a
way to remunerate them in exchange for that. But for our
youngest teachers in particular, it can be an up front barrier.
And we need to ask ourselves, if we have these evaluation
systems that we fought so hard to create and we evaluate an
individual repeatedly year after as effective for their
children, why would we in government come back and say, no, you
have to take another step or I wouldn't allow to you do this
anymore.
Mr. Comer. Right. I agree and appreciate you all's
testimony and look forward to working with you in the future.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you Mr. Comer.
Ms. Hayes.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is so great to start
my morning in a room full of teachers. You have no idea how
much I needed to see you today. Thank you all for being here.
And special shout out to Mr. Brosnan who is from Bridgeport,
Connecticut. I know the area well. And I think the committee
should know that there are two national teachers of the year in
the room today. We have Terry Dozier who was the 1985 National
Teacher of the Year, a fellow history teacher over there. So it
is great to share the space with you this morning.
I am so happy that we are having this hearing are about
teaching, because what I like to tell people and what I--
teaching is not mission work, you know we work really hard. It
requires expertise, commitment and preparation. And every
educator knows that these single most effective driver for
student success in outcomes is an effective teacher. Everybody
knows that. It is the teacher that stands in front of them.
But today I want to talk about teacher recruitment and
retention. I spent the last four years of my time in the
Waterbury public schools working on minority teacher
recruitment and retention. So much so that our governor at the
time created a task force and our State passed legislation to
address this very issue of getting teachers who lived in the
communities to consider working in those very same communities.
I am a first generation educator. And many of my colleagues
came from education families. When you talk to people they say,
my mom and my grandmother were a teacher, my father--and there
were usually more than one person in the family who were
teachers. So now as we are trying to attract this first
generation educators we have to change the conversation.
My daughter is now a teacher. And I have to tell you she
works in a school district where she is one of two minorities
in her school. So how do we continue to support people after we
get them into these communities? And it is not just about the
money. Anyone who goes into this profession goes into it
because they have a true and a genuine investment in children.
So my first question is for Ms. McManus. Do you have any
thoughts on how we can infuse the educator pipeline? We are
hearing today about at the college level and then after, but I
know that we are the only profession where kids have a 12 year
interview. There is 12 years where we are standing in front of
them and they are considering how they feel about teaching as a
profession. So what can we do before they even get to the point
where they are making the decision in college to choose those
classes?
Ms. McManus. Thank you. So in Hillsborough, we are very
homegrown. I mean eighth largest district in the country and we
have students that we have not traditionally done a great job
of cultivating early on in their careers to become future
educators. And so we have a task force locally as well for
looking at our high school students and really encouraging them
to go the route of education, even before they leave high
school they know that is going to be the track that they are
going to take.
Those are the same teachers and the same teachers, those
are the same people that are going to be leading our schools in
the future. And so the important component is that as we
identify who those people are that we continue to cultivate
those relationship from the time they go into their colleges of
education to the time they enter the system and continue to
cultivate those relationships and those skills of our students.
Our leadership pathways, we are very much focused on
recruiting diverse leaders into our principal pipeline. And
that is coming from the teachers in our classrooms. And so we
are very targeted, our recruitment efforts. As we reach out to
leader teachers of color in hopes that we can help encourage
them to become the future leaders.
And so it starts from high school. It starts probably from
middle school. That we start to help people down that path--
Mrs. Hayes. I was going to say that.
Ms. McManus. In probably elementary school. How many of us
want to be teachers and we were encouraged to go a different
path. We need to cultivate students from the time they are
young into the time they go into College to make those choices.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. I
actually did a lot of work in that area. I had a young educator
society club in the high school, but we decided to introduce it
first in the middle school, and then even in the elementary
school allow students to shadow teachers. Because what ends up
happening is they hear all of the negative parts of profession,
but don't see the joy that comes with teaching.
In my remaining time, Mr. Daire, we heard a lot about
alternative routes to certification and it is not just about
cost, these are sometimes second career educators, art
teachers, technical teachers. Can you tell us what Virginia has
done to ensure that those online and alternative programs are
of the highest quality and producing the best and most
effective teachers?
Mr. Daire. In terms of the alternative certification
programs, within the State, unfortunately I don't have a lot of
detailed information on those State level requirements, but
programs do have to provide a significant amount of data to the
State in terms of the outputs and the quality of the teachers
that are being produced.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. My time has expired and again thank
you all so much for being here.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Ms. Hayes.
Mr. Smucker.
Mr. Smucker. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am not sure how to
effectively follow the national teacher of the year and asking
questions about teachers. But would like to congratulate Ms.
Hayes obviously on that wonderful achievement.
We should always celebrate and have deep respect and
gratitude for those who choose the profession of teaching. They
obviously are having an impact on our future. And so we thank
you Ms. Hayes and everyone else who has chosen that profession.
I was particularly interested in, Mr. White, in what you
are doing in your State. I served for a brief amount of time as
the chair of education committee in the State senate in
Pennsylvania. And we spent some time looking at effective
programs in other States as well as in other countries
measuring what we are doing in the United States compared to
other countries. And it always came back to great teachers and
great principals. And we must do everything that we can to
support them to ensure that they are prepared and that we are
supporting them throughout their job.
One of interesting things that I heard you say which was
one of the takeaways for me in the course of those
conversations is the idea of a mentor. And then the other was
in some other countries they spend more time in preparation
rather than actual classroom teaching was one of the takeaways
we got back. And I am just curious, have you incorporated that
into your program at all?
That is in terms of working with a mentor, but maybe it is
a classroom period during the week, maybe it is at the
beginning of everyday, just finding more time to allow teachers
to sort of plan and interact with their fellow teachers?
Mr. White. Yes.
Mr. Smucker. Has that been something you looked at all?
Mr. White. Yes. And I think that when you look at
comparison between our country and for example how the school
systems that Congress funds across the country spend say Title
I dollars, and how the most highly effective systems of
educator preparation and the teacher workforce say in South
Korea or in Singapore. And you look at the difference in how we
spend our dollars.
We have spent on radical reduction in class size and an
increase in our workforce, they have spent on to some extent
more time with students, but really Congressman as you say more
time with one another. Our teachers somewhat by virtue of the
way we spend somewhat by the virtue of the way we manage simple
do not have structured into their day enough time together.
That is enough time with mentors, pre service and in
service and it is enough time as part of a well structured team
inquiring into how as well students are doing and what it means
for our practice.
And as a consequence you get what some of us on the panel
have described earlier, which is you have a retention problem.
If teachers had that system that prioritizes structured time
with one another, one-on-one, and in teams I believe deeply
that our retention problem would--
Mr. Smucker. I think it is something that States--I am
sorry to cut you off, but I think it is something that States
should be looking at as they look to improve their system. You
talked about an evaluation system of the teacher preparation
programs in the State, you are in the midst of I think of a 2-
year pilot program you described in your testimony. And I am
just interested in knowing what you have learned during that
process and how have you--how has the system being changed as a
result of that?
Mr. White. Well, I think as in any accountability system
there must be a clear definition of what you want programs to
achieve. And I unfortunately believe between the K-12 laws and
the higher Ed laws of State and Federal government, we are
telling our institutions of higher education and our school
systems we go achieve 10,000 things. They should be achieving
A, B and C.
And in our State that is quantifiably effective teachers
placed in the places that need those teachers most and
practices such as I described before, teaching teachers to
teach reading that are valuable to students. If you can do
those three things, you are going to do well in our system.
And consequently we have seen institutions step up and make
real programmatic changes to focus on things like the
foundations of reading and also to start prioritizing
placements in communities where oftentimes educators have not
gone to be prepared, such as--
Mr. Smucker. I want to get one additional question in. I am
sorry. You talked a little bit about Title II, and I am
interested in knowing to what extent you, in your program,
interact currently with Title II the Higher Education Act, what
impact is it currently having on the systemwide improvement in
Louisiana?
Mr. White. Well we interact with it to the extent that I
don't believe it is a strategic driver of change. Unlike Title
II of ESSA, I don't believe it is a strategic driver of change.
Why? It requires data, obscure data that distract our attention
from the things that really matter.
And two, it funds narrow partnerships between a local
university and a local school system, rather than Statewide
plans for change. You are not getting the most for your
investment by way of Title II HEA.
Mr. Smucker. I think it is a message that is loud and clear
and we should certainly take that into reconsideration as we
look at reauthorization.
Thank you.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Smucker.
Ms. Shalala.
