Preparing teachers and developing school leaders for the 21st century

Supporting, evaluating and developing teacher quality

Induction

Scotland's mandatory induction programme combines shapes initial school-leadership practices and builds networks through which leaders can share their experience

Vigorous, targeted recruitment and careful selection to seek out expert teachers with leadership potential

Effective leadership programmes

potential

The bottom line

(cc) photo by twicepix on Flickr

Training for what matters most: A comprehensive and coherent leadership curriculum aligned with professional standards

Active, student-centered instruction that integrates theory and practice and stimulates reflection

faculty who are knowledgeable in their subject areas, including both university professors and practitioners experienced in school administration

Responsibilities for substantial periods of time under the tutelage of expert veterans

Social and professional support in the form of a cohort structure and formalised mentoring and advising by expert principals

A system-wide perspective, so that the programs are aligned with the larger goals and processes of the system concerning school improvement, student performance, and enhanced efficiency and effectiveness

Networking among participants to foster collaborative problem-solving and alleviate the sense of isolation that some school leaders feel

Innovation and knowledge inspired by science (research and evaluation)

OECD countries spend 15 times more on

than on

education research

The bottom line

health research

21st century learning environments

The UK's Sinnott Fellowship funds the work of outstanding teachers who create innovative links between the school and the community to improve student aspirations and outcomes

Innovation and knowledge inspired by practitioners (teachers, school heads)

In most countries teacher evaluation involves school leaders and other senior school staff, form rigour and consequences vary greatly

Purposes tend to be evenly distributed among formative evaluation, performance appraisal, professional development planning and career development

In most countries teacher evaluation involves school leaders and other senior school staff, form rigour and consequences vary greatly

Purposes evenly distributed among formative evaluation, performance appraisal, professional development planning and career development

Challenging the assumptions of staff

...How do we know that?...

...Could we test another way of doing it?...

...What do we know about how people in other schools do it?...

School leaders continually challenge staff

...How do we know that?...

...Could we test another way of doing it?...

...What do we know about how people in other schools do it?...

Understanding learning to improve teaching

New Zealands Best Evidence Synthesis Programme is a government brokerage agency through which effective R&D has leveraged effective classroom practice for diverse learners

School-based professional development activities involving the entire staff or significant groups of teachers are becoming more common, while teacher-initiated personal development is becoming less so.

Most countries now link professional development to the developmental priorities of the school and co-ordinate in-service training in the school accordingly.

School managers and, in some cases, local school authorities play an important role in planning professional-development activities.

School leaders make a difference in school and student performance. To do this effectively, they need to be able to adapt teaching programs to local needs, promote teamwork among teachers, and engage in teacher monitoring, evaluation and professional development. They need discretion in setting strategic direction and must be able to develop school plans and goals and monitor progress, using data to improve practice. They also need to be able to influence teacher recruitment to improve the match between candidates and their school’s needs. Leadership preparation and training are central and building networks of schools to stimulate and spread innovation and to develop diverse curricula, extended services and professional support can bring substantial benefits

The key challenge for the teaching profession is to strengthen the “technical core” of its professional practices. What does it take to improve the use and dissemination of proved and promising teaching practices? How do we generate and share cumulative knowledge in education?

Make learning central, encourage engagement,

Be the place where students come to understand themselves

Strengthen school leaders’ capacity for adapting the curriculum to local needs

Training for school leaders in teacher monitoring and evaluation

Enhancing role of school leaders in teacher professional development so that it is relevant to the local school context

Encourage school leaders to promote teamwork among teachers

Distributed leadership

School leaders develop networks and share their tasks with vice-principals or co-principals, deputy principals, assistant principals, vocational/technical department heads, workshop managers and/or co-coordinators and teachers with special duties. Leadership structures or more informal ad hoc groups based on expertise and current needs are formed to encourage a distribution of responsibilities

Innovation inspired by firms (entrepreneurial development of new products and services)

Number of principals

Acutely sensitive to individual differences

Strategic

resource management

Promote connections across subjects and activities and beyond school

21st century leadership

PISA shows that, on average now 84% of students are enrolled in schools that have full autonomy in deciding how their budgets are spent, and 57% are in schools that are fully autonomous in formulating their budgets

Innovation inspired by users (students, parents, communities)

Delivery of 21st century skills

As more countries grant greater autonomy to schools in designing curricula and managing resources, the role of the school leader has grown far beyond that of administrator. Developing school leaders requires clearly defining their responsibilities, providing access to appropriate professional development throughout their careers, and acknowledging their pivotal role in improving school and student performance by offering the kinds of work environment that will attract the best candidates.

