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The Strategic Management of Human Capital in Education

Allan Odden and Jim KellySMHC Co-Directors

March 24-25, 2009Chicago, IL

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SMHC Project• Mission: Dramatically improve student

performance, focusing first on urban districts:

– Meaning to double student performance and reduce achievement gap as measured by state or local tests

– For example, increase percent at or above proficient from 40 to 80%, or increase percent at advanced levels from 30 to 60%, or get all averages and sub-group scores above the 90% level – large, measurable, unassailable gains in student learning

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SMHC Project

Focus for implementing the Mission:

• Strategic Management of Human Capital

• SMHC includes two basic strategies:1. Recruiting top teacher, principal and central

office talent

2. Managing (distributing, developing, rewarding and retaining) that talent around the knowledge, skills and expertise that makes every teacher effective… therefore producing large student learning gains

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SMHC Project• An action project of the Consortium for Policy

Research in Education (CPRE) based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Funded with an anchor grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York with generous additional funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation and the Ford Foundation

• SMHC is currently funded for 2 years; project may last up to 5 years

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SMHC Project

• SMHC argues that:– Large urban districts can acquire top teacher

and principal talent – see cases on our web site

– Teacher talent management systems – recruitment, induction, mentoring, professional development, evaluation, pay, and career progression – should be much more aligned to and anchored in the instructional expertise needed to produce large student learning gains

– Similarly for principal management systems

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SMHC Project• Producing these significant and fundamental SMHC

changes is complex and requires change in deep seated HR practices and teacher development in big cities. It will require:– A strategic recruitment/staffing strategy– Possible significant turnover in teacher, principal and

central office staff– Restructuring of most HR operations– Comprehensive, focused teacher and principal

development and management around a view of effective instruction

– Broad political support from mayors, governors, and legislators as well as school boards

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SMHC Graphic from TNTPTr

aini

ng

Recruitment

Selection

Hir

ing

Minimum requirements, little consideration for quality. No post-hire selection rigor, such as tenure decisions.

Archaic slotting procedures impede creation of effective teams.

Not targeted to high-need schools or subject areas. HR dysfunction deters applicants.

Market driven by what providers want to offer, not what schools or teachers need.

Developm

ent

Bu

dg

eting

Little concern for impact of timing on teacher hiring.

Disjointed professional development, often not focused on instructional skills.

Compensatio

n

No differentiation or sorting among teachers, regardless of performance. Dollars concentrated at senior end of career.

An effective teacher in every

classroom

The foundational systems and institutions that are responsible for generating and maintaining effective teachers are almost universally unaligned with the goal of an effective teacher in every classroom.

Evaluation

Systems fail to identify teachers on a spectrum of performance, making it difficult to develop high performers or remediate or remove low performers.

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Need to realign the teacher strategic management continuum to the prime objective of an effective teacher in every classroom (from TNTP)

• Underlying priority must be the closing of the achievement gap.

• School districts and policy makers have made sporadic efforts to realign specific pieces of the continuum but most efforts have been modest and limited.

• Success requires a comprehensive approach that includes:

– Leadership: Change requires rallying stakeholders around the goal of maximizing teacher quality and effectiveness.

– Coordination: Most districts lack a chief strategist for their most important function – developing and maintaining quality human capital.

– Political will: Realignment requires engagement with hot-button issues and entrenched interests.

– Data: Necessary in order to identify needs, measure progress, and allocate time and resources.

