Group Supports Governor’s Business Council Report on Teacher Effectiveness
Austin, Texas – Newly-formed Texans for Excellence in the Classroom today announced its support of the Governor’s Business Council’s education recommendations to improve teacher effectiveness and foster educational excellence in Texas.
“Texas has come a long way in education,” said Charles McMahen, chairman of Texans for Excellence in the Classroom. “Thanks to reforms adopted with bipartisan support, student achievement has improved over the past decade. However, despite our gains, Texas dropouts are too numerous, our student performance is still sub par, and far too few young Texans are graduating high school ready for college or a good job.”
“We have yet to reach our goals because we have not gotten to the heart of the matter in our reform efforts,” McMahen continued. “We must now focus directly on enabling our teachers to achieve excellence in the classroom.”
“Every element of the Excellence in the Classroom report embraces the notion that ‘teachers matter,’” said Sandy Kress, who led the research team that developed the Governor’s Business Council report. “Effective teachers make a difference in every child’s life and can deliver the kind of education our students deserve. Our recommendations aim to equip schools, administrators and teachers with the best tools to increase teacher effectiveness and foster true excellence in the classroom.”
The report recommends strengthened standards and coursework aligned with those standards; improved collection of education data; improved tools to measure academic progress; dramatically improved teacher evaluation methods; increased pay for highly effective teachers; support for teachers through enhanced professional development; removal of persistently ineffective teachers; improved principal leadership; and improved teacher preparation.
“Fully 82% of Texas graduates are not prepared for college or a good job in the workforce,” said Kress 1. “Yet sixty-five percent of new jobs created in the U.S. require some college or equivalent skills 2. It is our obligation to empower our teachers to be effective so our students are prepared to succeed.”
The report cites a recent study that shows that if a student had an effective teacher, as opposed to an average teacher, for only five years in a row, the increased learning would be sufficient to close entirely the average gap between low and middle income students during that relatively short amount of time.
Currently, kindergarten through 8th grade Hispanic and African-American students lag about two to three years behind their Anglo classmates, according to scores reported by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
According to leading state forecasters, if Texas educational performance does not improve household income will go down 12% within the next 40 years. 3
“The impact of poor educational performance not only negatively impacts individual families but also threatens the prosperity of our state,” said McMahen. “Shrinking household incomes will diminish our tax base and strain the overall Texas economy.”
The Excellence in the Classroom report is available at www.excellenceintheclassroom.com/files/Excellence-in-the-Classroom.pdf.
+++
1. 2006 National and State ACT Scores, Selected State Data 2006 Report, ACT
2. Anthony P. Carnevale and Donne M. Desrochers, Standards for What? The Economic Roots of K-16 Reform, Educational Testing Service, 2003
3. Steve Murdock et al., The Texas Challenge in the Twenty-first Century: Implications of Population Change for the Future of Texas, Texas State Data Center and Office of State Demographer, 2002
