School Reform as And/Both

This past week’s Time Magazine paints a poignant portrait of Michelle Rhee’s efforts as the chancellor of the DC Public Schools to transform her beleaguered school district. In some ways Rhee’s dual-pronged focus on 1) paying teachers based on once-a-year, multiple-choice standardized tests and 2)getting rid of tenure in order to rid the system of “incompetent” educators is understandable. Students' learning (not the needs of adults) is what matters most in school reform and any teacher who does not teach (as implied by an anecdote in the article) has no business being in a classroom. 

The well-written article begins and ends with the story of Allante Rhodes, a student at Anacostia Senior High School, who eloquently describes what has changed and what has remained the same under Ms. Rhee’s two-year rein as the district’s top educator. While out-dated computers now work properly for word processing and students consistently don their uniforms, his school is still poorly managed, the building is in disrepair, and teaching does not seem to be any better. Perhaps there is more to school reform.

But here is what is most striking: Rhee’s efforts to transform teaching are presented in a unidimensional light:

• Great teachers are in “total control” and are willing to “quiz kids on their multiplication tables;”
• Teachers need to be paid more when they raise student test scores; and
• Tenure needs to be eliminated in order to get rid of incompetent teachers.

I understand the urgency of now and Rhee’s impatience. Her focus on students is on point.  However:

• Mastering the basics of math does not preclude learning how to use and create knowledge — and great teachers also know how to help their students take control of their own learning.
• Paying teachers for performance does not mean that student test scores should be the sole measure — especially when helping students master 21st century skills are the coin of the realm and cognitive scientists have proven that focusing on creativity can enhance student acquisition of the 3Rs.
• Eliminating rigid tenure rules might be more acceptable if teachers trusted administrators to be fair or even knowledgeable of good teaching — or better yet if the district’s best teachers were more involved in evaluating their peers.

Talented teachers need more than a few weeks of boot camp training in order to be effective to teach in high need schools. (Check out the Residency model we highlight in a recent report). Talented teachers need the teaching tools, resources, and working conditions that allow them to be great. School reform does not have to be either-or; it can be and/both. In fact, it must be if we are going to improve schools and the teaching profession. I wonder why this lesson is so hard for school leaders and policymakers to learn.

What are other areas where you see education policy choosing either/or approaches, when what our students really need are both/and strategies?

Comments

[Mark Simon]

Barnett, as usual, your nuanced response to the DC Chancellor is spot on. Her impatience with bad teaching and the supposed radicalness of her reform agenda are not the problem. The problem is that she polarizes the whole conversation with her air of self-rigeousness and then gets the details of the solutions wrong. Her bravado aimed at firing teachers and principals has left out the substance of what a focus on good teaching would require. She leaps to a demand for results, as defined by test scores, but skips the more important focus on supports for good teaching that will get those results. She has managed to alienate her potential allies and has made it impossible for the union president who so much wanted to be an ally.

I do think its worth analyzing what's wrong with the Rhee/TFA approach. The national media and corporate education funders seem to be enamored with the heroic CEO/ heroic short-time teacher model of reform, but its such a bad fit with building schools or school systems as learning communities. We have to be more articulate about what's wrong with this approach, while maintaining our commitment to "real reform." Thanks for starting us down this road.

[Barnett Berry]

Mark, Rhee has some of it right but feeds on the us vs them and "either-or" dynamic. Teachers and their unions need to show the public how to evaluate and pay teachers differently in ways that benefit students. In the end the public trusts good teachers more than chancellors, researchers, and "inside-the-beltway" think tank types. But they do not hear from the good teachers who are getting the job in ways that you describe.

[The Washington Teacher]

Barnett, I liked your commentary and I hope that more readers will check your site out. I have worked in DCPS for 16 years. I also happen to be a Wash teachers Union rep for city wide teachers and a Board of Trustee member.I consider myself an advocate for students, teachers and schools. Recently I read a study on school belonging in urban school settings and the study showed that when poorer schools (that typically educate minorities) generally have greater stressors and there is a correlation between their school environment and academic outcomes particularly when these schools are provided more resources, include students with disabilities and develop school wide plans that promote more positive support for students from teachers, counselors and other staff.

It stands to reason that we need to explore the research on this as it relates to teachers and school staff. A good hypothesis would be that teachers are more likely to have greater positive academic outcomes in a system that provides positive reinforcement and recognition for their successes, provides appropriate support and resources for them to be successful, adheres to class size limits and having teachers teach in their area of certification, etc. and embraces researched based measures that have proven to be effective in increasing teacher efficacy.

