Why Does Formal Teacher Policy Matter?

The set of public policies governing teachers in a particular district together constitute the operative teacher policy system, or what can be seen as the formal teacher employment contract. This contract sets out the terms of the relationship between the district and the teacher workforce, specifying responsibilities, obligations, incentives, and rights. Yet scant scholarly attention has been focused on district teacher policy systems. This is surprising because the employment contract governing teachers is crucial to the functioning of schools and school systems, and clearly an essential part of education policy overall, as follows.

First, teachers matter. Teachers and teacher quality are now widely recognized by the general public, policymakers, and scholars alike as critical to public schooling. The single universal conclusion of the ever-growing number of studies investigating teacher impact is that the quality of the classroom teacher is the most important school-based driver of student

learning. Teaching is ―the proximal cause of student learning in schools,‖ as Raudenbush (2009) puts it; and while ―various educational policy initiatives may offer the promise of improving education, nothing is more fundamentally important to improving our schools than improving the teaching that occurs every day in every classroom‖ (Stronge et al., 2011, p. 351). Reflecting this emphasis, scholars are increasingly calling for policy focus on the classroom as the primary unit of education delivery (e.g. Good, 2011; Ladd, 2011; Welner, 2010): starting with the classroom as the finest grain of analysis, ―and then backing up and considering other levels of the

educational hierarchy can aid in constructing a coherent, systemic, multilevel analysis‖ (Welner, 2010, p. 89). A policy focus on teachers is a crucial aspect of a policy focus on the classroom.

Second, government policies matter. Public policies are fundamental to the operation of public school systems, establishing the framework within which all on-the-ground activities of individual principals, teachers, and students take place. Public policy functions as a critical instrument of democracy: maintaining citizens‘ democratic authority (Adams & Kirst, 1998), and providing the means by which states, localities, and the public constituencies they represent ―attempt to ensure that schools and school systems meet their goals‖ (Newmann et al., 1997, p. 43). Public policy plays an essential role in implementing and sustaining widespread school improvement (Fuhrman, 1993a); provides an important means for allocation of resources to improve educational equity (Grubb et al., 2004); and is key to ensuring teacher quality and student learning (Darling-Hammond, 2000, 2009; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003; Goldhaber & Theobald, 2011; S. Ryan & Ackerman, 2005; Superfine et al., 2012). As Welner (2010) emphasizes, while ―many key sources of inequality are not directly attributable to

schools…policies can either amplify or minimize the inequalities that arise outside of school‖ (p. 85).

The district teacher policy system constitutes the formal system for managing the

district‘s teacher workforce, and the teacher workforce, in turn, functions as the primary channel through which education is delivered to students. Teacher policy is thus essential to the

management of public schools systems, and critical to successful school reform (Rotherham, Mikuta, & Freeland, 2008, p. 242). Following from this, the design of district teacher policies is of great importance to the school enterprise: teacher policies are a key driver of collective teacher workforce quality, and can powerfully facilitate or constrain the effective delivery of

public education. Highlighting the significance of policies that govern hiring and dismissal of teacher, for example, multiple studies have suggested that ―the primary channel through which principals influence student performance is affecting the composition of the teachers in their building‖ (Jacob, 2011, p. 406).

In one specific illustration of the impact of teacher policies, an investigation of teacher absence policy found that changes in policies directly affected teacher absences, and that teacher absences affected student achievement; the authors concluded that, ―[a] variety of evidence indicates that teacher absences can be influenced by school and district policies‖ (Miller,

Murnane, & Willett, 2008, p. 182). Another recent study examined the effects of a new policy in the Chicago public schools that allows principals to easily fire probationary teachers (Jacob, 2010). The study found that the reduction of probationary teacher job security led to a 10 percent reduction in annual teacher absences overall and a 20 percent reduction in the number of

chronically absent teachers, with the strongest effects among teachers in elementary schools and low-achieving, predominantly African-American high schools. These unusual studies provide straightforward examples of how the design of policies for managing teachers can influence teacher behavior and, in turn, impact student learning.

The role of teacher policies in the district school system is theorized as shown in the following simplified diagram (Figure 1.3):

Formal teacher policies affect multiple dimensions of public school operation: who the district may hire and fire; who principals may hire and fire; who kids have as their teachers (and who they do not); how teachers are managed day-to-day in classrooms. That is, teacher policies play a crucial role in determining who teaches in the public schools and, to some extent, how.

Formal policy is only one piece of the overall teacher policy picture. Informal, site-based mechanisms, while ―less direct and obvious,‖ have a powerful impact on teachers‘ work and school function (Ingersoll, 2004). The day-to-day, on-the-ground implementation of policies at the school and classroom level plays a crucial role in outcomes as ―the consequences of even the best planned, best supported, and most promising policy initiatives depend finally on what happens as individuals throughout the policy system interpret and act on them‖ (McLaughlin, 1987, p. 172). Informal policy processes interact with formal policy in important ways, modifying, elaborating, or circumventing formal policies, and thus adapting them to practical street-level realities and the needs and values of citizens. In focusing on formal policy, this

Figure 1.3. Teacher policy in public school management and operation

Teacher Workforce

Districts Schools/

Principals Students

dissertation misses key layers of policy formulation and implementation. At the same time, however, while only one aspect of a complex policy landscape, public policies remain an important focus of study. As Schneider (1998) writes:

Policy design…must become a central component of policy analysis. The elements of design (target populations, goals, assumptions, rationales, implementation structure, rules, and tools) reflect the values, beliefs, and social constructions that produced the policy and it is through these elements and their dimensions that policy has real consequences. (p. 9)

The focus of this study is on public policy as a ―legally enforceable promise‖ (R. E. Scott & Triantis, 2005), which formally states the roles and obligations of the district teacher

workforce, governing how, and for what, they are held accountable. Whether clear or ambiguous, effective or counterproductive, the structure and substance of formal policies constitute an

influential framework for day-to-day activity in schools, through both their intended and unintended effects.