Advancing the Teaching Profession

Preparing Teachers for Schools We Want

By Kristoffer Kohl 

Kristoffer Kohl is a former classroom teacher working currently as a policy associate at CTQ to further the vision of TEACHING 2030. He previously collaborated with a team of accomplished teachers to produce the report “Transforming School Conditions: Building Bridges to the Education System that Students and Teachers Deserve.” 

During recent visits to a few schools known for their innovative practices, I was struck by one school leader who lamented, “We are not preparing teachers for the schools that we want; we are preparing teachers for the same schools we’ve had for years.”

By the time teachers have gone through the traditional channels to become instructional experts, they are indeed experts when it comes to school—old school.

Malcolm Gladwell refers to it as the 10,000-hour rule. We prefer to call it the 15,000-hour problem. Regardless of how you identify it, there are some strong forces tugging against innovation in our classrooms.

In his book Outliers, Gladwell posits that expertise in any field comes after 10,000 hours spent working at it. From Bill Gates writing code at his high school’s computer to the Beatles playing marathon gigs in Hamburg, Germany, before taking the world by storm, Gladwell presents an entertaining argument for those hours you spent practicing piano.

Unfortunately, this equation works in both directions. As Seth Godin points out, there are plenty of bands playing 10,000 hours of subpar music. Long hours may help you become an expert, but they won’t ensure that you’ll make it to the top of the charts.

Such is the rub for educators.

The average high school graduate attends public school for 13 years, amounting to nearly 15,000 hours. Tacking on another five years for undergraduate education and credentialing before becoming licensed leaves incoming teachers with nearly 20,000 hours spent in a classroom.

Each year’s newest class of teachers is freshly minted in the ways of yesterday’s schools. They are experts two times over in the way they view their instruction, classroom, school, and most important, their position in the education hierarchy. While preservice programs endeavor mightily to equip teachers with the latest research-based strategies, it is difficult to fight what has been ingrained so deeply.

I visited another school renowned for its blended learning structure. There, students in the learning lab were completing digital versions of multiple-choice tests. A worksheet with lipstick is still just a worksheet. Despite the wave of complex, educational gaming software sweeping across our digital devices and making Oregon Trail look like the Model T, even some of the more “advanced” school models struggle to internalize that learning is as much about the process as it is about the content.

Fortunately, there is a growing number of educators breaking from the moorings of the past and logging smarter hours with students. As in any field, innovation comes from craftsmen who experiment with their practices on a regular basis. The flipped classroom gained recognition for reconceiving our notion of instructional time, but I’m also thinking of teachers like Bill Ferriter and Marsha Ratzel who have explicitly built novel learning experiences into their instruction.

What elements of your 20,000 hours have you left in the past?

Ron Thorpe and the Future of NBPTS

Last week, CTQ blogger and teacher John Holland wrote an open letter to Ron Thorpe, who was recently named president and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). In his letter, John expressed his hope for what the NBPTS could accomplish under its new leadership. “I hope you are a special kind of leader,” John writes, “a ‘boundary spanner’ who is future-oriented and ready to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders, including NBCTs [National Board Certified Teachers].” In a comment on John’s blog post, Ron Thorpe responded with a letter of his own. Below is the full text of his response.

John,

Since you have sent your thoughts in an open letter to me, I hope you don’t mind if I respond similarly. First of all, THANK YOU for writing what you did. The mere fact that you value such communication and took the time to fashion such a thoughtful set of observations is exactly what I’m hoping to find many times over—maybe 91,000 times over!—among National Board Certified Teachers.

Let me start by addressing the word “vision,” which gives me more than a little pause. I realize that successful leaders do possess vision and, just as importantly, the ability to get others to embrace that vision. From that perspective, I’m in no position right now to speculate whether I have those qualities, at least not within the context of the National Board. Decisions about that will emerge over time.

