Finding Quality Teachers for Public Schools

The International Challenge

October 16, 2006, 9:30am – 11:00am

About This Event

The United States is not alone in its increasing concern about attracting and keeping the quality teachers it needs to remain economically competitive in the 21st century and to prepare the knowledge workers of the future. Shortages of qualified teachers are pervasive in all advanced industrial countries today. Like the U.S., these countries are finding it especially difficult to recruit teachers in mathematics, sciences, technology, computer science, and foreign languages. The fact that most of the advanced industrial countries are encountering many of the same problems recruiting and keeping well-qualified teachers in public school classrooms is directly attributable to the fundamental changes taking place in the global economy.

The United States and its peer nations are only beginning to realize the depth of the problem, and it is no surprise that the relatively tentative measures being taken by most nations are no match for the severity of the challenge. To address these challenges, advanced industrial countries in Europe and elsewhere are trying many of the same remedies with which the U.S. is experimenting, such as across-the-board salary adjustments for teachers and incentives targeted at attracting individuals to particular shortage areas. Though many of these actions roughly parallel developments in the United States, there are interesting and important variations on these themes, and some substantial differences, that countries have tried and that could be very useful to American policymakers.

Join us as policy leaders consider a new paper by Susan Sclafani and Marc Tucker on international experiences with teacher and principal compensation systems.

A light breakfast will be served at 9:00 AM

Featured Panelists:
Frederick M. Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
F. Howard Nelson, Senior Associate Director, Office of the President, American Federation of Teachers
Susan Sclafani, Managing Director, Chartwell Education Group
Marc S. Tucker, President, National Center on Education and the Economy

Moderated by:
Cynthia G. Brown, Director of Education Policy, Center for American Progress

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, DC 20005

Biographies

Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and executive editor of Education Next. His many books include No Child Left Behind: A Primer (Peter Lang 2006), With the Best of Intentions (Harvard Education Press 2005), Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan 2004), Revolution at the Margins (Brookings 2002), and Spinning Wheels (Brookings 1999). His work has appeared in scholarly and more popular publications including Social Science Quarterly, American Politics Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Journal of Teacher Education, Educational Policy, Urban Affairs Review, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Week, the Boston Globe, National Review, and the Washington Post. He serves on the review board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the research advisory board for the National Center for Educational Accountability. A former public high school social studies teacher in Louisiana and professor at the University of Virginia, he holds an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University.

F. Howard Nelson is Senior Associate Director in the Office of the President, American Federation of Teachers. He is currently studying various aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act, especially the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) provisions and teacher mobility as it relates to the shortage of quality teachers in high-needs schools. For several years, he prepared the annual 50-state salary survey of the AFT. He also specializes in examining budgets, international teacher salary data, charter school finance, vouchers, and analyzing private contracting in public schools. Nelson is an author of a controversial study released in 2004, Charter School Achievement on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Prior to these efforts, he directed the federally-funded National Charter School Finance Study. Dr. Nelson has a Master’s Degree in Economics and a Ph.D. in Educational Policy from the University of Wisconsin. He taught school finance in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago for many years prior to joining the AFT. Including his work at the AFT, he has published over three dozen articles and written several book chapters.

Susan Sclafani recently retired as Assistant Secretary of Education for Vocational and Adult Education and joined Chartwell Education Group, a new consulting organization formed by Rod Paige, former U. S. Secretary of Education. As part of that work, Dr. Sclafani is co-directing a new project at the National Center for Education and the Economy, the State Alliance for High Performance that will help states benchmark their educational practices and structures against the high-performing nations of the world in an effort to take the state’s education system to world-class performance levels. She also served as Counselor to the Secretary of Education, where she was the United States representative to OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Among the highlights of her term at the Department was her leadership in the creation of the Mathematics and Science Initiative (MSI). The scheme focused attention on the importance of these subjects in the education of all students, emphasizing the need for knowledgeable math and science teachers at every level of schooling and the importance of further research in both areas. Her global work led to her leadership of the joint E-Language Learning Project with the Chinese Ministry of Education. She also led the Department’s High School Initiative to better prepare students for 21st Century education, training, and the workplace. Prior to serving at the Department, Dr. Sclafani was Chief Academic Officer of Houston Independent School District.

Marc S. Tucker is President of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a Washington, DC-based organization providing policy guidance and technical assistance to government and educational institutions in the United States and abroad. A leader of the movement for standards-based education reform in the United States, Mr. Tucker authored the 1986 Carnegie Report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, which called for a restructuring of America’s schools based on standards; created the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; created the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce and co-authored its 1990 report, America’s Choice: high skills or low wages!; was instrumental in creating the National Skill Standards Board and served as the chairman of its committee on standards and assessment policy; with Lauren Resnick, created the New Standards consortium, which pioneered the development of performance standards in the United States and created a set of examinations matched to the standards and with Judy Codding, created America’s Choice, a comprehensive school reform program that has served more than a million American students nationwide. With Ray Marshall, Mr. Tucker co-authored Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations, selected by Business Week as one of the 10 best business books of 1992, and, with Judy Codding, co-authored Standards for Our Schools: How to Set Them, Measure Them and Reach Them, published in 1998. Mr. Tucker has written widely for professional journals and leading American newspapers and has frequently testified on education, training, and economic development issues before the U.S. Congress and state legislatures.

Cynthia G. Brown is Director of Education Policy at the Center for American Progress. She has also served as Director of the Renewing our Schools, Securing our Future National Task Force on Public Education, a joint initiative of the Center and the Institute for America's Future. Cindy has spent over 35 years working in a variety of professional positions addressing high-quality, equitable public education. Prior to joining the Center for American Progress, she was an independent education consultant who advised and wrote for local and state school systems, education associations, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and a corporation. From 1986 to 2001, Brown served as director of the Resource Center on Educational Equity of the Council of Chief State School Officers. She was appointed by President Carter as the first assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education (1980). Prior to that position, she served as principal deputy of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's (HEW) Office for Civil Rights. Subsequent to this government service, she was co-director of the nonprofit Equality Center. Before the Carter Administration, she worked for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law, the Children's Defense Fund, and began her career in the HEW Office for Civil Rights as an investigator. Brown has a Master's in Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a B.A. from Oberlin College. She serves as chair of both the Institute for Responsive Education and American Youth Policy Forum Boards of Directors and on the Boards of Directors of the Hyde Leadership Public Charter School and the National Association for Teen Fitness and Exercise.