Yet another panel of corporate, political and higher education leaders have presented a sweeping proposal to reform US education. The report from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce calls for $67 million from the current “system” to fund it’s recommendations, which include: (a)national examinations in all 10th graders, which would determine their educational future; (b) a standardized salary scale for all teachers, with hiring done by states rather than districts; and (c) removing control of teacher education from colleges and universities, setting quotas for admission to programs, and establishing “performance contracts” for teacher education “providers”.
Here are a few details:
- Creating a new examination that would test students in 10th grade on core subjects. Students who met the test’s minimum standards could leave high school early and enroll in a community college for a two-year degree in a technical field or a program that would enable them to transfer to a four-year institution. Students who scored well on the test could stay in high school to prepare for a more rigorous test, like the current Advanced Placement exams or those given by the International Baccalaureate program. Those students could graduate high school with enough credits to enter college as juniors.
- Developing a different system for recruiting and compensating teachers. The commission recommended that states, not local school districts, employ teachers and set a statewide salary schedule that would pay beginning teachers about $45,000 a year. If salaries were raised across the board, the report says, more teachers would come from the top third of high-school students going to college, not the bottom third, as is now the case. The salary increase could be paid for by making the teachers’ pension system less generous, the panel suggested.
- Overhauling the way teachers are trained. The commission recommended that states create Teacher Development Agencies that would be charged with recruiting, training, and certifying teachers. “The state would launch national recruiting campaigns, allocate slots for training the needed number of teachers, and write performance contracts with schools of education, but also teachers’ collaboratives, school districts, and others interested in training teachers,” the report says. Those providers whose graduates did not perform well would get fewer slots.
The executive summary of the report, “Tough Choices or Tough Times” can be downloaded here.
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