Introduction
Every school must have properly trained teachers, and school leaders must recruit qualified teachers who can elicit the best student results. However, practically, schools are arguably doing a poor job as far as teacher evaluation is concerned. According to the findings of the Nation's Report Card, school leaders can remedy this problem by measuring the improvement in students’ scores in various subjects and then using these calculations to recruit and evaluate schoolteachers. There is enough reason to worry about the present structure of teacher evaluation where the performance of students can measure effectiveness. Such an evaluation system is believed to result in greater student achievement. The purpose of this essay is to look at the Nation's Report Card. The following study identifies the important findings from the Nation's Report Card and their role in shaping the recruitment of teachers.
Identify and Summarize Important Findings From The Report
The Nation's Report Card Report is a detailed assessment of what the country’s students know in subjects like civics, economics, geography, mathematics, science, reading and writing. It offers reliable and valid information on the performance of students in the United States. The report is based on a period assessment in these subjects. The report’s major finding is that the average NAEP science scores for the nation increased 4 points between 2009 and 2015 at both grades 4 and 8 (NAEP Report Cards, n.d.). However, these scores did not change significantly at grade 12. Average science scores at both grades 4 and 8 increased in 15 states/jurisdictions and did not significantly change in 16 states compared to 2009 (NAEP Report Cards, n.d.). These findings point towards a close relationship between students’ achievement and numerous contextual variables such as teacher’s academic level. The report gathered data from teachers regarding their education and training background. The most important thing about this report is that principals and school leaders can use the findings to evaluate teachers and students’ progress and devise strategies to enhance education in the country.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Unfortunately, the Report has attracted heavy criticism associated with the interpretation of the findings. For instance, it reports that in 2010, males outperformed females at Grades 4, 8 and 12 as a result of civic test scores of selected students in each grade (NAEP Report Cards, n.d). This claim has highly been criticized because minor differences in performance in studies such as the Nation's Report Card have received extensive publicity, which reinforces persistent biases.
How These Findings Would Shape the Recruitment Of Teachers
The Nation's Report Card provides some intriguing findings, which would significantly shape the recruitment of teachers. For one, teacher quality is currently at the fore in discussions regarding educational reforms (Pellegrino, Jones & Mitchell, 1997). Today, policy makers and relevant parties have focused on setting high educational benchmarks for schools. The focus shifted with the release of reports such as the Nation's Report Card among others. According to this Report, for students to achieve high academic performance, school leaders must improve the quality of the teaching force. Therefore, the findings of the Nation's Report Card will form my basis for recruiting and evaluating teachers.
Studies on teacher recruitment, incentives, and new teacher induction programs shed considerable light on how I can use the Report’s findings to guarantee highly qualified teachers for each student. I must arm my teaching staff with the right knowledge for them to contribute positively to students’ achievement. Previously, the education fraternity only concentrated on improving student’s scores by focusing attention on teacher quality. The Nation's Report Card seems to be pervasive in arguing that the quality of teachers recruited in schools. This reflects what I have always known that teachers contribute considerably in whether students achieve high academic scores or not.
Today, as a school leader, I am under pressure to close the student achievement gap as the education standards require that students not only attain adequate annual progress towards state scores but also mandates me to recruit highly qualified teaching staff for my students to score high by the end of the school year. Additionally, I will use the Report’s findings to assemble information displaying the distribution of under qualified teachers in my school and submit a plan detailing the steps I would take to ensure that no child is assigned to uncertified, inexperienced and out-of-field teachers. The federal government outlines how I can meet the highly qualified teacher mandates, emphasizing on the approaches like merit pay and signing bonuses, new teacher induction, recruitment of non-traditional applicants and alternative certification programs (Pellegrino, Jones & Mitchell, 1997).
For me to achieve the academic goals of the federal government, I must strive to overcome some of the most serious teacher labor barriers, which may hinder my ability to recruit and train the teachers that I require. In fact, there seems to be a qualified teacher challenge in what is referred to as the hard-to-staff schools. These are schools that are known for serving the minority, the poor and the lower performing children and are characterized by significantly under prepared and inexperienced teachers besides greater attrition rates.
Somehow, recruiting and maintaining qualified teachers is a greater challenge than preparing a new one, and this could be the remedy to the teacher shortage issue. Nationwide, universities are producing more teachers than the demand (Martin, 2013). Nevertheless, despite the changes in the teacher labor market, most teachers have chosen to teach in local schools near their homes or where they attended college. Importantly, there is proof indicating a sufficient supply of teachers in the labor market (Martin, 2013). However, some students are far more likely to be taught by inexperienced and ineffective teachers. In some schools, especially in hard-to-staff schools, high teacher turnover has left students to face a cycle of untried novices who lack the skills to help students attain higher education standards. With the most qualified teachers for my school, it will be possible for me to make as much headway on the federal educational demands.
Essentially, the Report’s findings recommend substantial changes both at the federal, state and local levels regarding recruiting and retaining a high-quality teaching staff for my school (National Center for Education Statistics. 2004). This is specifically important for me because my school is serving students from diverse national backgrounds. I believe that my school is mostly in need of highly qualified teachers because it has vastly different student needs. This factor is likely to spark great differentials in teacher compensation in my school. In turn, this will affect the supply of teachers for my school. It is widely known why teachers exit poor performing schools and that teachers from extended training programs tend to show commitment towards the profession.
Recently, I have observed that salary increments can expand the supply of certified teachers for my school. For instance, Klein et al. (2012) point out that dissatisfied teachers tend to move from one school to another because they are seeking new teaching opportunities where they can be given reasonable assignments and support from colleagues and the school principal. Further researches in this area suggest that quality-teaching staff is likely to gravitate towards schools with effective leaders and where they can receive support from colleagues. In the same vein, the Nation's Report Card reports that for me to have successful teachers, I must equip them with sufficient skills and knowledge to help my students learn. To achieve this, I must expect my teaching staff to serve as mentors and leaders. More so, with the challenge of attracting the best recruits, developing in-house talent is a key component of my staffing solution (Klein et al. 2012).
The findings of The Nation's Report Card fit inside the current body of research touching on teacher professionalism, which supports the recommended way of teacher recruitment, training, and compensation. Schools have achieved progress in professionalizing the teaching field, but the inadequate data and poor spread of good ideas on effective recruitment practices have attained limited progress. It seems most school leaders and human resource personnel lack information about teacher recruitment and training. Therefore, it is important for school leaders to professionalize teaching in light of the contents detailed in the Nation’s Report Card. Therefore, it will help us win the struggle over the kinds of programs and policies required to recruit and train successful teaching staff who are committed to our schools.
Conclusion
Although standardized students’ test scores enable me to make decisions regarding teacher effectiveness, it is only a part of the overall teacher evaluation structure. The US considers the Report Card as a source of much weight in teacher compensation and evaluation decisions regarding scores on basic skill tests such as reading, writing, and mathematics. Based on the Report Card, such an evaluation offers an accurate view of what teachers do in the classroom and how it contributes to student achievement.
References
Klein, J. I., Rice, C., Levy, J., & Council on Foreign Relations. (2012). U.S. education reform and national security . New York: Council on Foreign Relations.
Martin, D. J. (2013). Building teachers: A constructivist approach to introducing education . Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth.
NAEP Report Cards. (n.d.). http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/
National Center for Education Statistics. (2004). The Nation's report card: An introduction to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. (NAEP) . Washington, DC?: National Center for Education Statistics.
Pellegrino, J. W., Jones, L. R., & Mitchell, K. J. (1997). Grading the nation's report card: Evaluating NAEP and transforming the assessment of educational progress . Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.