Ms. Shalala. Thank you very much. I actually have spent
some time in schools of education teaching, and particularly
teaching Teach for America students most recently in their
master's program. And I am very interested in the retention
issue, but I think the better model for residency is actually
nursing, which has moved into residency programs.
But if you look at nursing curriculum, they introduce
clinicals much earlier in their curriculum, rotating students
through curriculums, almost from the beginning of their nursing
education. That helps them, but the key--and if you read the
literature, as all of you probably I am sure have in teacher
education, it is not just doing the residency, it is whether
the mentorship stays for a number of years afterwards. Because
you can't learn how to teach in 1 year, I certainly didn't
learn how to teach in 1 year, even with the best kind of
intensive mentorship. So it is the number of years afterwards.
The number of schools of education actually stay with the
students. And that is they have master teachers that actually
stay with their graduates for a number of years afterwards, and
that makes a difference on retention. But it can't be just
that, it has to be salary, all of those elements that are
coming in.
I have a particular interest in the question of why we are
putting the least experienced teachers in the classroom. Mr.
White, you have had experience with Teach for America and
obviously desperate to find some people that will teach in the
most challenging schools. We put a lot of very inexperienced
people into classrooms.
And the question is what are our strategies to avoid that
other than trying to pay senior teachers more? What are the
incentives to try to get our most experienced people in the
classroom, in the places that are the most challenge for us?
Yes.
Mr. White. Thank you. Well, I think first it does start
with money. And I do think we need to be real, it is a
different job. Teaching in some of the schools that Ms. McManus
was describing, they certainly exist in New Orleans, and Baton
Rouge and Shreveport is a different job. It does require a
different level of compensation. And so there are districts
like Shreveport, Louisiana that have stepped up to do that,
$15,000 per year more in the hardest to staff schools.
But also you need leaders to go, you can't just be saying
teachers you go, you need your most effective leaders to go.
Until the leaders go, and I believe financial incentives helped
there as well, you won't create a culture that says we believe
this is a promotion, this is a step up to take the hardest
challenge the district has to offer.
And so I think school systems can achieve what you are
describing if there is a cultural shift, because not just the
low people in their first years of teachers or what have you
are doing it, but the senior most, most experienced people are
doing it.
Ms. McManus. I would like to comment on that as well. We
formed in Hillsboro a Turnaround Leadership pathways and it is
exactly for the reason of taking our very best leaders to move
to some of our most under performing schools in some of our
under served communities. Our students in those schools are
brilliant. They need the right teachers, which the only way to
really create that environment where teachers can achieve
success is through the leaders.
And so we have done exactly that, made it attractive for
our very best leaders to move into our schools and that is how
we attract great teachers and that is how we retain them as
well.
Ms. Shalala. Any other comments from any of the other panel
members on retention?
Mr. Daire. Thank you. I think in terms of retention and I
agree with my panelists that we do have to look at ways of
having our teacher candidates get into the schools earlier. And
I think what you stated what the nursing model I think is a
great example and that is what we are trying to move towards,
to be able to get our students, particularly in urban high need
schools earlier.
I think another point that we need to consider is that when
we look at the hardest to staff schools and the poorest
performing schools it is also the schools where there is a high
concentration of poverty with school children that are subject
to significant amount of problems, but we need to do a better
job of training our educators to be more effective with all
students, particularly those living in poverty with under
represented minority students integrating more, culturally
responsive practices and things of that nature, which I think
is going to contribute to the retention because those folks are
going to be better prepared for those environments that they
are placed.
Ms. Shalala. Let me also note that one of challenges is
State school boards changing the requirements. And if you look
at most schools of education their teacher preparation section
they note that you should be prepared if there is a change in
the requirements and they put the burden on the students as
well as on the individual schools and that is really very
difficult for many people.
Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Ms. Shalala.
And Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much. I appreciate my colleague
bringing that up that line of questions, Dr. Shalala. It was
her credentials. That is important. And actually the one
question I was going to ask I will get to that in a second. But
I was in general assembly in Kentucky, and study schools that
were in challenging environments, be it Appalachia, be it
Louisville. And I will tell you, if you go into a school that
is beating all expectations and we want them all to beat all
expectations, it was a dynamic principal.
It absolutely you could feel it in the principal, you could
see it in the principal and the staff, but the principal led
the staff. You had to have a great group of teachers but you
had to have a great principal that was able to be the school
leader and just owned it and was part of it and moved it
forward.
One thing, Mr. White, I was interested in the believe and
repair residency model that you have. I know that you do, it is
for college seniors to gain a full year of practice experience.
Have you thought about reaching into like the high school
level, the high school seniors to give them kind of a taste of
what teaching is so that it can inspire people to be in careers
of teaching?
Mr. White. Yes, absolutely. And I think Ms. McManus spoke
to this a little bit earlier as well. I couldn't agree more
than it has to happen.
We actually just started a State chapter of an organization
called educators rising which provides across States for a
short course sequence within high schools that can be done
either as an elective or as part of their core curriculum that
gives students advanced standing in colleges of education so
they can get some of their foundational course work out of way.
It is high school students, it gets them some clinical
experience as well and more than anything get them exposure to
as Congresswoman Hayes said the very positive aspects of our
profession not just the challenges of our profession.
Mr. Guthrie. Okay. Thanks very much.
And alternative certifications interested in that as well
because the teaching profession is very difficult and we have
great teaching schools in Kentucky, but sometimes somebody
comes with that right expertise or that right like a chemical
engineer wants to see chemistry of trying to change careers. An
electrical engineer wants to teach math, we see that, or
somebody has a great drama history, wants to come and teach
liberal arts in a high school or arts in a high school.
And when I was in general assembly we found it was easier,
I have to say this right, it was easier to get a college credit
for a high school course than a high school credit--so if you
are at Bowling Green High and you took physics at Western Tech
University, it was more difficult to get that credit at the
high school because the physics professor, the Ph.D. in
research at Western was not a certified teacher.
And so we had to break through some of that. And sometimes
you do things in legislatures and they have better results and
even anticipated doing. And we have people, they talking about
now cost of college, we have people now because we came up with
an alternative credentialing to make sure that college
professors were certified teachers for purposes of high school
credit. And we now have people graduating from high school with
associate degrees. I never saw that coming. I never thought
people could get 2 years of associates along with high school,
but we have that happening.
And so would you talk about Louisiana or do any of you want
to talk about your alternative certification models? I am sure
we have absolute quality in the classroom, but sometimes there
is it that right person with the right experience that is a
good leader and can come into a high school classroom.
Mr. White. First, Congressman, I agree with you. I run into
the circumstances too we have people with wonderful higher Ed
credentials that can't get into our K-12 system. It is
ridiculous and we should all lower the barriers to that kind of
transition happening.
At the same time we need to be real with the fact that too
often our alternative certification models are not that. It is
an empty special Ed classroom in a rural community where there
is just nobody to teach. And somebody is coming in very cold,
with very limited experience, and we are putting them in front
of children who need their expertise and skills very badly. So
we have a balance, we have to have a balance between the right
barriers and the right preparation models and reducing barriers
so that there is more of a fluid process. I think the way you
do that is by requiring serious, serious support for all
alternative certification candidates when they come in.
And I described how we have a rural parish or counties, we
call them parishes in Louisiana, that are piloting a model
where every single day, every alternative certification teacher
co-teaches with a State certified mentor. They coteach their
class for at least one period per day, which both is cost
effective for the teacher and the school system, but it
provides the teacher modeling and support that sadly was at
least too rare in our alternative certification programs
beforehand.
Mr. Guthrie. Anyone else want to comment on that?
Ms. McManus. Do you want to comment on that?
Ms. McManus. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie. Yes absolutely.
Ms. McManus. Yes. We have an alternative certification
program in Hillsborough, but I will tell you, and we do get
some great teachers, because of the intensity of the support on
the job. The job--the role of a teacher and leader it is an
evolution to become great at your craft. And where you can get
the before job experience in classrooms and then you can get
the on the job support after entering the role, that creates
the ultimate win for our students.
Students teaching is way more than content, it is so much
around the systems and the management in your classroom and how
you get to know every single student and some folks come in
without that and then they struggle.
And so I think, I mean, alternate certification program is
working because there is a teacher shortage and we do have to
look at every possible avenue to get great teachers, but the
intensity of the support mentoring and for time over time is
critical if you are going to come in lacking some type of pre
service support.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you for those answers.
I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Lee.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thanks for
having this important discussion.
