Advancing the Teaching Profession

Looking beyond the Big Broom

In many ways DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee has become the iconic leader of the current school reform movement. Who can forget the December 2008 Time Magazine cover depicting Rhee brandishing a broom and a stare — ready to sweep out the incompetent teachers in the beleaguered district and replace them with bright young talent who would raise student achievement test scores in a hurry.

There’s no doubt that a take-charge approach is needed in the DC Public Schools, where a focus on effective teaching and accountability were sorely lacking before Ms. Rhee’s tenure began in 2007.
 
But a bit more than two years into Rhee’s chancellorship, another side of the D.C. reform initiative is beginning to surface, suggesting that the current school reform team may not be enacting the changes that students most need and deserve.

The inexperienced and inexpensive itinerant teachers favored by Ms. Rhee’s human capital approach to school system management are not always the answer.  In fact, by drawing on the voices of several students, today’s Washington Post suggests that many of these recent hires may be doing more harm than good.

Dayna Downs, a middle school student, told this story: "We had a great science teacher who knew how to handle our class and make learning fun. Now he's been replaced with a less-experienced teacher, and the class is acting a lot differently. Some students don't listen anymore." Downs told city officials at a hearing Saturday that "We have a science test coming up, and I'm worried about failing because our new teacher doesn't know where we are in our work."

Ikechukwu Umez-Eronini, a high school senior, complained of the “complete lack of transparency about what’s going on in the school system.” Umez-Eronini, a leader in student protests over teacher firings, continued: "You can't get a straight answer about anything -- not about the firings, the school budget or the test scores.”

This Post article (by metro columnist Courtland Milloy) suggests that the Big Broom is simply too crude an instrument to improve schools in the long run and protect children’s interests in the here and now.

Radical change is required — but solutions need to match the problems. I believe a new narrative is beginning to emerge around how we can more accurately identify effective teachers and teaching practices, and how we can craft nuanced reform policies that don’t reduce the complex issues in our public schools to a single cause.

In the meantime we all need to listen more carefully to thoughtful students like Dayna and Ikechukwu, for whom misguided policy is no abstraction.

What Sarah Fine Is Trying to Tell Us

In her widely read Washington Post article of August 9, fourth-year teacher Sarah Fine makes a compelling case for researchers and reformers to include working conditions in estimating the effects of teachers on student achievement.

As Sarah relates in an essay titled "Schools Need Teachers Like Me; I Just Can't Stay," she recently resigned from her teaching post at Cesar Chavez Public Charter School in Washington DC — citing burnout as the primary factor. Why? She paints a poignant portrait of administrators “steadily expand(ing) the workload and workday” while “more and more major decisions were made behind closed doors, and more and more teachers felt micromanaged rather than supported.”

Teaching in a high-needs school is often a frenetic experience. Many teachers need to put in well over 60 hours a week to manage multiple interventions, meet the social and emotional needs of their students, mediate conflicts when out-of-school turmoil spills over into the classroom, cope with the complexity of teaching highly mobile students, and deal with the constant pressure to prepare for high-stakes tests.

In the large-scale reform experiments of the past decade, the potential power of policies that promote effective teaching as a major driver of school improvement has been mostly ignored. The focus instead has been on marginalizing teachers and/or “teacher-proofing” curriculum and instruction — rather than recognizing that teachers, with the right policy supports, are the ideal agents of meaningful and sustainable change.

At the federal level, teacher policy is now shifting rapidly toward well-funded initiatives that will link student achievement test scores to teachers in an effort to determine who is effective or not. Investing in research and pilot projects so that we can do a better job of identifying effective teachers makes sense — using rigorous measures and tools that keep a tight focus on the critical dimensions of student learning.

But judging teacher performance  without paying attention to the conditions under which qualified teachers can teach effectively will not give America the answers we need to create a New Millennium teaching force that will move all children ahead.

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.

Getting Real About Teacher Experience and Its Effects on Student Achievement

The debates continue to rage over the merits of school districts recruiting younger, less experienced (and cheaper and potentially more compliant) teachers, versus those who are older, more experienced (and more expensive and empowered).

