Advancing the Teaching Profession

Teacher Preparation: Teachers Leading the Way

What better way to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Day than by sharing and discussing the ideas and experiences of teacher leaders? Today, CTQ released a report on teacher education, written by a team of 17 teachers with diverse preparation experiences. The report, TEACHING 2030: Leveraging Teacher Preparation 2.0, includes reflections on the current realities of teacher education, as well as recommendations for the future. The below post is adapated from my foreword to the report.

Debates continue to rage among analysts and researchers over whether university-based education schools should prepare teachers and how much training is needed before a new recruit teaches independently. Media outlets often portray teacher education as irrelevant at best. I am certain there is some truth that some education schools are guilty of emphasizing how children learn to read at the expense of making sure they know the mechanics of reading. But the critique of education schools often goes beyond the evidence—as well as beyond the pale. For example, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently made the claim that there are no special skills acquired in teacher training courses, only “snake-charming” ones. And there are “inside-the-Beltway” think tanks—using questionable research methods—that seem to make a decent living bashing education schools.

We know that there is often more variation within “traditional” and “alternative” approaches to teacher education than between them. But as described in TEACHING 2030: Leveraging Teacher Preparation 2.0, written by some of the nation’s best teachers, serious clinical preparation matters for early successes of new recruits. None of the top-performing nations in the world, such as Finland or Singapore, tolerates shortcuts into teaching. At the same time, our universities must continue to find innovative ways to ready nontraditional recruits for the rigors of teaching. Preservice teachers need customized preparation for the 21st-century pedagogical skills demanded by not just the Common Core State Standards, but the global economy in which students must participate.

Too much of today’s criticism of teacher education is driven by politics, not substance, and focuses on outdated issues instead of ones unique to the demands of 21st-century teaching and learning. Teacher preparation of today and tomorrow needs to equip new recruits to teach highly mobile students, develop their own assessments, improve data systems, engage parents and policymakers, and lead the transition of many of our high-needs schools into 24/7 community hubs.

I encourage you to dive into this report, written by educators who work with students every day. Their insights on “Teachevr Prep 2.0” provide a much-needed antidote to the current debate, and their thinking on “Teacher Prep 3.0”—led by Emily Vickery—should lead the next generation of discussions and action around teacher-education reform. TEACHING 2030: Leveraging Teacher Preparation 2.0, penned by 17 classroom experts, transcends the current divide and sets a path for ensuring that every teacher is ready to teach what students need to know, now and in the future.

I encourage you to read and engage with the teachers' ideas and recommendations—then tell us what you think in the Collaboratory.

3 Lessons for Education Schools and Policymakers

This is the second of two posts on AACTE's recent report, "The Changing Teacher Preparation Profession." Go here to read part one.

Debates continue to rage among analysts and researchers over whether university-based education schools should prepare teachers—and how much training is needed before a new recruit teaches independently. Much of the rhetoric, especially of the kind embellished by pseudo-scientific studies, is driven more by ideology than sound methodology and suggests that universities writ large do not prepare teachers adequately.

As I pointed out yesterday, AACTE’s new report, "The Changing Teacher Preparation Profession," filled with compelling evidence and exemplars, offers an authoritative antidote to many of the current myths about teacher education.

The report reveals that more talent is entering our nation's teacher preparation programs. It also shows that more is being done to make sure teacher candidates are learning how to teach—not in the ivory tower, but in the schools where they will actually be teaching.

But there's still more to do. We need to ensure that new recruits can work in teams to teach to the Common Core State Standards. This will allow teachers to develop and teach their own assessments that can inform their practice, spread expertise to colleagues, and revolutionize how we hold both universities and school districts (not to mention the policymakers who make the rules) accountable for teacher preparation. Even teacher education standards promoted of late have the look and feel of teaching in the late 1980s, not the second decade of the 21st century.

Let me be clear: It is time for education schools to recruit and prepare more teachers for our high-needs schools, but it is also time for policymakers to create the conditions for them to do so. I wonder what the likes of 21st-century-oriented education schools at Alverno College, CSU-Fresno, Morgan State University, the University of Central Florida, and the University of Cincinnati could do if they had the right policies behind them.

At the report's release event on Wednesday, I suggested three actions that need to be pursued:

1. The teaching profession must recognize and market its top-performing education schools—and expect all its members to meet high standards.
The new CAEP accreditation standards must pave the way, using multiple and valid indicators, to grade all institutions that prepare teachers. These include not just university programs, but school districts and nonprofits as well.

2. Policymakers must create incentives to promote collaboration among education schools.
To be more responsive to supply and demand, education schools must look beyond institutional and state lines. Universities will never be responsive to the field until policymakers ensure that school districts provide accurate and timely data about which teachers they need. And to counteract the longstanding role of education schools serving as the university cash cow, policymakers will also need to create additional financial incentives for education programs.

3. The teacher education community needs to promote fewer preparation programs.
Instead, it must invest more in deep clinical training and scholarships to prepare recruits for 21st-century public education. It is time for the education-school community to do what their counterparts in medicine did almost 90 years ago: eliminate weak programs and use the savings to deepen clinical training at the stronger schools.

Too much of today’s criticism of teacher education is driven by politics, not substance, and focuses on outdated issues instead of ones unique to the demands of 21st-century teaching and learning. In the coming weeks, 17 teacher leaders from the CTQ Collaboratory will release their own report on the kind of teacher preparation needed to equip new recruits to teach highly mobile students, develop their own assessments, improve data systems, engage parents and policymakers, and lead the transition of many of our high-needs schools into 24/7 community hubs. I encourage you to dive into their report as well, written by educators who work with students each and every day.

4 Lessons for Teacher Education Reform

Yesterday the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) released "The Changing Teacher Preparation Profession: A Report from AACTE’s Professional Education Data System (PEDS)" at a National Press Club briefing in Washington, D.C. The report offers “a current look at progress and challenges in higher-education-based teacher preparation.” A few highlights from the report:

• Contrary to many perceptions, teacher preparation programs are admitting academically competitive candidates into their programs.
• Extensive clinical experiences are being incorporated in higher-education-based teacher preparation programs.
• Most teacher preparation programs collect data on their graduates but do not have access to state data.
• Teacher preparation programs are rising to the challenge of infusing technology into coursework.

I encourage you to read carefully the recent research of Kirabo Jackson, an economist from Northwestern University, who found that teachers whose VAM ratings were high were not the ones responsible for ensuring positive student outcomes on noncognitive measures, and vice versa.

Yes, education schools as well as alternative certification programs need to be accountable for producing graduates who are ready to teach. Ironically, no other profession assembles this kind of evidence—primarily because they don’t see it as useful. But professions like medicine and nursing assemble more concrete and helpful evidence—like the edTPA, developed by AACTE and Stanford University—to inform which programs are getting the job done, or not.
 
Lesson 3: Learn from top-performing nations—invest in clinical prep!
I just returned from observing the deliberations of ministers of education and teacher union leaders at the third annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession. All top-performing nations invest in teacher education—and second-tier countries like Germany are committing to placing more emphasis on preservice preparation of new recruits before instituting the kinds of teaching evaluation systems proliferating in the United States.

But most importantly, the governments of top-performing nations not only recruit top candidates, but they also pay full freight for extensive clinical preparation of them before allowing them to teach independently. There is no such thing as Teach for Finland or Teach for Singapore. And yesterday I learned that Cuba is already doing what we should be doing: creating a seamless system of teacher development that begins in university programs and continues in the form of long-term professional development in their K-12 schools.
 
Lesson 4: Universities are already preparing 21st-century teachers; why promote those that train only for the 20th century?
The AACTE report offers powerful examples from a number of institutes of higher education, including the University of Central Florida, California State University-Fresno, and the University of Cincinnati, whose education schools are preparing teachers to teach digital natives and second language learners—and also focus on global competencies. This is the real stuff of teacher education for today and tomorrow.
 
At the press conference, I asked why policymakers, and so many Inside-the-Beltway policy wonks, are so fascinated with shortcut alternative certification programs. These programs at best give future teachers an opportunity to teach students to pass muster on 20th-century standardized tests that are built on 19th-century principles of teaching and learning. We need alternative pathways into teaching, but not more truncated training regimes that undermine solid preparation.
 
And teachers themselves—like my teaching colleagues in the CTQ Collaboratory revealed in a powerful Education Week series—are speaking up about how and why our nation needs to ante up on the right kind of teacher preparation.
 
Our nation, because of low salaries, limited preparation, and poor working conditions, has to hire about 250,000 new teachers a year. Our nation’s policy leaders must think differently about how to invest in teacher education—especially considering the $1 billion raised (and spent) by Teach for America over the last five years to place a few thousand Teach for America recruits annually into our highest-needs schools. I have several action steps in mind, for both teacher educators and policymakers, which I will share in a follow-up post tomorrow.

#ISTP2013 Travel Log: Transcending Teacher Evaluation

Delegates from 20 countries met to discuss teaching quality in Amsterdam.

 

The third annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession concluded yesterday on an interesting note. The parties in attendance still had conflicting thoughts on the purpose of evaluation: control or "liberation" of teachers. And the tensions between OECD, with its emphasis on measurement, and Education International, and its focus on support, remained.

