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Some people have the unfortunate idea that unionism is somehow antithetical to or incompatible with being a professional. This notion is particularly salient within education circles, where phrases like "treat teachers like professionals" are often used as implicit arguments against policies associated with unions, such as salary schedules and tenure (examples here, here, here and here). Let's take a quick look at this "conflict," first by examining union membership rates among professionals versus workers in other types of occupations.

"But to apply a letter grade or a numerical ranking to a professional is to radically misunderstand the complex set of qualities that make someone good at what they do. It is an effort by economists and statisticians to quantify activities that are at heart matters of judgment, not productivity. Professionals must be judged by other professionals, by their peers. Nowhere is this more true than among educators, whose success at teaching character, wisdom, and judgment cannot be measured by standardized tests. "

Virtually everyone agrees that teacher evaluation in the United States needs an overhaul. Existing systems rarely help teachers improve or clearly distinguish those who are succeeding from those who are struggling. The tools that are used do not always represent the important features of good teaching. Criteria and methods for evaluating teachers vary substantially across districts and at key career milestones-when teachers complete pre-service teacher education, become initially licensed, are considered for tenure, and receive a professional license.  A comprehensive system should address these purposes in a coherent way and provide support for supervision and professional learning, identify teachers who need additional assistance and-in some cases-a change of career, and recognize expert teachers who can contribute to the learning of their peers. This report outlines an integrated approach that connects these goals to a teaching-career continuum and a professional development system that supports effectiveness for all teachers at every stage of their careers.

By now, you have seen the latest Metlife Survey of the American Teacher. It shows that teachers' satisfaction with their job has plummeted since 2009, from 59 percent to 44 percent. It is the lowest it has been in 20 years. The percentage of teachers who are likely to leave the profession has grown from 17 percent to 29 percent since 2009. The reasons are obvious: The most satisfied teachers feel their jobs are secure, and they are treated as professionals by the community. Compared with dissatisfied teachers, they are more likely to have opportunities for professional development, time to collaborate with other teachers, and greater parental involvement in their schools. These are teachers working in an atmosphere of professionalism and collaboration.

Increasingly, teachers in both the public and independent sector are being asked to teach the same material in the same way at the same time so that standards and accountability measures can be established. Of course, there is nothing wrong with standards. Most teachers - indeed most professionals in any field - have them. And there is nothing wrong with aiming for some common core of knowledge to be taught in, for example, ninth-grade English. But increasingly, a bottom-line for minimum standards and uniformity is being raised to the top of all curricular considerations. And as our cultural obsession with standardization and accountability measures is increasingly reflected in our schools, the most common complaint I now hear from both teachers and administrators is this: I have been stripped of my professional judgment, creativity, and freedom to make decisions in the best interests of my students.

The way we provide professional learning experiences and support our nation's teachers is a running source of debate and, unfortunately, disappointment. Policymakers grumble at the costs. Teachers complain they don't get what they need while parents and the public wait for our schools to get it right for our students.

Sixteen years ago, Charlotte Danielson, an Oxford-trained economist, developed a description of good teaching that became the foundation for attempts by federal and state officials and school districts to quantify teacher performance. The Danielson method - articulated in her book, "Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching" (ASCD, 1996) - describes good teaching using numerous criteria within four broad areas of performance: the quality of questions and discussion techniques; a knowledge of students' special needs; the expectations set for learning and achievement; and the teacher's involvement in professional development activities. "If all you do is judge teachers by test results," Ms. Danielson told Ginia Bellafante in an interview for a Big City column in the Metropolitan section of The New York Times last month, "it doesn't tell you what you should do differently."

PBN: The partnership created between The Learning Community and Central Falls public schools has really raised the profile of your nonprofit school. How does this partnership work? ALVES: The partnership has four main components and I think part of the reason why it works so well is that it is comprehensive. It's not just one major slice of work we are doing but four pieces. We have grade-specific professional development, not just whole-school workshops that other professional-development organizations might put out. Our trainings are grade-level specific. So all the first-grade teachers go to a first-grade teacher workshop that is very targeted and actually ends up being more effective.

The general Finnish educational method is a Dewey-esque learning-then-doing approach, theory then practice model. Teachers are highly professional and professionalized. You need a Master's degree to teach at a higher level than kindergarten. There is great respect for teacher judgment as well as respect and decent wages for teachers as the best people to determine what metrics best account for learning success. They work with principals at coming up with the best ways to determine how to measure success, engage kids and communities, and how to both keep national norms and address local conditions. In immigrant communities, kids are taught all subjects in their first language (including Finnish instruction).

In Ed Schools housed within research universities, and in programs in educational leadership which are primarily charged with the training of school and district level leaders, we are constantly confronted with deliberations over how to balance teaching the "practical stuff" and "how to" information on running a school or school district, managing personnel, managing budgets, etc. etc. etc., and the "research stuff" like understanding how to interpret rigorous research in education and related social sciences (increasingly economic research).  Finding the right balance between theory, research and practice is an ongoing struggle and often the subject of bitter debate in professional programs housed in research universities.