Policy pundits and journalists have few qualms about calling for any seasoned teaching veteran to be put out to pasture. They aren't really interested in whether the teacher is effective, ineffective or "we don't know." These pontificators, single-minded as donkeys, tend to rely on research showing that teacher experience beyond three years does not matter much for standardized test scores. However, their interpretation of the teacher-experience data sets is rather limited, perhaps reflecting more about their ideology than any substantive understanding about teaching and learning in complex school environments.

NYC blogger Aaron Pallas recently noted how researchers miss the mark on the experience issue by ignoring the difference between a teacher’s total years of experience versus how much time she has taught a particular grade or subject. Aaron shows how NYC’s teacher workforce is not as seasoned as one might think.

Our case study research into teacher working conditions (funded by the Ford Foundation) is helping surface even more nuanced issues around teaching experience and student achievement. For example, in the more high-achieving schools we are finding what matters most is the collective experience of relatively small teacher teams who have learned how to work together and embrace doing so.

As we consider and design research, we need to pay attention not only to an individual teacher’s aggregate years of experience but how groups of teachers have used their combined knowledge over time to change the working culture of their team (or department or grade level), share teaching expertise among themselves and with others, and connect more closely with their students and their families.

Meredith, my wife and a seasoned special education teacher with over 25 years of experience, has taught me a lot about this issue. For the past nine years she has learned a great deal from a close-knit group of teachers on her EC (exceptional children) team. After so many years of close collaboration, their individual expertise has been magnified in powerful ways. Don’t take my word for it. Look at the data. For the last several years, over 80 percent of their EC students have routinely met state standards on North Carolina’s End-of-Grade tests — compared to about 33 percent of EC students in their district and 21 percent statewide.

Other scholars are discovering how teachers' professional interactions within learning communities over time can best explain whether school reforms take hold. Policy pundits might have a different take on the role of teacher experience in improving student achievement if they:

(1) examined more than a simple R-squared from a simple-minded study;

(2) stepped out of their quiet, climate-controlled offices inside the Beltway; and

(3) looked carefully inside of America’s public schools where a wide range of teachers are working together to make a difference in the lives of students.

And I challenge any of the DC pundits to convince Meredith (or any other highly successful teacher) that teaching experience beyond three years does not matter for student achievement. They would receive a higher-order lesson in “get real.”

Photo: Teacher Meredith Berry with Walter and Henry, who have not yet attained pundit status.

Ending the Battles over Teaching

The Teacher Union vs. Teach for America debates are getting more and more tiresome — and seemingly not very productive. Over at the blogs of Mike Antonucci and Andy Rotherham (EduWonk) the teaching quality turf battles continue.

Maybe if we first clear a few things up, we can get closer to striking agreement.

Several studies have found that some highly selected entrants who receive most of their university training after they begin teaching in high-needs schools do as well or better than other teachers who teach in the same schools -- where those teachers are not highly selected or well-prepared themselves.

Researchers have noted, however, that highly selected new recruits (from routes such as Teach for America) are generally less effective when compared to fully prepared teachers until they themselves gain experience and certification. When they do show up as more effective, the results for students are typically not very significant (in educational, not just statistical terms).

The bottom line is that more than 80 percent of TFA recruits leave the classroom by the end of their third year. In other words, just as they are becoming more effective, they depart through a revolving door and make room for new and typically under-prepared teachers.

Andy Rotherham is on point when he says many administrators “clamor” for TFA recruits. They have few other alternatives. If they did have other promising options, the clamoring would die down.

I just returned from two very high-needs schools in Florida (in different school districts) and found that administrators there would much rather be able to recruit well-prepared teachers who know the kids in their school communities and would stick with their schools for at least 5-8 years (and hopefully longer). Administrators really want those teachers who know how to teach effectively to persist in their jobs.

And there’s more research to consider: Several new studies have found that entrants from strong teacher education programs both stay in teaching significantly longer and achieve greater student achievement gains than those of either alternative route entrants or weak traditional programs.  

