Rhee Plans Shake-Up of Teaching Staff, Training

Now she promises to use her authority as chancellor to reach the same goal. An undisclosed number of teachers with poor evaluations have been placed on "90-day plans" of counseling and observation to help improve their performance. Those who don't improve could face termination by the end of the school year.

But an initial cohort of coaches will not begin training as Skillful Teacher program instructors until the fall. The effort will roll out gradually, on a pilot basis, until 2011, when all second-year teachers in the District will start receiving it, officials said.

Teachers and their advocates contend that such programs should precede the 90-day plans and dismissals so that instructors have more opportunity to improve.

"Here we are, 15 months into the tenure of this administration, and the plan calls for teachers to start getting support in the craft of teaching in 2010-2011," said Mark Simon, a former Montgomery teacher and now national coordinator at the Tom Mooney Institute for Teacher and Union Leadership, who spoke at a D.C. Council hearing last month.

Krehbiel defended the timetable. "Putting in Skillful Teacher is not such an easy thing," she said. "We don't want to start something we can't continue."

Budget issues are clouding the picture. Rhee said in a recent interview that improvements in professional development will depend heavily on support from private foundations, which she said have committed $200 million to improve D.C. schools. The money, which Rhee is also counting on to fund large teacher salary increases, is contingent on union approval of her contract proposal.

But contract talks remain stalled over the tenure issue. The District teachers union and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers, are expected to submit a counterproposal to the District this month.

Saphier said that he is excited about working with District schools but that partnership with the union is essential for success. "I know in the long term you don't get sustainable results with an oppositional union," he said.

Programs for growth and self-improvement have been part of primary and secondary public education for years. Despite budget uncertainties, more than 150 literacy and math coaches have been hired and placed in schools this year to advise teachers and address specific problems in delivering lessons or managing student behavior.

Although school officials are emphasizing professional development, Rhee has ended the practice of providing time and technical support to teachers seeking certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Created 20 years ago to provide the kind of specialized credentials awarded to surgeons and lawyers, the program requires 200 to 400 hours of rigorous study and self-appraisal.

Nearly 74,000 teachers nationwide have won board certification since the program's inception. Among the cities with the highest concentration is Chicago, where Arne Duncan, President-elect Barack Obama's education secretary-designate, has presided over an increase in the number of nationally certified teachers, from 11 to 1,200, since 2000. D.C. public schools have 39, fewer than 1 percent of its 4,000 teachers.

Wil Parker, the Arlington-based board's regional outreach director, said Rhee told him that the program had merit but that it was "not an immediate priority." Krehbiel, herself board-certified, said that she admires the program but that its link to improved student achievement is weak.