National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality What Works Conference
A Summary of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality First Annual What Works Conference: Increasing Student Achievement in High-Need Schools Through Teacher Quality
November 8–9, 2006
Doubletree Hotel, Washington, D.C.
Day 1
Welcome and Introductions
Sabrina Laine, Ph.D. (Learning Point Associates), director of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality , welcomed participants and described how the work of National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality fits in with that of the regional comprehensive centers. She provided an overview of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality mission statement, operating principles, and capacity-building framework as well as touched on teacher quality issues currently significant across the country. Dr. Laine also detailed the primary goals of the first annual National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality conference as the following:
Build the capacity to share and apply knowledge base, resources, strategies, and best practices.
Use applicable tools and resources to affect the supply of high-quality teachers through preparation, recruitment, and retention—specifically in at-risk schools and for students with special needs.
Opening Plenary
Navigating the Shift From Highly Qualified to Highly Effective Teachers
M. René Islas, vice president of B&D Consulting, spoke about the highly qualified requirements for teachers in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in that they were established to create a standard baseline for teacher qualifications. The next step will be to establish criteria for standardizing teacher effectiveness. This opening session was a discussion of this emerging shift. Some highlights from this discussion included the following:
The purpose of NCLB is to increase accountability for student learning and close the achievement gap between more and less privileged students.
In the future, there may be a shift in policy from teacher qualifications to teacher performance. This would require careful measurement of teacher effects on student achievement.
Islas seemed particularly interested in the promise of value-added models and methodologies as fair and valuable tools to enhance teacher motivation and retention as well as accountability.
There are barriers to implementing comprehensive, value-added data systems. Islas expressed hope that research in this area would help match teachers to subject areas and student populations with which they would be most successful, would influence university preparation of highly effective educators, and would motivate teachers to remain in the profession by providing evidence of their impact on students.
Islas recommended that educators and policymakers take the next step and work together to build capacity and confidence for assessments of teacher effectiveness.
With value-added teacher effectiveness data, schools can improve teacher quality by rewarding teachers who elicit high achievement gains from students and by providing feedback to teachers about what practices are working with their students.
Islas also emphasized the need to build policy to support the development and implementation of data collection systems and to develop rigorous measures of student performance.
Comprehensive Teacher Quality Participant Discussion
Organizational Roles in Navigating the Shift From Highly Qualified to Highly Effective Teachers
This session provided the opportunity for participants to engage in facilitated discussion around the role of the regional comprehensive centers, state education agencies (SEAs), and national organizations in navigating the shift from highly qualified to highly effective teachers. The ideas presented in the discussion were recorded by participants and collected at the end of the session by National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality staff.
Concurrent I: Tools You Can Use
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality Tools
Tricia Coulter, Ph.D. (Education Commission of the States [ECS]), principal investigator for research and dissemination for National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality; and Cortney Rowland (Learning Point Associates), coordinator of policy products and services for National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, used this session to provide an introduction and brief tutorial on some of the online tools and resources provided by National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality to inform and enhance teacher quality work within the states. These tools can be found at National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality's website (http://www.tqsource.org). The session focused on two of the major tools National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality provides.
The first tool discussed was the Teaching Quality (TQ) Source. This database organizes resources by teacher quality issues. Issues covered in the database include preparation, recruitment and retention, certification and licensure, accountability and advancement, NCLB, and teacher quality in at-risk schools. The database uses information from the following media: state policy for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, user-customized graphs and tables based on reliable data, research summaries of publications, initiatives and other teacher quality programs, and tips and tools on emerging strategies to enhance teacher quality.
The other major tool is the NCLB Highly Qualified Teacher and Paraprofessional Database, formerly known as the HOUSSE (high objective uniform state standard of evaluation) database. The data previously found in the database have been updated, and more topics are covered by the resources.
Conducting a Teacher Quality Gap Analysis
Amy Jackson (Learning Point Associates), deputy director of National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality; and Gretchen Weber (Learning Point Associates), technical assistance coordinator for National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, led this session, which provided an introduction and brief tutorial on the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality Teacher Quality Gap Analysis Framework, which is both a data collection and needs-sensing tool. National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality developed the tool as a process for regional comprehensive centers and SEAs to reach teacher quality goals as established in NCLB. Through this, a region or state can do the following:
Identify and define teacher quality gaps.
