Advancing the Teaching Profession

Tackling the Tough To-Dos

How can we improve teaching effectiveness in America? Policy pundits have given us a list of to-dos: Evaluate teachers on test scores. Jettison teacher tenure. Scrap last-in-first-out policies.

Yes, we need results-oriented teacher evaluation systems that draw on evidence of student learning. Yes, it makes sense to streamline personnel procedures for teachers and administrators. Sure, let’s abandon quality-blind placements.

But if what we want is genuine, sustained improvement of our public schools, we can’t just remove these arcane policies and pretend the job is done. To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”

Here's the real to-do list for those who want to improve our public schools:

• Take part in nuanced, solutions-focused conversations with diverse stakeholders.
• Examine empirical evidence of what works for students.
• Tap into the wisdom of thousands of accomplished teachers in our nation’s classrooms.

These to-dos drive all of our work at the Center for Teaching Quality—including our New Millennium Initiative (NMI), which assembles diverse groups of talented, early-career educators who are committed to improving teaching and learning at the local and national level.

Currently at work in Denver, Washington state, Illinois, the Bay Area, and Hillsborough County (FL), our NMI teachers are digging into some of education’s toughest issues. These committed teachers are studying evidence of what works for students, asking tough questions of researchers and policymakers, and examining the policies that govern their profession. They’re identifying specific recommendations for improving teaching and learning. And they’re speaking out. 

Each of our NMI sites will be releasing papers and multimedia products to spread their findings to others who care about teaching and learning.

This month, the Denver NMI teachers released a report pointing out how their state’s new teacher evaluation law can be effectively implemented.  Their report is concise, practical, and well-informed. It offers powerful evidence for why we should encourage teacher leaders to take an increasingly active role in today’s education policy debates. 

On May 18, Denver NMI teachers presented their findings to a diverse audience including state board of education members, superintendents, union leaders, and other key stakeholders. (Thanks to the Colorado Legacy Foundation and Rose Community Foundation for co-sponsoring this gathering with CTQ.) The crowd was impressed by—indeed, hungry for—bold, practical perspectives from classroom teachers.

Since then, team members have been invited to take part in a variety of meaningful activities to advance effective implementation of the new law. Their work, funded by Rose Community Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is only just beginning.

Stay tuned—teachers in our other NMI sites are also tackling the tough to-dos and will be releasing additional reports in the months to come. Rather than being caught up in tired debates over arcane policies, they’re looking back at what has (and hasn’t) worked for students—and looking forward to what is possible. 

(Above) The Denver NMI team presented their findings to a group of education stakeholders at an event co-sponsored by Rose Community Foundation, Colorado Legacy Foundation, & CTQ. 

  
(Above) NMI teacher Katie Micek introduces the New Millennium Initiative's short- and long-term goals.

  (Above) The Denver NMI team at work...

The Only Fight Worth Having

According to Richard Perez-Pena of The New York Times, NJ governor Chris Christie’s take on school reform was met with a welcome reception at a recent Harvard Graduate School of Education event. Christie received his first ovation with this one-liner: “The only reason I’m engaging in this battle with the teachers’ union is because it’s the only fight worth having.”

Christie’s statement is not surprising. What stings is that such simplified logic apparently went unquestioned—and was even encouraged—by this audience of Harvard faculty and students. 

Yes, teachers' unions need to change dramatically, adopting a stronger focus on teaching and learning. And yes, longstanding issues of performance pay, quality-blind transfers, and cumbersome processes for removing incompetent teachers must be resolved —now. Students and families deserve better.

But such issues (often linked in the public mind to unions) do not comprise “the only fight worth having” in public education. In fact, to focus on these problems is to ignore many, many other roadblocks to transforming the teaching profession for the benefit of all students:

1.      Administrators who fail to cultivate the enormous leadership talent of hundreds of thousands of effective teachers. (Why not re-organize school schedules in ways that spread the expertise of our most effective teachers? This is truly one of the great lost opportunities in our schools.)

2.     School board members who base critical decisions about curriculum on their own ideological interests, rather than on empirical evidence about what works for students.

3.      State legislators who refuse to equitably finance high-need schools. (In so doing, they ensure that the most disadvantaged students have the least access to effective teachers and optimal conditions for teaching and learning.)

4.      Policymakers who insist on perpetuating either-or debates at the expense of real change. (A juicy sound bite does little to help a struggling student or a first-year teacher. Real change will demand that we transcend either-or politics and look instead at how to structure schools around what works for students.)

The “only fight worth having” is the fight for better schools for all our children. And that fight cannot be an A versus B match. (“In one corner, The Governor! In the other, The Union!”) It must instead be an ongoing campaign challenging stakeholders at all levels to work together to create the schools (and teaching profession) our students deserve.  

Now, there’s a fight worth winning.