You know, in this committee we talk a lot about student
debt and certainly that is something that is weighing in this
country with about $1.5 trillion in student debt having
incredible consequences not only in terms of student's ability
to pay it back, but also in terms of their career choices.
And then when we talk about recruiting effective teachers
in the overwhelming majority of college students are then
forced to take on debt. And in fact those entering the teaching
profession on average take on about $20,000 in debt for a
Bachelor's degree and $50,000 for a master degree. And then
despite this investment mid-career teachers can expect to earn
about 30 percent less than similar credentialed mid-career
professionals.
I would like to ask Dr. Daire, can you speak about the
importance of increased Federal investments in service
scholarships and loan forgiveness programs in supporting a
stable and strong teaching workforce?
Mr. Daire. I think they are critically important,
particularly when we consider the teachers who are even
interested in going into education for the sole purpose of
going into an urban high needs schools. Those tend to be more
underrepresented minority students, students who have left
economic ability to pay for University. So I think it is
important for us to continue those financial aid programs, and
Pell grants, and those student loan programs.
When we look overall, we don't do a good job as a Nation
educating our bottom 50 percent SCS students. And I think that
is critically important, not just in education. I mean we need
that for the teaching profession, but overall we have to find
ways to really support students who are at the lower income
enabled in order to access higher education and especially in
the teaching profession.
Mrs. Lee. Thank you. That actually plays well into my next
question regarding diversity and the teaching core. And this is
such--I come from Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada. And in Clark
County district we always struggle in hiring teachers.
In fact last year we had to hire close to 2,000 teachers in
1 year. And we have a student body that represents 75 percent
students of color, over 50 percent Latino students, that we
only have 11 percent Latino teachers, 14 percent African-
American students with about 7 percent African-American
teachers. I know we know the studies that link student
achievement with the representation of diversity in the
teaching forces.
Fortunately, I also represent three public colleges who are
minority and Hispanic serving institutions, UNLV, Nevada State
College, and the College of Southern Nevada. I am proud to say
that UNLV is one of the top five most diverse universities in
the country.
Mrs. Lee. But given that, I wanted to ask you and Dr. Daire
or whoever wants to, how can we leverage the tools of the MSI/
HSI programs to build a core teachers that is aligned to the
socioeconomic characteristics of a student population.
Mr. Daire. Well, I think we have to really look at pipeline
programs that get into the high schools. What Congresswoman
Hayes said about the 12 year interview, I think that is
critically important that we have to--and this hasn't been
talked about here, but what is the experience that
underrepresented minority students are receiving in the
classroom. And is that interview process one that is likening
them to want to become a teacher? And so I will add that
component because that has not been discussed. And I will let
some of the other panelists address some of the other factors.
But we really to start early with our students, because if
we look at strategies once they are in college, we have missed
a large percentage of students.
Mrs. Lee. Great. Does anyone else want to--
Mr. White. I would just note we haven't discussed today the
fact that there remains an achievement gap in post secondary
achievement between racial minority and other students in our
country.
And if there were more schools like Georgia State
University for example that had eliminated that completer gap,
then you would have a much larger percentage of the college
graduate population that is representative of the student
population in our public schools.
Mrs. Lee. Great. Thank you.
I yield the remainder of my time. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Watkins.
Mr. Watkins. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for
being here. I appreciate it. I am the older brother of a
teacher, son of a teacher, and grandson and all of this is so
vitally important.
My question is for Mr. White. One of the challenges we hear
about is finding and attracting good students to enter into the
teaching profession. Has Louisiana addressed these standards,
knowing that it is a balance between their capabilities, as
well as the needs of call it the school system?
Mr. White. I think it is first a matter first of
professionalizing the path in. Undergraduates are talking with
their friends who are aspiring lawyers or aspiring nurses or
what have you. And seeing them get exciting experience in the
work setting. And yet in teaching too often that experience is
limited to a short internship.
We have to professionalize the path into our profession,
and we have to do things like many of my panelists have
discussed today bringing that into the high schools.
Finally, though, we are really for the first time in some
time reaching a point where it is not just that teaching is a
poorly paid profession relative to other bachelors-requiring
jobs, but it is at the rate of escalation in our competitor
fields is now increasingly out pacing the rate of escalation
within the salaries of our own field and we have to be real
about that.
Debt in some form is going to continue to exist for good or
for not. And it is going to continue to be somewhat the burden
of college graduates and their families to repay it. And coming
into our profession and saying, you could either make $100,000
or you can make $35,000, and then saying what is attractive
about our profession is completely counterintuitive. States and
local governmental entities need to step up and find a way of
financing better the front end compensation of people entering
the teacher profession if we are ever to make it legitimately
competitive in the 21st Century.
Mr. Watkins. Thank you. Switching gears, Mr. White, the
evaluation system, how has that changed during the first phase?
Mr. White. Well, we have piloted our evaluation system in
three areas, are your graduates effective for their students,
are you placing students in rural and other settings where
there are graduates where they are badly needed, and third are
your practices actually changing? Is the way that you are
teaching teachers to teach improving? And I think of all areas,
that is the area we have seen the greatest improvement.
We have been piloting an onsite review model, modeled after
the United Kingdom and what they do for their colleges of
education. They are able to be onsite giving feedback on a
regular basis, through our colleges of education and our
alternative programs. And I can tell you they are making
changes in their practice. I have seen literally in 2 years
institutions improve from say a score of 2 out of 4 to a score
of 3.5 out of 4, which is tremendous progress on the same
instrument.
So they are improving the way they teach teachers to teach.
Mr. Watkins. Thank you. And Madam Chair, I yield the
balance of my time.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much. And we now move to Ms.
Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. Thank you to the Chairs
and the Ranking Members. And thank you to our witnesses. I am
glad we are having this important discussion today about how we
can better support our Nation's educators.
I just want to follow up on my colleagues' comments and the
testimony about professionalizing the profession or making it
more attractive to more people.
One of the things we can do is we can push back on all the
public school bashing that we hear in our communities. That
doesn't help people who are just trying to decide what
profession to enter. So I invite everyone to join me in that
effort to talk about the great opportunity and the importance
of public education.
In my home State of Oregon, and I know Representative
Jayapal talked about diversity, but we have about 40 percent of
our students are students of color, but 90 percent of teacher
the workforce is White. And as the chair of the Civil Rights
and Human Services Subcommittee, I certainty recognize the
importance and value of having diverse educators in classrooms.
Research shows there is a positive correlation between
having a teacher of color in the achievement in students of
color. And as we continue to advance equity in public
education, we have to make sure that we address that lack of
diversity both in the teacher and school leader workforce and
provide support for and opportunities for teachers of color.
Dr. Daire, nationally the majority of public school
students are children of color. Yet only 20 percent of incoming
teachers are persons of color. In northwest Oregon the gap is
even larger. Beaverton and Hillsboro--that is Hillsboro,
Oregon. I know there is another Hillsboro--the third and fourth
largest school districts in Oregon are now majority students of
color, but only a fraction, about 12 percent of teachers in
those districts, were teachers of color.
And the school districts have actually joined with two
other districts and launched a countywide Washington County
Diverse Educator Pathway to address this issue and increase
diversity and retention of teachers of color throughout their
created educator pathways. And we know that one of barriers to
increasing diversity is the cost of college.
And research shows that teachers of color are often unable
to afford a high quality preparation without supports like
grants, aid, and information gathered from FASFA shows that a
higher percentage of Black students, more than students from
any other racial group have no expected family contribution.
Can you talk about how making college more affordable could
help diversify the profession?
Mr. Daire. I think it is going to be critically important
that we address that. I think the data that you articulate is
reflective of what we see in Virginia. And we need to continue
to invest in the different supports to help offset those costs,
looking at the student loan forgiveness, looking at Pell
grants, looking at other incentives.
Another issue in Virginia is the cost of licensing tests,
which can be anywhere from $300 to $500 for students to take.
So there are some other barriers that even exist after the cost
of education.
And I think when we look at those numbers, that is not
going to change overnight. So we have to do a better job in
ensuring that the White teachers are receiving the necessary
training to work with students living in poverty, to work with
students who are culturally diverse from them.
Ms. Bonamici. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I know with
college affordability we need short-term solutions and long-
term solutions. And I am getting ready to reintroduce the
SIMPLE Act, which will get and keep more student loan borrowers
and income-driven repayment so the borrowers who do take on
debt, for example to pursue high quality teacher preparation
programs can get into income-driven repayment.