But as the Dutch minister concluded, “evaluation must be much less about teacher quality and much more about teaching quality.” While the theme of the summit was teacher appraisal, the final session revealed that the vast majority of action steps, proposed by the 20 delegations, had little to do with evaluating teachers. Most of the focus was on supporting those who teach, and making sure they have the tools and resources they need to be effective.

Tony Mackay, the venerable emcee of the two-day teaching-policy fest, facilitated the crisp, 90-second presentations from each nation:
 
1.     Hong Kong commits to different school-based supports and a focus on teacher professionalism;
2.     Switzerland will focus first on improving the national dialogue between education and economy sectors and then evaluate without "naming and shaming";
3.     Belgium commits to "muster all new technology" to support teachers;
4.     Sweden also calls for more teacher networking developed by and for teachers;
5.     Poland will enhance teacher networks and make sure any teacher evaluation system is transparent to all;
6.     Norway calls for more coherent teacher policy and wants to implement different forms of teacher appraisal systems;
7.     New Zealand wants to raise status of teaching as the key strategy of teacher appraisal;
8.     Japan seeks to use its teaching evaluation system to enhance, not undermine, teacher motivation;
9.     Indonesia commits to deeper and continuous professional development as its primary driver of teaching quality;
10.  Iceland commits to no “one size fits all” teacher evaluation, and will make sure their system respects each school context and uses diverse methods to increase reliability;
11.  China calls for quality, "regular registration" for teachers;
12.  Canada will identify needs of teachers and increase collaboration and trust;
13.  Germany will invest more (not less) in teacher education at the university level before focusing on teacher evaluation;
14.  The Netherlands commits to more support for young teachers and a focus on teacher quality in the context of professional communities;
15.  Estonia will foster teacher leadership in schools and teaching communities (it sounds like this fine country is ready for teacherpreneurs); and
16.  The United States commits to multiple indicators of student learning as well as time for more collaboration on teacher evaluation and implementing Common Core standards.
 
Fernando Reimers of Harvard University gave the closing remarks and made sure the delegates remembered an old-school reform lesson: bad implementation can undermine good ideas. Now is the time for teachers—who are the “street-level experts”—to make it much more clear how to turn these broad policy proclamations into action for their results-oriented profession.

Unlike what some U.S. reformers suggest, the summit deliberations confirm that teacher appraisal can have consequences and consider context. But it will take those who actually teach—like Margit Timakov (Estonia), Paul Anderson (Montana, U.S.), Rebecca Mieliwocki (California, U.S.), as well as Rogier Hilbrandie and Mathijs ter Bork (Netherlands)—to figure out how to make it work.

#ISTP2013 Travel Log: Teaching at a Crossroads

As today’s International Summit on the Teaching Profession begins, this week's Education Week commentary, "The Political Future of the Teaching Profession" (March 12, 2013), is a relevant and timely must-read. The piece, written by Michael Usdan and Art Wise—the chairman of CTQ's board of directors—poses ask a hard but fundamental question: Does our country want a teaching profession?

Or, to put it another way: Do we want a deregulated occupation of teaching, its ranks filled with haphazardly trained itinerant teachers expected to teach to a standardized curriculum (designed in the 20th century)? Or do we want one filled with legions of expert practitioners who have the preparation and autonomy to teach “mathematics for analyzing and problem-solving, history for interpreting and citizenship, science for knowledge and experimentation?”

You would think, given the global economy and the complexities of teaching, as well as new demands on public education in the U.S., that the Obama Administration would be advancing the latter. But it is not.

Messieurs Wise and Usdan do not address the politics of the choices being made by today’s leading U.S. policymakers, but they do make the poignant case that the teaching unions could readily take matters into their own hands by coming together and embracing professional accountability. To this point, policymakers have taken, at best, half-measures.

Wise and Usdan point out that policymakers have “created the mechanisms for professional accountability and quality control, but have failed to advocate for and secure their universal application.” The unions, and their national leaders, say the right things, but in the maelstrom of local politics, much is sacrificed in order to hold the line on traditional bread and butter issues. This is complicated stuff of history, sociology, and politics.

What do we want teaching to be—a profession or an occupation?

Wise and Usdan make it clear that a merged union could turn the corner—if they could uniformly focus on investing in teaching and learing and take seriously the need for more rigorous preparation and credentialing. These increased standards would then "engender public confidence in the capacity and quality” of teachers as as a collective. Other top-performing nations—from Finland to Singapore—have figured it out, and their unions have been instrumental in teacher quality control.

Let’s see if these lessons make their way back across the pond—I sure hope so.

#ISTP2013 Travel Log: Pre-Summit Notes

OECD's background report
for the 2013 International Summit
on the Teaching Profession.

I’ve just landed in Amsterdam and am making my way downtown for the third annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession. This year’s summit will focus on who sets standards for the profession—as well as how teachers are evaluated and the extent to which the process leads to educators’ self-efficacy.

I don’t want to miss a beat at this small invitation-only conference, where I’m certain the ministers and union chiefs of many of the 20 nations represented will put some U.S. policymakers on edge. Marc Tucker noted of late that when it comes to teacher quality, nations (and school systems) generally take one of three approaches:

1. Fire bad teachers;
2. Recruit better ones; or
3. Invest in the teachers already in place.

For the most part, our nation’s recent teaching quality policies have focused on numbers one and two at the expense of number three.

Granted, there are some powerful examples of how to do evaluation right in the United States. Hillsborough County (Florida), for example, has seen progress under terrific leadership from Superintendent MaryEllen Elia and union leader Jean Clements.

But even in locales where thoughtful leaders transcend the typical politics of teacher accountability, our evaluation systems are light years behind other nations. As I read through the background report, prepared by OECD for the summit, several powerful teacher evaluation strategies stood out:

• Denmark teachers are evaluated in teams;
• The Dutch expect practitioners, as part of their evaluation process, to visit other schools;
• The Finnish system requires teachers to assess themselves and develop individual development plans based on national standards and local goals; and
• Singapore focuses on “current estimated potential” of teachers.

The bottom line is that top-performing nations use their evaluation systems to help all teachers get better. I’m looking forward to learning and sharing more in the week ahead. In the meantime, you can keep up with the summit in real time by following the hashtag #ISTP2013 on Twitter.

This Year's MetLife Survey: Good News for Teacherpreneurs

Several years ago, with support from MetLife Foundation, CTQ helped make the case for teacherpreneurs—classroom experts who teach students regularly but also have time, space, and reward to incubate and execute bold pedagogical and policy ideas.

Since then, and with generous funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rose Community Foundation, we have begun to cultivate and pay for teacherpreneurs in Colorado (Jessica Keigan and Jessica Cuthbertson) and Florida (Megan Allen and Ryan Kinser) as they lead Common Core and teacher evaluation reforms, create virtual learning communities, and organize National Board Certified Teachers as online mentors. And with continued funding from MetLife Foundation, Seattle-based teacherpreneur Noah Zeichner is leading work at CTQ to launch an international network of teacher leaders to fuel a 21st-century teaching profession.

We have been embraced by forward-thinking administrators (and program officers) who want to transcend the 20th-century debates over teaching and learning. They want to ensure that all students are college- and career-ready and help blur the lines of distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead them. But we have faced resistance from a number of reformers who do not believe teachers can or should lead.

Now MetLife, with its 29th annual survey, continues to shed light on teachers and the future of their profession. This survey speaks volumes to our concept of teacherpreneurism.

The latest poll has found that 23 percent of America’s teachers—or about 700,000 of them—are “extremely” or “very interested” in serving in a hybrid role as a teacher and leader. (And about half are at least “somewhat interested” in such an assignment.)

These findings are compelling, especially when set in the following context: The vast majority of the same teachers (84 percent) are “not very” or “not at all” interested in becoming a principal, and with good reason. The same MetLife survey revealed that 75 percent of our nation’s principals believe their job has become “too complex,” and almost half (48 percent) report they are “under great stress several days a week.”

It is time to get over fallacious boundaries between teachers and administrators and rebuild the profession that makes all others possible. It is time to create more time for teachers to incubate and execute their own ideas—making the job of “principal-ing” more manageable and encouraging more of our best teachers to lead without leaving. Thanks to MetLife for teaching us that 700,000 teachers are ready to do so—and continuing to support us and our new book, TEACHERPRENEURS, which documents how innovative teachers lead without leaving.

What's Next: Evaluation As Narrative

Stephen Sawchuk’s recent Ed Week article on the new wave of teacher evaluation systems—and the high ratings they're generating—has likely left many reformers scratching their heads.

Stephen points out that in states like Tennessee and Florida, which are hotbeds for Michelle Rhee–type teaching policies, the vast majority of teachers are quite effective. Even in Florida, where teachers are judged by standardized test score gains, 97 percent received top ratings. In Tennessee’s new system, more than 16 percent of the teachers were rated with the lowest score on test score measures. Only 0.2 percent of those observed by principals were categorized as ineffective.

