Teachers Transfer to Poorest-performing Schools in Chattanooga, TN as Part of an Effort to Raise Test Scores


By Jay Mathews
February 10, 2004
The Washington Post

After 30 years in the classroom, Anita Rowe is at the top of her game. Colleagues of the third-grade teacher in Chattanooga, Tenn., marvel at her success in boosting student achievement, with a little fun thrown in. Usually such success would get a teacher little more than a few kind words from the principal and a grateful smile from parents. But Chattanooga is trying something different: Because her students' test scores improved so much and she was willing to transfer to a struggling inner-city school, Rowe is making an extra $5,000 a year. Not that the money had anything to do with her decision to teach at Clifton Hills Elementary School, she said. 'I just felt I could be effective with those students, and I wanted to take that challenge on.'

Nor do champions of the Chattanooga effort believe that bonuses paid to 26 high-performing teachers are solely responsible for increases of 10 percentile points in third-graders reading at or above grade level. They credit extra training for teachers, changes in school leadership and better use of data in the city's nine lowest-scoring schools. The effort also has been helped by private donations, including a $5 million grant from the local Benwood Foundation, said Dan Challener, president of the Public Education Foundation, which promotes community involvement in schools.

But many education experts and policymakers who think all schools should pay more to their most effective teachers are watching the Chattanooga experiment and a few other initiatives like it.

Even some teachers unions, which often argue that merit pay is unsound and unfair, appear receptive. Gerry Dowler, an official of the Tennessee Education Association, which represents Chattanooga teachers, said the changes were a result of union bargaining. 'When you look at what is best for students, sometimes it does take some radical changes and requires us to experiment and try some options,' she said.

Kevin Carey, senior policy analyst for the nonprofit research organization Education Trust, said: 'Chattanooga very much recognizes the importance of effective teachers to student learning and shows the potential for creating great improvement among low-performing, low-income students if we can get those teachers into their classrooms.'

The Teaching Commission -- a private panel that was founded by former IBM chairman Louis V. Gerstner Jr. and that includes former U.S. education secretary Richard W. Riley, American Federation of Teachers President Sandra Feldman and former North Carolina governor James B. Hunt Jr. -- made the Chattanooga results a centerpiece of its recent call for a radical overhaul of teacher recruiting and compensation practices.

'Until we make it more attractive for teachers to stay in our most challenging schools by offering a significant salary premium -- enough to make their earnings exceed those of teachers with less demanding assignments in affluent neighborhoods -- the teacher shortage in hard-to-staff schools will not go away,' the commission said.

The commission said that with an extra $30 billion, about 6 percent of total education spending, the nation could raise all teacher salaries at least 10 percent and those of the top half of teachers by 30 percent. In an interview, Feldman said she would like to raise all teacher salaries at least 30 percent and put the merit raises on top of that. 'It's important to start rethinking the way teachers are compensated,' she said. 'That means creating a more professional salary structure, starting at a much higher level and not taking 20 years to get to the top salary.'

The commission lauded the new career paths for exceptional teachers being created in 71 public schools in eight states under the Milken Family Foundation's Teacher Advancement Program. A successful teacher under that system can earn more money and develop new skills by becoming a 'mentor teacher' or eventually a 'master teacher,' training instructors in the best new techniques.

Nikki N. Serafin, a fourth-grade teacher at Madison Rose Lane Elementary School in Phoenix, said she earns 30 percent more than her base salary of $38,000 in the Teacher Advancement Program. This is because of her work as a master teacher and because of high ratings of her teaching skills and increases in student test scores.

Many teachers say they are uncomfortable being paid more than colleagues because a good school is usually a team effort. The Milken system recognizes that. 'The plan is set up so that teachers are rewarded not only when their own class shows significant growth but also when their own grade level succeeds and the grades before and after them achieve,' Serafin said.
In the program's first year at Serafin's school, fourth-grade math scores jumped 14 percentile points and third-grade reading scores were up 11 percentile points, she said.

The Chattanooga experiment would not have been possible without Tennessee's trove of data collected by researcher William Sanders on how much value each teacher in the state has added to the education of third- through eighth-graders. The information, including test results, portfolios of student work and of lesson plans for younger pupils, was useful in deciding which teachers, such as Rowe, had the skills that the struggling schools needed. At the same time, the results, along with interviews and observations, guided principals in deciding which teachers would be removed from the schools that needed help, Challener said.

When the changes were made two years ago, he said, about 50 teachers decided to transfer out of the nine affected schools and another 50 teachers were transferred involuntarily under special powers the superintendent had been given. By changing the principals of six of the nine schools, improving teacher training and adding financial incentives to attract good teachers and keep the good teachers already at the schools, student learning became the primary focus, Challener said. 'On any measure you want to use,' he said, 'student achievement was up significantly in every subject.'

Better working conditions for teachers also reduced staff turnover. Challener said that in the past, the nine schools would have at least 60 teaching vacancies a year and would still need to hire people when school started. 'This year there were only 25 vacancies, and we filled every one,' he said.