JCPS teachers have less experience, more education than years past

In this August 2017 photo, Jefferson City Public Schools hosts a back-to-school pep rally for faculty and staff in Fleming Fieldhouse followed by a trip to Adkins Stadium behind the marching band drum line. Once on the field, they filled in an outline of of the letters JC STRONG for the district group photograph.
In this August 2017 photo, Jefferson City Public Schools hosts a back-to-school pep rally for faculty and staff in Fleming Fieldhouse followed by a trip to Adkins Stadium behind the marching band drum line. Once on the field, they filled in an outline of of the letters JC STRONG for the district group photograph.

The average level of experience among teachers in Jefferson City Public Schools has continued to decline in recent years, while the education level and number of teachers has grown substantially.

Less average teacher experience doesn’t necessarily translate into lower student performance. Some schools have actually seen significant improvement in their Annual Performance Report score despite a decrease in JCPS teachers’ average years of experience.

Student academic achievement isn’t the only component to the APR, but it’s the biggest single part of it.

The average number of years of experience of a JCPS teacher has steadily decreased from a peak of almost 16 years in the 2005 school year to fewer than 12 years in the 2017 school year — and the district had almost 84 more full-time teachers in 2017 than in 2005, according to data from the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The number of JCPS teachers who hold master’s degrees increased almost 10 percent between 2005-17, from a little more than 48 percent to almost 58 percent — so the district’s teachers as a whole tend to have less experience than in years past but also tend to be more educated.

The peak of JCPS teachers’ average years of experience was in 2006, when teachers on average had 18.1 years of experience, and that’s still the highest that number has ever been since 1991.

The number of JCPS teachers who held master’s degrees peaked at 62.6 percent in the 2014 school year and has also declined in the years since. However, the 57.8 percent of teachers who held master’s degrees in 2017 still represented a higher average level of education among JCPS teachers than any year between 1991-2013.

DESE’s Communications Coordinator Nancy Bowles said decreasing levels of teacher experience generally — she felt it’s a national trend — is because “there’s some turnover in the teaching profession. As teachers stay in that profession a smaller amount of time, that’s why you keep having to get newer teachers.”

However, Bowles added “teachers who are coming into the classroom now are better prepared” through their educations — and not just through master’s degree programs. She said districts are encouraged now to offer a year-long clinical teaching experience for college education students, as opposed to an eight-week standard.

She added of master’s degrees that “the more education a teacher has, the better they are able to educate, because they just know more about their subject” and can apply more of what they know in their classroom.

JCPS Superintendent Larry Linthacum said education for teachers is important, because it “increases the tools in their toolbox” to be more effective in classrooms.

Linthacum also said teachers’ experiences with “proven practices” bring value to a classroom.

The district’s salary schedule — as does that at other public schools — rewards teachers having more experience and education.

Linthacum had more of a focus on outcomes, though — student learning, specifically.

“We’re gaining each year on that,” he said of two learning indicators of the percent of students who read at or above their grade level and the district’s APR score, which is based on students’ scores on state assessments and other factors such as attendance and graduation rates.

The district’s long-term goal is to have all of its students reading at or above grade level.

The district’s APR score between 2014-17 went from 77.1 percent up to 77.9 percent, then down to 70.7 percent and up to 80 percent.

Meanwhile, JCPS teachers as a whole incrementally lost a little less than two years of average experience — from 13.5 years down to 11.8 years. At the same time between 2013-17, the percentage of teachers in the district with master’s degrees went from 61.5 percent up to 62.6 percent then back down to 57.8 percent.

The 2017 school year that began in fall 2016 and ended in spring 2017 is the most recent year for which data is available through DESE.

As on the district-wide level, there’s also not a clear one-to-one connection on the JCPS school building level between trends in teachers’ levels of experience and overall APR scores.

The district’s highest performing school on the APR in 2017 was North Elementary School, with a perfect score of 100 percent.

North held that score for three years, and made an improvement of 22.9 percentage points on the APR from 2014-15 — the most progress out of any school in the district between 2014-17.

Meanwhile, North’s teachers had the third-highest average number of years of experience in 2017, at 14.7, and that number had increased by less than one year compared to 2012.

North in 2017 had the fourth-highest average percent of teachers who had earned master’s degrees, but on average between 2012-17, education levels among teachers at the school put the building’s staff in the middle of the pack in the district at ninth-highest.

In other words, the district’s consistently highest-performing school on the APR didn’t as a whole have the teaching staff with the most average experience or the most education compared to teaching staffs at other schools in the district.

East had the lowest APR score in the district in 2017, at 65.7 percent. East also had the biggest slip in its APR scores among the schools in the district between 2014-17 — a loss of 14.3 percentage points.

However, East’s teaching staff did not see the biggest decrease in their number of average years of experience between 2012-17. East’s teachers collectively lost 3.6 years — the fourth-most in the district.

Moreau Heights Elementary School’s teaching staff collectively lost the highest number of average years of experience in recent years — almost 51/2 years, down in 2017 to an average of 10 years of experience — but since 2014, Moreau Heights has seen a 17.9 percentage point increase in its APR score.

Belair and Thomas Jefferson’s teaching staff also collectively lost more average years of experience recently than East’s — a 4.1 year loss at Belair to a 9.7 number of average years of experience, and a 4.4 year loss at Thomas Jefferson to a 10.3 number of average years of experience.

East’s teachers in 2017 tied with Thorpe Gordon’s as having the fourth-lowest average number of years of experience, at 10.1 years.

The teaching staff at Thorpe Gordon collectively lost less than a full year of average experience between 2012-17, slipping from 11 to 10.1 years.

Thorpe Gordon’s APR score increased 20.7 percentage points between 2014-17, to 83.6. Belair’s APR score increased 20 percentage points to 98.6 — the second-highest in the district behind North’s — and Thomas Jefferson’s declined 1.5 percentage points to 72.1.

In other words, several schools in the district whose teaching staffs collectively lost more average years of experience than another had vastly different outcomes in a positive direction on their overall state assessments.

Belair also had the biggest decline in the district between 2012-17 of the percent of its teachers who hold a master’s degree — a drop of 26.1 percent, from 76.4 to 50.3 percent — but the school still made significant improvement on its APR score.

Linthacum emphasized gains in student learning are more important than trends in teacher experience.

“I don’t want that to be forgotten, because at the end of the day, that’s what really matters,” he said.