While there are many policymakers—and virtually all of our nation’s 3.2 million teachers themselves—who want to see more rigorous and valid evaluation systems that strengthen teaching practices, there are also reformers who want nothing more than to identify ineffective teachers and dismiss them. But overall, we need to shift our focus from what's not working for the ineffective minority to how we can ensure continued growth for the effective majority.

Although scholars have long pointed out the problems of current teacher evaluation systems (see Art Wise and Linda Darling-Hammond’s 1984 research (PDF) and its seminal findings), there is still much to learn about the validity of the programs that are being put into place today.

Even when pains are taken to create a fair and reliable ratings system, such as the Measures of Effective Teaching project, flaws still abound. Jesse Rothstein and colleagues found that in each of the multiple measures (standardized test score gains, classroom observations, and student engagement ratings) used in the carefully designed project reflects a distinct dimension of teaching. They also noted that “none of the three types of performance measures captures much of the variation in teachers’ impacts on alternative, conceptually demanding tests.”

What none of these analyses suggest is how teaching conditions must change before we can design and implement a valid and reliable evaluation system.

Both principals and teachers must have more time to look carefully at the data and make sense of it. In top-performing nations like Singapore, teachers only teach students 18 to 20 hours a week. Here in the U.S., we devote little organizational space to assembling sound evidence, analyzing it, and applying professional judgment to determine who is effective and why—and how to help them get better.

Singapore's core competencies for teachers, via the National Institute of Education, Singapore. (Click to enlarge.)

In Singapore there is no obsession with standardized test scores. Teachers are evaluated on how they nurture the child, work with parents, and care for both the heart and mind. In Singapore, evaluation is not a number (or three of them); it is a narrative that encourages teachers to expand their teaching repertoire, select a career track, and take those developmental actions that lead to greater competence and higher levels on a career lattice. Teachers’ evaluations are based on the experience level of the teacher, since the level of competence expected of a new teacher is much lower than expectations for senior teachers. But most importantly, the evaluations don't just assess current performance. They also consider a teacher’s potential.

Will policymakers start viewing evaluation differently? I suspect they will, if only they listened more carefully to the millions of teachers nationwide who want an evaluation system that will genuinely improve their practice and their students’ learning. 

Weighing and Weighting the Evidence: the Measures of Effective Teaching Project

The politics of teaching policy continues to produce contentiousness among reformers and researchers as well as administrators, union leaders, and practicing teachers themselves. In response, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested three years and $45 million in painstaking efforts to find the holy grail of teacher evaluation.

Last week, with rightful fanfare, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released its findings from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project [PDF]. In short, lead researchers Tom Kane and Steve Cantrell found that a balanced approach to assessing teachers is more reliable and valid than one based on primarily using standardized tests and value-added methods. Researchers also found that multiple observations from different raters, including peers, improved the accuracy of the evaluations. The study involved about 3,000 teachers in seven districts: Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.; Dallas; Denver; Hillsborough County, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; New York City; and Pittsburgh.

While the research was under way, the public conversation about teaching evaluation continued. Today, many of the largest and most sophisticated districts and unions take for granted that no one measure can tell the whole story about a teacher’s practice. Even so, the MET Project produced several reports that might be helpful to states and districts as they consider how to balance various measures of teaching effectiveness, including classroom observations, surveys of students’ perceptions of their teachers, and value-added methods that attempt to isolate teachers’ contributions to their students’ achievement gains.

In one of the more interesting conclusions, Kane and Cantrell suggest that states and districts design weights for varying methods of teaching effectiveness. No one measure should greatly outweigh others; otherwise, the result is less accurate and reliable. This finding meshes well with what other assessment experts like Jim Popham have concluded: Using students’ test scores to evaluate teachers is too unstable to be considered in isolation from other measures, and does not allow for deep understanding of the context in which students are taught and tested.

Distinguishing between student learning and student achievement, teacher and blogger Renee Moore writes about the MET Project: "Standardized tests are the instruments we use (for now) to measure student achievement, but there is much, much more that we need to know about measuring student achievement and student learning.”

In a recent paper, Renee and I pointed out that standardized tests, on which value-added methods are based, often assess only a small sliver of content that teachers teach and student learn. They do not measure the student’s ability to think deeply or creatively. And then most teachers teach students whose academic proficiencies span many grade levels, yet the tests they are judged by assess only a narrow band of content. As a result, even value-added tools cannot adequately adjust for the English Language Arts teacher who teaches seventh graders whose reading skills range from third to twelfth grade, when the standardized test they take has mostly seventh-grade items. The underlying assessments the VAMs are based on simply lack sufficient “stretch.”

How Can We Best Implement This Research?
MET researchers recommend that between 33 and 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation should be tied to value-added methods. What does a quick look at the research mean for states, districts, and unions trying to make research-driven decisions? First, it suggests that they are on the right track to insist on getting many “snapshots” of a teacher’s practice, both in the frequency of observations and in the kinds of data incorporated. However, none of those views into a classroom should be focused upon too much if we want useful and accurate information about teaching.

Finally, MET authors aren’t pushing toward a magic number for value-added weights, giving flexibility to negotiate weights within a range that feel comfortable locally.

The Gates Foundation is promoting the idea that states and school districts will use the research to create evaluation systems to help teachers improve—and their research does indeed support the need for policymakers to build evaluation systems that use multiple measures in thoughtful ways. Incidentally, a thoughtful balance of multiple measures is what, in our experience, teachers recommend as the best way to structure evaluations. (See full recommendations from our teacher teams in in Denver [PDF], Hillsborough County [Sliderocket presentation], Illinois [PDF], and Washington State [PDF.])

Asking the Right Quesions
However, even the best research isn’t without challenges, and it isn’t always easy to act on. State and local decision makers, as well as teachers who will be affected, need to ask the right questions as they translate research into implementation. Here are a few:

• With all this information, do we need to know anything else as we make decisions about weighting? The research team is highlighting the fact that teachers were reassigned to students in the second year of the study, in an attempt to get true experimental results. Yet some education economists, like Jesse Rothstein and Doug Harris, have pointed to sources of potential bias that are explained in the study’s methodology. Researchers couldn’t make random assignment of students foolproof, and had limited comparisons of teachers across schools. Therefore, the results are still read best in the context of all teaching effectiveness research, not as a silver bullet prescription.
• How ironclad is MET’s suggested weight range for value-added? It’s probably a good starting point…with a lot of “ifs.” Other researchers point to the fact that the MET Project used test scores to measure effective teaching, and then claimed test scores should be used to determine who is a good teacher or not. RAND authors noted that teaching is “multidimensional” and “choosing weights is unlikely to be as straightforward” as policymakers and pundits might wish, even with this guidance. And of course, student test results—and the value-added scores and decisions based on them—are only as good as those underlying assessments.
• Why would student assessments matter for the results we’ll get? Study authors found that among the six assessments they used to measure student achievement growth, those that focused on higher-order skills were least connected with value-added scores.
• Do factors other than weighting matter? Process and understandability might. Scholars at the RAND Corporation offer a technical report [PDF] alongside the study results. They point out that composite scores have been used widely in studies on health care, water quality, and managerial performance. But they warn that if these measures are incorporated back into a single index score of performance, it “may invite misleading and simplistic policy conclusions” if the “process of constructing them is not transparent.”

To be sure, teachers, like growing numbers of CTQ teachers (and those in other networks), are looking for results-oriented evaluation systems that respect the complexity of their work and help them improve their practices in ways that benefit their students.

And on that note, I want to end with the wise words of Renee Moore:

Just because statisticians develop value-added estimates of teacher effects, using this or any other data, does not mean they should be the arbiters of who is effective or not.... I would suggest that one important component of new student assessments is that the results be given not just to the individual teachers of those students, but that teachers be involved in the interpretation and discussion of test data together, in various configurations, before it's released to anyone else. The ability to examine data deeply in collaborative settings will take learning and skill, for which teachers should be prepared and compensated. This type of data interpretation would be, in fact, a form of de facto peer evaluation and true job-embedded professional development.

Finnish Education in 5 Election Memes

By Kristoffer Kohl

Kristoffer Kohl is a former classroom teacher and current CTQ staff member. This week, he's traveling in Finland, along with CTQ teacher leader Dave Orphal, who's been reflecting on the trip on his own transformED blog.

While touring a series of schools in Finland with a group of education professionals from the U.S., I can't help but recognize the severe divide between the countries’ respective approaches to teaching and learning. In the truest sense of the word, education is valued as an investment in Finland’s future, which, after talking with several groups of students, I can say looks brighter than ever.

As Americans prepare to vote on two different visions for the future, it seemed appropriate to capture some initial insight on the Finnish education system through the lens of five popular U.S. presidential election memes*.

Big Bird

• While the U.S. debates less-than-a-rounding-error of funding that provides high-quality educational programming nationwide, the Finns equip every student with high-quality meals, books, technology, transportation, early-childhood education, and a range of additional supports designed to ensure equal opportunity and excellence (not an either/or scenario).
• Finland’s social safety net guarantees all children the right to free health care and government-subsidized day care until they begin primary school at age seven. Seventy-five percent of three- to five-year-olds are in daycare, with more than 96 percent of children attending tuition-free preschool at the age of six. For the same age group in the U.S., preschool enrollment hovers consistently around 55 percent.
• Backed by a similar decree from the U.N., access to the Internet is considered a human right in Finland.

