Time to 'Reinvigorate a Noble Profession'

Last week Time magazine featured on its cover a piece on 'How to Make Great Teachers.' The article, which primarily focused on the 'merits' of performance pay, begins poignantly with its author, Claudia Wallis, writing: 'We never forget our best teachers -- those who imbued us with a deeper understanding or an enduring passion, the ones we come back to visit years after graduating, the educators who opened doors and altered the course of our lives.' She describes her high school science teacher who taught her to 'think like a scientist' and her English teachers who helped her develop 'the art of writing essays' and embrace the 'pleasures of James Joyce.' 

Ms. Wallis transcends the usual debate over whether or not to measure 'great teachers' by standardized test scores or not or whether or not teachers need to be trained before they begin teaching. Indeed, she argues that policymakers need to get 'beyond merit pay' and look for more comprehensive teacher development plans--like the one emerging in Denver with its ProComp system.

Time turns to Linda Darling-Hammond to describe how other nations recruit, prepare, and pay their teachers. They do recruit bright students to teaching, but they do far more than train them for just for a few weeks and send them to the highest needs schools. And they expect more than for them to stay for 2 years, ­well before they can learn to teach like Ms. Wallis' exemplary teachers. Instead, the nations who outperform the United States fully pay for extensive teacher education programs and offer a career ladder that allows teachers to lead and be paid as professionals. In Singapore, new teachers are paid on par or even better than beginning doctors.

Taking a page from the TeacherSolutions playbook, Ms. Wallis ends emotively:

'If the country wants to pay teachers like professionals -- according to their performance, rather than like factory workers logging time on the job -- it has to provide them with other professional opportunities, like the chance to grow in the job, learn from the best of their peers, show leadership and have a voice in decision-making, including how their work is judged. Making such changes would require a serious investment by school districts and their taxpayers. But it would reinvigorate a noble profession.'

Thank you Ms. Wallis.

Comments

[Bob Heiny]

Ms. Wallis overstates a good case by saying, "... (the country) has to provide (teachers) with other professional opportunities, ..." I suspect she and I hope Teacher Solutions people know that's hyper talk, not factually based cause-effect fact. I wonder how such hyper talk influences public policy makers and "outsiders'" thinking about teachers as professionals?

[TeachMoore]

Sorry, Bob.
I think the lady said what she meant and meant what she said: Teachers need other professional opportunities. That you and others think that should be taken figuratively, shows how much more work we have to do to make the reality of teachers' lives visible outside the classroom.

[Lauren Tucker]

Bob. I would have to agree with Renee on this one. Ms. Wallis’ words were not “hyper talk.” Let’s think about it for a minute. In most jobs in this country, there is a “ladder of success” that everyone seeks to climb. In teaching there is not. In other jobs, one is expected to push oneself and become more inventive year after year. When one achieves this they are normally given a raise or promotion. In the teaching profession, a teacher is expected to push themselves and become more inventive year after year but only to stay in that same position. If the teaching profession would create this ladder, so that is able to be climbed, it would most definitely reinvigorate the teaching profession. It would simply acknowledge the achievements and advancements that teachers make year after year. The teachers would feel more appreciated and want to work harder. I believe the “outsiders” and “policy makers” would think teachers are being just as professional as they are. Any “outsiders” and “policy makers” would be suggesting the same thing to gain recognition for their hard word.

[Judi Hux]

Ms. Wallis knows what it takes to "Reinvigorate a Noble Profession." Like she states, "If the country wants to pay teachers like professionals, it has to provide them with other professional opportunities..." They need to have the opportunity to collaborate with other teachers not only in their school system but outside of their system. Teachers need to have a voice as to what goes on in schools. They are the ones that will benefit or suffer from the decisions administration makes for them.

[Misti Hardison]

After reading this blog, I had to read the article in Time magazine to get a better understanding. One of the issues is whether or not to base how good a teacher is on his or her test scores, and give incentives to schools that show high growth. I am in total disagreement with this, even though I have received money in previous years because my school made high growth. I teach exceptional students, mostly students with learning disabilities. I do have students that score level 3s on their End of Grade tests and End of Course tests, and every once in a while, some of them will pull a level 4. The majority of my students though, make level 2s, and some even level 1s. I find it very unfair to judge me on whether or not I am a good teacher, just because of the scores on my students’ standardized tests. It is very disheartening to have students continuously fail their grade or fail courses because they have a learning disability. I see my students working just as hard, and some even harder, as regular education students. I am grateful enough to teach at a school where the regular education students’ scores are high enough to make up for the low scores that my students make. If I were receiving “merit pay” based on the performance of my students, not as a whole school, I would never receive any recognition.