American public school teachers are paid far more than their smarts are worth. That's the provocative conclusion of a new study from two high-profile conservative think tanks. Researchers from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute found that public school teachers take home total compensation that's 52% higher than "fair market levels" for professionals with similar cognitive abilities. Unsurprisingly, their findings have riled the education world. "No, we do not agree that teachers are overpaid," public school reform advocate Michelle Rhee told Politico. "Under the status quo in most school districts, good classroom teachers are not only undervalued in pay, but as professionals generally." Of course, this isn't the final word on teacher pay. It's just the latest word. Big sweeping statements about teachers being overpaid or underpaid are perennial in the think tank world. Here are four of the biggest.

I can think of no other profession in the public or private sector in which this kind of unreliable and potentially damaging data is made public.  The only effect of this will be to further undermine teacher morale -- already at an all-time low in this city -- and to dissuade teachers from working in our public schools and with the highest needs children.  Yet so far, GothamSchools is the only media outlet that has pledged not to publish them.  Meanwhile, the Governor is pushing a deadline of Thursday for the state and city teacher unions to agree on a statewide evaluation system, called APPR,  for the Annual Professional Performance Review, that will rate teachers 20-40% on test scores, and the rest on principal evaluations. Yet nearly one third of all principals in the state have signed onto a letter protesting this system, for reasons that are further explained here and here.  In the city there is even more discord, because the DOE refuses to give teachers the right to appeal a principal's negative rating to an independent arbiter, despite numerous documented cases in which NYC principals have arbitrarily delivered unsatisfactory ratings to teachers for political or personal reasons. Below is a letter from eight esteemed Teachers of the Year, originally posted on the NY State Teachers website, sent to the NY State Board of Regents last spring, pointing out how the proposed APPR is likely to unfairly penalize many excellent professionals, especially those work with at-risk students.  Nevertheless, on Monday, the Regents voted to go full speed ahead with its NCLB waiver application to the US Department of Education, that will further commit them to this damaging evaluation system.

[Jeff's note: Both authors of this article are members of this group.] The way to turn schools around and transform the education of at-risk students is to invest in the professional ability of the faculty, making its members a mission-driven, skilled force for change. This strategy necessitates a reorganization built around faculty collaboration, intensive and embedded professional development, and personalized instruction. Working from this premise, the Jefferson County, Ky., public school system, which includes the city of Louisville, designed and implemented a fifth model that was fully operational by the 2010-2011 school year-a model not set forth by the Education Department, yet funded through a federal Investing in Innovation, or i3, grant.

The Rhode Island Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation today announced grants totaling $1.8 million to expand The Learning Community's nationally-recognized professional development work in reading for free to five area public elementary schools. The Learning Community, one of Rhode Island's highest performing high poverty schools, has received national recognition for its partnership with the Central Falls school district, where reading scores increased through innovative, proven strategies for boosting reading achievement.  

Why don't schools routinely tap their best teachers to organize and deliver custom-tailored professional development to their peers? Interesting question. It seems like a no-brainer, actually. It's standard operating procedure for most professions--the master litigator advising and modeling for researchers just out of law school, the CPA counseling junior partners about weathering tax season--or bright newbies offering training on technology tools veterans haven't yet utilized.

"What are the right incentives to have in place for teachers?" The very question itself is jarring. It implies that teachers don't want to perform well and that they need incentives, which in today's parlance translates into rewards (money) and reprimands (fear of loss of benefits or position).

"One of the model laws promoted by ALEC creates vouchers for students with disabilities. ALEC is the far-right group that brings together big corporations and very conservative state legislators to figure out strategies to advance privatization and protect corporate interests. ALEC does not like public education, does not like regulation, does not like unions, and does not like teacher professionalism. It likes vouchers, charters, online learning, all as unregulated as possible, and teachers who can enter the classroom with little or no certification or training. ALEC pushes vouchers for students with disabilities as a way of establishing the legitimacy of vouchers, using the most vulnerable children as the poster children for their favorite anti-regulation, anti-government ideas."

There is strong evidence that the choice of instructional materials has large effects on student learning-effects that rival in size those that are associated with differences in teacher effectiveness.  But whereas improving teacher quality through changes in the preparation and professional development of teachers and the human resources policies surrounding their employment is challenging, expensive, and time-consuming, making better choices among available instructional materials should be relatively easy, inexpensive, and quick.

Why are our 9 year olds subjected to state exams that last as long or are longer than entrance and certifying exams for adult professionals who make life and death decisions?  Why are the 75-minute third-grade state exams of 2005 no longer enough?  The honest answer is that testing is now hardly about students at all.

In the debate over school improvement, individuals and groups advancing agendas with little or no evidence to back them up have somehow claimed the mantle of education "reformers," while teachers, their unions and others with actual education expertise often are portrayed as obstacles to reform--despite their desire to be involved in an improvement process that frequently shuts them out. In this upside-down approach to school "reform," teachers are required to implement top-down policies made without their input, often in an austerity environment, with little more than an exhortation to "just do it," and then are blamed when the policies fail. Not surprisingly, these "strategies"--such as mayoral control, school reconstitution, misuse and overuse of standardized tests, vouchers, merit pay, or simply stripping teachers of voice and professionalism--haven't moved the needle. The American Federation of Teachers has promoted a better way.