You Didn't Build That

• The U.S. may not have built an education system that's as comprehensive and equitable as Finland's, but we have certainly designed the core elements of their system via expensive R&D efforts in the States—which we have also carried out in small pockets across the country. Case in point: The wraparound social services that garner attention for Harlem Children’s Zone are the norm here in Finland.
• The Finns are content to let us do the messy work of experimenting, but they are masters of identifying the practices and structures that enable students and teachers to be successful. Most important, they trust teachers with implementation expertise, which we’ll get to later (“I think we all love teachers”).
• Baseball may have originated in America, but Finland was smart enough to co-opt it as their national pastime and update the rules to create a quicker, more efficient game than the snooze-fest we only watch during October. Rather than four bad pitches resulting in a walk, Finnish baseball allows just one pitch outside of the strike zone before a hitter is granted first base. They didn’t build it, but they did improve it.

Binders Full of Women

• 86 percent of women in Finland (ages 25-64) work outside the home, compared to about 60 percent in the U.S (PDF). The high rate of working households leads to latchkey generations of children who are trusted by parents and schools alike to take care of themselves independently.
  This deep trust among Finns strengthens their social fabric and encourages intrinsic accountability and integrity.
• Each gender must have at least 40 percent representation on all public boards, committees, and municipalities. In both the U.S. Senate and House of Representative, just 17 percent of representatives are women, meaning that men have six times the political power as women.
• Finland was the first country to grant women both the vote and the opportunity to run for office.

Horses and Bayonets

• Finnish students may have fewer years of formal education at a young age, but only because the country has realized how children "learn to learn" through organized play and socialization. Perhaps as important, seven-year-olds are so eager to enter school and receive books, backpacks, and other supplies, that they enter formal education as eager, engaged, and mature learners.
• Finland suffers from a severe shortage of abacuses (abaci?), but there are SmartBoards everywhere.
• I have not seen nearly enough convertibles and surfboards for a nation with beautiful coastlines. However, Finland boasts 2.2 million saunas, shared by a population of 5.5 million (seriously).

(Do) We All Love Teachers (?)

The only thing the Twittersphere loved nearly as much as "horses and bayonet" was Bob Schieffer’s “I think we all love teachers” comment before closing arguments on Monday evening. Nothing says "we love teachers" more than a lukewarm endorsement as the final (and only) word on the profession in the last of three presidential debates.

I’m no Rico Suave, but I’m fairly certain that we have more affectionate ways of demonstrating our love. Who needs Cupid when unreliable test score data is published on the front page of newspapers?

In Finland, admiration for the profession is expressed by making teaching one of the most difficult fields to enter. Just under 7 percent of those who apply to teacher education programs are accepted. Teaching is recognized as complex, rewarding, and noble work that attracts the country’s best and brightest. But then they insist on really good teacher education for everyone before they enter the profession. I am a Teach for America alum—and there is no Teach for Finland. I don't think they would consider it.

When Finns are asked what profession they want their life partner to be a member of, teaching is number one on the list. The Finns love teachers—and its policymakers do, too.

Want to demonstrate your deep commitment to teachers here in the U.S.? Become a fairy godparent. I can’t think of a better way to show how much you appreciate the challenging and important work they do to build a more promising future.

#Binders #horses/bayonets #BigBird

*Mentioning these memes in no way signals an endorsement of either candidate. We just enjoy the memes for their own sake.

Talking About Global Education in Bangkok

Today, I'm slated to be speaking at EDUCA 2012: The Annual Congress for Teacher Professional Development, which is taking place in Bangkok, Thailand. I'm representing the United States in a global forum on "teachers as learners."  My presentation will be under way in a few hours, and I've just learned that it will be available to watch live.

If you're interested in watching the presentation, visit CTQ's USTREAM channel to watch live (at midnight EST or 9 p.m. PST), or to view the recording afterward.

In the meantime, below is the precis of my presentation:

Teaching—The Global Profession: Lessons Learned from the USA

The teaching profession is poised for a transformation—worldwide. Globalization is changing many industries and the professions that fuel them. And the right kind of teaching profession will be instrumental in helping young people meet the citizenship and economic challenges of the mid-21st century. The tools for transforming the teaching profession are at our disposal—and what needs to be done is already being done right now somewhere in the world.

I'm looking forward to learning from education leaders from around the world, and sharing their perspectives with our education communities back in the United States.

Governor Walker Does a 180 on Unions

I couldn't help but smile when I read this morning about the support that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is giving to union workers. Governor Walker, through his politics and policies, has sought to dismantle teachers' unions (as well as those that represent nurses) in his home state. Now, he's doing a 180 of sorts in his call for the return of unionized—and currently locked out—NFL referees. 

I guess for Governor Walker what's good for professional football—well prepared and compensated referees who have pensions that encourage them to remain in the profession—isn't good for public schools and teachers. Team owners have decided to sacrifice valuable experience and expertise instead of spending more money. In the meantime, 1,500 years of collective experience on the field are being lost as substitute referees man NFL games. Team owners have decided to sacrifice
 
Walker's words are timely, considering much of the nation is still attuned to the teachers' strike in Chicago, and the factors at play there. Matt Miller, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, has noted of late that there is a lot “lost in the clash” between school reformers (e.g., Mayor Rahm Emanuel) and teachers' union leaders (e.g., Karen Lewis).

I suspect the same can be said for what ails NFL management and the referees' union.

According to Miller, at the “heart” of the Chicago public schools kerfuffle is money—because that's what it takes “to boost teacher salaries to attract and retain decent talent.” That in turn, he says, ensures that all students—no matter where they live—have access to high-quality teaching and learning opportunities. Miller’s take is that simply making students go to school for more days or evaluating teachers primarily on the basis of test scores will not solve the underlying problem: gross inequity of funding in public education.
 
Don’t get me wrong: there is much more to school reform than additional dollars. And the unions should not expect more pay and benefits for its members without a teacher evaluation system that draws on student learning results. But reformers miss the mark when they insist on evaluation systems that rely on statistical tools that can easily misidentify teachers as "good" or "bad."

They also miss the mark when they press for a longer school year for students by hiring ill-trained (and cheaper) novices instead of laid-off (and more experienced) veterans. And they surely miss the mark when they want to extend the school year without supplying the resources students need—including textbooks, computers, and classrooms that do not freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer. What's also missing is high-quality professional development for all teachers in the school system.

Similarly, NFL team owners have clearly prioritized saving money over valuing professional experience and expertise. One of the many consequences of the replacement referees is the loss of more than 1,500 years of experience on the field.

It seems that Governor Walker, now that these inept substitute referees robbed his beloved Green Bay Packers of a sure victory, has learned something about the importance of investing in people as a key lever for quality control. He has made quite a turn—though I suspect his views on the NFL referees' union won't affect his views on teaching and learning.

It's time that we extend the same benefits and open thinking we give our sports teams to our public schools and teachers.

Teacherpreneurs: The Direction Forward

Click the graphic to enlarge.

In our book TEACHING 2030, I proposed, along with 12 of my teacher colleagues, that our nation would need 600,000 teacherpreneurs to advance the public school system that students deserve. I hold a relentless belief that a high quality, 21st-century system of public education, designed for all students to achieve at high levels, must be driven by the bold ideas and expert practices of teachers.
 
Consider the exploding knowledge bases and personalized learning systems required to make sure our diverse group of 55 million (and growing) students is prepared for a global economy. Individual school principals, even with a small band of assistants, do not have the know-how and bandwidth to build and score new assessment tools tied to internationally benchmarked standards, integrate digital media into a more relevant curriculum for constantly wired students, and serve as partners with community organizations. (We strongly believe that schools must morph into 24/7 “hubs” for integrated academic, social, and health services.)

And while technology can allow students to engage in personalized learning experiences like never before, it will take well-prepared expert teachers, soon to be known as learning architects, to broker potent opportunities for them.
 
Dramatically improving public education for all will take both collective action and discretionary judgments of many expert teachers, not just a few, because teaching and learning in the 21st century is as complicated as a federal judge issuing a decree on immigration law in the contentious communities in Arizona and South Carolina, or doctors interpreting an array of blood tests, MRI results, and family medical histories to determine how to treat a brain tumor. We will need far different approaches to organizing our schools, and the 7.2 million educators in K-12 and higher education, to best serve children and their families.
 
Now is the time to cultivate teacherpreneurs—practicing teachers who have the time and space as well as reward—to lead reforms beyond the boundaries of their schools and districts. This year, CTQ is doing its part to meet this goal by sponsoring four teacherpreneurs and two teachers in residence.
 
Sarah Henchey is spending this year working out of our offices here in Carrboro, and her energy and insight are already bringing tremendous value to efforts to support teacher leaders implementing the Common Core.

Lori Nazareno is taking a year away from the teacher-led school she launched to drive teaching and learning and school-design policies in Colorado and the nation.

Megan Allen and Ryan Kinser are spending half their time in their classrooms and half their time building a network of teacher leaders in Florida to lead teacher evaluation and the Common Core in their state. 