Ms. McManus, in addition to increasing diversity among our
Nation's teachers, we know that we need diversity in our school
leaders as well. So how does your school district make sure
that it is recruiting school leaders of color? And why is that
important to you? And what can Congress do to support those
efforts?
Ms. McManus. It is very important that we also have
diversity in leadership and we have heard the research as to
why. Our teachers--our students need to see teachers and other
adults that look like them in our schools. And also, diversity
makes us smarter and stronger. And we need to have diverse
perspectives in every one of our schools.
In Hillsborough again we recruit heavily into our next
layer of leadership from our teacher ranks. And so we work
across divisions to try to start at the teacher level, because
those are the people that then we targeted, performed targeted
recruitment efforts to then move into leadership positions. We
started a partnership with University of Tampa, and that is to
recruit leader--teachers of color into a master's program where
we act--because a master's is required before you become a
leader in Hillsborough, a school-based leader. We paid for half
of their education so that we can have more leaders of color,
have the opportunities for advancement in our district.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much. I see my time has expired.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. First of all, I have a comment for Mr. White.
I think one of the problems--well, you mentioned the
underpayment of teachers, and I will ask you to do a Google
search a little bit when you get done here. I think a lot of
those statistics don't take into account fringe benefits. And I
don't think we are doing future generations any favor when we
run down the occupation.
I remember when I was in high school, one of the teachers
got up in front of the class when I was a senior in high
school, and I wanted to be a teacher, and ran down the
occupation, and said how underpaid he was and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. And so I thought, well, I am not going to be a
teacher, just because my teachers are running me down.
I recently talked to another student going to a very nice
suburban high school in Milwaukee whose teacher went off, and
said how underpaid he was, and ran it down. And I am sure by
the time he was done, nobody in the class wanted to be a
teacher.
Someone over here, I can't remember which Congressman,
said, we shouldn't be running down public education. And I do
think this idea of running down the occupation of teachers
being underpaid is not necessarily appropriate. And I would
suggest you do a little bit of research when you take fringe
benefits into account. I think you will find that teachers are
not as underpaid as you think.
Now next question I have, I will switch and go to
questions. I read a book once, I wish I could remember the name
about how to get the best people in teaching. And they felt one
way to do that was to make is more of a high status profession,
not cost, but high status. And they talked about--I think the
two countries they talked about were Finland and Poland.
And there what they had done is they had tried to grab the
best students, I don't think they had ACTs or SAT scores in
London or Poland, but whoever is doing the best on the
standardized test and try to get them to go into teaching.
I wondered if any of you know right now, as far as
graduates from schools of education, where we are on SAT, ACT
scores compared to the other schools and colleges.
Mr. White. I will clarify my first comment for you briefly,
Congressman. My point was precisely your point, which is that
actually States invest significantly more on the back end of
the profession through retirement systems that typically start
early and are relatively lucrative relative to Private Sector
accounts, rather than thinking about how do we target
investments up front.
It should be looked at that in a State like mine, 25 to 30
percent of all State dollars go directly into retirement
systems that are retiring people or compensating them 30 years
after they start doing the job that we are talking about here
today. So my point was at least related to that, not to make
broadly the point that teachers are underpaid.
Secondly, you are right relative to college as a business,
relative to college of engineering, and in most cases relative
to colleges of arts and scientists we have then given
universities the ACT scores in Louisiana, the colleges of
education of lower. However, there are exceptions to that.
There are institutions where the college of education have
competitive ACT scores with the colleges of engineering or the
colleges of business.
And I think it is in that variation that we with have to
take a look at what are those places doing to, as you suggest,
brand the profession as one that is fully competitive with
those others. That is what they are doing and why you get that
parity.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I appreciate your answer. I
obviously keep track of Wisconsin most because that is where I
am from. And I know so many of the students they have to
compete to get into the school of business, or the school of
engineering, or the school of nursing. And it would be good if
we had the same competition to get into the school of
education.
The next question I have, I enjoy being on the Education
Committee in part because I have a lot of opinions on K-12
education. But one of the things that intrigues me is the
degree to which people come here and ask the Federal Government
to dive into education. In my first term here we passed the
Student Succeeds Act and the whole purpose of that was to get
the Federal Government kind of out of education. And my local
superintendents were pleased we passed the Student Succeeds
Act.
Nevertheless, again and again we have here instances in
which people introduce bills and want the Federal Government to
dive into education more and more. As far as diving into it
with money, I think it goes up and down every month it seems.
But right now the Federal Government is borrowing 17 or 18
percent of our budget. And at least the State of Wisconsin went
into this budget year with a big surplus. And I don't think
Wisconsin is alone in that because States frequently rely on
sales and income tax dollars for their budgets. And as the
economy booms so does that.
What can we do to educate advocates for the education
system that they should start more at the State or local level
and expecting the Federal Government to dive in? Not just with
dollars, but apparently with rules and regulations as to how--
Mrs. Davis. Excuse me, Mr. Grothman. You are leaving them
no time to respond to you.
So I am sorry, I am going to have to go to the next.
Mr. Grothman. I can let them respond in writing.
Mrs. Davis. And we try in how you do that also for the
record, if you like. And perhaps there will be another
opportunity. I will try and do as well. Okay?
Mrs. Davis. Mr. Levin.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, I am really concerned that the lack of support
for teachers and school leaders is pushing teachers out of the
classroom and causing a shortage of qualified educators. My
wife Mary taught 6th grade for years, my sister-in-law is a
special ed teacher. I am just completely surrounded by
teachers, which is a beautiful thing. And so I know the
importance of giving teachers the preparation, support, and
resources they need to deliver the high-quality education our
children deserve.
Mr. Brosnan, what would you most like the Members of this
committee to know about the teaching profession, and what are
your recommendations for improving teacher preparation?
Mr. Brosnan. Thank you, Congressman. I think the most
resounding thing that you have heard from all of my fellow
panelists, and I will reiterate, teaching is a wonderful
profession. I absolutely love it and, clearly, my colleagues do
as well. I think that should not be lost when we are talking
about loan forgiveness and salary and other elements that we
have discussed here today. We love education and we love
working with our students.
I think one of the things that needs to improve in
preparation programs is, like my colleague, Mr. White, outlined
for us, a longer period of residency so that when that
perspective teacher and graduate becomes employed, they have
had a full year of experience in a classroom. I think that is
an excellent model, and I am so pleased to hear that it exists,
even if it is a couple thousand miles away from me.
Mr. Levin. That is great. All right. Thank you.
I do want to go back to some of the financial issues,
though. I think that if we are serious about supporting
teachers, we need to address the issue of college affordability
systematically as a Nation, and that has long been recognized
as a barrier to both recruitment and retention of educators.
Today, two-thirds of individuals entering the teaching
profession must take out student loans. They have an average
debt of $20,000 for a bachelor's degree and $50,000 for a
master's degree, only to enter the profession that will pay 30
percent less by mid-career when compared to similarly
credentialed professionals in other fields.
The America's College Promise Act, which I will be
introducing next week, will create a partnership between the
Federal Government and States to provide tuition and fee-free
community college to all students. The proposal would also
provide grants to cover a significant portion of tuition and
fees for the first 2 years of attendance for low-income
students enrolling at qualified minority-serving institutions,
or MSIs. America's College Promise would mean providing support
to all perspective teachers attending both community colleges
and MSIs.
So, Dean Daire, how would fully covering tuition at
community colleges and MSIs help make teaching a more
financially viable career choice? Do you think it would, and
how specifically would it?
Mr. Daire. Well, I think it would, particularly if we can
tap those pipelines down into the K-12 schools and also ensure
that we have strong articulation agreements between the 4-
year--between the 4-year universities and the community
colleges, and also that we can ensure that at the community
college level, as my colleagues have said, we have to really
make sure that our candidates are getting experiences earlier
in the classroom. And so I think if we do those things, I think
it would definitely be quite promising to have that type of
support for teacher candidates.
Mr. Levin. At VCU and other similar institutions, do a
number of people who go into the profession start out at
community colleges? Is it a significant factor around the
country--in Virginia and around the country, to your knowledge?
Mr. Daire. Well, Virginia is a little bit unique in that
for about the past 23 years, up until recent legislation,
teachers for licensure had to receive their master's in
teaching, and so that really created some challenges for strong
articulation programs. That legislation has changed. VCU, we
are introducing five new teacher ed undergraduate programs
starting this fall, and some other universities around the
State. There will be a second wave next year. We are really
excited because that is going to really allow us to develop
those articulation agreements with the community colleges and
also programs that tap into high schools to create a solid
pipeline.