Determine a clear teacher quality priority.
Enhance NCLB teacher quality plans with the next level of analysis and implementation.
From Planning to Action: Implementing the HQT Plans
Julie Coplin, education program specialist at the U.S. Department of Education (ED); and Laura Goe, Ph.D. (ETS), partner at National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, provided information in this session on the implementation of the equitable teacher distribution requirement within each state Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT) plan as well as state timelines and the monitoring by ED. Highlights of the session include the following:
Coplin elaborated on the role that ED served in monitoring state compliance with Title II: increasing student achievement through teacher and principal quality.
Results from recent reviews of states' HQT plans of strategies and timelines for 100 percent compliance with laws mandating a highly qualified teacher in every classroom were shared. The goal is to assist all states to become approvable through informal means by the end of November 2006.
ED is developing protocols to monitor implementation of HQT action plans, which will focus on data management, determining states' progress toward compliance and strategies for dealing with teachers who are not highly qualified, monitoring local education agencies (LEAs), and consistent monitoring of states.
There is a Title II conference tentatively set for spring 2007. Coplin also mentioned that ED will reopen competition for the 16 unallocated Teacher Incentive Fund grants.
Dr. Goe focused on data and take-home messages that would help states use data to monitor HQT plans, emphasizing that districts do not need to use complex statistics; simple descriptive statistics are generally sufficient.
The challenge is that there is generally too much or too little data to display it well. Dr. Goe emphasized data reduction as the key to constructing meaningful displays of HQT plan progress data. She suggested that states reduce their data to one page, including an at-a-glance graphical display and a narrative that clearly explains what the data mean, then went on to describe what will be done to address gaps.
General Session: What Is a Highly Effective Teacher and
How Do You Know if You Have One?
Laura Goe, Ph.D. (ETS), partner at National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality; Heather Peske, Ed.D., senior associate for teacher quality at The Education Trust; and Thomas Shepley, Ph.D., principal of Mt. Washington Elementary in Baltimore, held a panel session on the methods states and the federal government are looking toward for assessing teachers that include some measure of effectiveness. This session included discussion on how to define and assess effectiveness in teachers from several different perspectives. Some highlights of this discussion included the following:
Dr. Goe described the discussion about highly effective teachers as timely and due to the movement toward teacher effectiveness as a component of being highly qualified; she added that she sees effectiveness as a dynamic quality of a teacher.
Highly effective teachers are defined empirically as those who produce gains in their students' achievement. It is important not to lose sight of inputs because these are the only predictors of who is likely to be a highly effective teacher. While research shows some trends, there is a lack of consensus about what characteristics consistently predict effectiveness.
Dr. Peske emphasized that The Education Trust's organizational goal is to close the teaching gap that divides students who are privileged from those who are not. She said that she believed high-quality teachers were the critical component of making this happen. Dr. Peske advocated measuring effectiveness as students' learning gains, using a value-added model.
A highly qualified teacher under NCLB is the floor of teacher quality, not the ceiling. Dr. Peske disagreed that we also should focus on inputs, such as teacher characteristics and qualifications, on the basis that research has not shown that these are strong predictors of teacher effectiveness.
Dr. Shepley stated that the question relevant to him as a school principal was predicting whether a new hire will be effective and how to improve the effectiveness of all teachers. The key component in predicting whether teachers will be effective was their feeling of efficacy about teaching. In addition, teachers need analytical problem-solving skills to assess and adapt to students' needs. Dr. Shepley said that he has seen too many teachers come in unprepared to do this.
A significant question about principal effectiveness was asked during the session. Dr. Shepley responded that the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality review of public opinion polls indicates that teachers would forego higher salaries to have increased support from principals and administrators. Principals need to monitor and support teachers' efforts to be highly effective, but teachers also need to welcome the challenge of analyzing their students' progress and of finding ways to meet the needs of their students.
Roundtable Sessions
Conference participants had the opportunity to learn about and discuss with experts and practitioners state and district examples of emerging strategies to recruit and retain high-quality teachers in high-need schools. Each roundtable session lasted for 25 minutes so participants could take part in two different roundtable discussions.
Teach For America
Abigail Smith, vice president of research and public policy at Teach For America, led a discussion about the organization's model; recruiting, selecting, training, and supporting new teachers for success in high-poverty schools; and building a pipeline for leadership in the fight to ensure that all children attain an excellent education.