One recent study points to the importance of substantive internship or residency experiences to ensuring later teacher effectiveness (as measured by value-added gains). Also check out the teacher education effects data in Louisiana where graduates of NE Louisiana-Monroe outperform other recruits, including those from TFA, the New Teacher Project and traditional graduates from the state's R1 institution – LSU. Like so much other research, this study found that there is more variation within different types of routes into teaching than among them.

One fact is certain: Poorly prepared teachers, from whatever source, who exit the profession quickly leave their students to be taught by the next round of novices who routinely replace them. In high-needs schools (where much of this quick-exiting takes place) those coming in are likely to be as ill-trained as those going out. Any program that produces this kind of result is inadequate to resolve the very real inequities in teaching quality that students in these schools suffer.

This does not mean that high-quality alternative certification should not be part of a long-term strategy to recruit and retain effective teachers for high-needs schools. Not at all. But it is time to cease the either-or debate over TFA versus traditional teacher education. It’s a policy cul-de-sac. It’s also time to stop defending the morass of teacher education and state licensing procedures and requirements that get in the way of recruiting and preparing the right mix of talented individuals to teaching. It’s indefensible.

Let’s move on to some fresh thinking, including rethinking teacher FTEs and how we organize teacher leadership in schools. Let’s consider restructuring so that high-minded but less prepared recruits (who may not stay very long in teaching) can work under the tutelage of experts who will.  At the Center for Teaching Quality we are working with TFA colleagues in North Carolina to see if we can make this happen.

See my recent Education Week commentary for more of my thoughts about how we can end the battles over teaching.

How Teacher Education (and Master’s Degrees) Make a Difference for Student Achievement

 I must say I am little weary of policy pundits who say that schools of education and master’s degree programs make no difference in the lives of teachers and the students they serve. Certainly there are some that do not. As Linda Darling-Hammond said in a recent interview, “probably a quarter of the teacher-education enterprise” is of very high quality. Other programs are “pretty good,” she said, “but they could be a lot better if there were incentives and supports to get them there. And there are some that need to be put out of business.”

One of the high quality programs is at the University of Florida — where a group of teacher educators, non-profit leaders, and children’s advocates have created a Ready Schools Strategy that connects teacher preparation and professional development with health and social services in Florida’s high-needs school communities.

Last week I was fortunate to work with Don Pemberton of the UF Lastinger Center for Learning, Dave Lawrence and Ana Sejeck of the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, and Dorene Ross of the College of Education as well as several terrific teachers. During my visit I learned a great deal about their Teacher Leadership and School Improvement Initiative in Miami-Dade and its powerful impact on Redondo Elementary, located in Homestead, Florida. Redondo serves a beautiful multi-ethnic group of Pre-K through third grade students (of which almost 50 percent are English Language Learners and over 90 percent receive free or reduced price meals).

Let’s start with what matters for the kids: In 2005 less than 50% of the Redondo’s students were proficient in reading or math. Since the launch of the Ready Schools Strategy, including a specialized master’s program for a core group of teachers, the student achievement has escalated. In 2008, over 67% of the school’s third graders were proficient in reading; over 92% in math. Rene Baly, the school’s principal, credits hard-working teachers who have learned to teach differently. He also credits working conditions, which give teachers more time to learn from each other and to work closely with health care, social work, and community outreach professionals who help connect the work of teaching to the lives of students and their families.

The school’s health practitioners see 60 students a week – treating a variety of illnesses and eye and ear problems – to ensure students are ready to learn as well as feel safe and loved. Family engagement efforts bring the school to the neighborhood, but also offer tailored training in English and parenting skills to the mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles of Redondo’s children. On a weekly basis at least 25 of the school’s parents attend sessions.

Teacher preparation and support are critical components as well. Don Pemberton’s vision and entrepreneurial skills have brought a fully-paid, job-embedded advanced degree program to the school’s teachers. The UF education school has orchestrated a set of research-focused learning experiences that cultivate new teacher skills related to differentiated instruction, data driven decision-making, culturally responsive teaching, classroom management, and leadership — while giving individual teachers opportunities to specialize in literacy or second language learners. What's most striking is that the education school program is highly adaptive. It's equally helpful to a recently minted novice who had little training in how to teach in a high needs school; an alternative certification recruit who knows her content but has few pedagogical skills that enable her to teach it to diverse learners; or a veteran teacher who needs to develop new research-based skills in literacy and assessment.