Jessica Cuthbertson spends part of her day teaching in Aurora, Colorado, and the other half working with Colorado teachers on the Common Core. 

Noah Zeichner has started his second year as a teacherpreneur with CTQ and will be leading efforts, in partnership with the Asia Society, to support teacher leadership for the Global Cities Education Network.

To learn more about these educators, click on the graphic above—and help us reach our goal of 600,000 teacherpreneurs by sharing it with your friends and colleagues.

At the Core of the Chicago Strike, Mistrust

The big news during the start of the 2012-13 school year has been the Chicago teachers’ strike. By now, we're familiar with the key players—and how they're portrayed: The district officials, led by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the “famously foul-mouthed mayor,” are pressing for a longer school day. Then there's the union, run by the “pushy, witty, unwavering” Karen Lewis, calling for better salary, benefits, and working conditions.

The media and the think tank analysts love a kerfuffle of this brand, often portraying district officials as doing what is best for children, while the union works for its own self-interest. Granted, on the surface, this does seem to be the case—with the average teacher in Chicago earning more than $70,000 a year.

But what is not often revealed is that, under the mayor’s leadership, class sizes have soared. Schools continue to operate without air conditioning and heat, and social work positions are not funded. All the while, the district continues to find ways to divert funds into non-unionized charter schools. Monica Davey of The New York Times has done a good job of providing a more balanced view of Emanuel and Lewis, as well as the politics behind the strike—the first in 25 years.

What's Missing? Context.

Few of today’s pundits point to the ways that yesterday’s conditions have led to the mistrust that abounds today. The historical dynamics among politicians, district administrators, and union leaders frame today's debate, and the actions and words that have led up to them.

Since the 1960s (when teachers began to get collective bargaining rights), unions have often been characterized as focusing on their adult issues, and—led prominently by Al Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)—sought to change the conditions that undermined their ability to teach effectively.

In fact, Shanker argued that school conditions—like the ones the Chicago teachers describe today—were demoralizing teachers. Fifty years ago, Shanker pointed to non-teaching duties, inadequate textbook supplies, and rote lesson plans as extra burdens that got in the way of teaching. He advocated on behalf of teachers who sought professionalism—not to pad their pockets, but to allow them the preparation, support, and autonomy required for them to teach effectively.

It's About Working Conditions

Today, Chicago teachers point to their current working conditions that have appeared to have substantially deteriorated—conditions that hurt students and their ability to learn. As Chicago teacher Xian Barrett writes:

"When you make me cram 30-50 kids in my classroom with no air conditioning so that temperatures hit 96 degrees, that hurts our kids.
 
When you lock down our schools with metal detectors and arrest brothers for play fighting in the halls, that hurts our kids.
 
When you take 18-25 days out of the school year for high stakes testing that is not even scientifically applicable for many of our students, that hurts our kids.
 
When you spend millions on your pet programs, but there’s no money for school level repairs, so the roof leaks on my students at their desks when it rains, that hurts our kids."
 
But the fact of the matter is that, since the 1960s, union leaders and administrators have engaged in industrial-style, adversarial, collective bargaining. This bargaining has resulted in periodic labor-management tensions, but also standardized work rules. Collective bargaining has worked well for union leaders who wanted equal treatment of teachers who have varying degrees of skill and marketability, as well as administrators who sought uniform rules for their growing school bureaucracies.

For a host of economic and political reasons, district officials and unions have focused their bargaining efforts on teachers as industrial or craft workers, not professionals who enforce standards among their own ranks.* While teachers during the Shanker era did not trust administrators to evaluate them fairly, they also wanted “no part of judging their fellow union members.”** They still do not in Chicago — primarily because they do not the trust the politicians and administrators. 

And the lack of trust is what is really behind the Chicago strike and current impasse on how schools should be funded, who is hired and paid what, and how teachers are supported in the best interest of students.

For those interested in digging into the various positions on the strike, I recommend starting with the New York Times' current Room for Debate discussion—reasonably titled "Must Teachers and School Officials Be Foes?"

*Kerchner, C.T., & Koppich, J. (2007). Negotiating what matters most: Collective bargaining and student achievement. American Journal of Education, 113, 349-365.
**Angus & Mirel (2001).

What the PDK/Gallup Poll Says About U.S. Education (And How It Compares to Finland)

I can’t help but consider my Finnish Lessons as I examine the latest PDK/Gallup poll about Americans’ attitudes toward education. Below I take on a few themes.

The Role of Curriculum in Teaching and Learning

There’s much to be encouraged about in the recent poll. The vast majority of Americans (75%), for example, think that the Common Core will provide more consistency in the quality of education.

The Common Core promises to frame more integrated and deeper learning opportunities for students. But I wonder if, in our implementation (or execution) of the Common Core, we will take a page out of the Finnish playbook. Finnish administrators and teachers embrace their national curriculum because it represents the nation’s educational values, rather than narrow prescriptions for learning. 

And, importantly, in Finland, teachers and principals are the ones who determine whether their students have met the standards.

Standardization vs. Professionalism

Most Americans say that a third of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on standardized tests. But when asked to list words that describe the teachers who had the most positive influence on them, Americans responded with words like “caring,” “encouraging,” and “attentive.” Those adjectives hardly coincide with the impersonal and stressful multiple-choice standardized tests students must take, regardless of background or ability level.

The Finns, primarily because they screen and prepare (not one or the other) each teacher so well, do not seem to care about teacher evaluation. They avoid the twisted contortions and gnashing of teeth over how to precisely use a value-added measure—based on one 20th-century standardized test—to determine 50 percent of a teacher’s effectiveness ratings.

After a couple of visits to Finnish schools, I can imagine how the Finns could leave every country behind in international measures of student achievement if they took professional development and evaluation more seriously—building on their trust of educators to make professional decisions about who is doing well and why.

But one thing is certain: Any teacher evaluation reforms in Finland would have to take into account that no one teacher is rarely, if ever, solely responsible for the education of a group (or even a class of students). It would be wise for U.S. policy to do the same.

Rating the Schools

Once again, the American public rates public schools very favorably—if they know them.

• 77% give an A or B grade to the school their eldest child attends
• 48% give an A or B grade to the schools in their communities
• 19% give an A or B  grade to the nation’s public schools as a whole

Less than half of Americans without kids in public schools have visited one in the past year. So you have to wonder—where are they getting their information?

Perhaps it was from a Newsweek cover story of late titled “Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers,” or from reformers like Joel Klein who claim that our schools, uniformly, are failing. In Finland, there are teachers who are not teaching effectively, and there are schools that are not great. But no one—including the Finnish media reporting on student matriculation exams—classifies teachers or schools as “bad” or “failures.”

In the United States, policymakers and business leaders often point to standardized tests as the metric for judging school success and teacher effectiveness. Not in Finland. As Risto E.J. Penttila, Secretary General of the Chamber of Commerce, told us today: “The purpose of our education system is to make good citizens.”  I suspect those Americans who know the public schools can see the work they’re doing in making good citizens.  They are the same Americans who characterize effective teachers as “caring.”

The Role of the Media

Looking at the PDK/Gallup poll results, there seems to be a discrepancy between Americans’ local, individual experiences with education, and broader perceptions of the system as a whole. When it comes to thinking about education on a national scale, we rely less on our own experiences and more on what the media reports.

And when the media focuses on what’s wrong with education rather than what’s right with education, it can be easy to make assumptions that skew negative. Our media doesn’t portray educators as a group as being a “caring,” “attentive,” or “encouraging” group.

Which makes it incredibly easy to fall into the trap of thinking that our positive experiences at our schools and our children’s schools are the exception, not the rule.

Along the same lines, the PDK/Gallup shows an uptick in support for using public dollars to send kids to private schools (44 percent were in favor in 2012, compared to 34 percent in 2011). However, how much media coverage shows side-by-side comparisons of student achievement in public vs. private and charter schools? In many cases, public schools still do a better job educating students, while at the same time educating all students.

Just as educators have a responsibility to their students, the media has a responsibility to cover not just hot-button issues that attract readers by causing alarm. We need to celebrate our teachers' and students' successes—not failures—so they can serve as a model in our profession and in our communities.

Finland Travel Log: Child-Centered Preschool Programs

Below is the third in a series of posts I'm writing from Finland, as part of a trip with a delegation of U.S. education leaders. For a week, we're immersing ourselves in Finland's top-performing education system. Read Part One here and Part Two here.

Tuomarilan Paivakoti, a publicly funded Finnish day care

My first full day in Helsinki confirmed so much of what I have read about Finland's child-centered approach to teaching and learning. Let me also offer up a few words from Linda Darling-Hammond (Stanford University), Pasi Sahlberg (Director of Finland's Center for International Mobility), Barbro Hogstrom (Director of Child Care in Education for Finland's Ministry of Education), and Dan Leeds (National Public Education Support Fund). Their words set up the context for a few of my own observations.
 
Pasi: We have learned so much about child development and the science of teaching and learning from American education researchers.
 
Linda: Teacher education is deep and intense here. It all begins with child development. It is the first class that prospective teachers take.
 
Linda: School does not start until age seven for children here. This is when they are ready to learn. It is not like in America, where we are now trying to force kids to learn at age three, four, and five—and when they don’t, we label them as failures.  All preschool programs [in Finland] are based on what we know about play and socialization in child development.
 