Innovative State-Level Recruitment and Retention Strategies in Louisiana
Sheila Talamo, assistant superintendent for the Office of Educator Support of the Louisiana Department of Education, used this session to describe the progress that Louisiana has made in establishing a statewide continuum of learning opportunities for educators. Louisiana's efforts are designed to improve the recruitment, retention, and support of teachers and administrators in a coordinated and systemic manner.
California State University Mathematics and Science Initiative
Beverly Young, Ph.D., assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs at California State University, led a discussion on the Teacher Education and Public Schools Programs, which has established a comprehensive, long-term strategy aimed at doubling the number of teachers trained in fields of mathematics and science. The program involves statewide recruitment efforts, creation of new credential pathways, Internet-supported delivery of instruction, collaboration with community colleges, and financial incentives for teacher candidates.
Troops to Teachers
John Gantz, Ph.D., chief of Troops to Teachers, discussed the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support, which is a Troops to Teachers program that helps military veterans, mostly retirees, begin new careers as teachers in public schools throughout the nation. This roundtable discussion focused on the positive attributes that veterans bring to the classroom and how these men and women build on their military background to help their students achieve and succeed.
Engaging Retired Educators: Model Programs That Work
Megan Stevens Hookey, national coordinator for the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA): AARP's Educator Community, discussed the phenomenon of retired educators across the country being tapped as a resource to offer a range of support to new teachers through the NRTA Educator Support Network. In this session, Hookey discussed the approaches that are being used in Chicago and across California.
The Challenge of Preparing Teachers for Special-Needs Students
Susan Smartt, Ph.D. (Vanderbilt University), partner at National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, spoke about inclusion and mainstreaming for special-needs students and the requirements that all teachers and teacher candidates be highly qualified and prepared to address the needs of these students in their general education classrooms. This included an overview of how to address this challenge and will address policy implications for SEAs. A more in-depth presentation of this topic occurred during the Concurrent II session.
Helping States Use Data to Impact Personnel Development for Special Educators
Phoebe Gillespie, Ph.D., director of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDE), focused on the development of a state personnel development management plan that will give policymakers and state-level administrators needed information around the supply, demand, retention, and attrition of education personnel in high-need areas. A data management planning protocol was shared with the participants, and they walked through the process of data discovery and the integration of databases to provide a data system that will inform both personnel policy and practice.
Meritorious New Teacher Candidate Program
Nancy Doorey, vice president of the Brandywine School District (Delaware) Board of Education, discussed the program of which her organization is a part. Raising student achievement will depend, to a great degree, on a pipeline of highly capable and well-prepared teachers. The Meritorious New Teacher Candidate designation is a multistate honorary award designed to encourage excellence in teacher preparation and confers upon the new teacher a mark of distinction and barrier-free reciprocity.
Targeted Incentives for Hard-to-Staff Schools
Rebecca Everett, Ed.D., principal of the Hillcrest Elementary School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, discussed financial incentives used in her school district. This roundtable session addressed how annual bonuses, free tuition, and loan forgiveness are just some of the incentives in place for teachers in the Benwood Schools. How these schools have reduced turnover and impacted student performance also was discussed.
Concurrent II: Elements of Practice Part I
General—The Role of Institutions of Higher Education and Education System Partnerships in Ongoing Teacher Quality Work
Charles Coble, Ph.D., partner at the Third Mile Group; and Tricia Coulter, Ph.D. (ECS), principal investigator for research and dissemination for National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, discussed teacher preparation. Dr. Coble discussed methods for improving teacher preparation. To illustrate his ideas, he discussed five themes in mathematics and science teacher preparation. Highlights of his segment included the following:
Program redesign—As an example, he looked to the UTeach initiative (at the University of Texas–Austin), which invites mathematics and science majors into the school of education as double majors.
Student incentives—Scholarships and deferred loans for teachers, especially those working in at-risk, hard-to-staff schools, also can be used to attract students to programs.
Expanding pathways and recruiting students—The Double the Number and Double the Diversity approach of the Board of Regents in Georgia, which is working to convert community colleges to bachelor's-granting institutions to expand the pool of qualified and diverse teacher candidates; or The New Teacher Project at California State University, which is working to increase the number of teachers by using an entrepreneurial recruitment model.
