Advancing the Teaching Profession

Want to Improve Teaching and Learning? Read This Now

If you’re interested in serious school reform, ramped-up student learning, a transformed teaching profession—and if you have time to read only 1,190 words in 2012, go to Education Week and read Art Wise’s incisive commentary, “End the Tyranny of the Self-Contained Classroom.” Art hired me at RAND some 27 years ago and now is CTQ’s board chair. I still learn a great deal from him.

As Art notes in the piece, even the most ambitious, well-designed, and carefully implemented reforms to improve teaching effectiveness will only go so far if policymakers don’t jettison the “one teacher to 25 students” school model. Tougher evaluation systems will never be implemented if few administrators have to assess many teachers. Expanded learning opportunities for students won’t happen if every teacher has to know everything about the Common Core, working in isolation from one another.

Performance pay won’t mean anything for student achievement until teachers have much more time to team-teach and spread their expertise to colleagues. And according to Art, the “tyranny” of the egg-crate classroom undermines teachers’ capacity to draw on one another’s strengths and solve problems collectively. We are well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, and our teaching profession is still organized as if it were the 1920s.

So what to do?

Let’s begin with a new Race to the Top framework that awards states and districts for breaking down classroom walls, places a premium on teacher teams (and assesses them as a collective), and, looking toward the vision of TEACHING 2030, “blurs the line of distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead them.”

Then let's focus on using a new organizational structure to capitalize on the skills of 100,000 National Board Certified Teachers—teachers whom Art duly notes are “all dressed up with no place to go.” (Keep your eyes peeled for the development of CTQ's small band of innovative NBCTs from several states who have a lot to offer in implementing the Common Core.)

Isn’t it time to read this piece and think differently about serious school reform, ramped-up student learning, and a transformed teaching profession? I say it is. 

How Teachers Will Rock the News in 2012

I may not always agree with Rick Hess—but there’s no doubt that his blog posts are worthy of attention. In “Ten Edu-Stories We’ll Be Reading in 2012,” Rick predicts headlines for the coming year. He foresees increased skepticism of Race To The Top reforms and Khan Academy’s video-based model of education. He anticipates GOP presidential nominees abandoning attacks on public education in a “push for moderates.”

While Rick claims to be a lousy prognosticator, his list is intriguing.

But what’s absent in his list is any mention of teachers. None. Zero. Nada.

This is surprising because teachers have been the coin of the education policy realm for fifteen years or so. Few researchers (or reformers, for that matter) dispute the impact that improved teaching can have on student outcomes. Home and family factors are powerful influences on student achievement, but teachers matter.

So I’m offering my own version of Rick’s list. Sure, it may be optimistic—but we can hope, right?

5] Presidential Candidates Talk Up Teachers. President Obama and GOP presidential hopefuls realize that one in 100 Americans are teachers. Candidates focus less on “getting rid of bad teachers” and more on the positive: preparing and supporting teachers to do their best work.

4] USDOE Spreads Teaching Expertise. Acknowledging the uneven implementation of Race To The Top efforts, the USDOE adjusts its strategies. Rather than merely identifying effective teachers, officials promote strategies to elevate those teachers as leaders and spread their expertise to peers.

3] Policymakers Ask Accomplished Teachers for ESEA Help. Policymakers realize ESEA reauthorization is not in the cards for 2012. They turn to accomplished teachers, including former state and national teachers of the year, to help build public demand for improving the law. The teachers emphasize that the law must build capacity in high-need schools and districts—not just punish them.

2] Reformers Improve Bricks-and-Clicks Model. The Khan Academy’s “flipped” classroom model fails to yield the results reformers have been expecting—especially for at-risk students. In response, reformers invest more in innovative roles for teachers as community organizers, virtual mentors, and connectors to social services.

1] Obama Elevates National Board Certified Teachers. While GOP nominee Mitt Romney highlights TFA recruits who teach for two-year stints, President Obama points to National Board Certified Teachers as committed, accomplished standard bearers for school reform.

Now, I'd rather bet on my favorite college football team (Go Gamecocks!) than wager for the accuracy of this list.

But if we want to get serious about college and career readiness for all kids, the education conversation must shift. We must talk about what it takes to recruit, prepare, and support effective teachers. And I fervently hope that the “we” who are talking are not just the same old chatterers: policymakers, reformers, pundits. I hope that “we” also includes our nation’s most accomplished teachers—whose untapped expertise could transform our public schools.  

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

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.

Implementing Common Core Standards

By Susan Graham

Susan Graham, a National Board Certified Teacher and Teacher Leaders Network member, retired in spring 2011 after 28 years in the classroom. However, she continues to encourage innovative reforms in teaching and learning, and is currently serving as a Virtual Community Organizer for CTQ’s new Implementing Common Core Standards project. 

Overheard this weekend at the Center for Teaching Quality’s headquarters in Carrboro, NC: “This is such incredibly complicated work…” (one-second pause) “…but I am so exhilarated by the process!”