Barbro: Playing is the way to learning.
 
The Finnish education system's student-teacher ratios reflect the nation's values. For children under three years old, there is a 1:4 adult-child ratio. For students between three and six years old, the ratio is 1:7.  So for every 21 children there are 3 teachers—who are each fully prepared with a university degree in early childhood instruction. Soon Finland will require two-thirds of its early-childhood teachers to also have a bachelor’s or master’s in early childhood education.
 
Barbro was asked about quality control in early childhood education. "This is why we have teachers," she responded.
 
Finland is serious about being consistent research on early childhood development and learning to read. Educators here are flexible—and patient. The day care center I visited—Tuomarilan Paivakoti, funded publicly—would make Maria Montessori and advocates of the Reggio Emilia approach proud.

Finland values small student-teacher ratios, especially in early childhood.

The school supports 90 young children for 190 days a year with 20 adults in the building. The teachers work different schedules, so that the school can open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 6:00 p.m. The teachers I observed deliberately taught colors and sorting and how to make educated guesses. They were careful to make sure the students were included and valued, despite any disability. They made a fun-filled game in their small gym an opportunity to coordinate and collaborate.

I loved watching three-year-olds, carefully supervised, serve themselves lunch (and seconds) and clear their plates. I was thrilled to see teachers not rushing them. These precious young humans were barely 36 months old. Each teacher, you could see, was so proud of their knowledge of young children and the independent and autonomous learners they are helping them to be.
 
Dan: You cannot translate every Finnish lesson for improving America’s public education system. But you can, like the world’s great cuisines, adapt from others and meld it with your own recipes.
 
I overheard many people from our U.S. delegation comment that what they saw in these high-quality day care programs in Helsinki and Espoo was similar to what they experienced with their own young children.

Is it not time to do for all children what we want for our own?

Below is the second in a series of posts I'm writing from Finland, as part of a trip with a delegation of U.S. education leaders. For a week, we're immersing ourselves in Finland's top-performing education system. Read Part One here.

As I begin my weeklong dive into the Finnish education system, and the theory of change that guides it, I was struck by two New York Times pieces I read today—one on getting tough on teachers from Frank Bruni, and one from Paul Tough on hard questions about President Obama and his commitment to addressing the “deep poverty” in which one in ten school children live. 

I will learn a great deal over the next five days about Finland and its comprehensive approach to early learning, transitions to public school, and social safety nets (Monday); primary school and the role of afterschool and summer programs (Tuesday); secondary education and preparation for career and college (Wednesday); the teaching profession (Thursday); and building and sustaining public will for investments in children and public education (Friday). 

But what I do know now is that in Finland policymakers do not build false divisions between improving the teaching profession and addressing the human condition.  Granted, there are parts of what Frank Bruni writes in his piece, “Teachers on the Defensive,” that resonate with me — for instance, teachers’ unions being out of step with much-needed reforms (cases in point: seniority and quality-blind hiring and placements). But Mr. Bruni’s call to get tough on unions suggests that by getting better teachers, we don’t have many good ones now. And his analysis, centered on the release of the new film Won’t Back Down, suggests that if only tenure and seniority rules were jettisoned, and policymakers could hire smarter teachers who worked harder, our public schools could overcome the ravages of deep poverty.  

On the other hand, Paul Tough challenges this assertion ever so poignantly in his piece “What Does Obama Really Believe In?”  Mr. Tough’s 6,000-word essay paints a rich portrait of our nation’s failed social and economic policies that have yet to address the deep poverty that affects so many like Jasmine and Damien who live in the South Side of Chicago, where President Obama worked as a community organizer. Tough questions Secretary Duncan’s well-meaning belief that the “only way to end poverty is through education”—a belief that has put educators on the defensive.  

Tough points out that Jasmine and Damien attended Christian Fenger High School—the target of many reforms under both Duncan and his predecessor, but never improved. Tough reminds us how “early stress” in children’s lives—including a “paralyzing mix of unforgiving economic conditions” and “destructive social influences”—make it “almost impossible” for young people like Jasmine and Damien to “escape.” He points to the neuroscience that shows how those early stresses on children “disrupt the healthy growth of the prefrontal cortex” and how the “absence of strong and supportive relationships with stable adults inhibits a child’s development of a crucial set of cognitive skills called executive functions.”

Tough has written extensively on the power and potential of the Harlem’s Children Zone and its comprehensive approach that, in addition to high-quality education, encompasses parenting programs, preschools, a medical clinic, a farmers’ market, and family counseling.  He questions why President Obama promised to invest in a billion dollars in the HCZ model, but has only come up with a mere $40 million over the last three years.

Mr. Tough reminds us that President Obama once said that to overcome poverty, of which failing schools is only a symptom, we must “heal the entire community.” It is time for us to think about teacher quality reforms in light of a teaching- and learning-development system.

As Dan Leeds, president of the National Public Education Support Fund and a very successful international businessman, told us this evening, "I learned a long time ago that you learn more from other companies sometimes than your own."

It's time to learn from Finland.

Would it be outrageous for economists to have to pay back part of their salaries if their theories don’t improve the economy? What if education economists had to return consulting fees to the think tanks that paid them if their methods were flawed? Or if their conclusions ignored other research findings and the realities of teaching?

If you think this would be a good idea, then Harvard professor and MacArthur Genius Grant winner Roland Fryer and Freakonomics co-author and University of Chicago professor Steven Levitt (and colleagues John List and Sally Sadoff) might just have to cancel their vacations this fall. They would have to return the pay they received for their recent paper and recommendation that teachers must return salary bonuses (paid up front) when their students’ test scores do not improve sufficiently from one year to the next.

The Study: What It Said

Funded by the Broad Foundation—and drawing on a study about how Chinese factory workers are paid (see page 2)—the report concludes that teacher-incentive programs should be framed in terms of losses rather than gains.

Frustrated by study after study showing that single-minded merit-pay plans don’t improve student achievement (e.g., see the RAND report on New York City’s program, and the exhaustive longitudinal Nashville experiment), these highly touted scholars are on a mission to prove, as one journalist suggested, that “the promise of a larger paycheck will motivate (teachers) to work harder when they're up in front of the chalkboard.”

Fryer and colleagues analyzed the student test results (from the ThinkLink Assessment System) of 150 K-8 teachers from Chicago Heights, Illinois. The teachers were divvied into one control group and four treatment groups, with opportunities to be rewarded or punished for individual and team gains or losses. The “gain” treatment group worked under a traditional year-end bonus structure, similar to merit pay proposals of past and present. This group could earn up to $8,000 extra based on their students' standardized test scores.

Another treatment group—the “loss” treatment group—was given $4,000 at the beginning of the year and knew up front that if their students scored below expectations on the end-of-year test, they'd have to return part of this payment, proportionate to their students’ results.  The researchers found that the gain group showed no significant differences in student achievement, while the loss-treatment group’s individual and team results were comparable to increasing teacher quality by one standard deviation.

What It Missed

I am certain that this study was conducted by very smart people, but people who know too little about teaching and learning, schooling and community, teachers and students.

Consider these issues:

1.     The methodology is built on the assumption that money makes teachers more effective, but there is a wealth of evidence, including a recent Gates-funded study, to the contrary.

2.     The researchers used a low-stakes standardized diagnostic test that is supposed to be aligned with state standards, but there is no evidence that is the case. Did the researchers read this recent report on how off the mark many standardized tests are?

3.     While the teachers were assigned randomly to the control and treatment groups to control for working conditions, the researchers do not own up to the fact they are making a summative judgment about teacher effectiveness on the basis of a 25-50-question multiple-choice test that may not be aligned with the standards that teachers had been using all year.  

More Considerations

The researchers did show some concern for how other factors might affect the achievement of these students.  They looked at student mobility. Check. They look at cheating. Check. They look at liquidity constraints. (What?)  Fryer and company considered how teachers who received upfront payments might have competitive advantage if they “purchase certain materials that facilitate instruction.” My first reaction was to offer kudos to Professor Fryer. Not so fast.

Fryer was concerned that teachers who had additional dollars up front might go out and buy “new workbooks or dry-erase markers” that would allow them to teach more effectively than those in the control and gain groups. Really? These concerns tell us so much about how little these researchers know about teaching and learning.

Other studies have shown that teachers are more effective when they loop with their students for more than one year, when they teach the same course (in secondary school) for more than one year, when they have high-quality curriculum materials, and when they work with a team to plan curricula and evaluate student work. All these factors contribute far more to effective teaching than the loss-aversion merit pay schemes posed by this study.

More questions arise about how Fryer’s scheme would work in reality: Would districts have to hire more bureaucrats to collect the dollars awarded to teachers when test scores did not increase? How would such a pay scheme affect teacher morale? What about the impact on collaboration, given that the authors’ statistical model promotes competition among teachers?

Economists like Fryer and company—and their funders—are desperate to find some kind of empirical link between short-term test score gains and teacher pay (or firings). The researchers found a model—based on a Chinese factory where “loss” workers saw only a 1 percent increase in productivity—and decided to use it in such a complex enterprise as teaching.

