This Strategic Management of Human Capital (SMHC) report calls for close cooperation between states and districts, determined commitment from all parts of the education policy community including teachers, teacher union/associations, and administrators, and strong political leadership. The report is based on several SMHC principles, including the following:
• Develop an explicit vision of teaching and learning as one key element of an effective improvement strategy.
• Principals bear the ultimate responsibility for implementing school-wide reforms that will lead to high academic achievement for all students.
• Strategic human capital systems continually improve the teacher and principal workforce by responding appropriately to evidence of effectiveness on the job, using the two metrics of measures of teaching practice and measures of student learning.
This report advocates for at the state and district levels, specifically:
• At the state level, require districts to use the results of performance-based teacher and principal evaluation systems to identify professional development needs, career leadership opportunities, and specific emphases in ongoing professional development.
- At the district level, systematically develop new teacher intensive induction and mentoring.
- At the district level, provide intensive, ongoing and high quality professional development. A critical element of any reform effort is an intensive, targeted and sustained professional development program that brings consistency to teaching and assessment.
Previous reports:
Talent in Education: Strategic Management of Human Capital
In the U.S. education community’s race to the top, teacher and principal effectiveness stand out as critical components to dramatically improve student achievement and close the achievement gap. At the crux of this dialogue is the concept of talent in education, which is the focus of SMHC. This 2009 article on SMHC provides an easy-to-read overview of SMHC’s resources and action networks, as well as examples of districts where SMHC principles are at work.
District Roadmap to SMHC Resources for Federal "Race to the Top" Proposals
This document offers school districts a framework for addressing teacher and principal quality and effectiveness for Race to the Top proposals within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
AFT Response to this report:
The Strategic Management of Human Capital task force report released today fails in its approach and recommendations for ensuring that every child has an effective teacher, the American Federation of Teachers said.
The AFT participated in the task force. However, AFT President Randi Weingarten said the union cannot support the findings in the latest draft of “Taking Human Capital Seriously” chiefly because it essentially ignores what teachers have said they need to do their jobs well—something AFT representatives have emphasized repeatedly since being invited to join the task force. Weingarten spelled out her concerns in a letter to the task force vice chairs, Allan Odden and James Kelly.
“We remain disappointed at how top-down and disrespectful of teachers and their unions this whole process has been,” Weingarten said. She outlined four areas of the report that the AFT finds wholly inadequate.
The report is short-sighted and relies too heavily on untested ideas for finding excellent teachers and not enough on support and developing teachers to make them great. “We believe that great teachers are not born; rather, they are carefully and systematically cultivated through rigorous recruitment, preparation, induction and continuous professional development,” Weingarten said. “Our view of teacher development requires a meaningful, comprehensive evaluation system that focuses on identifying teachers’ strengths and weaknesses in regard to both instructional practice and student outcomes.”
The report devalues the role teachers must play in creating a world-class teacher workforce. “Marginalizing the role of teachers in improving schools and increasing student learning deprofessionalizes teaching and teachers,” she said. “Significant reform will not succeed or be sustained without the involvement, ownership and support of teachers.”
The report fails to consider the significant role that all stakeholders (students, teachers, administrators, school staff and the community) should play in a child’s education. The report “should promote collective responsibility and accountability, not individual blame,” Weingarten said. “It is too easy and counterproductive to shift the lion’s share of the responsibility to individual teachers.”
To improve teaching and increase student learning, we must change direction now. “By harnessing the power of collaboration—a value to which (the task force) pays lip service but does not incorporate sufficiently or meaningfully in its plans and principles—we can effect positive change for education,” Weingarten said.
AFT Secretary-Treasurer Antonia Cortese was a member of the task force. “While we appreciate the report’s attention to professional development, it fails to make fundamental changes necessary to reflect the AFT’s position on critical issues. We cannot support this document’s release because it advocates a top-down approach to reform that will not succeed in improving teaching and learning,” Cortese said.
Francine Lawrence, president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers—also a task force member—expressed disappointment with the report. “Teacher input must be included as school districts and states move forward with overhauling their teacher evaluation systems,” she said.
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