Extending the timeline for teacher preparation—The Boston Teacher Residency program offers funds for schooling or teacher internships while providing mentorship support to potential teachers from faculty and master teachers. A conference attendee mentioned that this program is especially innovative in that its administrators regularly use formative feedback on the program's success to improve it to better meet its teacher candidates' needs.
Focusing on accountability for teacher productivity—The Texas A&M University System's Regents' Initiative, which sets specific targets for teacher production not only in terms of numbers but also in terms of the racial and cultural diversity of teacher candidates.
Dr. Coulter discussed and advocated community college partnerships with bachelor's-granting institutions to increase the number and diversity of the pool of teacher applicants. Highlights of her segment included the following:
These partnerships were ideal because community college populations are naturally diverse and serve more low socioeconomic status, minority, and nontraditional students than four-year institutions.
In addition, community colleges are more geographically accessible, both to students and to schools in need of qualified teachers.
Community colleges historically have collaborated with and responded to the local community's educational and workforce needs.
Dr. Coulter discussed a number of avenues for community college partnerships, such as 2 + 2 plan programs, in which community college graduates finished their specialized education at a four-year institution, alternative certification programs available through community colleges, and full baccalaureates awarded by community colleges; and she also advocated using community colleges for inservice professional development training.
Preparation—The Challenge of Preparing Teachers for Special-Needs Students
Susan Smartt, Ph.D. (Vanderbilt University), partner at National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality; and Phoebe Gillespie, Ph.D., director of NASDSE, discussed inclusion and mainstreaming for special-needs students; the requirement that all teachers and teacher candidates be highly qualified and prepared to address the needs of these students in their general education classrooms. Highlights from this session included the following:
Dr. Smartt discussed the essential components of reading instruction, according to scientifically based reading research: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
These components, taught in an explicit and systematic manner, increase the odds that students will learn to read by the end of the third grade. These components are the same for both special and general education students.
Dr. Smartt also discussed what makes for effective special education practices. Used together, the following classroom practices will be successful: pacing; opportunities for engagement; small-group instruction; increasing number of responses; corrective feedback; distributed practice and review; frequent progress monitoring; data-driven instruction; and direct, explicit, and systematic instruction.
There is a gap in what is known between the science of reading and practice of instruction.
Dr. Gillespie discussed inclusion of special education and general education classrooms. This practice leads to challenges in teaching roles for special and general education.
Special education teachers and service providers need preparation in process, practice, and content. In classrooms, coteachers include those with content area expertise, collaborative teachers include those who understand the process and practice of teaching, and consultative teachers are not in the classroom during the whole school day. It is important to understand this distinction.
Recruitment and Retention—Recruitment and Retention of Teachers in High-Need Schools: Lessons Learned From NEA's National Board Certified Teacher Policy Summits
Susan Carmon, teacher quality manager at the National Education Association (NEA); Deirdre "Dee" Murph, a National Board Certified teacher; and Kayetta Meadows, issues organizer at the South Carolina Education Association, spoke in regard to the recent series of National Board Certified Teacher Policy Summits that NEA recently instituted. These summits were geared to solicit recommendations from the nation's most accomplished teachers about how to best staff and support high-need schools.
Participant Discussion
Comprehensive Teacher Quality Participant Role-Alike Discussion: Different Role Responsibility and Opportunity to Ensure Highly Effective Teachers in All Classrooms
This session provided conference participants with the opportunity to engage in facilitated discussion with individuals from other states and organizations who have similar roles and duties. The discussion focused on the responsibilities of their respective organizations and opportunities for ensuring that there are highly effective teachers in all classrooms. The ideas presented in discussion were recorded by participants and collected at the end of the session by National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality staff.
Day 2
Early Bird Panel
Recruitment and Retention—Using Targeted Incentive Pay in At-Risk Schools
Ensuring that at-risk schools are served by high-quality teachers is a challenge faced by many states. This session presented examples of the use of incentive pay to recruit teachers into these schools and encourage them to remain.
Cynthia Prince, Ph.D., director of teacher professional development for the Council of Chief State School Officers, spoke from a research perspective on financial incentives and offered some research-based guidelines for programs that might work to recruit and retain teachers in hard-to-staff schools. Her main points included the following:
Evidence suggests that financial incentives could attract more teachers and administrators to hard-to-staff schools.
Financial incentives need to work in conjunction with other efforts to have the greatest effect; money alone is not sufficient.
Financial incentives policy should do the following:
Provide motivation.
