The Case for RESPECT

Recognizing Educational Success,

Professional Excellence and
Collaborative Teaching
 Presentation Overview

A 21st Century Challenge- The “Why”

o Why do we need to transform teaching and leading?
A 21st Century Answer- The “What”
o What is RESPECT and where did it come from? How can it help us to meet
the challenge facing our students and educators?
o What does success look like?
Next Steps- The “Who, How & Now”
o Who must act to implement RESPECT?
o How can we take action?
o What can we do right now?

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 A 21st Century Challenge
“This is what we have dreamed about as educators … It is time
for sweeping changes to education.” –Teacher, North Carolina

Every child in America deserves a high quality

education.

Today, students need to know and be able to do more in

order to succeed.

Yet America’s education system has lost ground to other

nations competing with us in the global marketplace that
have continued to make progress.

Too many of our students do not exit high school

prepared for college and a career.

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 A 21st Century Challenge (cont’d)
“The time is ripe for teachers to reclaim our ideals and change
our profession.” –Teacher, New Mexico

 Teachers are the most important in-school

determinant of student academic success
—and principals are the second most
important.
 Great teachers and principals nurture
young people and help them grow—not
only academically, but personally, socially
and emotionally.
 Great teachers and principals can help to
close persistent achievement gaps,
improve student attitudes about school
and build habits of mind that can change a
student’s life trajectory.
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 A 21st Century Challenge (cont’d)
“The time is ripe for teachers to reclaim our ideals and change
our profession.” –Teacher, New Mexico

 Yet educators are not treated like

members of a highly regarded profession.
 Other respected professions—such as
accounting, medicine, engineering and law
—share attributes that are absent from
education.
 These include high standards for entry into
the field, opportunities to collaborate and
to advance into positions of leadership,
competitive compensation, continuous
development, and reward for
accomplishment.

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 A 21st Century Solution
RESPECT
The Path to RESPECT
Individuals and organizations from across the education field are calling for
a similar set of ambitious, comprehensive and transformational
improvements to the teaching profession.
The recent work of a number of key national organizations has embraced these shared
notions of what must be done to advance the teaching profession, including:
 American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
 Association of School Administrators (AASA)
 Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
 Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS)
 National Education Association (NEA)
 National School Board Association (NSBA)
 U.S. Department of Education (ED) Locations where ED held RESPECT
conversations with educators in 2012

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 A 21st Century Solution
RESPECT (cont’d)
“This is our moon landing moment.” –Principal, Virginia

RESPECT stands for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional

Excellence and Collaborative Teaching
A focus on “recognizing educational success” means that the
primary aim of this initiative is to implement reforms that increase
student achievement.
An emphasis on “professional excellence” means that a large part of
the RESPECT project is devoted to helping teachers continuously improve
their practice while recognizing and rewarding greatness in the
classroom.
Finally, a focus on “collaborative teaching” means that RESPECT
aims to highlight the importance of shared responsibility in creating
schools where principals and teachers can support each other, hold one
another accountable, and lift each other to new levels of skill.

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 A 21st Century Solution
RESPECT (cont’d)
Seven Critical Components
for transforming teaching and leading

Teachers, leaders and policymakers from across the field have embraced a
shared vision of 21st century teaching and leading that identifies seven critical
components of a transformed teaching profession:
1. Shared responsibility and leadership
2. Top talent, prepared for success
3. Continuous growth and professional development
4. Effective teachers and principals
5. Professional career continuum with competitive compensation
6. Conditions for successful teaching and learning
7. Engaged communities
A strong education system is one that effectively fuses these
elements to build one comprehensive and coherent system.
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 A 21st Century Solution
RESPECT (cont’d)
Measuring Success

Three Goals of RESPECT:

1) High levels of student achievement

2) Increased equity

3) Increased global competitiveness

The larger goal of the initiative is to make teaching not only

America’s most important profession, but also America’s most respected
profession.

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 Next Steps
Taking Action Together

For the RESPECT vision to truly take root, all stakeholders, led by educators,
must take up the cause as their own and apply the core ideas in the RESPECT
vision to their unique circumstances.

 Start by building a common

foundation- Read the
full RESPECT Blueprint,
including the vision
document drafted by
teachers to develop a
common understanding of what
RESPECT looks like.

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 Next Steps (cont’d)
Taking Action Today

Take stock- Use the online RESPECT self-inventory

to assess school or district strengths and
weaknesses.

Begin the discussion- Convene interested

teachers, school leaders, board members and /or
parents to discuss the current status, goals and next
steps.

Create an action plan- Develop a RESPECT plan

for action and begin outreach to build key support.

All RESPECT materials available

at www.ed.gov/teaching
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 Discussion

Describe successful initiatives/examples that you’ve seen implemented

around one of the seven RESPECT components inside or outside of this school
community.
 Where they are happening?
 How have the barriers been overcome in these situations?

What capacities do stakeholder groups already possess to move work

forward in one of the seven critical RESPECT areas?
 What can further support efforts to advance this work?

What steps can be taken by the stakeholder groups represented to advance

this work?
Thank you!

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 Appendix A
Educator Input on RESPECT
Beginning in summer 2011, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) began
engaging educators directly about their profession, hosting roundtable
conversations across the country.
In February 2012, Secretary Duncan officially launched the RESPECT Project: A
National Conversation on the Teaching Profession. In total, the RESPECT Project
engaged more than 5,700 educators in the national conversation, and the
Department hosted more than 360 roundtables across the U.S.
In May 2012, ED joined seven national co-sponsors in drafting and signing onto a
shared vision for the teaching profession.
In April 2013, the Department published the Blueprint for RESPECT, officially
adopting a vision that now reflected feedback from thousands of educators, and
called the field to take action.

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 Appendix B
The Federal Role Going Forward

The RESPECT Project compels us to think systematically, rather than to

search for “silver bullets” of reform and it will take comprehensive reform to
reach the vision we’ve set out.
In his budget request to congress, President Obama proposed investing $5
billion in a RESPECT initiative in order to provide competitive grants to states
and districts that take on comprehensive reform of the teaching profession
aligned with the critical components laid out here.
While awaiting funding, the US Department of Education is committed to
continuing to integrate the critical components of the RESPECT initiative into
existing programs and levers.

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