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“ALIGNED DESIGN” VITAL TO IMPLEMENTING SUSTAINABLE
TEACHER COMPENSATION REFORM

Washington, D.C.—As states and districts consider changes in teacher compensation, evaluation and professional development, a report released today by the Center for American Progress provides strong caution against approaching these elements in isolation.

Written by leading education researcher Craig Jerald, "Aligned by Design: How Teacher Compensation Reform Can Support and Reinforce Other Educational Reforms" counteracts the failures of existing professional development and evaluation systems by citing TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement as a comprehensive system that reforms teacher compensation, along with other support structures, in an effective and sustainable way.

Jerald uses TAP to illustrate the importance of building human capital at the school and district levels.  The report notes that performance compensation for master and mentor teachers in TAP schools—the "less famous" aspect of this performance-pay reform—is essential to its ability to not only recognize and reward effective teaching but to also systemically generate improvements in teacher effectiveness.  Without systemic improvement, Jerald argues, "it will be impossible to raise the achievement of America's students to globally competitive levels."

At a time when policymakers are confronting difficult design issues in crafting performance-pay legislation, the report explains why performance pay alone is not enough.  Educators must think more broadly and consider how meaningful professional development, sophisticated teacher evaluation systems and talented teacher-leaders can drive student learning gains down to the classroom level. 

TAP has been "on the ground" for a decade in diverse schools across the country, raising student achievement by creating a stimulating, collaborative learning environment for teachers to thrive.  According to Jerald, the system "stands in sharp contrast to the very fragmented HR systems in traditional schools, where compensation is disconnected from teacher evaluations, which in turn are disconnected from professional development and which often is only loosely connected to school improvement planning."

"In fact," Jerald continues, "it might be more accurate to call the TAP design an 'integrated system' rather than just an 'aligned design.'  Better teacher evaluations and professional development support and reinforce differentiated compensation, and differentiated compensation creates the instructional leadership capacity to implement better teacher evaluations and professional development."

In TAP schools, teachers have the opportunity to move through a career path to become career, mentor or master teachers, with increased roles and commensurate pay as they move up the ranks.  Each week during the school day, mentor and master teachers lead "cluster group" meetings, where teachers create effective data-driven instructional strategies to address specific areas of student need.  A complement to the professional development is TAP's system for multiple evaluations based on clearly defined standards of practice.  Teachers are well-prepared for their evaluations and are given pre- and post-conferences where they receive specific feedback.  Finally, bonuses are awarded to teachers based on their classroom evaluations, students' performance and the performance of the school as a whole.

"For teachers working in a TAP school," Jerald states, "it is difficult to tell where professional development, teacher evaluation, and school improvement begin and end because they are all part of one fluid process."  He describes the importance of concrete feedback if teachers are going to improve, and notes that coaching that is not linked to accountability and evaluation has failed to provide the specific concrete detail necessary for true improvement.

"In designing TAP, highly talented leadership capacity was essential," said Lowell Milken, TAP founder.  "The mentor and master teachers, along with the principal, are responsible for driving instruction and maintaining the rigor needed to move the school towards educational improvement.  The keys to TAP are the interrelation of the four elements and putting highly skilled educators in place to make sure that all supports are working effectively."

Paul Vallas, superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans, explains, "TAP creates the leadership team that can drive any school improvement or reform down to the classroom level."

Alma Velez, a TAP master teacher at Jones Elementary School in Bryan, Texas, who was interviewed for the report, noticed a dramatic difference in effectiveness between TAP's integrated system and her school's former system for professional development.  Previously, "there was no follow-up that ensured that the teachers were going to take this into their classrooms and truly use it to help improve student achievement," she said.  Now, "we provide the model lessons, team teaching, or time to go observe another teacher, and we give them very detailed feedback for increasing the success of the strategy within their classrooms."

Not only does TAP provide a powerful, viable system for reform, but its efficiency may also be cost effective.  "Leaders might be wasting millions of dollars by failing to align compensation reform with efforts to improve professional development, teacher evaluation, and instructional leadership," states Jerald. "TAP illustrates that in a school using an integrated design for compensation reform, positions such as Mentor Teacher and Master Teacher can provide the capacity to pursue all of those goals at a much lower cost."

CAP has the full report available at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/07/pdf/teacher_alignment.pdf.  TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement is currently impacting more than 7,500 teachers and 85,000 students.  For more information, visit www.tapystem.org.