Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER CANADIAN HR REPORTER February 24, 2014 February 24, 2014 6 NEWS NEWS No one ever expects to have cancer. When it strikes, having CAREpath as part of your benefit package shows your employees and their families how much you really care. Employees diagnosed with cancer are assigned a personal oncology nurse providing guidance and support throughout every stage of their cancer journey. CAREpath is the only complete cancer navigation provider in Canada. cancer? Does one of your employees have We'll be there. 1-866-599-2720 www.carepath.ca THE CANCER ASSISTANCE PROGRAM Anita McGowan, RN, CON(C), OCN Head Oncology Nurse Manager Schools in need of better HR practices: Report Schools in need of better HR practices: Report But critics say education system can't be compared to corporate world But critics say education system can't be compared to corporate world BY SARAH DOBSON TEACHER QUALITY varies considerably across Canada but school boards could signifi cantly improve the quality of classroom instruction by introducing a cred- ible, eff ective system of teacher evaluation, according to a report commissioned by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. "Education systems do not stra- tegically manage their human cap- ital. Human resources policies in our school systems are more often guided by historical tradition and bureaucratic expediency, rather than by a devotion to excellence and eff ectiveness. ese ingrained practices constitute a signifi cant drag on the quality of teaching in our schools," said Sachin Maharaj, author of the report. In Eff ective Management of Hu- man Capital in Schools, he high- lights apparent problems around hiring, teacher evaluations and pay, and makes several recom- mendations for improvement. And there's a lot of truth to the report's assessments, said Paul Bennett, founding director of Schoolhouse Consulting and adjunct professor of education at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. "There's been a tendency to depend on schools and principals to oversee teacher development and I think, in many, many ways, the teachers' association, feds and unions have essentially been managing most of the profession," he said. "A lot has been delegated to them and they frankly have little or no appetite for improving the quality of teaching or indeed see- ing incentives built in which are tied to evaluation." That's why it's encouraging that chief executives are realizing that improving education means focusing on improving teacher quality, he said. " is is the fi rst sign that they're embracing a new way of looking at educational reform." But the report misses the mark in terms of how we should make sure we have good teachers, said Marianne Larsen, a professor in the faculty of education research at Western University in London, Ont. "In every profession, you're going to have bad apples — that just goes without saying. It's way too easy to blame teachers for the problems we have in our school system, and I am not convinced that there is a crisis about the quality of our teachers in our schools," she said. Hiring In looking at seniority-based hir- ing, the assumption is teachers with more experience are more eff ective. Yet there is no empiri- cal evidence to support this view, said Maharaj, a Toronto teacher and education researcher. While eff ectiveness tends to increase during a teacher's fi rst few years on the job, teacher eff ectiveness then typically pla- teaus and sometimes even de- clines, he said. As a result, hiring should be based on merit, not seniority, said Maharaj. "By undermining the author- ity of principals to select teach- ers who are best suited to their schools, and by denying em- ployment opportunities to tal- ented but less experienced young teachers, seniority-based hiring ultimately results in less eff ective schools." Evaluation When it comes to assessing teach- ers, the report lists numerous problems such as evaluations that are not representative of actual teaching performance, infrequent evaluations, ratings that don't dif- ferentiate performance, improp- erly trained evaluators, a lack of consequences and a lack of ties to professional development. To respond to these issues, school administrators should receive more training, evalua- tions should include multiple classroom obser vations and impartial observers should take part, student feedback should be incorporated into the evalua- tions, evaluations should be done more frequently and a multiple- level scale should be used, said Maharaj. People often argue that evalua- tions take up too much time and resources, he said, while teachers' unions say they single out bad teachers. "You need to have that — some accountability to make sure teachers are maintaining a high standard of teaching. But that misses the point because evaluations aren't just useful for worse teachers, (they're for) ev- eryone… all teachers in the pro- fession can benefi t from regular, rigorous feedback about their