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This article originally appeared in the Mobile Press Register on March, 1998.

Crossing the Chasm: Helping Teachers and Students Prepare for Alabama's New, Higher Standards
by Cathy Gassenheimer

Growing up during the late 1950s and 1960s, I remember a very different time in America: A time when it was possible for high school graduates, and indeed even high school drop-outs, to get and keep a decent job-often for their entire career. Yesterday's world enabled them to support themselves and their families.

How things have changed! In today's economy, most workers will have six or seven different jobs during their adult career. Even those who remain with the same company or profession will be forced to constantly learn new skills and techniques to be successful. By the first decade of the 21st Century, nearly 50 percent of all jobs will require much higher knowledge and skills than ever before. Only about 10 percent of available jobs will offer the kind of routine work that factories once provided for low-skilled workers and these will pay far less than such jobs offered only 20 years ago.

As a result, Alabama schools and teachers are being asked to do more than ever before to help prepare students for the more complex and ever-changing world of today and tomorrow.

And on many fronts, our schools are making progress in improving the academic achievement of Alabama's public school students. Scores on the Stanford Achievement Test (known as the SAT-9) given to students in grades 3-11 are improving, as are scores on the ACT, the college admission test used by in-state colleges and universities.

It would be short-sighted, however, to point to these accomplishments without also looking at how far we have to go. To vividly illustrate the challenge ahead of us one need look no further than Mobile students' scores on the current high school exit exam. One in four students fail this eighth-grade level test on their first try. The picture is even bleaker when one looks at more difficult testing. For example, only 40 percent of algebra students in Mobile County demonstrate a solid grasp of the subject on the state end-of-course test. This is actually better than the state average of 38 percent. But, is it good enough?

Never before have we asked so much of our students. Students in Alabama's high schools now face the toughest graduation requirements in the country. To graduate from an Alabama high school, beginning with this year's tenth grade class, students must successfully complete four years of English, science, math and social studies courses, including algebra, geometry and biology. A new, more rigorous exit exam is being developed based on 11th-grade level skills.

Imagine the wake-up call that the state will have the day after this new test is given. If 25 percent of Mobile's students presently fail the current eighth-grade level test on their first attempt, think how many more students will fail this new, tougher test. Rather than wait for this to happen, it is critically important that we all start working now to bolster the skills of Alabama's teachers and students.

To address this concern, a Task Force on Teaching and Student Achievement was formed last summer to study and recommend a comprehensive strategy to help teachers and students meet this new challenge. Task force members include state board of education members, superintendents, teachers, deans of colleges of education and business representatives. Mobile Area Education Foundation Executive Director Carolyn Akers is also a member of the task force.

The task force is utilizing the research of the bipartisan National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, studying other comprehensive research about effective teaching and student learning and listening to teachers and other educators across the state to learn more about their needs and ideas. A comprehensive report will be issued by the task force later this year which will make recommendations and highlight effective practices.

Based on these studies, members of the task force believe that holding our students to a higher standard is the right thing to do. But Alabama's new graduation requirements may shift too much of the responsibility for academic success to our students unless we make sure we have well-prepared and equipped teachers in all of our classrooms. To be well-prepared to teach in the schools of today and tomorrow, a teacher must develop exceptional skills and knowledge. Not only do teachers need a deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, they also need to know how to teach those subjects. A PhD in physics may be able to design a space station but unless he knows how to present his knowledge in a way that students can understand and use, he can't do the job that a teacher is expected to do every day.

We have many capable, qualified and well-trained teachers in the classroom now. Teachers like Anne Jolly who, for the past two years, has been working with teachers in schools under academic caution or alert. But, we also have many teachers who are inadequately prepared or who are teaching subjects in which they have neither a major or minor. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 25 percent of Alabama's secondary math teachers have less than a minor in math. In physical science, more than two-thirds of Alabama's teachers - 68 percent - are teaching without even a minor. We should not expect teachers to teach what they have not learned.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, during the 1993-1994 school year almost 70 percent of Alabama's teachers received no training in their subject area.

To address this problem, it is critical that we connect our classroom teachers to on-going and high quality professional development. Research demonstrates that the most effective professional development is linked to what teachers do in their classroom every day and the analysis of the actual work that students do.

Teachers at Whitley Elementary School will be exposed to this type of training this summer. Whitley is one of 16 schools across the state selected as a literacy demonstration site. Teachers at Whitley will receive 10 days of training during the summer of 1998 that will enable them to provide research-based reading instruction. They have agreed to participate in frequent observation and on-going evaluation during the 1998-99 school year and will serve as a model of effective reading practices for other schools in the Mobile area.

It is imperative that we work to replicate such high quality training opportunities for all of Alabama's teachers. First, individual teachers should demand that they have access to high quality professional development. Additionally, they should consider seeking additional course work in their field or pursuing national certification, a rigorous, year-long process that requires teachers to reflect on their work and on how students learn. Two outstanding Mobile teachers recently received this credential: Lisa Meeks, a second grade teacher at Baker Elementary and Patricia Burchfield, a math teacher at Murphy High School. You can read conversations with three of Alabama's nationally-certified teachers on the A-Plus web page.

Second, schools and school systems should connect their teachers to relevant and sustained professional development like the type that teachers at Whitley will receive. In-service centers, such as the one located at the University of South Alabama (SARIC), can help by working with area schools to identify their critical needs and developing focused, high quality and sustained training based on a school's specific needs. As an example, a collaborative effort is being initiated between the Mobile Area Education Foundation, the Mobile County school system, SARIC, the state Department of Education and A+ to design and offer math training to teachers in the Williamson high school feeder system this summer.

Finally, interested citizens must get involved. To learn more about the work of the Task Force on Teaching and Student Achievement, contact the Mobile Area Education Foundation or A+. But don't stop there. We should all demand that the state invest more in professional development for its teachers. This school year's education budget cut in half the funding for professional development from $120 to $60 per teacher. This represents an investment of $2.7 million for 43,000 teachers, less than one-tenth of one percent of the education budget. The budget for next year may restore the amount to $120 per teacher, still a far cry from the amount necessary to offer the type of high quality training described above. Compare this meager investment to the amount that private industry invests in its employees. Studies show this investment ranges from 2-to-7 percent of a company's income. Or, compare this to the $60 million the state invested in training 1,300 employees at Daimler-Benz outside of Tuscaloosa.

We can't go back to the world of yesterday. And, if we want the students of today and tomorrow to be productive citizens in our democratic society, we must give teachers and students the proper tools to be successful. The research shows we can do it. The question is: do we have the will to make those tough decisions necessary to make it happen?

Cathy Gassenheimer is the managing director of the A+ Education Partnership.