I can reflect, however, on my last 8+ years leading the education department at the public television station, WNET. I arrived at that job on July 14, 2003—Bastille Day!—after 16 years as a teacher and dean of faculty and another dozen working in foundations, almost always around grantmaking for teachers and education writ large. I brought lots of experiences to the job shaped by some wonderful former bosses and mentors like Ted Sizer, but the truth was I had no vision for what I’d do in public television because I didn’t yet know enough about public television. With the help of a really strong staff and some wonderful external partners, things have come together, and today I’d put WNET’s education department up against any in public television. Not only that, but WNET is very much at the education table locally in New York City and our area, in New York State, at the national level, and even internationally because of our work last March with Secretary Duncan, OECD, and Education International around the historic International Summit on the Teaching Profession, which was the pre-meeting to WNET’s Celebration of Teaching & Learning. I can only hope that I’ll be as fortunate with coalitions of partners as I move to the National Board.

I completely agree with your other points especially around partnerships. In fact, you’ll be especially pleased to know that I’m meeting with Barnett Berry and his colleague Ann Byrd on November 21st in Raleigh, two weeks before I even start my new job.

Let me end with what I think is your most compelling observation: the need for the National Board to fully exercise its commitment to that third goal of advancing “other education reforms for the purpose of improving student learning in American schools.” That is the area that most interests me at the National Board. I am not an “assessment” guy, nor am I very well versed in the technical side of what it requires to establish strong and meaningful standards. What I care about most is using that foundation—which is so well established by the NBPTS over the last 25 years—to forge the profession teaching truly deserves to be. Much of that knowledge—and almost all of the muscle—will come from those teachers who have pursued Board Certification and who continue to set the bar not only around what teachers should know and be able to do, but around how teachers behave as professionals.

The culture of K-12 education is inextricably linked to the culture of the individuals who lead classrooms and who create the environment in which learning takes place. Among U.S. teachers today, fewer than 3% are National Board Certified. They have a powerful voice that needs to be heard, and they are making a profound difference in the profession, but their numbers are still too small. 3 to 100 are pretty long odds, even when the 3 are the best of the best. We need to change that balance, and we need to find ways to support teachers who want to take up the challenge.

I realize that National Board Certified Teachers are not the only great teachers in the country. Board Certification is evidence—well tested over time and trial—that those who attain it are true professionals who make a difference in the lives of young people. In a world that can be fairly subjective and vertiginously arbitrary—where everyone has an opinion—that objectivity means something.

I thank you, John, for your open letter and your dedication to teaching and learning. I also thank you for your disenchantment. As I lead the National Board into its second quarter-century, I need to know what we must do better, where the new opportunities are, and who the people are who care enough to expect NBPTS to stand for more than a credential. In that regard, I realize that I have much in common with the teachers the National Board was created to serve. And I am honored to be share in the work.

Ron Thorpe
Not yet, but soon to be the new President and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

Modeling Teacher Leadership

By Ali Kliegman

Ali Kliegman, a policy associate at CTQ, has been working with teacher leaders on a new website called Teacher Leader Model Standards. The site, which launched last week, is a collaborative resource for teacher leaders to share and learn about teacher leadership in the 21st century.

Infographic designed by sunnibrown.com for the Teacher Leader Model Standards site.

“Within every school there is a sleeping giant of teacher leadership, which can be a strong catalyst for making change.” (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2001)

Teacher leadership is not a new concept. Yet until we begin to cultivate, support, and spread the knowledge and expertise of those who have mastered this craft, we will continue to miss the mark on achieving great gains with students.

So while the newly released Teacher Leader Model Standards may surprise some as an innovative tool for improving the profession, teacher leaders themselves have been living them for years. These standards describe the skills, knowledge, and competencies that teachers need to perform well in leadership roles, including:

Domain I: Fostering a Collaborative Culture to Support Educator Development and Student Learning

Domain II: Accessing and Using Research to Improve Practice and Student Learning

Domain III: Promoting Professional Learning for Continuous Improvement

Domain IV: Facilitating Improvements in Instruction and Student Learning

Domain V: Promoting the Use of Assessments and Data for School and District Improvement

Domain VI: Improving Outreach and Collaboration with Families and Community

Domain VII: Advocating for Student Learning and the Profession

What might be the most useful aspect of these standards are actual exemplars of what teacher leaders have been doing for decades. These exemplars, along with additional information about the development and research behind the standards themselves, will all be made available via their new virtual home: www.teacherleaderstandards.org. The first featured exemplar is the Math and Science Leadership Academy, a teacher-led school in Denver, Colorado, that embodies all seven of these domains.