That’s the sort of energy generated when exemplary teachers combine their expertise to tackle tough issues in teaching and learning—which happens all the time on CTQ’s virtual Teacher Leaders Network. But this energy is powerful face-to-face, too, as I witnessed this weekend when CTQ assembled 21 National Board Certified Teachers from NC and KY to work on the Implementing Common Core Standards (ICCS) project. 

Here’s how the Common Core State Standards website describes the standards:

The Common Core Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

But what does that look like in the classroom? How will students demonstrate mastery of the standards of literacy and mathematical functionality? And how do these efforts square with the pressures of standardized test performance (currently the centerpiece of many states’ assessment and evaluation systems)?

Over the next year, the accomplished teachers I met at CTQ will face down these tough questions. They will design—and test-drive in their own classrooms, with their own students—lessons and assessments linked to the Common Core State Standards.

ICCS teachers will pilot formative assessment templates created by the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Mathematics Design Collaborative (MDC) with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The teachers met with Eleanor Dougherty (LDC) and Ann Shannon (MDC) to get a better sense of how to implement these new tools.

The teachers aren’t just test-driving—they’re documenting every curve of the road. As they fine-tune, deliver, and evaluate LDC and MDC modules, they’ll be compiling video clips of instruction and assembling evidence of student work, and reflecting on how the modules affect student learning and their own practice.  

In spring 2012, the ICCS teachers will begin to share the toolkits they’re creating—influencing student achievement in classrooms across the country. And their field-test critiques of the Design Collaborative concepts will inform the process of integrating Common Core Standards and state course standards.   

How will the pieces fit together? What will the results be? Which questions will be answered—in full or in part—and which will remain? We don’t know yet—but it is exciting to know that 21 highly accomplished teachers are already hard at work on a potentially transformative project for advancing student learning.  

 

Ensuring Teachers are Real Participants and Partners in Reform

Recently, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pointed out, "Teachers need and deserve more autonomy and respect--and they must become real participants and partners in reform if outcomes for children are to dramatically improve."

We couldn't agree more. 

In a new CTQ report, "Teaching Effectiveness for the New Millennium," 23 expert teachers describe how policymakers can more accurately define student learning and advance teaching effectiveness reforms. They emphasized that policymakers must capitalize on the untapped potential of classroom leaders.

The teachers' insights--informed by research and their classroom experience--were inspired by online conversations with a group of key USDOE staff and with Secretary Duncan. The teachers began by unpacking the Department’s ESEA “blueprint” — but soon honed in on the significance of hybrid teaching roles in implementing new reforms with veracity and fidelity.  

All co-authors are members of CTQ's Teacher Leaders Network, and several participate in our New Millennium Initiative. Drawing upon research and their teaching expertise, they highlight promising steps by the USDOE and also call for specific teaching effectiveness reforms, including:

• Involve teacher leaders in creating and scoring assessments aligned with Common Core standards throughout the school year. These assessments could help teachers fine-tune instruction and could inform results-oriented teaching evaluations.  
• Draw upon and spread the expertise of National Board Certified Teachers, who have met rigorous standards and demonstrated skill in analyzing student evidence to improve instruction.
• Promote and support hybrid roles that allow teacher leaders to continue building upon their classroom skills while also serving as teacher educators, policy researchers, community organizers, and trustees of their profession. Our nation needs more teacherpreneurs if we are to take innovative steps to improve our schools. 
• Develop new forms of shared school leadership to support teaching effectiveness, like tapping expert teachers to serve as peer reviewers in implementing high-quality, rigorous classroom evaluations.

Just yesterday, I was reading a newly released study that examines the effectiveness of high-quality peer review programs, such as California's Poway and San Juan districts. The researchers found that, when compared to principals, teachers are far more thorough and tough-minded in evaluating their colleagues. Expert teachers "get" the job of teaching--and what it takes to do that job well.

Kudos to Secretary Duncan and his staff for engaging in an authentic conversation with some of the nation’s best teachers. Now let’s find ways--including more robust peer review programs--for teacher leaders to become the “real participants and partners” in reform.

More Questions of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards....And Some Answers

Last week another study surfaced suggesting students of National Board Certified Teachers do not perform any better on standardized tests than their peers taught by non-NBCTs. I suspect that the friends of the National Board are fretting, after a spate of research reports affirming the positive influence NBCTs have in helping students achieve higher standardized test score results. Similarly, I suspect that the foes of the National Board are smiling, hoping to have any ammunition to derail efforts in this country to professionalize and empower teachers.

The most recent study, a well-thought out investigation conducted by Wendy McColske of SERVE (regional education lab in the Southeast), and James H. Stronge of William and Mary College, revealed there was little, if any, statistical difference between the teaching performances as well as the math and reading test scores of NBCTs and non-NBCTs in three North Carolina school districts. Before writing a post-mortem for the National Board, education journalists and the usual policy pundits may want to take a deeper look at the study itself.

