Chartered Teacher Research Articles

Examining the Relationship between Charter Competition, Teacher Quality, and School Resources on Ohio’s Reading Achievement

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationships between charter competition, teacher quality, and school resources on reading achievement. According to the market-based theory, the threat that charter competition poses should encourage traditional public schools to adopt policies and practices that lead to increased student achievement. A linear mixed-effects model was used to analyze district and building-level date to determine which variable(s) presents as the best predictor of reading achievement in Ohio. The sample consisted of 293 schools from four districts between 2005 and 2017. The findings suggest that as the charter school to public school ratio increases in a district, the reading achievement of students attending traditional public schools decreases; when the average reading proficiency for charter schools increases in a district, traditional public students demonstrate higher reading proficiency; the focus on teachers with a highly qualified certification does not lead to increased reading performance scores; and that after accounting for other predictors, the amount of per-pupil funding allocated for curriculum and instruction are significantly related to reading achievement at the elementary level but not at middle school level.

Unionization, public school reform, and teacher professionalism

Effective schooling requires teachers to have professional discretion; yet in the twentieth century, bureaucratization enhanced administrative control of teaching. Teacher unionization offered one response to bureaucratization, intended in part to protect teacher professional discretion. More recently, the charter school movement offered a second means to protect teacher professionalism, though some scholars argue that charters fail to empower teachers since few charter teachers have union representation. We describe the conceptual links between unionization, charter schooling, and teacher professionalism. We then use the nationally-representative 2011–2012 School and Staffing Survey data to empirically examine the extent to which unionization and charter schooling influences teacher professionalism, measured as teachers’ perceptions of control over school policies and aspects of teaching and learning. OLS regressions indicate that unionized teachers report lower levels of control, while charter teachers report somewhat greater levels of control over school policies and curricula than other public school teachers.

Examining Teacher Characteristics, School Conditions, and Attrition Rates at the Intersection of School Choice and Rural Education

ABSTRACT While prior research has examined teachers in rural schools and teachers in charter schools, there has been little research into the intersection of rural and charter schools. Using nationally representative data, we examine the extent to which teacher characteristics, school characteristics, and teacher mobility vary based on the urbanicity of schools and whether the school is a public or charter school. We find that teachers in rural charter schools turn over at a significantly lower rate than teachers in urban charter schools and are significantly more likely to be young, novice teachers than their rural public school counterparts. We provide evidence that, in comparison with rural settings, it is important to consider urban and suburban context separately, particularly with respect to charter schools as urban charter teacher demographics and the schools in which they teach are substantially different than those of suburban charter teachers. Our work suggests research cannot ignore how teacher demographics, teacher qualifications, and the students they teach vary significantly given the context of the intersection of school choice and rural education.

Crossing Over? Mobility of Early Career Charter and Traditional Public School Teachers during an Era of Reform

ABSTRACT In recent years, policymakers in many states have enacted reforms to teacher evaluation, tenure, and collective bargaining in the traditional public school (TPS) sector. The implications for such changes across the broader labor market for K–12 teachers, however, are often left undiscussed. In this article, we use microdata from 2005–2016 to estimate changes in mobility of charter school and TPS teachers in Michigan, both in regard to inter-sector transfer and teacher exit, during an era of such reform. We find evidence that, following the reforms, charter teachers were less likely – and TPS teachers more likely – to exit or transfer sectors.

The New Professionalism? Charter Teachers’ Experiences and Qualities of the Teaching Profession

