1. Capturing Our Learning
Staffing & Deployment
Capturing Our Learning

2. Overview
Purpose: To make the best use of talent by helping principals match teachers with the best role, as well as providing open market systems and incentives to ensure excellent teachers are deployed to high- needs schools
Key Elements of Hiring & Selection
Structuring Systems for Mutual Consent
Limiting Transfer Periods
Staffing High-Needs Schools with Great Talent
Placing Surplus Teachers Effectively When Necessary for Budgetary Reasons
Redesigning Layoff and Recall Policies
See the Teacher ABC Tool and Executive Summary of the Teacher Puzzle Pieces for additional information
Urban Schools Human Capital Academy

3. Key Research
No matter how you “define” teacher effectiveness, low-income, minority and lower achieving students end up with the least effective teachers Goldhaber, Lavery, & Theobald, 2015
Value-added
Teacher experience
Licensing scores
Urban schools are often forced to hire teachers they don’t want due to outdated transfer and excess rules
“40 percent of school-level vacancies, on average, were filled by voluntary transfers or excessed teachers over whom schools had either no choice at all or limited choice.” p.5. Levin, Mulhern, and Schunck, 2005
Urban Schools Human Capital Academy

4. Metrics Deploy Teachers Deliberately
Key metrics to understand performance in this function include:
Distribution of teachers by performance rating and school need type (IV.C)
Percentage of incoming and outgoing transfers by performance rating and school need type (IV.C)
Percentage of new teachers in high-needs schools (IV.C)
Urban Schools Human Capital Academy

5. Key Content
Staffing & Deployment

6. May Not be Reproduced Without Express Permission from USHCA, Inc.
A Reminder to Ponder…
“The real goal is not to improve equitable teacher distribution. The real goals are to improve student learning, close achievement gaps, and create educational opportunities for all young people. Achieving equitable distribution of teachers is intended to be a means to that end.”
-- Ellen Behrstock-Sherratt, Ph.D.
May Not be Reproduced Without Express Permission from USHCA, Inc.

7. Why this subject? Why now?
Teacher effectiveness – what we know now
Power of an effective teacher and consequences of an ineffective one
Dashboards – by school and even by classroom
Facing the facts – courageous conversations

8. Who is an Effective Teacher ?
At least one year’s growth of students for year’s time on standardized tests and other student outcome measures
Final rating based on multiple measures:
Observations by multiple observers
Student achievement data
Student surveys

9. How Do We Define High-Needs?
“High-needs schools can be defined as schools that have 51% or above of students on free and reduced lunch. High-needs schools also may have a preponderance of English Language Learners and special education students and often have higher turnover, fewer applicants, and greater numbers of vacancies, leading them to also be termed as hard-to-staff schools.” -- USHCA

10. Ways of Measuring Inequity
Between Schools
Within Schools
Access to effective teachers across schools
% of effective teachers by high/low-needs designation
Distribution of highly-effective teachers
Other indicators used
% of vacancies and turnover in high/low-needs schools (stability of staff)
Pre-service measures such as scoring on national tests (like Praxis) or SAT scores
Effectiveness of principal
Access to effective teachers across classes
Level of effectiveness or experience of teacher compared to their assignment of students (Miami-Dade study)
% of minority/high-needs students taught by secondary teachers with deep content knowledge (subject majors or advanced degrees)
Students assigned to first-year teachers
May Not be Reproduced Without Express Permission from USHCA, Inc.

11. Impact on School Performance
Research identified a teacher quality “Tipping Point”
Proportion of low quality teachers is ~20% of school faculty
Beyond 20% schools no longer have the ability to improve student achievement
Source: Shields et al. 1999

12. What We Now Know
% first-year teachers at high-minority schools are almost twice as high as the % of such teachers at low-minority schools
Less experienced teachers get assigned students who are twice as far behind (Miami-Dade study)
Also, minority teachers tend to be assigned students who are further behind than students assigned to white teachers
Teachers from more selective colleges tend to get higher achieving students than those who did not
More of a problem in middle and high schools; less so in elementary schools
Latino and African American students were three times as likely to have bottom quartile teachers in math and english language arts than their Asian and White counterparts
% first-year teachers at high-minority schools are almost twice as high as the % of such teachers at low-minority schools
 (page 3)
Less experienced teachers get assigned students who are twice as far behind (Miami-Dade study)
Kalogrides, D., Loeb, S., & Beteille, T. (2013). Systematic sorting: Teacher characteristics and class assignments. Sociology of Education.   
Also, 
Also, minority teachers tend to be assigned students who are further behind than students assigned to white teachers
Kalogrides, D., Loeb, S., & Beteille, T. (2013). Systematic sorting: Teacher characteristics and class assignments. Sociology of Education. 
Teachers from more selective colleges tend to get higher achieving students than those who did not
   