If they were truly interested in improving schools, they might want to take a look at teachers’ own bold ideas about pay. If they were truly interested in improving schools, they might want to take a look at a larger body of research on teacher incentives and student achievement. Perhaps in the future, economists like Fryer and company will have to return their consulting fees if they don’t.

Pete Wailes’ short story on the future of education (“The Life and Times of James Roebuck, Part 1”) raises some provocative issues about the teaching profession. 

It’s a worthwhile read, but make sure you read all 1,286 words. At first blush, it might seem like Wailes is another school reformer who thinks technology will replace 55 million teachers who currently teach in classrooms worldwide. In future-speak, Wailes writes:

Shortly after the invention of the quantum computer chip, and the laying of fibre optic broadband to almost every house in the UK, it had been clear that the days of teaching as a profession were numbered. Teaching had been relegated to a minority profession in a matter of years.

But then it gets a bit more interesting. Just as he was convincing readers that the teaching profession “couldn’t withstand the onslaught of technology”—to the delight of many self-proclaimed school reformers—Wailes pivots.

He raises questions about who would curate resources, moderate virtual learning, and oversee the interaction of children and adolescents. He raises questions about who would make sure that children have safe places to learn, and that all children have access to the knowledge and resources needed to be successful.

Wailes’ essay promises a “Part 2.” I’m hopeful that the sequel will suggest that though technology can democratize knowledge, without teachers—especially expert ones—there will be no opportunity for students to use that knowledge to promote and sustain democracy. 

Renee Moore, NBCT, Milken winner, and erudite teacher-author, pictured with one her students from her years teaching in Shelby, Mississippi. Knowledge of children, culture, and community, along with deep subject matter expertise make for excellent teachers. And Renee is one of the best.

Regardless of what the profession looks like in the future, we will undoubtedly need more teacher leaders—teacher leaders like Renee Moore, a longstanding member of our Teacher Leaders Network and profiled in our forthcoming Jossey-Bass book, Teacherpreneurs. Below, Renee reflects on her teaching practice:

When I sit down next to each of my students or with a small group of them (physically or virtually) to share their most recent work; to reflect on how they have grown as writers since their last piece or since the start of the course; to give sincere, critical feedback on what would help make it better—I am doing what no technology or software program can provide. It is through these very human interactions that I also show them that they have worth far beyond a number on a scale.  This is at the core of teaching.

I’m eager to read more of what Wailes has to say about technology and the teaching profession. Teacher leaders like Renee—and the millions like her around the world—will be the ones leading the technology revolution by implementing the technology and balancing it with real-life, personalized interaction.

Wailes’ story shows us that there’s more to look forward to in the coming years than just robot-powered cars. A future with a true teacher-led education system—now that’s something to get excited about.

As students across the country are enjoying summer breaks, many educators and education reformers are using their time to, well, think about time. Some schools are transitioning to year-round schooling. Others are extending the school day into the late afternoon.

While most of the recent focus has been on student time, a critical piece of the discussion should be teacher time. “Time can and must allow for us to engage with other professionals in order to hone our craft and, ultimately, to serve our students better,” writes Dedy Fauntleroy on this month’s Teaching Ahead: A Roundtable.

For most teachers in the Unites States, collaboration time isn’t built into the school day—it’s stolen in tiny intervals: in the hallways, after school, in the copy room. Teachers spend most of their days in front of students, leaving their lesson planning and professional development to before and after school.

Current school schedules are keeping teachers away from our nation’s best educational resource—their fellow teachers.

“I never thought I’d say it, but less time teaching might make me a better teacher,” wrote CTQ blogger Kate Mulcahy in a recent post.

An International Perspective

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel of extremely accomplished teachers at the International Symposium on Educational Reform (ISER) in Lexington, Kentucky. The group got to talking about how much time they have each week to collaborate with their colleagues and watch them teach.

The American teachers estimated their collaboration time to be, on average, about five hours a week, and their observation time at an average of about two hours a week. And these numbers are likely higher than the national average, since several teachers on the panel are involved in mentoring and other leadership positions that require them to observe and meet with peers.

Kimberly Shearer shared her schedule—one that’s fairly representative of other teachers in the U.S. She spends 30 to 35 hours a week in front of students, and though she gets planning periods and lunch each day, she often uses that time to meet with students.

In contrast, in Finland, a typical teacher might spend 15 hours a week—or a maximum of 24 hours—in front of students, said Mika Risku, a teacher-education researcher on the panel from Finland. The other part of the day is spent in professional development, planning lessons, and engaging with colleagues and parents. “If you want teacher leaders,” Mika asked the group, “when do you analyze the data and processes?”

Lauren Hill, an English teacher from Kentucky, shared that in her ten years of teaching in the same school as Stephanie Wooldridge—her colleague who was also at the conference—the closest she’d ever been to actually observing Stephanie teach was when she had to deliver a piece of tech equipment to her classroom. “And it was like being in a different country,” Lauren said. Both Lauren and Stephanie are members of Teacher Leaders Network and are actively engaged in our Implementing Common Core Standards initiative—which requires a great more time to build interdisciplinary lessons with colleagues, capitalize on new tools and resources, and unpack the data from new forms of student assessment.

We need to give teachers the opportunity to “travel” to their colleagues’ classrooms during the school day so they can infuse their own teaching with new ideas and strategies. These observations, which can be conducted live or through digital recordings, can propel productive and practical conversations, collaboration, and the much-needed scrutiny of one another’s classroom practice.

It's Time to Start

“What would be the value of five extra minutes in an educator's schedule?” Jessica Keigan asks on Teaching Ahead. “These five minutes might be spent learning about a new professional strategy, catching up on local and national policy or interacting with peers in virtual or real time venues.”

Five minutes is a good place to start—but we must do better. We must build dedicated collaboration time into every teacher’s schedule. Giving teachers time to work together and learn from one another will allow them to reflect on and improve their professional practice.

And it isn’t just Finland, either. Other top-performing nations, like Singapore, build in collaboration time willingly and without question. Mike Thiruman, president of the Singapore Teachers’ Union and former deputy in his nation’s education ministry, told me recently, “We would not think of having our teachers teach more than nineteen to twenty-one hours a week.”  Teachers also receive 100 hours of professional development per year, at government expense.  Is it not time for U.S. policymakers to follow suit and invest in more time for teachers so students learn more?

 

Enjoying dinner with members of CTQ's Implementing Common Core Standards (ICCS) team at the International Symposium on Educational Reform.

Teacher leadership is the focus of many conversations these days, especially ones about the Common Core. With their emphasis on interdisciplinary curriculum, the standards will require teachers to collaborate with one another and spread their expertise in and out of cyberspace. There will be new assessments (PDF) that teachers need to design, score, interpret, and integrate into instructional plans. There will be demand for an array of instructional resources, which teachers must learn and adapt for the specific contexts they teach in.

The Common Core cannot be implemented in lock-step fashion, as current teach-to-test curricula demand today. The Common Core cannot be implemented if we continue to promote short-cut teacher preparation and one-shot, “spray and pray” professional development. As TLN member Patrick Ledesma recently wrote about the Common Core, “Time and again, top-down implementation stalls as teachers fail to hear workable plans that reflect the realities of their classrooms.” We need teachers to lead the way.

Granted, teacher leadership has become more popular of late as a means for administrators to position classroom practitioners as department or committee chairs, coaches, mentors, or even “professional learning team” facilitators. But most of these roles are typically defined by administrators in response to external dictates. They reflect how policy wonks, curriculum designers, and publishers imagine schools and teachers’ roles within them. 

This type of teacher leadership—the “anoint and appoint” variety defined by Mark Smylie (friend and school reform scholar)—is for yesterday’s schools. We must exceed their narrow confines, because even if all these leadership roles were combined into one, it still wouldn’t come close to what a teacherpreneur does. Because teacherpreneurs spend half the day teaching students, their perspectives on education reform are grounded in the everyday realities of teaching and learning.

In the keynote address I'll deliver at the eighth International Symposium on Educational Reform (ISER) this week, I'll describe the barriers that undermine the kind of teacherpreneurial action needed for implementing the Common Core. Such obstacles include policies that isolate teachers from one another, as well as administrators and policy wonks who are threatened by teachers who lead.

Too many administrators are still focused on “monitoring” teachers to make sure they teach “bell to bell.” We need to jettison the organizational structures that have existed in our schools since the 1920s. Many of our schools' designs were based on Frederick Taylor's theories of scientific management, which allowed classroom teachers to be treated much like assembly-line factory workers.

It’s about time we jettison the “boss-worker” mindset of administrators and self-proclaimed reformers who cannot tolerate the blurring of lines between those who teach in schools and those who lead them. Our focus should be on meeting the challenges of 21st-century teaching and learning. In our communities, there are growing numbers of students from impoverished homes--many of them second-language learners--who need more well-prepared teachers, working in teams, than ever before.

Here at CTQ, teacher leaders are working hard to lead Common Core implementation in their schools, districts, and states. And as our organization continues to evolve, we will focus more and more on making sure that teacher leaders and teacherpreneurs are leading the way. 