During my visit I met several outstanding teachers. They were not graduates of elite colleges or individuals enticed with bonuses and performance pay to teach in high needs schools. Instead, most were from the community and represent a new vision for “growing your own” effective teachers for challenging schools. In return for being able to earn a “no-cost” master’s degree, the teachers agree to teach at Redondo for at least 5 years.

Zolia Esteve, an 11-year veteran, says that as a result of the program she is now much more effective at teaching reading. She described a second grader “Julia” who was reading less than 20 words a minute now being able to not just read but comprehend 120 words a minute. She also has the “confidence to challenge” the administration on how to better deliver services to students. Principal Rene Baly is grateful for Esteve's newly developed leadership skills and the new ideas she brings to table.

I also met Melissa LaRosa, a finalist for Reading Coach of the Year in Florida, who spends countless hours team teaching and providing support and advice to her colleagues, who view her as a “teacher’s teacher.” For Melissa, who proudly wore her Edugator t-shirt during our visit, the University of Florida master’s degree program and its focused inquiry approach made her a better coach, providing her much needed skills in using data and understanding why students were learning or not.

Finally, I was proud to meet Cathleen Caves, another teacher in the program, who actually went to Redondo when she was in elementary school. She began her career as a teaching assistant and is now one of the school’s experts in the use of a variety of formative assessments to drive instruction. Cathleen told me that the UF graduate program "is fantastic.” Pointing to Zolia and Melissa, who were in room with us, she added: “We are more like a family than ever before.” Perhaps most importantly, she asserted, “With my salary I sure could not pay for this degree myself — and now I want to teach here for my whole career.”

The Teacher Leadership and School Improvement Initiative has just graduated its first class. Next year the University of Florida expects to serve 400 graduate students (pending funding). Don Pemberton, at the helm of Lastinger Center's Ready Schools master teacher strategy, envisions preparing and supporting – and networking – 10,000 Florida educators who are all dedicated to teaching effectively in high needs schools.

Smart teacher preparation and support may just be the solution we've been searching for to end the current maldistribution of effective teachers. If so, the University of Florida is blazing a trail that other education schools and master’s degree programs can follow if they really want to make a difference.

Public Schools Outperform Private Schools....and Watch the Scrambling

Whoops.

As just reported in Education Week, the U.S. Department of Education finally released a study showing clearly that public schools are on “par” with, and in some cases “outperform private schools.” Many inside-the-Beltway education wonks have claimed that private schools are far more effective in closing the achievement gap than the public schools. However, using NAEP data and appropriate statistical controls, researchers at the National Center for Education Statistics now have shown that this is not the case. Although no one study should be used to craft public policy the NCES research findings are similar to those surfaced by researchers at University of Illinois who used the same data base. The report was released just as the Bush administration revealed its $100 million proposal to offer private-school tuition vouchers, to the tune of $4000 each, to up to 28,000 students who are currently attending underperforming schools (as defined by the problematic NCLB criteria).

The Education Week article revealed that Russ Whitehurst, the director of the Education Department's Institute of Education Sciences, believed that while the report “will be useful for researchers,” it will have “little use for parents who are trying to make a decision about their children's education.” Hmmm. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings claimed that the study “was not an evaluation of how school voucher work.” Hmmm. I guess one could claim that rain is not wet.

I wonder why the USDOE is so reluctant to tout a study that has all the markings of their scientific-based approach to educational research. Perhaps, the findings are not to their liking. The Washington Post got in on the story, catching the Bush administion scrambling to justify its increasingly problematic privatization proposals. At the same time many hard working public school teachers and administrators are getting ready to start the new school year, and without the necessary support they need to serve all students and their families. The data are clear: If we want to improve schools the key will be greater investments in the teaching profession -- including higher standards, professional compensation, and dramtically improved working conditons for America's 3.3 million teachers.