While teacher professionalism remains a contested topic, scholars increasingly acknowledge the field has entered a “new professionalism” wherein its parameters are dictated by management and the organization rather than those within the occupation. Many argue that this shift has served to decrease teachers' sense of professionalism, efficacy and persistence. Simultaneously, no-excuses charter schools, considered to embrace this new professionalism, continue to proliferate. Yet little is known about how teachers within these schools view teaching and the qualities of teacher professionalism. To address this gap, we interviewed twenty new and novice teachers teaching in high profile charter organizations in the northeast such as Uncommon Schools, KIPP, MATCH, and Boston Collegiate. Our findings suggest that these teachers largely perceived their schools and the degree of professionalism positively. For example, teachers reported that their schools fostered teacher autonomy, professional accountability, and collaboration. However, their schools' high-accountability climates encouraged feelings of competition and caused teachers to question their efficacy, ultimately reinforcing views of teaching as a short-term endeavor. Finally, professional status and rewards were described as low with many teachers saying they felt underappreciated or undervalued. Our findings demonstrate how the climate of “new professionalism” can produce outcomes both consistent and in tension with efforts to professionalize teaching.

Un-“Chartered” Waters: Balancing Montessori Curriculum and Accountability Measures in a Charter School

ABSTRACTMore than 6,000 charter schools exist in the United States, and of these 120 are Montessori charter schools. When studying charter school practices, researchers often examine issues such as performance accountability measures and effectiveness of charter school curricula. In doing so, the outcomes often overlook the challenges for teachers as they attempt to blend the demands of being a charter school with performance accountability and charter school philosophies, such as the Montessori philosophy. In this longitudinal case study, I examined the ways in which teachers in a charter Montessori school used professional development to help balance the demands for standardized testing performance and Montessori goals. The findings illustrate that significant challenges exist for teachers blending multiple educational goals but that professional development can aid teachers in filling in gaps in their existing curricula. This study encourages (1) researchers to question the ways in teachers can be supported through professional development to meet accountability measures and (2) stakeholders to consider how accountability measures focused solely on student performance can have detrimental effects on charter school curricula implementation and teacher retention.

Teacher Attrition in Charter and Public Schools

This paper examines attrition and retention rates among teachers in charter and traditional public schools. This study finds that among all teachers, there is no difference in the attrition rate between charter and traditional public school teachers. Among new teachers, charter teachers are 3.39 times more likely to leave teaching than their traditional public school counterparts. Among new teachers who voluntarily leave or move, teaching at a charter increases the odds of leaving by a factor of 3.04. The difference between the two rates indicates that charter schools may be exercising their freedom to let go of teachers which are not a good fit for their schools. Teachers with a higher opportunity cost of teaching, those teaching high school, those with graduate degrees, and those with grater responsibilities outside of the classroom are more likely to leave the profession.

Beyond Blueprints: Questioning the Replication Model in Education Philanthropy

Major new foundations, such as the Gates Foundation, Broad Foundation, and Walton Family Foundation, developed strategies for education philanthropy that drew on lessons from the Annenberg Challenge in the 1990s. Rather than funding locally initiated plans for reform, these new funders share a similar set of strategies, such as charter school expansion and teacher evaluation, and promote these strategies for national replication. Foundation dollars have played a role in enabling significant transformations of some urban districts, such as Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. Based on analysis of foundation grant distribution to urban districts since 2000 and the political consequences of these grants, I argue that the pendulum of philanthropic strategy may have moved too far in response to the Annenberg Challenge. Where funders saw too much adaptation to local circumstances with Annenberg, they have responded with an overemphasis on national models. Where funders saw too much geographic dispersion of resources with Annenberg, they have responded with significant coordinated investments in certain districts where Blacks and Latinos find themselves disempowered by outside interests. Where funders saw too many attempts to cooperate and collaborate with traditional school districts, they have responded with a strategy that financially weakens some urban districts. In the conclusion, I highlight new lessons for foundations based on weaknesses in the national replication strategy.

Teacher Satisfaction and Turnover in Charter Schools: Examining the Variations and Possibilities for Collective Bargaining in State Laws

Charter schools see as many as one in four teachers leave annually, and recent evidence attributes much of this turnover to provisions affected by collective bargaining processes and state laws such as salary, benefits, job security, and working hours. There have been many recent efforts to improve teacher voice in charter schools (Kahlenberg & Potter, 2014), including engaging in some form of collective bargaining, but we know little about the possibilities dictated by state laws. Therefore, this article describes the possibilities and variations for collective bargaining by state and for different charter types (e.g., conversion vs. newly created charters), as well as laws that have the potential to improve teacher satisfaction in charter schools. Ideally, state laws and the collective bargaining process should provide the appropriate balance between flexibility for charter school leaders, teacher voice, and protections for teachers.