Training Recruitment Selection Hiring DevelopmentBudgeting CompensationAn effective

teacher in every

classroom

Evaluation

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SMHC in 2008• Defined SMHC (see Odden & Kelly, and Lawler papers

on web site)• Created a National Task Force of 33 leaders, chaired by

MN Governor Tim Pawlenty, and conducted 2 task force meetings

• Conducted 1st annual SMHC Conference• Completed several case studies of leading edge SMHC

practices around the country -- Boston, Chicago, Fairfax County, Long Beach, New York City, Minnesota QComp, Teach For American, The New Teacher Project, New Leaders for New Schools

• Launched 2.0 Web site: www.smhc-cpre.org

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SMHC in 2009• Create both District and State SMHC Reform Networks

focused on implementing appropriate, cohesive policies to acquire, develop, pay and retain top teacher and principal talent

• Focus on specific analytic topics:– HR Alignment “analyses”– Recruitment – webinars– Creating effective practice in first years of teaching– Measuring teaching performance– Principal as site human capital manager

• Task Force meetings in August and November, with second National Conference in November – all in Washington DC

• All VERY aligned with Stimulus funds

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Related Materials• Odden and Kelly paper on What is SMHC?• Lawler paper on Strategic Talent Management• CPRE Policy Briefs on past 15 years of work on school

finance, standards-based teacher evaluations and performance pay for teachers

• New series of six papers on teacher compensation– An overview, teacher salary levels, new salary structures,

performance pay, costs and funding, and one on a possible federal funding role

• Heneman and Milanowski monograph HR Alignment• Odden and Archibald book on Doubling Student

Performance and Finding the Resources to Do It (Corwin, 2009)

• Odden and Wallace Compensation handbook and Compensation book (www.freeloadpress.com)

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We welcome yourquestions and comments

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Core Concepts and Case Study Findings of SMHC

Allan Odden and Jim Kelly

March 2009

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What is SMHC?Core ideas:• Improving student achievement in urban districts is the

toughest educational challenge in US• Need a powerful education improvement strategy• Need a budget plan

– see Odden and Archibald new book on Doubling Student Performance … and finding the resources to do it. Corwin

• Need a “people” plan– Tough educational challenges – like those in urban districts –

deserve/require top talent– Need top talent to implement the strategy, and

• Need to manage that talent around the instructional expertise needed to boost student learning

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Case Studies

• Boston, Chicago, Fairfax County, Long Beach, New York City, Teach for American, The New Teacher Project, New Leaders for New Schools – www.smhc-cpre.org

• State of many urban districts/turnaround schools:– Dysfunctional HR systems:

• Paper and pencil systems; late and inaccurate salary checks; large numbers of teacher shortages; larger shortages in math, science, special education; lack of sufficient teacher quality, especially in high-needs schools; few recruitment strategies; opened school each fall with hundreds of vacancies

– Other • Low levels of student achievement, large achievement gaps,

disjointed educational improvement strategies

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Cross-Case Findings• Big Finding #1: Urban districts can recruit top-

quality teachers and principals by deploying a multi-faceted human resource strategy. – “If you recruit it, talent will come.”– Create multiple recruitment strategies simultaneously– Tap only the best traditional university pipelines– New pipelines--TFA, TNTP, NLNS, leadership

academies (Chicago, New York)– “Grow own” programs and new university partnerships– Two pipelines for teacher talent – pre BA and post BA– Move up budget and hiring calendar– Revise bumping and seniority transfer – site selects staff– Hire mainly principals who go through a district training

program

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Cross-Case Findings

• Big Finding #2: Urban districts that have developed the systems to recruit and retain high-quality teachers and principals and improve student performance have restructured and automated many human resources transactional processes.– Paper and pencil and dysfunctional HR systems are

not in the DNA of urban districts; they can be modernized, automated and reformed.

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Cross-Case Findings• Big Finding #3: Processes for strategic

management of teacher and principal talent have barely begun to address the need to develop valid and practical measures of teaching performance and student achievement, and use them to manage all aspects of HR decision making.– Need to identify and use a system of teaching

standards and performance rubrics to serve as an “anchor” for all HR programs for teachers

– Major new emphasis of the Gates Foundation

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Cross-Case Findings• Big finding #4: Stable leadership from the

school district, often buttressed by strong support from city officials, is necessary to build and sustain an effective system for strategic management of human capital.– All five districts have had stable leadership at

the top for several years.– Strong ties between district chief executives and

very powerful mayors

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Cross-Case Findings

• Big Finding #5: Union-management collaboration is requisite to many SMHC advances.– Issues commonly negotiated include transfer and

assignment procedures, evaluation procedures, professional development, compensation levels and arrangements, and, in some cases, mentoring and induction—decisions related to teachers’ professional lives.

