Getting the Best People into the Toughest Jobs

Abstract

Teachers and principals have the greatest impact on student learning. Unfortunately, our public education system, until recently, selected and tenured thousands of ineffective teachers and principals particularly in high-poverty urban school and rural schools. But the landscape of how teachers and principals—the education talent—are managed is dramatically changing. A comprehensive and holistic view of strategic talent management in education is developing, supported by new and ambitious federal and state policies and rapidly changing local practices. Strategic talent management is an approach that manages all human resource programs—recruitment, selection, placement, development, evaluation, tenure, promotion, dismissal, and compensation—around a set of effectiveness metrics that capture instructional practice and student-learning growth. This brief is derived from Getting the Best People into the Toughest Jobs: Changes in Talent Management in Education written by Allan Odden (published by the Center for American Progress), which examined the evolving landscape of talent management in education. Disciplines Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration | Performance Management | Urban Education Comments Note: This CPRE Policy Brief diverges from past formats and conforms to a new brief standard of 2 pages for quick reading and ease-of-use. PB #14-1 View on the CPRE website. This policy brief is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/cpre_policybriefs/1 August 2014 PB #14-1 Teachers and principals have the greatest impact on student learning. Unfortunately, our public education system, until recently, selected and tenured thousands of ineffective teachers and principals particularly in high-poverty urban school and rural schools. But the landscape of how teachers and principals—the education talent—are managed is dramatically changing. A comprehensive and holistic view of strategic talent management in education is developing, supported by new and ambitious federal and state policies and rapidly changing local practices. Strategic talent management is an approach that manages all human resource programs—recruitment, selection, placement, development, evaluation, tenure, promotion, dismissal, and compensation—around a set of effectiveness metrics that capture instructional practice and student-learning growth. This brief is derived from Getting the Best People into the Toughest Jobs: Changes in Talent Management in Education written by Allan Odden (published by the Center for American Progress), which examined the evolving landscape of talent management in education. Getting the Best People into the Toughest Jobs: Changes in Talent Management in Education HISTORICAL LOOK Talent management, or lack thereof, in education at the close of the 20th century was limited to “personnel administration” and did not distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers or principals, emphasize recruitment or rarely made use of dismissal practices since the process was costly and rarely successful. COMPREHENSIVE CHANGE An impetus for change in schools’ approach to talent came from private sector which propelled the concept that “talent mattered.” In response, new federal and state human-capital management policies and local practices emerged. FOUNDATION OF CHANGE The reform rumblings and collaboration among the national foundations, progressive superintendents and other reform groups and organizations—Teach For America, The New Teacher Project, New Leaders, and the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE)—began coalescing into a wave of change over talent and its management, which more leaders were conceding was critical to the successful implementation of all other education reforms. These talent reformers across the country, had the financial backing of many of the largest foundations, and were addressing what was becoming recognized as a core education reform issue: educator talent and its strategic management. ROLE IN CURRENT EDUCATION POLICY The transitional shift to a new world of talent management in education has led to new channels for recruiting better talent into U.S. schools, and new methods for evaluating teachers. States and districts are using these new methods to determine tenure promotion, pay, and dismissal—instead of seniority. How strategic talent management came to “top” the education policy agenda: ­O