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| Iowa state Sens. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, bottom left; Jake Chapman, R-Adel, center; and Jack Whitver R-Ankeny, right, look up at the voting board Wednesday. It was possible the 2013 legislative session could reach adjournment that night. |
A compromise bill approved Wednesday places Iowa among a small number of states to make systematic reforms aimed at improving student achievement through investments in teacher mentoring and job-embedded professional development.
The measure is part of a larger education reform bill that was approved by a wide margin in both the House and Senate. The passage represents a major victory for Gov. Terry Branstad, who has made an improved education system a top priority in his fifth term as governor. Many of the policies included in Wednesday’s bill — including the teacher career ladder — originated with members of the governor’s administration.
“The fact that it was passed on a bipartisan basis in a divided government is something that Iowa should be very proud of,” said Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass.
The education reform legislation will cost $7.23 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, and will cost around $160 million annually at full implementation in fiscal year 2018.
Districts are not required to participate in the newly developed teacher leadership program, the priciest component of the plan. But school systems that agree to develop new roles for educators will receive roughly $300 more in per-pupil funding each year from the state.
Glass said he believes the financial incentive means the majority of Iowa’s 348 districts will participate.
Under the program, skilled educators receive pay increases for taking on new responsibilities.
Possible duties include mentoring other teachers or developing curriculum.
If Iowa succeeds in instituting such changes on a statewide basis, the program will likely turn heads, said Kathy Christie, chief of staff with the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
“There have been career pathways around since the late ’90s, but not in a lot of states and not consistently implemented,” she said. “Even with the compromise (of making the program optional), this shows a lot of promise. It’s ambitious.”
Flexibility included in teacher pathways
Under Branstad’s original proposal, all schools would have been mandated to create a teaching leadership system that included career, model, mentor and lead teachers.
Wednesday’s compromise bill allows districts to opt out of the program entirely. They can also hire instructional coaches or craft their own program — alternatives championed by Democratic lawmakers including Herman Quirmbach, who chairs the Senate Education Committee.
“When (Branstad) proposed a model, the leadership pathways model, we actually improved upon it,” said Quirmbach, D-Ames. “We listened to teachers and principals and superintendents who said: One size, one model, does not fit all.”
Without the policy change, the plan could have resulted in larger class sizes for students in some small schools, said Tony Voss, who leads the Hudson school district in northeast Iowa.
“The idea of having instructional coaches, and being funded for that, without having to pull teachers out, that makes a lot of sense to me,” Voss said. “Our funding has been cut so much in the last several years that we’ve had to eliminate positions. This might be an opportunity to bring back some of those.”
Other measures included in the bill support Branstad’s goal of making Iowa a national education leader, Glass said.
Moving the minimum annual teacher salary from $28,000 to $33,500 and adding new incentives for high-achieving students to enter the profession should help attract more top students to the teaching ranks, he said.
The bill also creates a new student testing regime. The assessments will be more closely aligned to the Iowa Core, a collection of statewide academic standards, and should give parents, teachers and administrators a much clearer picture of student performance in Iowa — a key step for any school system looking to move ahead, Glass noted.
Democrats and Republicans also added their own priorities.
Democrats secured additional state aid to schools that will total 4 percent in the coming school year and another 4 percent the following year. Republicans loosened regulations on home-school families, reducing paperwork requirements and allowing parents to teach their kids driver’s education and provide classes to unrelated students.
The two parties met in the middle on the question of whether student test scores should weighed in teacher reviews.
The issue will likely return to the Legislature again next year. A commission was formed to develop recommendations to revamp the evaluation process for Iowa’s teachers and administrators.
“We’re very happy with the funding side of it and pretty happy with the teacher leadership career ladder piece of it,” said Mary Gannon, attorney with the Iowa Association of School Boards.
'No one said it would be easy'
Despite that compromise, Glass — a key architect of the plan — said Wednesday’s bill marks a turning point in Iowa’s school improvement movement.
Career ladders have long been a part of the schools in Singapore, Finland and Canada, and students there are consistent top performers in math, reading and science.
Iowa children, meanwhile, have slipped to the middle of the pack on national assessments, with the new legislation aimed at reversing the trend.
Studies have shown that “job-embedded” professional development — like the counseling an Iowa teacher may receive from a mentor under the new system — is most likely to improve teacher performance, said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center based in Boulder, Colo.
“One of those factors (affecting student performance) is teacher quality, and this is one way to address it,” said Welner.
The legislation was the results of weeks-long negotiations.
“No one said it would be easy, and it wasn’t. No one said it would be quick, and it wasn’t. And no one said there would not be disagreement and there was disagreement. But was it all worth it? Yes it was,” said House Education Committee Chairman Ron Jorgensen, R-Sioux City.
Schools will have five years to phase in their teacher leadership programs. A limited number of planning grants will be available for fiscal year 2014.
The Saydel school district in Iowa will get a jump on the rest of the state. Thanks to a federal grant, the central Iowa school system will welcome mentor and master teachers to its ranks this fall.
“The teacher career ladder is going to be one of the most powerful tools we have for improving schools in Iowa,” said Superintendent Brad Buck. “It allows for real-time, job-embedded professional development for teachers. Every week, they’re going to be learning what they can do to better help their students.”
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