TELL Kentucky

As we wrap up the 2013 Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) Kentucky survey, I want to thank the coalition of partners who supported the survey. I also want to thank Governor Beshear for his support and vision for TELL Kentucky.

The 2013 TELL Kentucky survey was a huge success. We had more than 42,000 teachers and principals respond –more than 83 percent of school-based certified staff in the state. In addition, more than 90 percent of our schools reached the 50 percent response rate required to receive a feedback report.

Now the hard work begins. It is extremely important that school councils and principals, school boards and superintendents, review the results from the survey and make plans on what to celebrate and what to improve. We are honored that many of our partners in Kentucky have developed tools to help councils, principals, superintendents and school boards review the data and put the results to use for school improvement. For more information on available resources, please check out the web site www.tellkentucky.org.

Sometime this summer, the Kentucky Board of Education will also review the survey results and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will work with our partners to celebrate successes and plan statewide strategies to address needed improvements. KDE will also conduct research on which survey domains most strongly correlate to improving student achievement.

It is my hope that all of our partners will join together in using the results of the survey to push for additional resources and support for classroom teachers and principals. Our Kentucky educators have done tremendous work in the last few years. With the implementation of common core standards, assessments, accountability and professional learning, we have asked educators to do much more with a whole lot less. As we approach the General Assembly budget session in 2014, it will be a tremendous asset to say that according to more than 42,000 teachers in Kentucky, we need the following …

When I came to Kentucky in 2009, Phil Rogers who was then the Executive Director of the Education Professional Standards Board and Mary Ann Blankenship with the Kentucky Education Association approached me to garner my support for the TELL Kentucky survey. As a former superintendent in North Carolina, I used the working conditions survey that is the basis for TELL Kentucky, so I knew firsthand how important it is to determine teachers’ and principals’ views about their working conditions. Having worked with the survey for more than 10 years, I am very confident in the following statement – Ensuring great working conditions for educators ensures great learning conditions for students!

Again, thank you teachers, principals, superintendents and all of our partners for your support of the TELL Kentucky survey and the data it generates that is so critical for improving education in our state.

What Teachers Say About Working Conditions

At the Kentucky Board of Education’s April meeting, the board received the final report from the TELL Kentucky survey. This survey was a collaborative effort of many education partners and Governor Steve Beshear to ask teachers about teaching and learning in Kentucky schools.

More than 42,000 educators responded. To find out more about the survey, go to www.tellkentucky.org.

The report received by the board had several key findings, and I highlight a few of those below. The full executive summary is on the TELL Kentucky website.

Overall, Kentucky educators are satisfied with the teaching and learning conditions in their school. More than eight out of 10 educators (84 percent) agree that their school is a good place to work and learn, and more than four out of five teachers (83 percent) want to continue teaching in their current school buildings.

In comparisons with five other states conducting similar surveys, Kentucky educators are more positive about their teaching conditions in several important areas, including access to instructional technology and having sufficient time for professional learning opportunities that are well-aligned with their school improvement plans.

The area of greatest concern noted by teachers is time. Many Kentucky educators report that class sizes are insufficient for them to meet student needs, and only half agree that efforts are made to minimize paperwork that can distract from time for instruction.

Positive views of school leadership are related to quality standards, teacher assessment and school-based decision making (SBDM) councils, but more attention may be needed in areas related to conditions that build trust and mutual respect. Educators’ perceptions of school councils are largely favorable, as more than eight out of 10 (84 percent) agree that overall, their SBDM councils provide effective leadership in their schools. But three out of 10 educators (or more than 12,600 teachers in the state) disagree that there is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in their schools, and nearly three out of 10 (28 percent) report that teachers are not comfortable raising issues and concerns that are important.

Community support and involvement is most strongly connected with school-level student performance. Nearly all educators agree that teachers provide parents/guardians with useful information about student learning and that their schools maintain clear, two-way communication with parents/guardians and the community. Community support and involvement provide strong and statistically significant influences on student learning while controlling for student, teacher and school characteristics.

Community support and involvement and school leadership are critical influences on teachers’ future employment plans. The analysis of individual teacher employment plans and estimated retention rates in TELL Kentucky schools indicate that leadership support, community involvement and the processes and systems in place to manage student conduct are important areas to address to enhance teacher retention. Teachers are more likely to remain working in schools where there are parents and school leaders that create trusting environments and where teachers feel safe and engaged.

I encourage school councils, school boards and principals to revisit the results from the TELL Kentucky survey and ensure specific strategies are in place to address community support and involvement. Meeting with the Parent Advisory Council this week, a recommendation was made to ask schools and districts to revisit the Missing Piece of the Proficiency Puzzle scoring rubric to identify specific issues that could be addressed to improve parent and community engagement. For more information about the Missing Piece rubric, click here.

Listening to Educators

The Kentucky Board of Education received a summary of the results from the Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) Kentucky Survey this week. Over 42,000 educators responded to the survey. Kentucky had the largest first-year response rate of any other state utilizing the survey (more than 80 percent).