Granted, the researchers went to great lengths to design a study that not only examined test score results but also the teaching practices of NBCTs as well as those of non-NBCTs who both produced high test scores and those who did not. But, the researchers offered several caveats to their readers — one of which was their small sample sizes. The research team sought to include all 5th grade teachers from 4 school districts (two urban and two rural), but only three could surface matched test data. The ensuing test score analysis, designed to measure gains of the teachers’ students from the 4th to 5th grade, could only be performed on 307 teachers, of which only 25 were NBCTs. One should not jump to too many conclusions from a quantitative study that draws on test scores data from just two dozen NBCTs. Dan Goldhaber, in his study that found students of NBCTs outperforming those of non-NBCTs, over 600,000 student and teacher records were examined over a three-year period, spanning multiple school grade levels.

To be sure, the SERVE and William & Mary study, went to painstakingly lengths to go beyond test score results by examining the quality of teaching (e.g, planning and assessment, time on task) and student assignments through interviews, surveys, artifacts, and observations. However, this part of the study also suffered from the difficulties getting sufficient numbers of teachers to participate. From the four districts only 51 teachers played a parted, of which 21 were NBCTs (and 16 were non-NBCTs whose students scored in the upper quartile and 14 were non-NBCTs whose students scored in the lower quartile). In interpreting the analysis of the teaching practices, very small sample sizes made statistical significance a remote possibility.

Nevertheless, the non-NBCTs looked slightly better on a range of teaching observations while the NBCTs consistently assigned students work that presented greater “cognitive challenge” and then offered more “meaningful feedback.” Both NBCTs and the upper-quartile scoring non-NBCTs consistently used more sophisticated and known effective teaching practices than those of the lower-scoring non-NBCTs.

However, several other methodological issues are worth mentioning:

1. In using standardized test score data from a state like North Carolina to judge the effects of individual teachers, policymakers (and researchers too) must be cognizant of the fact that in many cases no one individual teacher is totally responsible for the results of a group of students — even in elementary schools with self-contained classrooms. Often times, special education and bilingual teachers play a major role in improving the test scores of students who are in the homerooms of their official math and reading teachers. Not accounting for the assistance that some homeroom teachers receive and others do not can have a huge influence on the outcome of studies like this one (especially with only 300 subjects).

2. In interpreting the test score results careful consideration must be given to the fact that the researchers had no way to control for the expertise of the non-NBCTs. These teachers who produced greater one-year gains could have been identified as NBCTs, if they chose to seek the advanced certificate. Remember National Board Certification is a voluntary process, and there are many teachers who may end up in the “control group” for a study like this one who would be a Board Certified teacher if they took the time and exerted the effort required. Not accounting for the expertise of non-NBCTs also can have a huge influence on the outcome of studies like this one.

My take on these issues does not mean that policymakers and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards itself should ignore studies such as this one (as well as the previous one conducted by Bill Sanders) that has surfaced less than positive findings. In fact, the NBPTS should be more proactive in using these findings to improve their assessment process as well as help researchers surface even more robust data (with many fewer caveats concerning their methods and results). There are ways that the National Board process can and should draw on student learning results (and not just standardized tests which can be attributed at best to a minority of our nation’s teachers) more effectively.

But most importantly, policymakers must remember that no one study should determine public policy. The majority of research conducted so far still reveals that NBCTs do make a difference for student learning and that compared to other forms of professional development and the hodge-podge of master degrees that teachers earn (and policymakers pay for in most cases), the National Board assessment process can be quite cost-effective. Teachers who go through the process routinely claim that the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards assessment process is the best professional development they have ever experienced. Perhaps, policymakers should look not only look at the research findings but also listen to the voices of the teachers themselves, considering more carefully what they say about policy and practice.

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Surprise: NCTQ Gets it Right Re NBPTS - Almost

A colleague sent me a copy of a commentary written last week by the National Council on Teacher Quality, and surprisingly, I was somewhat pleased at what I read. Usually, NCTQ’s policy pundits pontificate on the evils of professionalizing teaching. For example, NCTQ typically lambastes education schools and the teacher unions (even when they seek to professionalize their ranks) and anything they support — like the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Well not this time. In a June 14th commentary NCTQ claimed (rightfully in my opinion) that the National Board “clumsily and unsuccessfully tried to quash” the recent study by Bill Sanders’ on the effects of NBCTs on student achievement (using his highly acclaimed by less than transparent value-added methods). Sanders’ claimed there was no difference between NBCTs and non-NBCTs when it came to raising test scores in a few districts. NCTQ, in an honest appraisal, raised questions about Sanders’ methods and the mismatch between what he concluded and what his data may have surfaced (See my May 15th blog entry.)

But then again the NCTQ folks could not help themselves. In closing the commentary raised the question of whether the bonuses states and districts pay NBCTs was worth it – although four other studies show positive effects of NBCTs on student achievement and a number of others reveal the powerful influence that the certification process has on teacher learning. Professionalizing teaching — with its emphasis on setting high content AND pedagogical standards for all teachers and having the profession enforce them — is not what NCTQ seeks. We should ask why?

In any case I believe that expecting teachers to know content and how to teach it to diverse students — the expectation of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards — is just what we need for all of America’s 3.3 million teachers and the children and families they serve. The National Board process is not perfect and does need to be improved, but it is our best bet to establish and enforce the kind of teaching standards needed to fuel 21st century and “flat world” public education.

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