Thanks to generous funding from the University of Phoenix, ETS, NEA, and ECS, CTQ has been working closely with an outstanding group of five teacher leaders who are researching and posting best practices for each of the seven domains of teacher leadership.

Suggestions for more? Send them our way. In fact, we’ll be convening a virtual community of teacher leaders for this very purpose, and we hope you’ll join the conversation!

Support, Mastery, Leadership

By Meredith Kohl

In this guest post, Meredith Kohl, a former teacher and current CTQ policy assistant, reflects on the new education documentary Mitchell 20, as well as her own teaching experience.

Capturing a profession in transition and highlighting the untapped collective power of teachers committed to their craft, the powerful Mitchell 20 documentary, and the leadership of Daniela Robles, reveals that teachers are a primary solution to the complex challenges that our schools and students face.

In the film, National Board Certified Teacher Daniela Robles encourages 20 of her colleagues to undergo the National Board certification process together, sparking a spirit of collaboration and improvement. Mitchell 20 resonated deeply with me because in five years of teaching, I never felt like I was part of the solution. I was a Teach For America recruit, and I had high aspirations for teaching as a career once I entered the classroom and saw the possibilities. But in my short tenure in an urban district, I felt isolated, unsupported, and confined to the bottom of a bureaucratic power pyramid.  

The top-down education system had something to do with it, sure. And a school climate characterized by frequent (but irrelevant and inadequate) professional development and the careless manipulation of teacher expertise definitely contributed to my feelings of helplessness. 

But it was more than these factors. As a teacher new to the profession, I did not see myself as part of the solution because my attempt to master my craft went largely unsupported. Once I was deemed “effective” by my administration, the resources and individualized support needed to further improve my practice were simply not there.

Over time, experience made many aspects of teaching easier, but I came to realize that weaknesses in my practice—for example, working with second-language learners and using effective techniques for teaching reading—were going unchecked and unaddressed by my school leadership. My concerns as a classroom instructor were unresolved, and time for meaningful inquiry and collaboration with my colleagues was not provided.

Without mastery, how could I articulate the learning occurring in my classroom or the complexities of my craft? How could I leverage expertise I did not possess to transform my school? How could I change the conversation? How could I change my teaching, and the teaching of my counterparts? How could I change outcomes for my students?

As TEACHING 2030 co-author Shannon C’de Baca recently pointed out, “Teacher voice should be secondary to craft. First, teachers must master their craft, then we need them to reform policy.”

The best teachers are continually improving, but what happens when they want to but can’t find meaningful and long-term avenues to do so? I regret that in my high-need school I never heard about the National Board process, that I was unaware of communities like the Teacher Leaders Network, that a colleague like Daniela never came and knocked on my classroom door to present a collaborative challenge for improvement. 

There are thousands of unsupported, early-career teachers in our highest-need schools unsure of where to turn in order to take their practice to the next level. Until they are able to do so, their voices will not be heard.

So how do we reach them?

We must spread stories like Mitchell. Not only to change the conversation, but also to change the behavior of thousands of dormant teachers who have yet to realize their leadership potential. Collectively, teachers must understand how they can take control of their practice when support is not available at their school. They must create cohorts like the Mitchell 20, dedicated to professional growth and learning. Teachers, especially newer ones, must have time and support for self-examination, reflection, and collaboration so that they can improve their practice. All of this is necessary for teachers to lead the transformation of learning communities across the country.

So license a screening, share the trailer, tell early-career teachers about the National Board process, and challenge them to be part of the solution by mastering their craft, finding their voice, spreading their expertise, and stepping forward to lead.