DENVER—Colorado is better at getting bad teachers out of the classroom than it is at putting quality teachers there in the first place, according to a national teacher effectiveness group.
The National Council on Teacher Quality gives Colorado an overall grade of C for its teacher policies. That puts Colorado in 12th place among the states.
The report out Wednesday gives Colorado an A for the category of “exiting ineffective teachers.” But Colorado gets a D-minus for “delivering well prepared teachers” and a D-plus for “expanding the teaching pool.”
The report showed that Colorado’s teacher tenure changes are part of a clear national trend. Across the country, America’s public school teachers are seeing their generations-old tenure protections weakened as states seek flexibility to fire teachers who aren’t performing.
Tenure protections were created in the early 20th century to protect teachers from arbitrary or discriminatory firings based on factors such as gender, nationality or political beliefs by spelling out rules under which they could be dismissed after a probationary period.
Colorado is moving toward a new statewide evaluation system to determine which educators get tenure. That system would rank teachers on a four-tier system and remove tenure after multiple “ineffective” ratings. The plan is pending in the Legislature but is likely to be tested next school year in 27 districts, then used statewide in the 2013-24 school year.
Colorado was lauded for putting unsatisfactory teachers on an improvement plan. The report also lauded Colorado for using performance, not longevity, in layoff decisions. Colorado has banned the so-called “last hired, first fired” system of cutting teachers in a budget shortfall.
Wednesday’s report says that teacher training is a soft spot in Colorado.
Authors said elementary school teachers “are not adequately prepared to teach the rigorous content” in Colorado’s curriculum. And authors pointed out that teacher candidates are not required to pass a test of academic proficiency as a criterion for admission to teacher preparation programs.
The report also criticized Colorado’s approach to teachers who enter the classroom through a non-traditional route.
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National Council on Teacher Quality:
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