Under Rhee, DC teachers are regularly beaten down daily in the press and on the job with negative anecdotes lacking in data about bad teaching without a balance of also what is working right with our system. Hardly ever do you hear that for the first time in many years that DC schools have actually made gains in 2008 on our standardized test scores after our 2nd year of utilizing the same standadized measure. Our former superintendent Dr. Janey predicted this would happen. Under Dept. of Ed. this year we have had an increase in the number of schools that received financial TEAM awards due to significant gains in reading and math from 3 schools last year to 6 schools this year. This suggests that there is an upward trend which is reversing and that in time we should expect an increase again this year.

However, just like the study I mentioned that do not receive the needed resources and support in their school they are less likely to make as many academic gains and are more likely to have students who suffer with greater levels of anxiety and depression which also impacts performance. No brainer that we conclude that the same may be likely with teachers. Not only are we burdened with how bad we are, threatened regularly about being able to keep our jobs- despite what you read many of our classes are significantly over ratio (40 and up), we lack needed educational assistants, our probationary teachers have been fired without regard to performance, our admiistrators regularly get fired at the drop of hat without a clue as to why and still we do not have the basics like needed curriculum in all schools, working heat, updated internet systems and ongoing school violence against staff and students. Many of our teachers exit and do not make a year, not to mention many have been placed illegally to teach out side of their certification.

Given this I would like to inquire of any suggestions of those who are attempting to devise realistic solutions with our parent partners in education in order to seek real education reform. Where would you begin? Many of our teachers want to succeed but many are feeling a sense of hopelessness and feel like giving up because no one recognizes that we have held this very broken system together for so long with very little.

Recommendations made under teachers and parents for real education reform do not seem to be achieveable under the current chancellor because she has not been transparent as promised and not open to critical stakeholders input (ie. parents, community and city council)and leaves many parents feeling disenfranchised despite some great recommendations.

I invite you to also check my blog out @ www.thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com
website: www.saveourcounselors.org and feel free to email @ saveourcounselors@gmail.com

Thanks,
Candi Peterson

[Mark Simon]

Candi, I think that Barnett's point is that teacher union leaders have a responsibility to come up with their own reform plans. It should include a dramatically better teacher evaluation system and more targeted pay plans commensurate with the task in failing school systems. Its not enough to present a list of all the things that prevent good teaching from taking place and then to say that the reforms that "teachers and parents for real education reform" are seeking are not achievable under the current chancellor. Its just too easy to list the problems. They become excuses. In effect, you become anti-reform, and in that case, the nation and the city will go with Rhee. If educators want to be leaders in the current climate, they have to be on the side of reform. That's the point behind T&P for real education reform at:
http://realeducationreformdc.blogspot.com/

[Barnett Berry]

Candi. Thank you so much for your thoughtful response – and more importantly for your teaching and service to children. The research of by Tony Bryk and colleagues surfaced the importance of “trust” among teachers, administrators, and parents as strong predictors of student achievement. Many reformers, who want to do the right thing for students, often are not aware of the role of the right working conditions necessary for teachers to be effective. Dr. Bryk, who is now the President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and his research needs to be heeded. I would hope that teachers can arm themselves with better data and find the vehicles they need to make their case to policymakers and fellow practitioners as well as the public for how to best improve student achievement. As a group our best teachers need to lead the way. This is why we have created Teacher Leaders Network. We are also launching a major initiative, with support from the Ford Foundation, on teacher working conditions.

[Carrie Kamm]

Mark, I agree that Rhee leaves out what good teaching requires, including what great teacher training looks like to be effective in high needs schools. I share her passion for demanding and expecting high levels of achievement for students, what I think she does not see is the complexity of teaching and the importance of relational trust between and amongst students, families, teachers, the district, and the community. From the Time article, I went away thinking her approach is overly simplistic. I suggest she read Charles Payne's new book on urban school reform.

[The Washington Teacher]

Unfortunately realeducationreformdc, Congress took away the right for DC teachers union to have any input into the teacher evaluation system. I think it would be great for us to have input because the evaluation tool we use today is an outdated one and is very subjective.

BTW the WTU and AFT will soon present our proposal which includes an educational plan that supports student instruction.

[Barnett Berry]

Excellent comments from excellent teachers. Administrators and policymakers have a lot to learn from outstanding teachers like Carrie Kamm. The AFT needs to be bold and speak to how they will enforce standards within their ranks. It is one of the most powerful markers for defining a profession - one that must focus on the needs of students. How will the union plan improve student learning and teacher effectiveness? How will it be different than the one currently in place, or the one proposed by Rhee and her administration? Is there common ground? How can you build it? How can you lead efforts to forge and/both reforms? How can you make your case to the public? They need to hear from the unions and the best teachers in the system?

[John Norton]

Our teacher colleagues in the Teacher Leaders Network Forum also had some insightful comments about the Rhee story. See this post at TLN Teacher Voices:

http://snipurl.com/tvoices-rhee