performance." And with a two-point scale, ev- eryone is basically evaluated the same — as satisfactory or non- satisfactory, said Maharaj. "It doesn't really give you a lot of useful information about how to improve that performance." Teachers, like all professionals, should be subject to more regular, more meaningful evaluations and rewarded in a far diff erent way, said Bennett. However, the report has its faults, he said, citing best prac- tice in the United States where evaluations involve multiple mea- sures and extensive professional development. "It's a panoply of approaches to- gether, developed over time, not a one-shot thing." But it depends on how the two- tier evaluations are being used, said Paul Olson, president of the Manitoba Teachers' Society in Winnipeg. "If a school district is using them for questions about reten- tion — you know, do you still have a job next year — then frankly a binary does it: You're either good enough or you're not." Some school divisions in Man- itoba use a multi-level approach, he said, and the process around evaluations involves several meetings, class observations and debriefi ngs. "The notion of some cheap one-off is completely alien to me, I've never heard of that process happening." Ensuring there are good teach- ers in the classroom involves a complex of processes that can't be measured through standard assessments, said Larsen, such as rapport with students and a love of learning. And society as a whole has to start trusting teachers, treating them as professionals and pro- viding them with the best possible training and professional develop- ment throughout their careers, she said. "It simply refl ects to me a think- ing, an assumption, that schools are run like businesses… and ed- ucation is unlike business — you can't quantify teaching." Pay changes On the pay side of things, the best-paid teachers earn between $80,000 and $100,000. But, for the best teachers, these numbers are too low, said Maharaj in his report. "Great teachers have been shown to increase the lifetime earning of each of their students by an average of $25,000, which translates into an increase of $600,000 in economic gain for a class of 24. In purely economic terms, therefore, one could con- clude that a great teacher is worth far more to society than he or she is currently paid." However, the way teachers are paid in Canada — using a single salary schedule — needs improvement, he said. is ap- proach standardizes pay based on academic credentials and years of experience, and while this is simple to administer and objec- tive, it has outlived its usefulness, said Maharaj. Under this pay system, there is no incentive for teachers to try more challenging settings or im- prove performance in the class- room, he said. "There is no obvious reason why teachers should receive au- tomatic yearly pay increases — and why a lazy and ineff ective teacher should be paid the same as a hardworking, dedicated and eff ective teacher. Excellence goes unrewarded, mediocrity goes unaddressed." Instead, teacher evaluations should be linked to progression on the salary grid, said Maharaj, and performance-based teacher compensation plans should be used. However, school boards should not attempt to tie teacher pay to student outcomes, he said. The recommendations are similar to an Australian model by Stephen Dinham, chair of teacher education at the University of Melbourne, which is a standards- based career ladder model, said Bennett. It suggests remunera- tion be tied to demonstrations of competence, tied to each stage of a teacher's career. "It's to keep the mediocre teach- ers in a band so that they (end up fi nding) other employment and to keep rewarding those who are not only capable but seeking to excel and keep them." But the report's suggestions around salaries refl ect a mistrust of teachers and teachers' federa- tions, said Larsen, "a sense they are only concerned about teach- ers' best interest and not students' best interest." A classic part of HR discipline is tying compensation to perfor- mance, and while that's perfectly reasonable for a car dealership, that doesn't work for schools, said Olson. "In our world, things are messy and they vary quite signifi cantly from one kid to other, one child to another, one school to another, one classroom to another — so whatever metrics you think you have that will indicate how much a child learned with me as opposed to you in a diff erent room is some- where between the ridiculous and the sublime…. it's completely di- vorced from reality." In any profession, there's a need for improvement — but teacher quality in Canada is not a prob- lem, he said. "It's a common problem we face in education that people try to im- port business practices and some of them make sense and some of them don't," he said. "It simply refl ects to me a thinking, an assumption that schools are run like businesses... and education is unlike business — you can't quantify teaching."

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