Those guidelines define "Approaching Benchmark" as being within two points of the full accreditation benchmark in both SOL test results or, for high schools, graduation rates. "Improving School" means that, year-over-year, schools make improvements in SOL or graduation rates. "Warned School" is for schools that are not making improvements in either SOL or graduation rates, yet have not failed to meet all accreditation guidelines.

A seventh category — "Reconstituted School" — is for schools that receive permission from the state to restructure in order to try to meet accreditation standards.

First year teacher retention and cyberbullying in Higher Education

This week in Compass Point we are happy to share an excerpt of our October Education Law newsletter written by Kathleen Conn, a noted expert on bullying in education settings. Her article focuses on cyberbullying in higher education. In keeping with that theme, we also review public opinion on the seriousness of bullying in today’s schools in our Poll Snapshot. For our lead article though, we focus on new teacher retention at the K-12 level.

We’ve reached the middle of October and that means colorful leaves, homecoming celebrations at high schools around the state, and Halloween candy in all the stores. But mid-October is a critical month for first-year teachers as well.

According to the New Teacher Center at the University of Santa Cruz, California, this is the time when new teachers have burned through the first euphoria of being in a classroom and begin to battle a sense of disillusionment brought on by being under significant stress for more than a month. The good news is that after winter break, most new teachers gradually climb back out of the disillusionment trough and go on to a successful career. The bad news is that some don’t and such departures represent significant challenges for school systems and disruption for students.
An article from 2012 in Ed Week notes that in 1988, there were about 65,000 first-year teachers.  But by 2008, the number had grown to over 200,000. The result was a shift in the workforce from a 1988 reality where the most common teacher had 15 years of experience to a 2008 reality where the most common type of teacher (about 25% of the work force) had five years or less of experience.

This means that retaining new teachers is increasingly a must for successful school systems. Some studies have found that between 40% and 50% of new teachers leave in the first five years. Others, including the one cited here, show an attrition rate closer to 30% over five years and only 13% over the first three. Some researchers like Richard Ingersoll argue that shortages of teachers in fields like math and science are not due to problem with training new teachers in those disciplines, but center more around keeping these new teachers past the first five years.

The New Teacher Center at the University of Santa Cruz, California has suggested ten policy factors that help with new teacher induction and reduce attrition.

1. Teachers Served: State policy should require that all teachers receive induction support during their first two years in the profession.
2. Administrators Served: State policy should require that all school administrators receive induction support during their first two years in the profession
3. Program Standards: The state should have formal program standards that govern the design and operation of local teacher induction programs.
4. Mentor Selection: State policy should require a rigorous mentor selection process.
5. Mentor Training: State policy should require foundational training and ongoing professional development for mentors.
6. Mentor Assignment and Caseload: State policy should address how mentors are assigned to beginning teachers, allow for manageable mentor caseloads, and encourage programs to provide release time for mentors.
7. Program Delivery: State policy should identify key induction program elements, including a minimum amount of mentor-new teacher contact time, formative assessment of teaching practice, and classroom observation.
8. Funding: The state should provide dedicated funding to support local educator induction programs.
9. Educator Accountability: The state should require participation in and/or completion of an induction program to advance from an initial to professional teaching license.
10. Program Accountability: The state should assess or monitor program quality through accreditation, program evaluation, surveys, site visits, self-reports, and other relevant tools and strategies.

A review of state policies by the New Teacher Center (visualized in the map below) highlights the diversity of approaches in whether their first best practice (specific induction/mentoring programs are required by state law to support new teachers) exists in each state.  If you want to see how Virginia fared, click here.  And here's a link to the mentor program page on the Virginia Department or Education website. 


So if you know a first year teacher, between now and New Years be sure to give them a smile and few words of encouragement!

Sincerely,
CEPI

Responses were also different across income, education and party identification lines:

• Respondents from households with less than $50,000 in income more frequently saw bullying and harassment as a very serious problem (57%) than did those from households with $50,000 to $100,000 in income (46%) and those from households with $100,000 or more in income (42%).

• Respondents with a high school education or less were more likely to see bullying and harassment as a very serious problem (56%) when compared to those who had some college (49%) and those with a college degree or more (43%).

• Democratic respondents were also more likely to see it as a very serious problem (55%) when contrasted with Independents (49%) and Republicans (42%).Half of Virginians (50%) think bullying and harassment is a “very serious problem” in schools, with another 37% saying they think it is a “somewhat serious” problem. 