More of a problem in middle and high schools; less so in elementary schools – Our take based on this statement, "We present the figures separately by grade level since tracking and ability grouping are more common at the middle and high school levels compared with the elementary school level." (p.110) from this report.  
Kalogrides, D., Loeb, S., & Beteille, T. (2013). Systematic sorting: Teacher characteristics and class assignments. Sociology of Education.   
Latino and African American students were three times as likely to have bottom quartile teachers in math and english language arts than their Asian and White counterparts
(page 2)

13. What We Now Know, (cont’d)
In Brief: Teachers in high-needs schools are less experienced, less effective, and less likely to stay
Even though we know that…
Providing top-quartile teachers four years in a row is enough to close the achievement gap between white and African American students
Second graders who started off below grade level and then had three top quartile teachers consecutively accelerated to proficiency
Providing top-quartile teachers four years in a row is enough to close the achievement gap between white and African American students
Gordon, Kane and Staiger, “Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance on the Job” (The Brookings Institute 2006).  (From 
Second graders who started off below grade level and then had three top quartile teachers consecutively accelerated to proficiency

14. No “Right” Answer, but Some Ideas
Increase % of students taught by effective teachers
$ to increase course load of effective teachers
Provide extra support to any school with more than 20% ineffective teachers
Help principals improve working conditions at high-needs schools
Ensure HR policies support strategic and equitable staffing
District examples
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Project LIFT and Pittsburgh’s Career Ladder – Differentiated roles at high-needs schools with differentiated pay
New York City – Teacher leader role at high-needs school – Part time teacher/part time instructional coach
Denver – Teacher leadership opportunities for instructional support and working conditions improvement

15. The Time is Now
“To close the achievement gap, we must prioritize student needs first through state and local reforms and attract top teachers to our highest need communities, support their growth, and keep them in the classroom.” –Anthony Villagrosa 41st Mayor of Los Angeles

16. Tools and Activities

17. Tools Levers for Impacting Equitable Distribution
Highlights key district practices and policies that impact equitable distribution of teachers and principals from the Teacher and Principal ABC Tools
Guiding Questions for Equitable Distribution Conversations
Offers guiding questions district teams can use to hold conversations about equitable distribution
Differentiating Services to Schools
Establishes well-rounded criteria for identifying High-Needs or Highest- Needs schools in the school district, and then provides samples of differentiated services options to drive improved talent and performance
Urban Schools Human Capital Academy

18. Activity: Chauncey School District’s Goals
1) Increase Student Learning by Increasing Effectiveness of All Educators; and 2) Close Achievement Gap by Leveraging High-Performers for High Need Students
GOAL #1:
Increase Effectiveness
Educator Effectiveness
(Student Outcomes, Instructional Practice)
GOAL #2: Leverage High Performers for High Poverty Students
Source: TNTP

19. % of teachers by effectiveness rating
A Means to an End: What Are the Implications of Each Scenario for the Chauncey School District?
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
% of teachers by effectiveness rating
What are the implications of each scenario?
Highest
Poverty
Schools
Lowest
Poverty
Schools

20. How did Chauncey start down this path?
Step #1: Measure effective teaching and understand distribution of teacher effectiveness within the district
Distribution of Teacher Effectiveness in Chauncey School District
% of teachers by effectiveness rating
Q: How has performance/ratings changed from year to year?
Q: Do you have any hypothesis for what could be happening? What additional data would you want to look at, to test these hypothesis further?
Note: Chauncey District launched a new Teacher Evaluation System in SY

21. Teacher Effectiveness Across Schools Based on Poverty Quintile
Step #2: Measure access to effective teaching across schools based on poverty quintiles.
% of teachers by effectiveness rating
Novice Teachers
Q: How does effectiveness vary by Poverty quintile?
Q: How might the prevalence of novice teachers by poverty quintile also be a factor?
Note: Poverty quintiles based on % of free and reduced lunch students
Highest Poverty Schools
Lowest
Poverty Schools

22. Teacher Effectiveness Across Classrooms within ONE High-Poverty School in Chauncey
Step #3: Measure access to effective teaching across classrooms within schools
% of teachers by effectiveness rating
Novice Teachers

23. Other HC Data Trends
Step #4: Analyze other HC data to better understand root causes and how to tackle this issue
Over the past 2 years, of transferring high-performing teachers, 56% moved to a school with a LOWER poverty rate and only 22% moved to a school with a HIGHER poverty rate
Teacher turnover rates in high poverty schools were twice as high as those in lower poverty schools
Teacher turnover was also correlated with principal turnover in those schools

24. Strategies up for Consideration
Provide its highest-poverty schools with dedicated recruitment resources
Provide its highest-poverty schools with teacher leader positions to provide coaching and support to new teachers
Developing school level teacher effectiveness reports to coach principals and principal managers on importance of placing highest effective teachers with highest need students
Which of these do you think is the strategy with the greatest potential for impact? Why?
Is there another strategy you would recommend?