Venture Philanthropy and Teacher Education Policy in the U.S.: The Role of the New Schools Venture Fund

Background & PurposeThis article focuses on the growing role of venture philanthropy in shaping policy and practice in teacher education in the United States. Our goal is to bring a greater level of transparency to private influences on public policy and to promote greater discussion and debate in the public arena about alternative solutions to current problems. In this article, we focus on the role of one of the most influential private groups in the United States that invests in education, the New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF), in promoting deregulation and market-based policies.Research DesignWe examine the changing role of philanthropy in education and the role of the NSVF in developing and promoting a bill in the U.S. Congress (the GREAT Act) that would create a system throughout the nation of charter teacher and principal preparation programs called academies. In assessing the wisdom of the GREAT Act, we examine the warrant for claims that education schools have failed in their mission to educate teachers well and the corresponding narrative that entrepreneurial programs emanating from the private sector are the solution.ConclusionsWe reject both the position that the status quo in teacher education is acceptable (a position held by what we term “defenders”) and the position that the current system needs to be “blown up” and replaced by a market economy (“reformers”). We suggest a third position (“transformers”) that we believe will strengthen the U.S. system of public teacher education and provide everyone's children with high-quality teachers. We conclude with a call for more trenchant dialogue about the policy options before us and for greater transparency about the ways that private interests are influencing public policy and practice in teacher education.

Rhetorics of professional change: assembling the means to act differently?

In an earlier study of learning on a practice-based postgraduate programme participants indicated that certain artefacts were critically important in enabling them to gain ‘permission’ to act differently in their schools. Picking up on this suggestion, this study begins to explore how looking at the composition of texts by teachers as a rhetorical activity raises questions about power and relations in professional learning processes. The role of artefacts in relation to professional learning is explored here by examining how teachers on a practice-based Chartered Teacher (CT) programme in Scotland constructed accounts, in the form of reflective reports and portfolios of evidence, that legitimated their practice and learning on the course. It explores how these teachers drew upon a variety of texts to construct rhetorics suited to the specific audiences and contexts they needed to address with these artefacts. The paper argues that taking this deconstructive approach to the analysis of such accounts draws attention to their micro-political significance. Potentially they provide a means whereby teachers may rehearse arguments and shape narratives that may be used to support claims to agency in their school settings.

Missouri Charter Schools and Teacher Pension Plans: How Well Do Existing Pension Plans Serve Charter and Urban Teachers