Board Chair David Karem and several other board members were very clear – “Given the enormous response to the survey, if we do not utilize the data from the survey, then we will make working conditions and morale worse in our schools and districts.”

It is time now to ensure that we not only listen to our educators, but we also enact policies, budgets and actions that will improve the working conditions in our schools. The research is very clear that the working conditions in our schools impact student learning and teacher retention.

The TELL Kentucky survey was developed and implemented by a strong coalition of partner organizations across Kentucky. For a full list of the partners, please go to www.tellkentucky.org. This group did an amazing job of planning and implementing strategies that would ensure strong participation by educators across Kentucky.

The results speak for themselves. The coalition is now hard at work in focusing on how to utilize the results from the survey. The Education Professional Standards Board, Kentucky School Boards Association, Kentucky Association of School Administrators, Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, Kentucky Education Association, Kentucky Association of School Councils and others are hard at working developing training modules and materials for school boards, superintendents, principals, school councils and communities. The Kentucky Department of Education will be working to implement policies and procedures to ensure schools and districts utilize the data to develop improvement plans.

It is our plan to provide the survey every two years and require schools and districts to target improvement areas from the survey results in their school and district improvement plans. We are very confident with the research base that if schools and districts improve working conditions, we will see increases in student learning outcomes, teacher/principal morale and teacher/principal retention rates.

Our educators have told us what they need in the way of support – our job as leaders is to now get busy in providing that support!

TELL Survey Garners High Response, Roadmap for Future

This week, KDE released the results from the first teacher working conditions survey, or TELL (Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning) Kentucky survey. Readers may be interested in viewing the data at www.tellkentucky.org.

At that link, readers will find the state results, district results and school-level results. We are very excited about this release of data, since more than 80 percent of Kentucky’s teachers and principals responded to the survey. Kentucky had the highest first-year participation rate of any state that has utilized the survey.

So… now that we have the results, what happens next? We are working with our partners to provide support and training on how schools, districts and state leaders can use the results to change policy and practice at each level. The Kentucky Board of Education will model how to use the results at a work session on June 7. The board will review the results and receive recommendations from our Working Conditions Coalition. The board will prioritize the recommendations for the budget and legislative agenda for the 2012 session of the General Assembly.

We are very excited that our partners are supporting training and coaching for teachers, principals, district staff and school boards on how to utilize the results of the survey. We hope that school boards will build capacity to include in superintendent evaluation process how the results are used to prioritize policy and budget decisions at the district level. We also hope superintendents will use the results in principal evaluation process to prioritize process changes at the school level. Also, we hope school-based councils will utilize the results in collaboration with the principal to prioritize changes in school-level policy and budget decisions.

We strongly recommend that the results of the survey NOT be utilized for any personnel evaluations or decisions. We strongly recommend that how leaders utilize the results to create improvement plans should be part of personnel evaluation procedures.

While we have had phenomenal success in the implementation of the survey, the actual value now comes with the actions taken to improve working conditions in our classrooms, schools and districts. Improved working conditions will mean improved learning conditions for our students. Improved working conditions will mean lower teacher turnover rates and reduced costs for human resource processes. Improved working conditions will mean improved learning results for our students. Thanks again to all of our partners in this important work.

Certified Staff Can TELL Kentucky

In the coming weeks, every certified staff member in Kentucky’s public schools will have an opportunity to provide feedback to their schools, districts and state agency concerning working conditions. Through a survey document called TELL Kentucky, we will be asking certified staff to let us know about working conditions in areas such as leadership, facilities, resources, professional development, empowerment and time.

TELL stands for Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning. As a local superintendent in North Carolina, I found the feedback from the survey extremely important in improving student learning results for our school system. Kentucky is now joining North Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee and several other states in administering the survey. This summer, we will have comparative data on many survey questions, and we will have data on Kentucky specific issues.

There has been some confusion as to the sponsor of the survey. They survey was approved by the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE), and funding was provided through federal Title II funds and grant dollars. Many partners have supported the development of the communication and administration plans for the survey. We also have strong support from the Governor’s Office. For more information about the partners, please visit http://www.tellkentucky.org/.

There also has been some confusion over how the results will be used. The results WILL NOT be used as part of an accountability model. We are hoping to recognize schools and districts who have high percentages of participation. The results WILL be used by school-based decision making councils, schools, districts, the Kentucky Department of Education, KBE and numerous other organizations to improve the working conditions in our schools and districts. In the states that have been using the survey for a number of years, the survey results often have been used to implement school improvement team policy changes and local board policy changes, and even state statutes and regulations have been changed based on results from the survey.

I am very excited that we can offer this survey to all of our certified staff in Kentucky. I firmly believe that by addressing working conditions in our schools and districts, we will have a positive impact on student learning results, reduce teacher turnover rates and make a long-term impact on the economy of Kentucky.

I strongly encourage every certified staff member in Kentucky to take the survey and monitor the participation rates for your school and district through the TELL Kentucky Web page.