Be targeted.
Be renewable.
Be spread out so that the largest payoff is in the future.
Have a quality component.
Not have a penalty provision when a school improves.
Attract experienced teachers.
Terry Grier, Ed.D., superintendent of the Guilford County Schools; and Rebecca Everett, Ed.D., principal of Hillcrest Elementary School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, spoke from practitioners' perspectives. Both discussed programs that provide teachers with signing bonuses when they agree to teach certain subjects in certain school districts. Teacher effectiveness is measured in these programs through value-added systems. Dr. Grier and Dr. Everett reported that both programs have shown some positive early results in recruiting and retaining effective teachers.
Reauthorization of the NCLB Act and Teacher Quality Requirements
Alice Johnson Cain, education legislative associate for the Committee on Education and the Workforce, discussed the coming reauthorization for the NCLB Act. Cain highlighted changes in teacher quality requirements that this reauthorization may produce. Session highlights included the following:
Outcomes from the midterm elections—the Democrats taking over the majority—indicate that there may be changes in the committee leadership. Representative George Miller (D-CA) will be the committee chair and will be in control of the topics of reauthorization hearings, the witnesses at the hearings, the language used, and which members of each party are on the reauthorization committee.
The new committee chair has indicated that he is serious about bipartisanship and wants input from all members of the education community. He plans to travel the country for input.
The committee needs to use staffers and build expertise, leverage institutional memory, and make sure that everyone knows how the provisions of the legislation evolved along the way.
Substantive field hearings will start in January and will discuss the following:
The intersection of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and NCLB.
The use of growth models for determining adequate yearly progress.
The series of reports published by the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office on a range of issues that relate to NCLB.
Cain also discussed the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act, a separate bill they are pushing. This legislation includes state-of-the-art induction programs that provide full funding for career ladders; loan-forgiveness programs; differential pay for hard-to-staff schools; teacher experience and teacher quality; and principal quality, including selection, training, and hiring.
Cain also emphasized the research-based link between principal quality and teacher quality.
Concurrent III: Elements of Practice Part II
General—Implementation of NCLB and Title II
Paul Kimmelman, Ed.D., senior advisor to the chief executive officer at Learning Point Associates, presented a method of building organizational capacity and meeting the requirements of NCLB, including the HQT plan requirements, through use of a knowledge model that provides an effective framework for evidence-based continuous improvement. Highlights from the framework included the following:
Build organizational capacity through high-quality and effective teaching.
Define qualifications that make up a highly qualified teacher.
Revise HQT state plans.
Define qualifications that make a highly effective teacher.
Attain organizational capacity through knowledge acquisition (data, research), knowledge management (software), and knowledge implementation (professional development plans).
Preparation—Effective Preparation for High-Quality Literacy Instruction
Greg Roberts, Ph.D., principal investigator and director of the Special Education Strand of the Center on Instruction presented that high-quality literacy instruction is the key to student mastery of almost any other topic. This session began to answer the following question: How well are teachers prepared to teach reading, especially for students with special needs and in at-risk schools? Dr. Roberts discussed the following important skills that are critical to a student's learning:
Phonemics
Phonics
Fluency
Vocabulary
Comprehension strategies
Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), reported on NCTQ's recent study that took an in-depth look at education schools across the country. NCTQ specifically gathered data on the reading skills being taught to future educators. Highlights from the major findings included the following:
Most education schools are not teaching the science of reading.
The Balanced Literacy approach is largely fiction.
Certain types of education schools are no more likely to teach the science of reading than other types of education schools.
Most professors ignore the science all together. Those that don't are most likely to teach phonics.
The science is not just ignored; it often is maligned.
When the science is acknowledged, it is treated with no less validity than any other approach, and professors set low expectations.
The texts read in these courses are a large part of the problem, signaling a field in chaos.
Recruitment and Retention—State Strategies for Rural Recruitment and Retention
Doris Terry Williams, Ed.D., director of capacity building at the Rural School and Community Trust; and Charles Barron, superintendent from Shaw, Mississippi, discussed the challenges that rural schools and districts face in meeting the needs of their students with regard to recruiting and retaining teachers, especially those in critical shortage areas. Many different strategies have been implemented in rural districts across the country to answer these challenges.
