Reaping the Whirlwind

John Merrow’s recent PBS NewsHour broadcast on staffing our nation’s most challenging schools with Teach for America (TFA) recruits is a must see. Listening to Mr. Merrow’s interview with Paul Vallas, you would think the superintendent of the New Orleans Recovery School District has only one of two choices: fill classrooms with young, energetic, “top talent” from competitive colleges — or with old, tired, academically and pedagogically inept teachers from wherever.

The facts revealed in Merrow’s report show how important it is for teachers to get the “right” training and support in order to teach effectively in high needs schools -- much less in an urban community like New Orleans, with a long history of school problems capped by the most devastating natural disaster in modern American history.

The issue is not the intense, five-week lockstep pedagogical training regime of TFA. Nor is it the typical, disconnected university-based teacher education program, where teaching-methods courses have little to do with preparation for high needs schools. The answer is something else, and a big piece of it can be seen in emerging urban teacher residency initiatives in Chicago and elsewhere — and the cutting-edge preparation programs at top-flight education schools like those at Stanford and UCLA.

In these pacesetter programs, education researchers work with expert K-12 teachers who develop and support new recruits over time. With high-quality residency and internship programs, we can help new teachers build the resiliency they must have to survive and prosper in schools that need them most. The smart, idealistic people who enter these programs are able to work side by side — for many weeks and months — with seasoned veterans who are able to share their successful strategies and their deep knowledge of high-needs school culture.

Pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell, in his best-selling book, Outliers, has made a compelling case that training and effort are more important than talent. Gladwell points out that the most effective individuals (including teachers, we can assume) put in at least 10,000 hours of practice on the road to proficiency and success. Compare that to the average amount of practice we give to new teachers — traditional or alternative — before we hurl them into one of the most challenging jobs in our society.

During her interview with Merrow, TFA recruit Jeylan Erman lamented that “I thought I'd come into teaching being naturally good at it, because I care so much about students. I automatically thought that, because I care so much, I [would necessarily] be really great. It's not like that.”

The New Orleans recruits needed more pedagogical tools and more seasoned veterans to help them teach effectively. They also needed to work in a redefined teaching profession, where youth is not pitted against experience, and teachers and administrators work closely with health and social service agencies (like the Harlem’s Children Zone) to connect schools and communities in serving students and their families.

Although many teachers who viewed the NewsHour report were understandably upset by any suggestion that multiple years of professional service is somehow a negative, the Merrow piece actually makes a compelling case that all new teachers, no matter their academic pedigree, need serious training and support in order to teach in high needs schools.

Watch it carefully and probe beyond the surface debate about 5-week TFA training versus the 12-week student teaching experience offered  by most education schools. Let’s quit wasting all this youthful talent, energy and idealism and get serious about what it truly takes to recruit, prepare and retain teachers for the kids we all say we care about. Until we do, we’ll continue to reap the whirlwind.

Comments

[Tom Hoffman]

It is also worth noting that TFA spends almost $30,000 a recruit on... something. That ought to pay for more than five weeks of training.

[Barnett Berry]

Great point Tom. And it costs about $18,000 (at least) to replace a teacher who leaves.

[Kathie Marshall]

Thanks for stating so eloquently and clearly what roils beneath the surface of a broader topic of experienced versus young, energetic teachers. We certainly heard a lot on this topic in Los Angeles USD when non-tenured teachers, many of whom are young, energetic, and committed teachers, lost their jobs to older, tenured teachers. Teachers and union reps didn't envision us as pitted against each other, with the undeserving side winning over the deserving side. We picketed together; the union fought for its young members; I fought back disappointed tears in our last faculty meeting as those who were being shoved out were asked to stand. However, rather than spending whatever it takes to train a temporary TFA teacher, I'd like to see the growth of truly effective teacher training programs across the country and partnerships that support novice teachers, especially in urban areas like mine. In the end, I'm still bothered by the opening remark about how hard it is to find good teachers.

[Barnett Berry]

Kathie. Sometimes (maybe often) I think that the young versus old, inexpensive versus expensive teacher debate is fabricated by those policy elites and wonks who want to see classroom teachers divided with no collective voice and few tools for joint action. Or maybe -- with a revolving door of novices — penny-pinching, controlling administrators can ensure teachers are cheap and compliant. There are 4 million teachers in this nation of ours. To think that only one class of teachers is good and the others bad is a mind-bloggling and data devoid proposition. Our nation is blessed by your 34 years of public school teaching and all the children you have served so well. Why Paul Vallas would not want you and many other expert, seasoned teachers like you is a part fascinating, part depressing state of affairs. TFAers - like the ones who struggled in the Merrow piece on PBS -- would be much more effective if Mr. Vallas had you there to mentor and support them. One more thought: Onward with Teachers Leaders Network!

[Claus]

Thanks for a wonderful post that deftly cuts through the either/or thinking that characterizes so much of the current policy debate.

The questions you raise--and possible solutions you propose--will become especially important as the administration embarks on a challenging plan to turn around low-performing schools. The preparation, recruitment, retention and support of teachers under those specific conditions will be critical.

[Barnett Berry]

There are many "and/both" answers to the teaching quality and effectiveness questions currently being posed. One issue is how to identify and reward individual teachers versus whole schools that perform well or not. Claus, how about putting most of the emphasis on small teams of teachers. (This does not mean that the evaluation of individual teachers need not to change.)