Mr. Levin. Wonderful. Thank you so much to all of you for
your testimony today.
And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Meuser.
Mr. Meuser. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you all very, very much for being here with us today.
I think we certainly all agree the importance of educators,
of teachers. I think the good teachers in our lives, even as
old as me, still remember very well. More importantly is the
teachers for my children and their--how well and effective they
are. And it is interesting how you can get a lot of information
if you ask the right questions about teachers, which I have
done for many, many years now, and you get a good understanding
of a great teacher, a good teacher, and maybe a not-so-good
teacher. So I want to talk about that a little bit.
It is certainly imperative, I think we all agree as well,
that we invest in the education of our students and in the
educators, those who spend all the time with our children, our
young people. Education is a top priority for any thriving or
successful economy, clearly. It always has been really
throughout history. So we are always trying to improve, of
course. So innovation and tools, methods, curriculum options,
what we should be providing and what options that they should
have, as we now have a lot more vocational and career
development even in high schools, which I think is very
important. But I also think we need to innovate when it comes
to teacher accountability and definitely pay, and that
sometimes is a challenge.
So, Mr. White, I want to ask you about how we evaluate
existing teachers, and bring to note, in Pennsylvania--I am
from Pennsylvania--our teachers are evaluated either by
satisfactory or unsatisfactory, two categories. Teachers get a
satisfactory rating if they are deemed as distinguished,
proficient, or needs improvement. Only failing teachers are
given an unsatisfactory rating. And I do believe that the
satisfactory percentage is in the neighborhood of 97, perhaps
98 percent.
So I believe that States should be tasked with evaluating
their teachers, but I am interested in your views evaluating
teacher performance. I was in business for 25 years; regular
feedback is very important. It helps you get better. You rely
upon it. You need it. We were talking about principals a little
bit earlier. I am sure the real good principals provide that.
But I am not exactly sure what sort of innovation is taking
place on that general feedback so teachers are focused on daily
improving. Maybe you can speak to that, Mr. White.
Mr. White. Well, I think States should be involved in it,
and thanks in part to previous prompting from Congress, States
are involved in it. But at the same time, States and
certainly--certainly the Federal Government, but States as
well, shouldn't dictate the terms of all professional
development and feedback systems that are given in schools. You
need to leave room for the customization and innovation you are
describing. I will give you an example.
The Teacher Advancement Program, or the TAP, system which
exists in many of the States that are represented here today,
is one of, from my perspective, the most comprehensive and
effective systems of teacher improvement. It has its own
evaluation rubric with its own set of values embedded in it for
principals and other supervisors in schools to use. A State
shouldn't substitute its judgment and say to a school system,
you can't use an instrument like that has been proven time
after time to be effective just because State government thinks
it has got exactly the right way to do it. States should allow
for common principles, but some distinctions as locals
determine what is best in their local context.
Mr. Meuser. So you are speaking from experience, so that is
working, that is effective in Louisiana?
Mr. White. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, teacher evaluation is
a means to an end. It is a means to an end of student
achievement. We should have better schools partially because
schools have done the right thing, vis-a-vis, making their
teachers better, and that means on some level that we as States
need to insist that there are quantifiable outcomes and that
teachers are getting feedback. But on the other hand, we
shouldn't disrupt success and go to a school where things are
progressing and say, well, now you need to do it our way. That
would be an enormous mistake.
Mr. Meuser. Do you ever consider student surveys of
teachers?
Mr. White. Absolutely. And there is a lot of evidence to
show that, done well, that is effective. At the same time, it
has got to be secure and trustworthy. It has to be both valid
and reliable, and that is a big investment of State energies.
But there is no question there are studies to show that
students give consistently helpful and often valid and reliable
feedback regarding teachers.
Mr. Meuser. I am glad to see Ms. McManus nodding, because I
think that is important. There seems to have been some--I have
detected some resistance there, but I think that would be
important.
Well, we are all very interested in hearing what Congress
can do to support your efforts.
And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Dr. Adams.
Ms. Adams. Thank you, Madam Chair and to the Ranking
Members as well, for convening this hearing.
And thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony. It
has been very interesting and a little bit enlightening for me.
I certainly agree with a lot of what has been said by my
colleagues. I want to, first of all, thank you for your
dedication to students, to children, and for your work in
education.
You might know that I was an educator at Bennett College in
Greensboro, North Carolina, for 40 years. Started my career a
little earlier than that working at a high school that is now
closed, the Palmer Memorial Institute, which was the oldest
college preparatory school for African Americans in a little
city called Sedalia, North Carolina. It has since closed. It
was actually founded by Charlotte Hawkins Brown, who was 19
years old when she founded that school.
My daughter is an assistant principal at a local elementary
school in Greensboro as well. I am real proud of the work she
is doing. So I do know firsthand the importance of having a
school administration behind you. That is really key.
I served in the North Carolina House for 20-1/2 years, and
so education was something that we dealt with too. I am not
real happy with all that North Carolina is doing in terms of
really supporting public education as they should. I think we
are stifling money away, and I don't know whether or not you
are experiencing that in terms of vouchers and those kinds of
things.
So it appears that the support that we should be giving for
public education is really not what it ought to be at some of
our State levels, and I speak more specifically for North
Carolina. So I know it is difficult when you are faced with
tight budgets and you don't have all the resources that you
need, and that is why I think it is all the more reason that we
have to have strong Title II funding.
And so having said that, Mr. Brosnan, if I could start with
you, can you tell the committee why it is so important for
teachers to have supportive school leaders, and cite any
examples that you might have where the influence of school
leaders has been a main determinant of whether a teacher is
retained?
Mr. Brosnan. Thank you, Congresswoman. I can speak from
personal experience that in 14 years at the same high school, I
had 20 principals.
Ms. Adams. Wow.
Mr. Brosnan. The final one that I had before my new role
working with new teachers across the entire city is an
excellent leader. He has stabilized the school. He has
stabilized the attrition rate and the faculty. And having the
promise of an excellent leader with superior interpersonal
skills and the academic and pedagogical knowledge to lead a
struggling urban school forward is incalculable.
Ms. Adams. Thank you.
Ms. McManus, what role do you believe effective school
leadership plays in teacher retention?
Ms. McManus. It is a key lever in retention. You just heard
that. We expect a school to have great performance for students
with 20 different leaders. That causes fragmentation in some
other schools that are not in some of our environments that
need the best. They have leaders that have stayed there for
decades. That is an inequity. That is what leads to achievement
gaps in our systems.
And so having a great leader is the key lever, and that is
why we have chosen to invest in leadership so strongly in
Hillsborough through a strong principal pipeline, because we
should be able to avoid that kind of scenario when you actually
identify leaders based on a common set of standards and develop
them along that path. We should not have that kind of turnover.
Ms. Adams. Okay. So, you know, we have heard a lot about
the difficulty that teachers and school leaders of color have
in staying in the workforce due to fiscal issues, but I am also
interested in whether the culture of our education system is
tailored in a way that makes their jobs easier. And can you
speak to the emphasis of any that you place on mentoring for
your teachers and school leaders of color and what sort of
induction strategies that you implement when new educators of
color come aboard? I want to ask Dr. Daire, and then any other
person can respond.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Daire. Thank you for your question. We do need to
support stronger induction programs, and that is something that
we are doing at VCU, is that we are going to be providing that
induction support for our graduates who are teaching in Title I
schools for 2 years after they are finished. And this is really
modeled after our Richmond Teacher Residency program which we
have seen success in that area.
Ms. Adams. Madam Chair, I am out of time. I will have to
yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you and the Ranking Members for this hearing--joint
hearing. Thank all of the Members of the panel for being here
today and bringing your expertise to this topic.
I am sure every Member of this committee can think of a
teacher that had a positive influence on, not only their
education, quite frankly, their life. Maybe we didn't realize
it back in the day, but in retrospect looking back, and usually
it was the ones that had the higher standards, the toughest
teachers are the ones I look back with admiration today and had
tremendous influence.
Teachers are the most underrated yet powerful professionals
in the entire world, is what I believe. They truly do shape
young minds. In Pennsylvania, we have a program, the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania instituted a teacher in the
workforce grant program that focuses on strength and
collaboration between local educators and local businesses. The
goal is to better prepare students with the skills for the in-
demand jobs, creating really pathways to opportunity.