What school leaders in PISA say about their involvement in school matters

Leadership

beyond school walls

21st century skills

Information literacy, technology

Tools for working

Citizenship

Life and careers

Living in the world

Ways of thinking

Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning

Personal and social responsibility

Communication and collaboration

Ways of working

The kind of things that are easy to test and teach

are disappearing fastest

% of principals who report doing this frequently or very frequently

Ensure learning is social and collaborative

Continual assessment with formative feedback

Building on commitment, not compliance

In some Finnish municipalities, school leaders spend one-third of their time as district leaders

Vision for results and equity

Goal-setting, assessment and accountability

Demanding to every student without overloading

School leaders also played a key role in integrating external and internal accountability systems by supporting their teaching staff in aligning instruction with agreed learning goals and performance standards

To evaluate school performance, two-thirds of OECD countries have regulations that require lower secondary schools to be inspected regularly where leaders are held accountable for their use of public funding and for the structures and processes they establish

21st century

teacher education

Professionalised recruitment

Provide school leaders with discretion to set the school’s strategic direction and develop school plans in line with national curriculum standards but also responsive to local needs

Promoting “data-wise” leadership through support and training opportunities for school leaders

Encourage school leaders to distribute assessment and accountability tasks to people within schools capable of using data to design appropriate improvement strategies

(Hiring the wrong school-leader = 30 years of inneffective leadership)

In Singapore young teachers are continuously assessed for their leadership potential and are given opportunities to develop their leadership capacity

Recruit managers and leaders with different backgrounds and expertise for certain functions within leadership teams

Plan for leadership succession by proactively identifying potential leaders and encouraging them to develop their leadership practices, offer training programmes for aspiring leaders, establish contact between young teachers and current leaders, include leadership topics in initial teacher training

Provide more elements to evaluate candidates such as competency profiles or leadership frameworks and put less weight on seniority.

Provide guidelines and training for those on recruitment panels and encourage the use of recruitment tools to assess a wider range of knowledge, skills and competences.

Encourage involvement of school leaders in professional organisations which provide a forum for dialogue, knowledge sharing and dissemination of best practice both among professionals and between professionals and policy makers.

Denmark has introduced a 'taster' course for aspiring leaders

Compensation

Training institutions in the Netherlands offer orientation course with different career pathways for teachers

Difference between maximum teacher and principal salaries

Teachers need a rich repertoire of teaching strategies, the ability to combine approaches, and the knowledge of how and when to use certain methods and strategies.

Teachers need to be well-versed in the subjects they teach in order to be adept at using different methods and, if necessary, changing their approaches to optimize learning

The strategies used should include direct, whole-group teaching, guided discovery, group work, and the facilitation of self-study and individual discovery.

In Finland, teachers’ time is matched to students’ needs – and this isn’t always class time

Finland’s highly-educated teaching workforce receives a solid base of education theory and is able to apply that to their practice as student teachers, with the support of mentors and team teachers

Sweden introduced curriculum-embedded assessments that avoid the pitfalls of teacher-designed assessments. The are available 'on demand' and designed, administered and scored locally

Key lessons for making leadership development ongoing, career-staged and seamless

Teachers need to have a deep understanding of how learning happens, and and strengthen student initiative and create skills

Initial training

Teachers need to develop the capacity to help design, lead, manage and plan learning environments in collaboration with others

• Leadership programmes leading to a specialised qualification
• Programmes offered in partnership with universities, local authorities or universities

Many Japanese students still struggle with open-ended tasks requiring students to creatively integrate knowledge...