– SMHC reforms cannot be accomplished without working with the teacher union or association.

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We welcome yourquestions and comments

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Focus and Starting Points for Districts in Reform Network

Allan Odden and Jim Kelly

March 2009

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Overall ApproachNot the time to hunker down, cut across

the board, and just fill budget holes• Take the opportunity of tough times to:

– Rethink your overall education improvement strategy and make it more powerful

– Rethink your talent and human capital situation and launch a strategic staffing initiative

– Rethink how you currently use resources and identify ways to use them more strategically for both your improvement and staffing strategies

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Stimulus FundingStimulus funds to be focused on:• Standards and assessments• Longitudinal data systems• Education improvement plans focused on

turning around low performing schools• Teacher effectiveness and distribution (also

a core focus on SMHC)Nearly all HC initiatives should be targets for

stimulus funds; most have one time, 2-3 year start up resource needs

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Topics for this ConferenceConducting a human resource alignment

“analysis”• Focus of the next session• Determine degree to which all elements of HR

system for teachers are aligned around a common vision of effective instructional practice/teacher competencies – curriculum and instruction, induction, professional development, evaluation, etc.

• Need a set of teaching standards and performance rubrics to do this audit analysis

Stimulus funding appropriate to create structures and training for making this a periodic activity

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Topics for this ConferenceStrategic staffing of school districts• Begins with identifying the key people needed to implement

the education improvement strategy• Then moves to conducting a “talent” audit to determine

situation of district in terms of appropriate teacher and principal talent

• Results of audit used to design a strategic talent acquisition/staffing strategy

• Cases show urban districts can recruit top teacher and principal talent through comprehensive recruitment initiatives

Stimulus funding appropriate for almost all of a 2-3 year set of activities in this area, contracts with TNTP, etc.

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Topics for this ConferenceMeasuring teaching performance• Few districts have a robust system for measuring

teaching performance that is reliable, valid and identifies different levels of teaching performance

• Such a system is needed to “performance manage” teachers to this vision of effective instructional practice

• Currently, there are many such systems that can give district “good enough” scores, and profiles of teachers to guide development and promotion

Stimulus funding appropriate for adapting such an assessment system and the 2-3 years to implement it with ongoing formative evaluations

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Topics for this ConferenceUnderstanding the key roles of principals as

human capital managers at the school site• Teachers experience most human capital management at the

school where they work• Principals must play key roles in recruiting, interviewing,

selecting, placing, inducting, mentoring, developing, evaluating and performance managing, and retaining teachers

• Not enough is known about these competencies, particularly those related to human capital management

• Over time, principals should also be evaluated to a set of principal competencies and performance rubrics

Stimulus funding appropriate for adding HC competencies to current principal standards and rolling into a standards-based principal evaluation tool

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Topics for this Conference

Assessing policies and practices around HR transactional issues

• Seniority bumping, sick days, grievance procedures, surplussing excess teachers, tenure and dismissal policies, succession planning

• How to address some of these complex issues in ways to make the policies supportive of the strategic directions of the district

Stimulus funding appropriate for conducting these analyses and working to modify them in the future; also appropriate for any new/enhanced HR IT platforms

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Topics for this ConferenceWe want districts to consider SMHC

holistically, including all actions in acquiring, developing, retaining, and rewarding top teacher & principal talent

We will focus on some key needed elements:• HR Alignment• Staffing/recruiting• Measuring teaching performance• Principal as human capital manager• Policies to make HR transactional issues more strategic,

assuming districts already have some HR IT platform• All appropriate for Stimulus funding