The survey also found that a majority (56%) of respondents think bullying in schools is more of a problem today than it was in the past, while 36% think the reverse is true. Only 7% feel that bullying as a problem is about the same as it was in the past.

Similar to perceptions of whether bullying is a serious problem, women (67%) and minorities (63%) were more likely to see bullying as a greater problem today, compared to 52% of white respondents and only 43% of male respondents. Those aged 65 and older also said more frequently (69%) that bullying is more of a problem today. In comparison, 55% of those aged 35-44 and 45-64 and only 48% of those aged 18-34 said the same.

(To read the full results of the poll, visit our website. Question 14 & 15 are cited above  - topline results are on page 28 of the 2015 poll with demographic breakouts on pages 52-53.)

Cyberbullying in Higher Education: An introduction
Two persistent myths about peer-peer bullying are misleading and potentially damaging. The first myth is that bullying is a “rite of passage,” and the second is that educators are powerless to control bullying. The “rite of passage” myth implies that once students pass their middle school years, bullying will magically disappear. However, the persistence of bullying into high school, college and university life, and even into the workplace, strongly indicates that no “passage” exists. The second myth, that educators cannot control bullying, is also largely fallacious. Scientifically research-based studies have shown that effective anti-bullying programs can dramatically reduce face-to-face peer bullying behaviors, engaging bystanders and improving overall school climate. With knowledge, planning, and effort, peer bullying can be controlled.

However, bullying’s technological cousin, cyberbullying is proving less tractable at all levels. Cyberbullying in colleges and universities is especially insidious, existing largely under the radar and often deliberately ignored. Cyberbullying in higher education is multidimensional, occurring between and among students, student-on-instructor (especially in online learning situations), instructor-on-student, and even instructor-on-instructor. Little information is available on instructor-on-student cyberbullying, and even less on instructor-on-instructor cyberbullying. These issues are typically closeted within the internal governance of the institution. This commentary will examine the first two dimensions of cyberbullying in colleges and universities: (1) what is known about the incidence and effects of cyberbullying among students, and (2) student cyberbullying of college and university instructors, particularly in the online setting. The commentary will analyze several controversies that reached the courts when students were disciplined for cyberbullying peers or their instructors. Finally, the commentary will offer recommendations for dealing with the problem of cyberbullying in higher education.

Policy Implications and Recommendations
Several commentators have noted the low levels of concern and understanding of cyberbullying at the college and university level, and the potential for campus violence posed by cyberbullying (Bar & Lugus, 2011; Duncan, 2010). Cyberbullying can readily translate to cyberstalking, a reality recently acknowledged in the mandated addition of cyberstalking as a reportable “Clery crime” in the new Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA). Section 485(f) of VAWA amended the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act) to mandate inclusion of cyberstalking incidents on college campuses in the institutions’ Annual Security Reports (ASRs). Colleges need to take the new Clery Act mandate seriously, not simply as one more unnecessary burden of paperwork, but as a way to raise awareness of cyberbullying and cyberstalking and to help reduce victimization on campuses.

In a 2006 CEPI Policy Brief, this author noted the reluctance of American courts to recognize controversies involving bullying as justiciable (Conn, 2006). The judicial cognizance has changed in the past several years, with court decisions such as J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified School District (2010), T.K. v. New York City Department of Education (2011), and Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools (2011) not only deciding cases of K-12 bullying and cyberbullying, but even including treatises on the negative effects of bullying and taking judicial notice of the schools’ responsibilities to deal with cyberbullying speech originating off campus. At the present time no parallel line of judicial decisions has emerged in the college and university setting. In the few controversies involving cyberbullying in higher education with which the courts have dealt, the courts’ decisions have uniformly applied the student speech precedents developed in the K-12 setting, especially the Tinker decision. A critical recommendation for controlling cyberbullying in higher education is that the Supreme Court must seriously acknowledge the problem’s existence at postsecondary institutions by abandoning the application of the K-12 Tinker standard. The High Court must be alert to that petition for certiorari that allows them to enunciate a student speech test that acknowledges the maturity of the older students along with their capacity to be negatively impacted by cyberbullying, but still allows the “marketplace of ideas” to exist on campus. Rather than a test which requires material disruption of the whole campus, the new standard should focus on the inherent value of the speech or communication and its effect on the recipient."