...but over the last decade Japan has seen the greatest improvement in PISA in this area among all high-performing nations.

Australia's National Professional Standard for Principals

'New Leaders' develops school leaders and designs leadership policies and practices for school systems across the United States

- Attracts high quality candidates

- Selects carefully

- Trains for what matters most

Norway has introduced a two-year programme to develop instructional leadership skills for principals

Japan has established graduate schools with teacher-training programs that are also for school leaders

Appraisal

Teachers need to reflect on their practices in order to learn from their experience

In Austria principals are appointed provisionally. In order to remain in their posts, they must complete a course in management training within four years of their appointment. The two-year program includes basic training modules and self-study.

In Slovenia, underperformance is reflected in salary adjustments

Denmark’s performance-appraisal system it is defined by a results-based contract

Inservice training

Teachers need to acquire strong technology skills and skills to use technology as effective teaching tools, both to optimize the use of digital resources in their teaching and to use information-management systems to track student learning

Encourage leadership initial training by: fostering collaboration between national and local governments to define national programmes and develop incentives to ensure participation of school leaders; including school leadership topics in teacher training and setting up preparatory qualifications or “taster courses” to select, screen and prepare future school leaders

Organise induction programmes that combine theoretical and practical knowledge as well as self-study and are coherent with the broader development framework

Ensure in-service training to cover need and context by: designing in-service programmes that reflect prior learning opportunities for school leadership; and providing periodic in-service training and setting up networks (virtual or real) for principals and leadership teams to update their skills or inform them of new developments

Develop institutions of school leadership to raise awareness, improve knowledge and provision of leadership development opportunities in countries without such institutions

The Le@rning Federation is a major digital content project for schools in New Zealand and Australia

Singapore’s Future Schools, encourage innovation and enterprise in teaching practice and flexible learning environments with special emphasis on using technology

In Ceará, Brazil’s second poorest state, school leaders have learned to use data to drive strategies for improving student achievement

Increase in administrative burden competing with leadership responsibilities

Teachers need to be able to work in highly collaborative ways, working with other teachers and professionals or para-professionals within the same organization, or with others in other organizations, in networks of professional communities and in different partnership arrangements, including, for some, mentoring teachers

System-leadership

Ontario's leadership strategy

One of school leaders’ new roles is to work with other schools and other school leaders, collaborating and developing relationships of interdependence and trust. System leaders care about and work for the success of other schools as well as their own. Crucially they are willing to shoulder system leadership roles because they believe that in order to change the larger system you have to engage with it in a meaningful way.

This requires: in-school capacity to sustain high levels of student learning; between-school capability (the “glue” that is necessary for schools to work together effectively); mediating organisations to work flexibly with schools to help build in-school capacity along with the skills necessary for effective collaboration; critical mass to move system leadership beyond the practice of a small number of elite leaders; cultural consensus across the system to give school leaders the space, legitimacy and encouragement to engage in collaborative activities.

Poor work-life balance

In Shanghai, the Empowered Administration initiative pairs retired school leaders and teachers with struggling schools to provide administrative and pedagogical guidance

In Singapore, teachers are encouraged to be lifelong learners and are part of professional learning communities in which teachers can learn from each other and improve their practice

Frequent issues raised by principals

Not knowing how to prioritise or delegate their work

Inefficiencies through self-selection to fill enrolments

Deliery of 21st century skills

Developing effective leaders

The bottom line

Expanding the pool of qualified teachers

Thank you!

Find out more about our work at:

In most countries teacher evaluation involves school leaders and other senior school staff, form rigour and consequences vary greatly

Purposes evenly distributed among formative evaluation, performance appraisal, professional development planning and career development

Challenging the assumptions of staff

...How do we know that?...

...Could we test another way of doing it?...

...What do we know about how people in other schools do it?...

www.oecd.org/education

www.pisa.oecd.org

www.data.gov

Email: Andreas.Schleicher@OECD.org

...and remember: Without data, you are just another person with an opinion

Addressing shortages in specific subjects/areas

School-based professional development activities involving the entire staff or significant groups of teachers are becoming more common, while teacher-initiated personal development is becoming less so.

