The Urban Education Task Force recommends collaboration within and across districts to improve educator quality by implementing innovative models that differentiate career paths for teachers and provide more professional growth and evaluation opportunities.

SAMPLE ACTION STEPS Get wide, cross-stakeholder agreement on how we measure student learning and progress and determine teacher effect on them.
Pilot one or more nationally proven models that integrate elements such as job-embedded professional development, using data to drive instruction, teacher leadership, evaluation based on multiple measures, and peer coaching to ensure the reforms chosen are representative of national best practices and informed by the cutting-edge innovation embodied in these models.

Recommendations

• Require the regular, substantive evaluation of all teachers — both tenured and non-tenured — with evidence of instructional effectiveness as a major evaluation criterion. This regular evaluation should be based upon the multifaceted conception of instructional effectiveness laid out above and involve both the RI Professional Teaching Standards and evidence of student learning and progress.
  
  
• Ensure the enhancement of the current RIDE data-collection system to allow for the collection of all data needed to attempt teacher value-added data analysis.
  
  
• Pursue national funding opportunities to pilot several currently available models integrating educator evaluation, support, and professional development in Rhode Island’s urban districts.
  
  
• Provide full support for RIDE’s continuing work with school districts, their unions, and other partners to develop the RI Professional Teaching Standards and to create model evaluation tools and guides for districts that detail how to use the RIPTS in the evaluation process. Further, Rhode Island unions and the teachers they represent in the urban districts should continue to be consulted throughout this development process.
  
  
• Create a cross-stakeholder panel to develop research-based, statewide standards and best practices for professional development and to advocate for the restoration of state funding for professional development.
  
  
• Review and revise teacher certification, including the Certificate for Eligibility for Employment (CEE), the Professional Certificate (PC), and the requirements for each.
  
  
• Provide full support for RIDE’s and the Board of Regents’ efforts to prioritize educator quality development and their work to craft a comprehensive, long-term agenda to maximize state support for increasing educator quality.

Downloads

• Educator Quality Recommendations and Action Steps
  [PDF: 8 pages]
  Introduction, promising work under way in Rhode Island, recommendations, short- and long-term action steps
  
  
• Educator Quality Supplements [PDF: 11 pages]
  Supporting data, information about the recommendation
  
  
• Executive Summary [PDF: 16 pages]
  Introduction, outline of the recommendations
  
  

> Top