This report examines teacher pension plans in Missouri, with a particular focus on the Kansas City and Saint Louis school districts. Missouri is unusual in that public educators are divided among three pension systems: the Kansas City Public School Retirement System (KC), which covers 3 percent of Missouri teachers; the Public School Retirement System of the City of St. Louis (STL), which covers 4 percent; and the state Public Service Retirement System (PSRS), which covers the remaining 93 percent of teachers. Kansas City and Saint Louis teachers are enrolled in Social Security, while teachers in the larger state system are not. There is no reciprocity between the systems, which means that teachers lose employer contributions if they change systems. Costs have risen sharply over the last decade in the STL and PSRS plans. They will begin rising in the KC plan in 2014. Other notable features of the pension landscape for public educators in Missouri include: • The strong back-loading of benefits in all three pension plans. Educators who teach for less than a full career suffer disproportionately large losses in pension wealth because they exit prior to becoming eligible for retirement benefits. • The “pull” and “push” incentives typical of final-average-salary defined benefit pension plans are present in all three Missouri pension plans. Strong retention incentives for mid-career teachers (“pull”) are followed by similarly strong “push” incentives that induce teachers to retire at relatively early ages. • The charter sector in both city districts has grown rapidly in the past decade. Charters schools now account for 41 percent and 30 percent, respectively, of teacher employment in KC and STL. Charter schools are currently not represented on the pension board in either city district. • The long-term retention rates for new cohorts of teachers in KC and STL, whether employed at charter schools or not, are low. This means that very few of these teachers remain in their pension plans long enough to collect full benefits. Retention rates in both cities are far below retention rates for PSRS teachers. • In addition to the general problems associated with using a heavily back-loaded pension structure to compensate teachers in high-attrition environments, urban schools (both charter and traditional) in Missouri also are disadvantaged in recruiting mid-career teachers or school leaders from neighboring districts because of the lack of reciprocity between the city plans and PSRS. For these reasons, we find that the maintenance of separate pension plans for Kansas City and Saint Louis teachers represents a costly barrier to school improvement that needlessly balkanizes the market for educators in the two metropolitan areas. A reform agenda for the pension plans should include the following elements: • Increased transparency in all plans. This would include “what if” projections of future costs under alternative economic scenarios. It also would include greater transparency regarding contributions versus benefits for educators with different spells of employment in the three plans. • Given the increasing charter-school presence in Kansas City and Saint Louis, charter schools should be represented on both the KC and STL pension boards. • Data on school and teacher quality should be linked to pension data at the state and district levels. This would produce greater transparency regarding how resources are distributed to schools through the pension plans and allow for evaluations of the school staffing effects of various pension plan characteristics. • Alternative plans for new teachers that would be less expensive and provide mobile retirement benefits should be considered, particularly in the city districts. Benefit mobility can be increased by reducing the back-loading of benefits. Switching plans would entail closing the current plans to new members. • Charter schools in PSRS districts should be allowed to partially or totally opt out of PSRS if they have an adequate retirement plan in place that provides mobile benefits. All new teachers in PSRS districts should participate in Social Security, which offers a basic and transparent mobile retirement benefit.

Acknowledging teacher professionalism in Ireland: the case for a Chartered Teacher initiative

This paper presents an argument for the development of an Irish Chartered Teacher initiative which would acknowledge and accredit the professionalism of experienced and accomplished teachers. It begins by examining the current position of teaching as a profession based on findings from Irish and international research studies. Issues surrounding the accreditation of accomplished teachers are considered through the examination of a range of Chartered Teacher initiatives. Finally, the potential opportunities and challenges of accrediting teacher professionalism in Ireland are discussed with reference to the continuum of teacher education and recent developments introduced by the Teaching Council of Ireland.

Relays and relations: tracking a policy initiative for improving teacher professionalism

This paper offers a new way of exploring some of the complexities inherent in attempts by policy makers and others to promote educational change. The focus of this study is on the current drive in education policy to alter the basis of teacher professionalism through the application of principles of lifelong learning to teachers’ professional development. Drawing upon data from two studies of the Chartered Teacher (CT) initiative in Scotland the paper examines the formation of successive transmission points as material relays of relations during the process of implementing this policy objective. It explores how three key discursive elements of a professional standard for accomplished teaching: collaborative action, critical reflection and enquiry, and teacher leadership, were progressively recontextualised during the introduction of CT status in schools. The findings indicate some of the conceptual and political struggles involved at the critical junctures where policy implementation requires the movement of a discourse from one social context to another. The paper suggests that a discursive analysis of how a centrally mandated initiative is transmitted can help to promote an understanding of the complexities of this process and increase critical awareness of the issues at stake for those involved.