Most countries now link professional development to the developmental priorities of the school and co-ordinate in-service training in the school accordingly.

School managers and, in some cases, local school authorities play an important role in planning professional-development activities.

Competitive compensation and other incentives, career prospects and diversity, and giving teachers responsibility as professionals are important parts of strategies to attract the most talented teaches to the most challenging classrooms. Active recruitment campaigns can emphasize the fulfilling nature of teaching as a profession, and seek to draw in groups that might not otherwise have considered teaching. Where teaching is seen as an attractive profession, its status can further be enhanced through selective recruitment that makes teachers feel that they will be going into a career sought after by accomplished professionals. High quality teacher education is another important part of the equation to ensure the supply of high-quality teaching force in the longer term.

School leaders develop networks and share their tasks with vice-principals or co-principals, deputy principals, assistant principals, vocational/technical department heads, workshop managers and/or co-coordinators and teachers with special duties. Leadership structures or more informal ad hoc groups based on expertise and current needs are formed to encourage a distribution of responsibilities

Matching demand and supply

PISA shows that, on average now 84% of students are enrolled in schools that have full autonomy in deciding how their budgets are spent, and 57% are in schools that are fully autonomous in formulating their budgets

Retaining teachers

Many education systems face a daunting challenge in recruiting high-quality graduates as teachers, particularly in shortage areas, and retaining them once they are hired. How have countries succeeded in matching their supply of high-quality teachers to their needs? How have they prepared teachers for priority subjects or locations?

Common to most education systems that demonstrate high performance and very low between-school variation in performance in PISA is that they attract teachers equitably across the school system, including to hard-to-staff schools.

Recruiting the most talented teachers to the most challenging classrooms

Distributing teachers in equitable and efficient ways

School leaders also played a key role in integrating external and internal accountability systems by supporting their teaching staff in aligning instruction with agreed learning goals and performance standards

To evaluate school performance, two-thirds of OECD countries have regulations that require lower secondary schools to be inspected regularly where leaders are held accountable for their use of public funding and for the structures and processes they establish

Making teaching an

attractive career choice

Shaping the nature of the teaching profession and teachers' work environment

Many education systems have transformed the work organization in their schools by replacing administrative forms of management with professional norms that provide the status, pay, professional autonomy and accountability, and the high-quality training and responsibility that go with professional work.

They also tend to provide effective systems of social dialogue, and appealing forms of employment that balance flexibility with job security, and grant sufficient authority for schools to manage and deploy their human resources.

Targeted responses which recognise the distinction of labour-markets by school type, subject specialisation, etc.

Value work in disadvantaged schools formally in teacher career paths

Finland has made teaching one of the most sought-after occupations by raising entry standards and giving teachers a high degree of professional responsibility

Ontario, Canada has created the post of Student Success Teacher to support their growing populations of immigrant students and prevent them from falling behind

Opening up

High quality initial teacher education

Clear and concise profiles of what teachers are expected to know and be able to do in specific subject areas. This includes both subject-matter knowledge as well as knowledge how to teach this.

Move initial teacher-education programs towards a model based less on academic preparation and more on preparing professionals in school settings, with an appropriate balance between theory and practice and collaboration among teachers as a key aspect.

More flexible structures of initial teacher education can be effective in opening up new routes into the teaching career, without compromising the rigor of traditional routes.

Opening the teaching profession to individuals with relevant experience outside education, not just in vocational programs (whose teachers are required to have industrial experience in some countries)

Recognizing the skills and experience gained outside education and reflecting those in starting salaries

Enabling appropriately qualified entrants, including mature student teacher trainees, to start working or enter apprenticeship programs and earn a salary before acquiring teacher education qualifications

Offering more flexible approaches to teacher education that provide opportunities for part-time study and distance learning, and that give credits for relevant qualifications and experience. Such alternative pathways into teaching can be particularly appealing to under-represented groups, such as men and those from minority backgrounds

Ongoing professional development

In Singapore teaching talent is identified and nurtured and never left to chance

The 'Boston Teacher Residency' recruits high-performing college graduates and professionals and prepares them to teach

In New Zealand, a comprehensive professional development programme for teaching Māori students, Te Kotahitanga, led to improved achievement of Maori students and higher overall student achievement in participating schools.

