NEA Today

Report Calls For More Experienced Teachers in Low-Performing Schools

February 4, 2011

By Mary Ellen Flannery

When school boards don’t create incentives for experienced, highly qualified teachers to teach in their poorest schools, the kids in those schools are denied the same resources and opportunities to learn that middle-class kids get every day, says a newly report from Appleseed, a national network of public interest justice centers.

Their report, called “The Same Starting Line,” was based on interviews and data from school districts in five states across the nation. In all, Appleseed found a disturbing emphasis on outcomes, but much less attention to the kinds of things that help kids cross the finish line, like teacher quality.

“The No Child Left Behind Act really emphasizes outcomes, test scores, but what’s lost in that conversation are the learning and educational resources that contribute to those outcomes,” said Edwin Darden, director of education, law and policy at Appleseed.

Those resources include buildings, curriculum, and, of course, teachers and education support professionals. Too often, he said, experienced teachers choose to teach in middle-class schools – but it’s poor and low-performing students who could benefit most from their skill and expertise.
Darden isn’t talking about transferring teachers against their will – “Instead of a ‘push’ system, let’s look at a ‘pull’ system,” he said.

It might look very much like the Equity Schools Project in Evansville, Indiana, created in 2009 by the local union and district to focus resources on three of the district’s struggling schools: Delaware Elementary, Howard Roosa Elementary, and McGary Middle School.

As part of their negotiated agreement, each school can add up to 20 days of classroom instruction, plus five professional development “data days,” where teachers learn more about using test data to meet student needs. Teachers also enrolled in an “equity academy,” where they completed 40 hours of professional development on Saturdays and Wednesday evenings.

Teachers could choose to participate – and they might have been swayed by both the extra pay for their extra time (teachers receive $20 an hour for their time in the Academy and $1,000 upon completion) and also the opportunity to improve their own skills — but teachers who opted out could no longer teach at those schools.
 
“Our partnership demonstrates how you can wisely use agreements to help get students what they need to succeed,” said Keith Gambill, president of the Evansville Teachers Association. “In our case, that means an extended school year for students and more meaningful professional development for teachers.”

Appleseed’s report points to another creative strategy – one used by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district in North Carolina. There, teams of teachers and principals move to new schools and “receive financial reward for their willingness to lead change in tough circumstances.”

“It doesn’t force people into areas where they don’t need to be,” Darden said, but it does “respect the  fact that talented teachers can migrate and be successful.”

The Finanical Times

Special Report: US Innovative Lawyers
Responsible business: the gift of giving

By Sarah Murray
December 1, 2010

With the US home to one of the world’s largest philanthropic sectors, it comes as no surprise to find law firms giving away many thousands of billable hours in the form of pro bono work. But leading firms are also starting to treat their pro bono work and social responsibility projects less as charity and increasingly approaching them strategically.

The areas they are tackling vary widely, from affordable housing to diversity, immigration issues and civil liberties. Education is a focus for many firms. Jones Day, for example, is introducing students at the Sacramento New Technology High School in California to the possibility of a career in the legal profession.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has a partnership with Washington Irving High School, a New York school serving minority “at risk” students. The firm provides one-on-one student mentoring and coaching for examinations.

Some firms – particularly those with global operations – have developed international programmes in partnership with non-governmental organisations and overseas charities.

For the most innovative firms, the focus of their pro bono work or special projects ties in with their business strategy. Some are collaborating with clients. Moreover, while programmes often tackle specific issues or geographies, some firms are using them to bring about broader change in the legal sector and society.

DLA Piper has formed a partnership with Mexico Appleseed, a non-profit organisation, to promote a culture, structure and capacity among lawyers to do pro bono work. “The fun part about teaching the next generation of lawyers is that they’re so enthusiastic and hungry to effect change on a systemic level,” says Lisa Dewey, pro bono partner at DLA Piper.

Even narrowly focused cases can have a broader impact. When Jones Day represented a group of Washington, DC, tenants in a suit against their landlord, it turned the initiative into something more transformative.

Typically, the only way for a tenant to protest against unacceptable living conditions is to stop paying rent, which results in an eviction notice – something that appears on the tenant’s record when applying for jobs or housing. So as well as helping the Washington tenants, Jones Day created a model for taking such cases forward and shared its experience with other firms. “We have provided samples of all our pleadings and have done mentoring phone calls, talking them through the process,” says Laura Tuell Parcher, partner in charge of pro bono work.

In their charitable work, lawyers are also increasingly acting as brokers – bringing together clients, non-profit and government organisations to work on an issue.

Baker & McKenzie, which is supporting legal and social reform in developing countries, has worked with the in-house counsel at The New York Times to look at US, British and Australian laws when working with an international NGO to analyse and review a proposed freedom of information law for Yemen. The firm has also worked with Yemeni members of parliament to explore different options for the legislation. “A collaborative approach is one way we can enlist support from local and international communities to help address a problem,” says Madeleine Schachter, the firm’s global director of pro bono and corporate social responsibility.

In Nepal, the firm has worked with in-house lawyers and volunteers at companies including Google, Accenture, Caterpillar, Merck and Vodafone to tackle issues such as bonded labour, exploitation of women in the workplace, discrimination, education and literacy.

Partnership initiatives can extend the impact of a firm’s efforts. “Law firms feel a responsibility to increase the amount of pro bono programmes they do,” says Ms Dewey of DLA Piper, who explains that working with Verizon, the telecoms operator, on developing its pro bono programme means another 300 lawyers are now carrying out pro bono work. And the partnerships benefit law firms, too. “Working with clients is a good way to build a relationship with them,” she adds.

Moreover, community and pro bono initiatives can give lawyers – particularly those at junior levels – valuable experience. While partners supervised the lawyers working on the Washington housing cases brought by Jones Day, it was associates that took the lead on the cases.

For Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a fellowship programme to fund graduating law students who want to provide legal services to the poor, the elderly, the homeless and the disabled helps expose the firm’s partners to the kind of work being done by former fellows.

“There’s a huge networking effect,” says Susan Butler Plum, director of the Skadden Fellowship Foundation. “We have a partner who worked with a Skadden fellow for 10 years on a huge [school discrimination] case. So it’s deepened and accelerated our pro bono work.”

Moreover, helping the community boosts employee morale. “It’s inspiring to see the sustained and intense commitment to developing resolutions for the problems,” says Ms Schachter.