On the Federal side, under the current law, the Federal
Teacher Quality Partnership grant connects local schools with
nearby colleges and universities to create professional
development programs for new teachers; however, there are not
enough opportunities for established teachers to develop
leadership and peer mentoring skills that help retain teachers
and boost student achievement. That is why I was proud to
introduce H.R. 3108, the Teachers Are Leaders Act.
This bipartisan piece of legislation seeks to expand
professional development and leadership growth opportunities
for teachers. Now, specifically, the legislation would expand
Teacher Quality Partnership grants by making teacher leader
programs focused on professional development for established
teachers eligible for funding. Programs would focus on peer
coaching, family and community engagement, curriculum
development, and other ways to make full use of their
experience as educators and leaders within their communities.
Now, if schools want to recruit/retain high-quality
teachers, then they must treat them like the professionals that
they are, and that means we must allow them to grow both inside
and outside the classroom.
Mr. White, thank you for being here today. I have a couple
questions for you Kind of reflect a little bit on just one
small thing that Pennsylvania was doing. Does Louisiana provide
any State programs for established teachers who are seeking
professional development?
Mr. White. We do, and much of that is done through with
Federal assistance, including Title II of the Every Student
Succeeds Act, and a Teacher Incentive Fund grant also from the
Federal Government. And I also wanted to say that I too am
supportive of programs that have classroom teachers spending
time in other industries' understanding, through internships or
externships, what their own students as graduates will be
experiencing in the workplace.
Mr. Thompson. Yeah, I think those are outstanding programs
for many--certain percentage of our students who go right into
the marketplace and to the workplace, and the more the teachers
understand what the skill sets are that are required, the
higher degree of success, not just of achieving jobs, but
growing within those businesses and industries for greater
opportunity.
You talk in your testimony about mentor teachers who work
with perspective teachers as part of the State's residency
program. Can you tell us more about how mentor teachers are
prepared and licensed in order to ensure those teachers are
effective in working with new colleagues?
Mr. White. Our State has created a specific training
program and a specific series of assessments, and then
ultimately, a credential that mentor teachers experience. We
certified more than a thousand and we are on our way to 2,000
mentor teachers. That is a permanent license. It also comes
with additional funding in the form of a stipend. But I think
most unique is that gaining the mentor license in the State of
Louisiana makes you 40 percent of the way through to your
education administrator's license.
Education preparation for people who are going to lead
schools shouldn't just be about what type of training do they
get; it should be about who are we recruiting. And very often
we have not reached out to our best classroom teachers to
provide them a bridge between the classroom and school
leadership. And in my view, too many of our best teachers are
saying, I want to stay in the classroom; I don't want to take a
leadership role. There should be a leadership role that gives
them a bridge to leadership without removing them too far from
the classroom.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Trone, are you prepared? You just happened to come up
next, having been here earlier. Thank you.
Mr. Trone. Yes, ma'am. Thank you to the Chairs and Ranking
Members for holding this hearing, and thank you to our
witnesses for being here.
Teachers and school leaders are shaping our future every
day. My mother was a public schoolteacher, and I know how hard
it is for educators to work to make sure the next generation
has an opportunity to succeed.
By supporting our teachers, we are supporting a better
education and stronger outcomes for our students. That is why I
am proud to see us highlighting these issues. I am also glad
there is a consensus in Maryland, we must do more to elevate
teachers and school leaders to build a world-class education
system in our State.
The Kirwan Commission on Innovation and Excellence is
prioritize supporting teachers as one of its five major
recommendations, including increasing pay and diversity. But as
we have heard today, it is critical to recruit and retain
strong teachers. Data shows 40 percent of new teachers leave
the class within the first 5 years. That is a crisis.
Mr. Brosnan, reducing attrition by half would virtually
eliminate the teacher shortages. What support could the Federal
Government provide, in your opinion, to retain effective
teachers?
Mr. Brosnan. Thank you, Congressman. I feel as though some
of the things that we have discussed in preparation in
preservice to teaching would certainly aid in reducing the
attrition rate, but for an immediate fix, I think that States
and municipalities need to take the idea of pointed mentorship
very seriously. If we rework our preparation programs and put
other measures in to place to help the next group of teachers,
that doesn't do much for the classrooms that are opening in
August. And I think States and municipalities need to take
mentorship extremely seriously.
Mr. Trone. Any other thoughts on that one?
Ms. McManus.
Ms. McManus. Yes, sir. We have a mentor program. All first-
and second-year teachers have an assigned teacher. This is a
full-release person. Title II also supports that funding for
these release people to actually help ensure the success of our
teachers in the first 2 years on the job. Same with leaders.
Principals need that same support. Principal coaches provide
support in the first 2 years, and that system of support is
critical.
Mr. Trone. Thank you. I completely agree with you. We have
a mentorship program at my business from its board of directors
right on down through. I love mentorships.
It was great to work with colleagues in a bipartisan basis
to introduce the Teachers Are Leaders Act. This bill will
expand professional development in leadership growth
opportunities for teachers. I look forward to work with the
committee to better support educators in the Higher Education
Act reauthorization.
Last thing I had was, Ms. McManus, we have discussed, the
committee, the benefits of educating the whole child. This
means supporting their social/emotional development, in
addition, traditional subjects, math and science. Would
students benefit from including social/emotional learning,
trauma-informed care, implicit bias training for educators and
actually all staff in schools?
Ms. McManus. Absolutely. Educating a child is not just
about content. I said that earlier. It is about knowing their
story. It is about knowing the challenges they are facing when
they walk in the door every day, and then having our leaders
and our teachers equipped to have strategies in their tool belt
to be able to support our diverse learners. And so all of those
topics, all of those content areas are critical for both
teacher prep, leader prep, and for the ongoing support we give
our educators.
Mr. Trone. Secretary DeVos has rolled back several
initiatives that helps teachers better support the kids,
including the Obama-era discipline guidance. What has the Trump
administration done, if anything, to promote those practices?
Ms. McManus. Me?
Mr. Trone. Yep.
Ms. McManus. I am not sure exactly, but what I will say is
that as we approach discipline in our systems, there is a major
disparity in disciplines for students of color and other
students. Suspension rates, if you look at the data, are
higher, especially if you look at students with
exceptionalities that are students of color, even higher. And
so we have got to not have one-size-fits-all approaches to
disciplining students. We have got to make sure we are meeting
students where they are, and having students out of school is
not going to equal better outcomes for students.
So I will tell you, I have seen and I always want to ask
the question, if you have seen one student that came in with
some challenging behaviors turn around because of the adult
interventions, how many will it take for you to believe that is
the most critical part of shaping students?
Mr. Trone. Thank you. That is excellent.
I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cline.
Mr. Cline. Thank you, Madam Chair and the Ranking Member,
for holding the hearing, and thank our witnesses for being
here.
I want to follow on Ms. McManus' comments about when it
came to disciplining students, that one size does not fit all.
In fact, that applies to a whole host of educational programs
and ideas. The value of federalism in our education
institution, when it comes to education, is critical. And my
home State of Virginia is rich with education institutions both
in higher ed and K-12.
During my time in the State general assembly, I authored
legislation that was signed into law which gave teachers in K-
12 more resources to help identify if a student may be dyslexic
so that a referral for further evaluation could be made. This
legislation was able to make a transformational difference in
many students' lives by allowing them to get the assistance
they need to flourish in their education.
Teachers want to help, but each student is different and
presents their individual needs in different ways. So it is
important that teachers have the resources and preparation to
be able to identify them and help their students. The Virginia
General Assembly does a great job of supporting teachers so
they can be effective, and they are able to do this because
they know the specific needs of the State and the localities.
Federal Government needs to be cautious that it does not
impede on the work that States are doing to support education
by pushing one-size-fits-all solutions when, in fact, this type
of policy often does more harm than good.
I also want to take a moment to thank Dr. Daire, who is
dean of a great Virginia University, VCU, for being here today
as a witness. VCU prepares many future educators and maintains
high national rankings for their education programs.
With that Madam Chair, I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Castro.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairwoman.
And thank you for your testimony today.
I am a very big supporter of public schools. I went to
public school every year, except for 5th grade when I was sent
to Catholic school for a year. My dad was a public
schoolteacher for at least 26 of the 31 years that he taught.
He taught in the Edgewood Independent School District for all
those years. And I had many great teachers that helped me
believe in myself, but I also remember teachers that, quite
honestly, I don't think should have been teaching.