No matter how good the pre-service education for teachers is it cannot prepare teachers for rapidly changing challenges throughout their careers.

High-performing systems rely on professional development to…

• update individuals’ knowledge of a subject in light of recent advances
• update skills and approaches in light of new teaching techniques, new circumstances, and new research
• enable teachers to apply changes made to curricula or teaching practice
• enable schools to develop and apply new strategies concerning the curriculum and teaching practice
• exchange information and expertise among teachers and others
• help weaker teachers become more effective .

Effective professional development is on-going and includes training, practice and feedback, and adequate time and follow-up suppor

Teacher development

Teacher appraisal and careers

A career structure with two to four stages

Teachers place considerable emphasis on real career perspectives, the quality of their relations with students and colleagues, on feeling supported by school leaders, on good working conditions, and on opportunities to develop their skills.

Many countries are placing greater emphasis on teacher evaluations to support improvements in teaching practice that enhance classroom practice, provide opportunities for teachers’ work to be recognized and celebrated, and help both teachers and schools to identify professional development priorities.

Teacher careers can benefit from diversification

In England the career grade of Advanced Skills Teacher provides an alternative career path for teachers who wish to stay in the classroom

Ireland has introduced four categories of promotion posts

School leaders in many of the best-performing education systems actively seek out and develop the best possible teachers and, with personal interviews and visits to schools by candidates, seek to optimize the match between applicants and school needs

In career-based systems where teachers are not commonly removed for unsatisfactory performance, the quality of teachers depends mainly on setting high standards of entering teacher-preparation programs, on the quality of their initial preparation, and on the attention given to the quality of their preparation following their initial induction. The risk of career-based systems lie in that the quality of the teaching force depends excessively on getting initial recruitment and teacher education right, and that any improvement over time will take many years to affect most serving teachers. Moreover, career advancement can become heavily dependent on adhering to organizational norms, which helps to ensure uniformity and predictability of service and a strong group ethos, but can make systems inflexible to change and ill-equipped to serve diverse needs in different settings.

Matching demand and supply

In Shanghai, experienced teachers mentor teachers at lower-performing schools to plan, develop and teach lessons that other teachers can use

'Cultural Responsive Teaching' has been an

effective approach to teaching minority students in New Zealand

Multiple incentives to attract

excellent teachers to disadvantaged schools in Korea

Effective employment conditions

Compensation and incentives that influence supply and demand

Where teacher salaries are low relative to professions requireing similar qualifications teacher supply is general price elastic

In Brazil, the federal government has significantly increased overall investment in education, creating bonus structure for schools that meet their objectives and enabling more autonomy for school leaders

In Sweden, pay is now negotiated between principal and teacher

Overload with instruction and administrative work

Working conditions, teacher satisfaction and retention are closely interrelated. School leader support, collaboration with colleagues and adequate resources play a significant role in teacher decisions to stay in disadvantaged schools

In England, 'Raising standards and tackling workload' seeks to improve working conditions and reduce administrative burden and has been positively embraced by teachers

More effective teacher labour-market through transparent systems to close information gaps between teacher and schools (posting all vacancies)

Increased flexibility in the labour-market with increased part-time employment with decisions taken at school levels

Probationary periods combined with adequate teacher support

Lowered requirements for entry, teaching outside subjects, greater class sizes

Intransparancy of teacher labour-marekt

The challenge of shortages

Teacher shortage and social background

Access to teachers and social background of schools

Share of teachers with advanced university degrees

and social background of schools

Measured by correlation between PISA student/teacher ratio and school average social background

Measured by correlation between PISA share of teachers with ISCED 5A qualifications and school average social background

Students in disadvantaged schools have more teachers

While the impact of effective teaching on students from disadvantaged background is greatest, in most countries these are the students with least access to highly qualified teachers

Students in disadvantaged schools have fewer teachers

Limited mobility of teachers between schools and with other occupations

Matching demand and supply