Joint Venture is launching a new initiative to bolster the teaching force across Silicon Valley’s public schools (K-12). This page provides some preliminary background information about the initiative.

NEWS FLASH!
May 1, 2008
Colleen Wilcox named Executive Director of Joint Venture's Education Initiative.

Click here to read the press release.

LAUNCHING A NEW EDUCATION INITIATIVE AT JOINT VENTURE

The Silicon Valley Alliance for Teachers

Background Information
April 2008

What are we doing and why?

The Joint Venture board of directors has identified K-12 education as a new priority area for the organization. More specifically, the board has identified teaching to be the focus of a new initiative, through a range of efforts addressing the challenges facing public school teachers throughout the Silicon Valley region.

Why teaching?

The principal motivation, of course, is poor student outcomes, which manifest themselves in a variety of ways—low scores on standardized tests, falling graduation rates, failure by too many to meet UC admission standards, and persistent disparities in performance by race.1

So why teaching?

Interestingly, we find that most of the dialogue and discussion on K-12 education is dominated by other subjects: classroom size, plant and equipment, funding mechanisms, testing, policy instruments, and wholesale institutional reform. Meanwhile a growing body of research documents what we have always understood intuitively, that teaching trumps all of these as the most important in-school determinant of student achievement.2

Our decision to focus on teaching is therefore rooted in this single observation, that the major determinant in student achievement is teacher quality.  If we care about kids, in other words, the first thing we’ll do is make sure they have good teachers.

Sadly, we cannot say this is the case throughout Silicon Valley. Indeed, most of California’s public schools (K-12) face sustained shortages of well-prepared teachers. In schools with high concentrations of minorities, 21 percent of teachers lacked a teaching credential as recently as 2005; statewide 15 percent of high school math and English teachers had those subjects imposed upon them, without proper training. 3

Experts warn that the teaching shortage will only worsen, if only because such a high number of teachers are slated to retire in the coming few years. According to researchers at SRI International, California’s shortfall of fully prepared teachers will rise from 20,000 at present to 33,000 by 2015, unless something is done to alter the course. 4

But of equal or greater concern is the attrition of teachers before they retire, and here is a sad fact: 22 percent of teachers in California leave after only four years in the profession. The numbers are worse for impoverished districts: in these, where the needs of students call for the most accomplished teachers, 10 percent of the teaching force leaves every year.5

This is especially troubling because research shows that teachers don’t reach maximum effectiveness until their third or fourth year.6 Teaching complex subjects like math and science is, after all, a difficult and demanding undertaking. Though great teachers draw on instinct and native ability, they must also build and develop their craft, and this requires years on task.

So if we care about student outcomes, we care about good teaching. And if we care about good teaching, then we need to figure out how to recruit the best teachers and more of them, and how to retain the great teachers we already have.

This therefore becomes the mission of Joint Venture’s education initiative, and it amounts to nothing less than promulgating (and working doggedly to achieve) a new vision of Silicon Valley. In this vision we show ourselves to be more than merely the world’s epicenter of technology and innovation. We will also become the nation’s capitol for primary- and secondary-school teaching:

• a place where good teaching is valued and rewarded;
• a place known for leading-edge innovation in pedagogy;
• a region known for pioneering efforts in reform;
• a place where good teaching is systematically available across the region, in low-income districts and affluent ones alike;
• a place that invests in teachers’ long-term professional development;
• a place known indisputably in the teaching profession as the most desirable to locate, and where the jobs are therefore highly competitive.

To accomplish it, we must understand why it is so difficult to recruit and retain outstanding teachers, and address root causes.

Interestingly, the cause for teacher flight goes beyond the low level of pay. The most recent studies 7 show that just as compensation is never the primary motivator for teachers to enter the profession, it is neither their chief concern upon leaving (though money does, of course, matter). In exit interviews the most frequently cited reasons for “burnout” are:

• a sense of isolation
• insecurity,
• actual and perceived inefficacy
• lack of mentoring and support
• the lack of a professional peer network
• frustration with the teaching and learning environment; inadequate system supports
• bureaucratic impediments to teaching (excessive paperwork, too many interruptions, too many restrictions on teaching)

Joint Venture is therefore launching an initiative to address these issues directly, through the creation of a regional alliance for teaching. The Alliance, which will be formed through a formal partnership with the Santa Clara and San Mateo County Offices of Education, will convene the various programs and partnerships that are scattered piecemeal across the region and build a common framework for their implementation. More importantly, it will work to expand these offerings dramatically, and make them systematically available to all the region’s teachers, in a manner which we discuss below.

What, specifically, will the Alliance accomplish?

The mission of the Joint Venture Alliance for Teaching is to provide a new kind of “infrastructure” on the Silicon Valley scene. Specifically, we see a need for a region-wide program which will:

• Provide a permanent infrastructure for intensive professional development for teachers.
• Ensure a reliable and consistent source of funding for these activities.
• Pool resources with existing organizations.
• Provide on-site coaching to reinforce and support best practices, throughout the academic year.
• Facilitate (and provide incentives for) teachers to undergo additional training (e.g. national board certification, paid in-service days, etc.).
• Provide a valuable peer network—through focus groups, on-line dialogue, demonstration lessons, and other methods.
• Establish teacher “residency” programs, modeled after the medical profession. These would include intensive mentoring, and formal study in accredited graduate programs, that could be applied toward advanced degrees.

We are intent on establishing these activities in partnership with established Silicon Valley companies, who will also provide guidance, experiential learning, and sponsorship.