Georgia’s 2015 grades on teacher effectiveness policies:
Delivering Well-Prepared Teachers C+
Expanding the Teacher Pool B-
Identifying Effective Teachers C+
Retaining Effective Teachers C+
Dismissing Ineffective Teachers B
Average Overall Grade B-
Top scoring states for preparing, retaining and awarding teachers
Florida B+
Indiana B
Louisiana B
New York B
Tennessee B
Arkansas B-
Connecticut B-
Delaware B-
Georgia B-
Massachusetts B-
Ohio B-
Oklahoma B-
Rhode Island B-
A new report analyzing education policies that affect teacher quality gives Georgia a B-minus and says more work is needed to ensure teachers are prepared to teach core subjects like math and reading.
Georgia beat the average grade across all 50 states and the District of Columbia for 2015, which is a “C-minus”.
Education advocacy group the National Council on Teacher Quality released its annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook Tuesday. It includes analysis of every state law, rule and regulation that shapes the effectiveness of the teaching profession.
“Most states still have plenty of room for improvement, including Georgia, but on the whole the glass is really starting to look half full on states’ efforts to drive teacher effectiveness through smarter policy,” said Sandi Jacobs, the group’s senior vice president for state and district policy, in a released statement.
» INTERACTIVE MAP: See how Georgia stacks up against the rest of the U.S.
Georgia still needs to improve in some key areas, the report states. For example, it says state education leaders should ensure elementary teachers know the science of reading by requiring all elementary teachers pass a rigorous test measuring that knowledge.
Georgia also should require all secondary teachers, including general science teachers, to pass a content test in every subject they are licensed or have an endorsement to teach, according to the group.
Georgia received higher marks on its teacher-preparation and licensing requirements. It is one of 24 states that sets a high academic bar for admission to teacher-preparation programs, with higher GPA requirements. In Georgia, teacher-preparation programs also report and are accountable for a number of measures of effectiveness, the report states.
When it comes to teacher evaluations, Georgia is one of 27 states that require annual evaluations for all teachers and is one of 16 states that require student achievement to be the preponderant criterion in teacher evaluations.
Georgia education leaders have taken recent steps to beef up their teacher license requirements. The changes come as students' standardized test scores continue to lag other states, consistently ranking in the bottom quarter. Students' academic performance can be tied to teacher quality, according to education experts and advocates.
Georgia has already tried to address the quality of existing teachers by revamping the teacher evaluation system, which now includes student test scores as part of an educator’s performance review. Stricter certification requirements are seen as the next step.
To earn certification, teaching candidates will have to score higher on tests measuring how well they know the subject they’re teaching. They’ll also have to pass a new assessment — one only a few states use — to determine whether they can teach. And they’ll have to prove they know the state’s code of ethics by passing a new exam, believed to be one of the first of its kind in the nation.
“We definitely see the state has taken some steps forward,” Jacobs said. “And we see there are plans to continue to do so in the future.”
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