This session presented an overview of promising practices currently being implemented by states and school districts to recruit and retain a highly qualified special education workforce. Highlights from this session included the following:
The major challenges that rural districts face include a salary gap in favor of suburban districts; professional, social, and geographical isolation of the teachers; a lack of amenities at many of the schools; multiple-subject assignments for the teachers, possibly not in their areas of expertise; quality of life; and cost-of-living differences.
In response, many strategies have been used, including incentive pay for teachers, university-school partnerships in the community or state, flexibility in job assignments, housing assistance programs for new teachers, and alternative routes to certification.
The research says that working together and packaging incentives help with recruitment and retention. The improvement of working conditions is a major factor, which, combined with increased pay and improvement in school leadership, could help solve problems in rural school districts.
Lunch Plenary
Leveraging NCLB and IDEA Teacher Quality Requirements for Better Results
Louis Danielson, Ph.D., director of the Research to Practice Division of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) at ED discussed the teacher quality provisions of NCLB and IDEA and implications for both preservice and inservice training. Highlights included the following:
NCLB and IDEA teacher quality requirements, if implemented, may have a great effect on student outcomes. Dr. Danielson provided some guidelines for how to implement these policies in an effective way:
Establish requirements for special education teachers teaching core academic subjects.
Establish requirements for special education teachers in general.
Describe how a special education teacher can meet the general requirements when participating in an alternative route to certification program.
Describe how a special education teacher who is not teaching a core academic subject can meet the requirements.
Establish requirements for special education teachers teaching to alternate achievement standards.
Establish requirements for special education teachers teaching multiple subjects.
Provide for separate HOUSSE standards for special education teachers.
Describe the applicability of definition to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and clarification of "new" special education teacher.
Establish that private school teachers are not covered under the highly qualified teacher standards.
Describe the responsibility of SEAs regarding children with disabilities placed in or referred to a private school or facility by the SEA and LEAs.
Establish the responsibility of the SEA for personnel qualifications.
Describe personnel qualifications regarding related services personnel and paraprofessionals.
Establish a deadline for special education teachers to be highly qualified.
Require each state to adopt a policy on recruitment, training, and retention for special educators.
Establish the responsibility of the LEA for personnel development.
Participant Discussion
Comprehensive Teacher Quality Participant Discussion: The Challenge of Special Education in Teacher Preparation
This session provided the opportunity for participants to engage in facilitated discussion around the role of the regional comprehensive centers, SEAs, and national organizations in navigating the shift from highly qualified to highly effective teachers as it relates to special education and teacher preparation. The ideas presented in discussion were recorded by participants and collected at the end of the session by National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality staff.
General Session
How to Stem the Tide of Students Designated as Special Needs—A Conversation With a Researcher, Policymaker, and Practitioner
Thomas Komp, principal of Boulevard Elementary School in Gloversville, New York; Louis Danielson, Ph.D., director of the Research to Practice Division of OSEP at ED; and Stephanie Al Otaiba, Ph.D., faculty associate of the Florida State University College of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research, joined together in this final panel of the conference to discuss changes in how students are designated for special education services. The panel was moderated by Daniel Reschly, Ph.D. (Vanderbilt), principal investigator for special needs for National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.
By improving a teacher's ability to engage in early and effective reading and mathematics interventions and strong classroom organization and behavior management, fewer students would be identified for special education services. Better success in these arenas would result in fewer referrals, reduced numbers of students in special education and a subsequent reduced demand for special education teachers, and improved general education outcomes.
This session included a discussion of this issue from three different perspectives; however, there was one key theme throughout the discussion. One of the important strategies discussed was reading interventions, used within a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework.
Komp gave an example of RtI at his school—although it was not originally called RtI—and how the practice has shown promising results for his students.
Dr. Al Otaiba spoke from a research perspective, offering evidence from her recent study on the effectiveness of the RtI framework. If schools applied powerful interventions combined with explicit core reading programs within an RtI framework, they could reduce the percentage of children who remain poor readers.
Early interventions are a powerful tool in the development of student's reading skills.
Intervention should be accompanied by high-quality teacher instruction in order to have the greatest effect on students.
Closing
In closing, Sabrina Laine, Ph.D., director of National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, took the opportunity to thank all the conference speakers, participants, and National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality staff and partners for making the two days successful. Dr. Laine reminded participants to fill out their evaluation surveys. She invited participants to access National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality for assistance with teacher quality issues, and she informed them that a summary of the forum and resources will be posted to the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality website in December 2006.
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