Let me give you a specific example. I went to middle school
across the street from, at the time, what was at the time the
largest housing project in the city of San Antonio, and I went
to a multilingual school. And there was a teacher I remember
that I had for German who on Halloween dressed up with a Nazi
insignia on his lapel. There was a teacher that my brother had,
who 2 or 3 days out of the week, would show movies--instead of
doing instruction, would show movies the whole time to the
students. There was a teacher that I had in high school that
joked about wetbacks in a school that was probably 95 percent
Mexican American.
So my question to you is, for those of us that are
supporters of public education, that want public education to
be robust for many years to come, how do we make sure that
teachers like that are either significantly improved or weeded
out?
Mr. Daire. So I think one recommendation that I believe has
come from all of us on the panel is that we do need to get
candidates, we need to get our students studying to be teachers
in the classrooms earlier, and I think we need to get them in
urban and high-needs classrooms earlier. I think we need to
have intensive training, as you mentioned, Congressman Trone,
in terms of implicit bias, understanding racism, understanding
culture, understanding poverty/privilege, so that those
individuals who really don't have the dispositions to work with
those students can be identified earlier and maybe redirected
to another career.
And then for those who are staying or are receiving the
type of training that will go along with what they are
receiving in terms of content and pedagogy to be successful
with all students, particularly students living in poverty and
particularly underrepresented minority students, which is the
concentration of where the challenges are happening.
Mr. Castro. Anyone else?
Mr. White. I would just add that, on the other side of that
and maybe less inspiring, but nevertheless, due process needs
to exist for any employee in our industry and, at the same
time, due process need not be delayed. And there are
circumstances across our country where justice is delayed
because there are attitudes and occasionally actions that are
fundamentally inappropriate, occasionally unlawful, and yet
people are still on the rosters of public school systems on the
payrolls, because State legislatures, school systems, and
school boards, and occasionally labor unions, have not come
together to address the issue candidly and expeditiously.
Ms. McManus. We also can't shortchange the role of the
principal in this. A culture that is created with a leader that
also had culturally responses, education, and implicit bias and
really believes in students, those types of behaviors would be
addressed because they are in their classrooms regularly. They
are able to create a culture that would not be allowed.
Mr. Castro. Thank you.
Of course, I graduated from high school in 1992, so I
haven't been, you know, in a secondary school since then, and I
certainly hope that things have changed since then. But that is
why I asked you all the question as experts who are current in
the field.
So thank you all for being here.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Omar.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairwoman.
I was raised by many educators, and I feel a little alarmed
about how, across the Nation, educator pay continues to erode,
expanding the large gap between what teachers earn and what
similar educated experienced professionals in other fields
earn.
School employees from coast to coast are fed up with living
paycheck to paycheck, working two to three jobs to pay the
bills, and struggling with work anxiety, sleep depravity, and
being burned out. More than half, 63 percent of public school
districts still offer a salary starting below 40 percent.
Nearly 300 districts pay first-year teachers less than $30,000
a year.
So, Mr. Brosnan, do you agree that we must increase
teachers' pay salaries to a greater incentive to the path to
becoming a teacher?
Mr. Brosnan. Thank you, Congresswoman. I am certainly not
going to say no as a practicing educator. I think my reason for
saying that I agree with you is sort of twofold. I really
appreciate every Member of this committee and the respect that
they have for the multiple degrees that teachers do earn,
whether it is required or not. I think the realistic part is
that teachers do need to have a second job if they are going to
live in certain areas in this country and earn the salaries
that they are being paid.
For 15 years, I worked after school and on Saturdays. That
is time that I could have spent looking at my own student data,
planning more robust lessons.
Now, it is one example, and I would like to think I planned
some good lessons as well, but I think it really--I think the
salary conversation highlights that we want teachers to be
spending more time focused on their students. And if they are
living in an area where the cost of living exceeds their salary
and they are forced to secure a second or sometimes third job,
that is time that is, at least intellectual and thought time,
that they are not spending on the students they are going to
see the following morning.
Ms. Omar. Did you--
Ms. McManus. I agree. I am sorry. All the nodding is
because I agree with everyone and your statements. I am one of
eight siblings and five of us are educators, and they tell me I
am the one that went to the dark side of school leadership and
they all stayed teachers. But I will tell you that, yes--and my
father also being a 40-year educator. They all have had to do
other things to be able to make ends meet if they--especially
in a single-income household, and that is just--that is not
right.
And, yes, benefits are an attractive part of profession,
but we need a salary that attracts people and then keeps them
in our profession, and currently that does not exist.
Ms. Omar. And so maybe you can help me explore what are
some incentives that we can provide for people to enter the
profession. We know that there are many factors that prevent
people, especially people of color, from becoming teachers. I
had one constituent who is a teacher tell me, no student of
mine who lives in poverty chooses to enter a profession that
would keep them in poverty. They operate based on logic, and
choosing the teacher profession, no matter how important and
valiant, is also--is almost not logical.
And so how can we make this a logical choice for members of
our community?
Yeah.
Mr. Brosnan. Our Congresswoman Hayes mentioned it earlier
this morning that it is the only career where there is a 12-
year interview, where the student is seeing what the teacher is
doing for 12 years and deciding whether or not it is the career
that they want. I think particularly for our students of color
who are in predominantly urban environments, those schools need
to reflect the fact that this is a wonderful profession and it
is a profession that requires excellent people in it.
I think if we take a look at our urban education and our
urban schools with our attrition rate of teachers and our
attrition rate of principals and leaders as well, that has to
be a focus for this country if we are serious about bringing in
more teachers of color. We need to show them that the school is
functional and that it is a good experience.
Ms. Omar. You probably heard it all day, you know, every
single Member, I think, on committee has been impacted by a
wonderful teacher, if they themselves do not have educators in
their own families. We all positively talk about them, and I
think it pains me, and I am sure it pains everyone on this
committee, that we have teachers living with poverty. And so I
hope we find a solution trying to elevate their lives as much
as they have validated our lives.
Thank you.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Schrier. Dr. Schrier.
Ms. Schrier. Thank you for all of your testimonies. My mom
was a public schoolteacher, and so I grew up in that world and
know how much time she spent after school planning for the next
day and also know that, while the benefits were great, it would
have been nice to feel rewarded appropriately by a better
salary. So thank you.
A lot of the discussion today has really focused on
kindergarten and up education. I am a pediatrician, so I look
at the little ones and know when the real brain growth happens.
And so early childhood education programs like school district
provided pre-K, Head Start, child care, coop education are
required to have educators that have certifications,
associates, bachelor's degrees in field-specific areas like
early childhood development. But--and this is really for Dr.
Daire and for Mr. White.
We know that children birth through K, even birth through 8
learn in different ways than older children, and oftentimes the
early childhood professionals are receiving training that is
really better intended for older kiddos. And both of you
mentioned focusing on early childhood education professional
development. I wondered if you could talk about some effective
initiatives that you believe other States and higher education
institutions should consider adopting and Federal supports that
might help that adoption.
Mr. White. Thank you. I would say two things first. One,
child care, Head Start, public pre-K, and to the degree that it
is funded publicly, private pre-Ks, do need to begin working on
a common definition of excellence in the early childhood
setting, and I am not just speaking for 4-year-olds; infants
and toddlers. And so in our State, working with the University
of Virginia, we have developed a system, we use the class
instrument that uses a common definition of what a great care
environment looks like for an infant or for a toddler or a 3-
year-old. So there does need to be a common definition of what
is good.
And then secondly, we cannot accept the huge disparity in
qualifications between child care and our public pre-Ks. Child
cares care for the students, in a way, with the most
complicated needs, our youngest children, infants. I know. I
have got one, and they are complicated. And they need to be
professionals. But in our State, up until 5 years ago, you only
had to be 18 years of age. You didn't even have to have a high
school diploma to teach a federally funded child care program.
I don't know that is something that the Federal Government
should get involved in. I do know that fragmentation of Federal
funding streams hurts States' ability to create unified early
childhood systems, which leads to the kind of backroom corners
of our system like any system that doesn't even require a high
school degree. Every State should change that.
Ms. Schrier. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I also
appreciate your calling attention to that notion of different
standards of excellence, because as I think about schools even
in my area, some really focus on academics, where really play
based, in my pediatrician opinion, play based and social/
emotional experience is what you really need to get a good
start in kindergarten.
Did you want to comment, Dr. Daire?
Mr. Daire. I just wanted to add that we are looking at that
in Virginia also with some folks from UVA, and we do have a
commission that is exploring that at the State level.