Who teaches in American charter schools? Findings from secondary analysis of the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey

Charter schools have been in existence for 20 years in the USA and their effectiveness has been heatedly debated. Despite a growing literature on charter school administration, research on charter school teachers in comparison with their counterparts at traditional public schools is scarce. Using secondary data from the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey, this study aims to compare the demographic and qualification characteristics of charter school teachers versus traditional public school teachers. Cross-tab analysis, bivariate, and multivariate logistic regression analyses were applied. The results show that charter teachers were considerably younger, more likely to be from minority groups, much less experienced, less likely to have earned a bachelor's degree, to have qualified for full certification, and to be teaching in-field than traditional public teachers. However, charter school teachers were also more likely to graduate from more selective colleges. It is concluded that the reduced regulation at charter schools helped lower the entry barriers to teaching for non-traditionally certified but academically qualified candidates. This study is limited by the fact that the secondary data used are around 10 years old. Therefore, the results should be treated primarily as ‘snapshot’ views of the US charter school teachers in early 2000s.

Beyond induction: the continuing professional development needs of early‐career teachers in Scotland

Continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers in Scotland, as in many other countries worldwide, is receiving increased attention. Within the Scottish context, a gap in the CPD framework had been identified for early‐career teachers who have completed the induction year but are not yet eligible to embark on the Chartered Teacher Programme. Learning and Teaching Scotland, the school curriculum development body for Scotland, therefore commissioned a research project to explore the CPD needs and priorities of these early‐career teachers and the barriers to their participation. The project employed a three‐staged methodology: nominal group technique interviews with teachers in four local authorities; a national online survey; and a stakeholder consultation exercise. Results indicate that the early‐career teachers have a wide range of different needs, in terms of both content and mode of CPD, yet they do not appear to feel strongly about barriers to their participation. The article concludes by outlining policy and practice implications arising from the research.

Practices of Integrating the Earth Charter into Education Activities in German Federal States of Hessen and Rheinland-Pfalz

The integration of Earth Charter into everyday practice of schools in Germany has to be combined with the curriculum development in different subjects. Two states of Germany started this process by organizing inservice training for primary and secondary teachers. Additionally they translated and adopted the Earth Charter Teachers Guidebook to improve the integration of Earth Charter ideas and content in German schools.

Practitioner research and excellence in teaching

This paper explores the relationship between established teachers’ professional learning and their use of practitioner enquiry, or action research, as a means of improving the quality of their classroom teaching. It reports on one aspect of a ten-month pilot study jointly funded by the Scottish Government and the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) to explore means of evaluating the impact of the Chartered Teacher initiative on pupil learning. Whilst the study found evidence for the beneficial effects of teachers’ engagement in practitioner research, as part of the requirement for the completion of Chartered Teacher programmes, it also raised a number of issues as to exact nature of participants’ learning and whether current approaches to the use of practitioner research in teacher education need to be revised.

Bold, Rude and Risky: Rethinking Educational Professionalism

The Scottish Chartered Teacher initiative to develop and recognize accomplished teaching is unique among such schemes, and offers exciting possibilities with its emphases on professional enquiry, collaboration, social justice, and especially teacher leadership. However, it is argued here that some troubling issues need attention if the CT movement is to achieve the impact of its promise. Problematic silences in its discourse may lead to more parochial rather than more expansive teaching; structural gaps in its implementation threaten its sustainability; and a certain timidity in the Standard steers away from the most compelling issues for public education and teaching. This discussion suggests that we consider ways of encouraging teaching to be more bold, rude and risky. The intent here is to provoke useful questions about how we all might better support educational professionalism for global complexity.

Developing and rewarding excellent teachers: the Scottish Chartered Teacher Scheme

The Scottish Chartered Teacher Scheme was designed to recognise and reward teachers who attained high standards of practice. The scheme emerged in 2001 as part of an agreement between government, local employing authorities and teacher organisations. Policies such as the chartered teacher scheme aim to benefit students in two main ways: by attracting and retaining effective teachers; and by ensuring all teachers continue to engage in effective modes of professional learning. This paper reviews the Scottish scheme in the light of international interest in policies designed to promote teacher quality. Key features of the Scottish Chartered Teacher Scheme are identified and future challenges. The latter include the need to: strengthen the role of the profession in operational aspects of the scheme; ensure the scheme is based on a valid and reliable assessment of classroom performance; mainstream the scheme; and integrate the scheme with changing conceptions of effective school leadership.