One of the things that we are doing at VCU, you know,
particularly as an urban-serving public research university, we
have a child development center within our school of education.
And one of the ways that we are looking to expand and to
hopefully develop a model to where we can collaborate with the
community, collaborate with the school system, and to be able
to provide this high-quality, early childhood development,
which has a training component for our students and be able to
have children from some of our urban high-needs communities so
that we can work together.
And I think you will find that many universities across the
country have child development centers, some are affiliated
with their colleges and schools of education. I think there is
some rich opportunities there for collaboration.
Ms. Schrier. Fantastic. Thank you.
I had another question probably also for you two, although
anybody is welcome to opine. We talked about the importance of
having effective teachers in the classroom, and research from
the Wallace Foundation shows that the most important in
ensuring that a school has great teachers who actually stay
teachers in the classroom is effective leadership and
principals, and you were talking about principals a moment ago.
Despite this demonstrated importance, there is limited
opportunities to provide aspiring principals with Federal
support. Are there any programs or opportunities that could be
expanded to include aspiring principals or principals already
in place?
Mr. White. Well, I will just say briefly I think that the
best way to do that is to not have separate systems of teacher
development and leader development. Effectively, they should be
part of one continuum, and Title II both in the higher
education environment or in the K-12 environment could support
both.
Ms. Schrier. Thank you.
Any other comments? No.
Thank you.
Mr. Daire. I was going to say the same thing. So I think
within TQP, I think there is an opportunity there to really
support principal residency programs.
Ms. Schrier. Fantastic. Thank you all very much. Appreciate
it.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
And I think we have basically come to almost closing the
hearing, but I wanted to also ask a question. I am going to
give myself five minutes, and then we will sum up. And thank
you very much for being here and for all of your time and
expertise.
You know, what we know--and we are obviously here wanting
to understand the Federal role. And to one degree or another,
sometimes, you know, people question whether there should be a
Federal role, that the local and State jurisdictions have so
much more investment on many levels and certainly in terms of
knowing best the schools, the communities, et cetera. But I did
want to talk about Title II and ask you to help us out with
that at this point again.
You have spoken to many, many different issues, and we are
greatly appreciative of that, but could you--and I will start
with Dr. Daire--help us to sort of flush out what is it, as we
reauthorize, that you would really like Title II to represent?
It is sort of the Federal breather, in many ways, because that
is the one place that the focus on teacher preparation and
certainly on school leadership exists.
So what should that look like, and specifically in terms of
the reporting requirements, what kind of data should be
collected? What do you think is important that we can then
build on and know that we have arrived, partly arrived, or
dismally deficient? What would you like to see, Dr. Daire, and
we will ask everybody? And you can opine on should there be a
strong Federal role or not.
Mr. Daire. Sorry. I do think there needs to be a strong
Federal role. Almost all States are having a teacher shortage.
We can look at the data in terms of how the U.S. is performing
compared to other countries on various educational matrices,
and we know that we are not succeeding in educating all
students. We have to do a better job of educating students at
the bottom 50 percent socioeconomic level, poor students in
urban and rural areas, and underrepresented minority students.
So I do think that the Federal Government really does need
to take a role, particularly even when we look at STEM and the
need for more folks in STEM professions to replace individuals
who are in national security. So I think it is a critically
important decision. I think we need to expand TQP. I think we
need to bring it back to the level of funding when it was $300
million, and I think it is going to be important to make sure
that we have good data reporting on job placement, retention,
and student growth on programs that supported by TQP so that we
can have those measurable outcomes to support the program.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
And, Mr. White, I know you expressed earlier that you
didn't think Title II was as effective or as it can be. What
would you change?
Mr. White. I would do two things. First, I would make the
funding an attempt to catalyze change at a systems level rather
than simply at a program or institutional level. Right now, it
goes to fund individual partnerships. It doesn't look at a
whole system. States and the higher ed and K-12 environment
manage the whole system. States should play a role in the
formulation of that plan.
And secondly, the data required are both cumbersome but
also just obscure. The number of IHEs for every K-12 student,
for example, not a data point that drives any change. You
should be demanding simple, outcomes-oriented results of
comprehensive improvement plans, and right now, Title II does
not do either thing.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. McManus?
Ms. McManus. I definitely think Federal Government should
play a role at the policy level, but that the voice of local
teachers and leaders has got to stay at the forefront of those
decisions. Title II has been instrumental in our district in
supporting teacher development, in supporting leader
development, and we have explained that it is a continuum. It
is both at the preservice level and on the job.
I think, when it comes to professional development, which
is what Title II funds so greatly, you have to actually first
see the implementation. Implementation after you have learned
something new takes time and takes support. So the roles that
are in our schools to provide that regular support to make sure
that those newly learned skills actually come to fruition in
the classroom, all of that takes funding, and then you can
measure what were the outcomes of that on student outcomes.
So I think we definitely have to hold folks accountable to
these dollars, but I also think we need to allow local decision
makers to have input, but also have some type of continuity
across States.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Brosnan.
Mr. Brosnan. Thank you. I would agree with my colleague,
Ms. McManus, that I think any funding from the Federal
Government in the role of the Federal Government, especially in
terms of Title II, it opens the door for locals to consider the
type of timely and important professional development that
their teachers need.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Actually, it was good to hear that
there are ways to improve it, not to get rid of it, if I am
hearing everybody correctly. Thank you very much.
I wanted to move now quickly to a little bit of boilerplate
here, and also, I want to remind my colleagues that pursuant to
committee practice, materials for submission for the hearing
record must be submitted to the Committee Clerk within fourteen
days following the last day of the hearing, preferably in
Microsoft Word format. The materials submitted must address the
subject matter of the hearing and only a Member of the
committee or an invited witness may submit materials for
inclusion in the hearing record. Documents are limited to 50
pages each. Documents longer than 50 pages will be incorporated
into the record by an internet link that you must provide to
the Committee Clerk within the required time frame. Please
recognize that years from now, that link may no longer work.
I wanted to submit, with unanimous consent, the RAND report
on principal pipelines, for the record, which I believe is a
very important study that Ms. McManus particularly spoke to.
[The information follows:]
Principal Pipelines: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/
pubs/research--reports/RR2600/RR2666/RAND--RR2666.pdf
Mrs. Davis. I certainly want to thank all of our witnesses
for their participation. We know how invaluable your comments
have been today, the work that you have done, the experience
that you have had over the years and how you embody that to
present to us today.
The hearing record will be held open for four days in order
to receive any of your responses. If you would like to
elaborate on anything that you said today, particularly the
role of the Federal Government in Title II which helps us with
the reauthorization, we would certainly be very supportive of
that.
And I want to remind my colleagues that pursuant to
committee practice, witness questions for the hearing record
must be submitted to the Majority Committee Staff or Committee
Clerk within seven days. The questions submitted must address
the subject matter of the hearing.
And with that, I want to recognize the distinguished
Ranking Member Allen for his closing statement.
Mr. Allen. Well, realizing that you have been here almost a
little over 3 hours, thank you. Appreciate you taking this time
to come and share with us. Thank you so much for what you do
for this country and for young people. It is critically
important that we figure out a way to deal with these issues.
One of the things that I was--it is a couple of hearings
ago that we put--we put a graph on that board behind you, where
the cost of educating young people has doubled since the 1990s,
but teachers' salaries have been flat. So something's not right
in the way we are doing things out there, so I believe in
bottom up. I believe you can fix it. So please, please tell us
what you need from us to fix it.
And, you know, going to Title II, you know, if this program
is going to continue, we need to ensure that States have the
opportunity to pursue a system of improvements process rather
than continuing a program that has had very limited impact, and
we got to change that.
Thank you so much, and I yield back.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
And I wanted to just state as well that as we work to
reauthorize HEA, we want to be sure that we are educating our
students, of course, for success, preparing and retaining the
highest quality teacher workforce, possibly. We know that is a
team effort. It requires high-quality teacher preparation
programs, adequate support from well-prepared school leaders,
and Federal support to pay off student loans as well.
I certainly look forward to working with my colleagues to
ensure that our educators have the support and the resources
necessary to lead successful, fulfilling careers, and empower
our students to reach their full potential.
And with that, if there is no further business, the meeting
is adjourned. Thank you all very much.
[Additional submissions for the record by Mr. Sablan
follow:]
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[Questions for the record and their responses follow:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the subcommittees adjourned.]
[all]