By Melissa Rasberry

Barnett Berry will be joining school chiefs, union officials, school board leaders, and teachers from 41 states and more than 100 school districts this week in Cincinnati as the Department of Education and various partner organizations convene the second Labor Management Conference. In this post, CTQ staff member Melissa Rasberry reflects on her experiences with successful district-union relations and their efforts of "Collaborating to Transform the Teaching Profession" (the theme of this year's conference).

“I want you to leave here dissatisfied today.”

Teachers, parents, administrators, and community leaders looked on with anxious faces, uncertain how to respond. This was the first keynote I’d seen that wished for participants’ unhappiness by conference end.

“… I want you to leave here dissatisfied with the status quo,” the speaker continued, “and angry about what we are doing to our children.”

Where might you predict this conversation transpired?

I overheard the dialogue at a National Education Association (NEA) convening for its Priority Schools Campaign. If you listen much to reports in the media, you probably wouldn’t guess that the keynote speaker was NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. In fact, some journalists and policy pundits would have you believe that the NEA is a strident defender of the status quo. They purport that many ills of our educational system can be blamed on teachers’ unions. Stories of late proclaim:

•    American schools have declined, while the “teachers' unions have become more and more powerful.”

•    Unions “prevent teachers from being dismissed for incompetence” and don’t want to be held accountable.

•    Getting rid of the teachers’ unions is the “only fight worth having.”

But yet, here I sat in a room full of educators and community members—convened by the NEA and ready to improve our nation’s most deserving schools. The conference participants did not back down from acknowledging that we have failed some of our children, but they also were not embroiled in the false dichotomies that pit unions against reformers.

Blowing Away the Myth: Success in Action

Most reformers today think that unions, which hold on to seniority hiring rights and quality-blind teacher evaluation systems, prevent schools from improving. Though unions need to change their ways in some respects, so do districts and school boards that diminish teacher leadership and exepertise. Unions can't be the only problem if the same ineffective teacher-hiring and -evaluation practices are found in both unionized and non-unionized districts.

Indeed, we find many examples of teachers’ unions across the country leading reform efforts. I’ve witnessed several of these trailblazing efforts firsthand, as part of my work here at CTQ.

•    The Hillsborough County Teachers Association and Hillsborough County Public Schools gather at the table with one mission in mind: to improve the educational experiences of their students. Through the Empowering Effective Teachers initiative, district and union leaders created a system in which excellent teachers are identified, rewarded, and encouraged to spread their knowledge and skills to their colleagues.
•    The district and union joined forces in Denver, Colorado, to create the first teacher-led school. The Math and Science Leadership Academy operates solely through the leadership of teachers. The district strongly encouraged the union to develop the initial plans for the school, and both organizations continue to support its success.
•    CTQ is partnering to support schools involved with the NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign. CTQ prepared National Board Certified Teachers and other accomplished teachers to serve as virtual coaches for teachers in these high-needs schools. The trained coaches will facilitate virtual learning communities (VLCs), so that educators across the country can share ideas and resources for student success in an online environment.
•    In December 2011, the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching released Transformed Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning (PDF). This blue-ribbon panel of teachers and other educational leaders (including many from our own Teacher Leaders Network) outlines key imperatives for transforming the teaching profession, characterized by “collective accountability for student learning balanced with collaborative autonomy that allows educators to do what is best for students.”

These initiatives, as well as those highlighted at this week’s 2012 Labor Management Conference sponsored by the Department of Education, present excellent examples of how districts and unions can avoid letting “the perfect be the enemy of the good.” If we want our students to achieve in our highly competitive global economy, labor-management relationships must improve. Unions and districts alike must set aside their bickering and work on finding common ground. As Dennis Van Roekel instructed the crowd at the NEA convening, our students deserve nothing less.

In the world of school reform, there is a lot of talk about teacher evaluation these days. Hardly anyone believes the systems in place are worth much, given that many districts report that administrators often rate almost all teachers “satisfactory” and pay little attention to student results. And most everyone knows the Race to the Top states are rocketing toward implementing new systems, replete with more intensive classroom observations, mechanical use of value-added ratings, and four-point rating scales.

However, the teacher-evaluation engines are already beginning to stall. Tennessee, for example, is struggling to find time for “micromanaged” principals to conduct effective and useful observations. And New York City is rolling out wildly inaccurate* value-added test scores results to judge (and then fire) teachers.

And now bright-eyed enthusiasts for R2T-esque teacher evaluations are raising hard questions about the rigid use of test scores to judge teachers. Many point out that if principals and teachers don’t trust one another, then these evaluation systems won’t do much to improve teaching and learning. Robin Lake, for example, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at the University of Washington, recently wrote a guest post on Rick Hess's blog. There, she makes the good point that the system requires not just new “tools,” but serious “attention to organizational capacity and relationships.”

Making these relationships a priority will require not just more collaboration between administrators and union leaders, as Robin suggests, but developing new systems so teachers themselves can lead the way. This would allow more teachers like Ryan Kinser of Hillsborough County, Florida (and many of his 15,000 teaching colleagues in the Tampa-area school district), to drive reforms that will affect their classrooms. Ryan, in his powerful blog posts over at transformED, points to a number of huge issues with using value-added results to improve teaching and learning. He also suggests specific strategies for using VAM in ways that make sense for teachers and the students they serve.

Soon, Ryan and his CTQ-supported New Millennium Initiative team will release a powerful multimedia product that focuses on leveraging promising teacher evaluation reforms in their district to transform the teaching profession. In her blog post, Robin Lake cites the research of Tony Bryk on the importance of organizational trust and coherence in much-needed evaluation reforms. In Tampa, the school district and union—and now a growing group of solutions-oriented teachers—are showing just how it can be done.

* It has been shown that the use of “value-added assessments” in New York is grossly imprecise. For example, the margin of error spans 35 percentiles in math and 53 in English. Some teachers' evaluations were based on as few as 10 students.

The Good Laugh

Did you catch Matthew Di Carlo’s perfect April Fools’ Day piece on “Measuring Journalist Quality”? Observing that journalists have been leading the way in “outing” teachers based on unreliable value-added measures (VAMs), Di Carlo flips the picture. What if journalists were measured by similarly unstable “reader-added models” (RAMs)?

The Sigh

Like all fine satire, Di Carlo’s piece carries serious heft.  

Many VAM systems determine teaching quality on the basis of a one-time estimate of a gain score based on students’ performance on a single multiple-choice, standardized test. And researchers have pointed out that even the most sophisticated value-added calculations produce substantial errors: as many as one in four teachers is misidentified as effective or ineffective.

In a recent study of VAM, Heather Hill, Laura Kapitula, and Kristin Umland warned: “Although we do recommend the use of value-added scores in combination with discriminating observation systems, evidence presented here suggests that value-added scores alone are not sufficient to identify teachers for reward, remediation, or removal.”

Sobering—especially when VAM systems are being used to make or break teachers’ reputations.

I’m cheered by the fact that the Measures of Effective Teaching project, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is assembling an array of measures that reflect the complexity of teaching. And Bill Gates, of late, has written his own eloquent plea for journalists to cease their “shameful” approach of using VAM rankings to identify which teachers are effective or not, irrespective of the rating’s accuracy.

Meanwhile, it’s important to note that teachers aren’t opposed to being held accountable. In fact, many teacher leaders we work with are eager for their profession to be more results-oriented.

Teachers are even open to VAM as an element of a comprehensive teacher development and evaluation system. What disturbs them is the idea of VAM as a predominant, automatic marker of their effectiveness—especially if today’s inadequate assessments are its basis.

The Revolutionary Suggestion

Our nation’s schools could cling to the limitations of VAMs, passing swift judgments based on questionable data. Or—prepare yourself for the revolutionary—we could invest in teacher leadership to develop a comprehensive teacher development and evaluation system. (A recent paper, commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, makes this argument.)

We could draw on the expertise of accomplished teachers to craft better student assessments, additional evaluation measures (like peer observation), and systems that support the professional growth of all teachers (whether in their first year or their twentieth).  

Teachers are well-suited to inform teacher development and evaluation. They understand the nuances of the work they do each day—and can help create equally nuanced systems for gauging and supporting teaching effectiveness. They grasp the complexity of their profession.

Do we get a Day-After-April-Fools’-Day wish? If so, here’s mine: that more journalists grasp the complexity of teaching (and the potential of teacher leadership, too).

By Megan Allen

Megan Allen is a National Board Certified Teacher, 2010 Department of Education/Macy’s Teacher of the Year, and finalist for 2010 National Teacher of the Year. She is a member of the Hillsborough County New Millennium Initiative.

Last week, the best-of-the-best countries from around the world gathered in the Big Apple to discuss education at the Second International Summit on the Teaching Profession. One of the most intriguing topics of discussion there was teacher leadership.

In a thoughtful Education Week essay published in January, Marc Tucker pointed out that top-performing nations do “everything necessary” to recruit, prepare, and develop their teachers, while here in the U.S. we put all our policy emphasis on “accountability systems.” Top-performing nations take teacher leaders seriously—as leaders of assessment reform, partners in research, and teacher education faculty who prepare the next generation of recruits.

I attended the summit virtually, following along with streaming videos and Twitter. One of my favorite tweets came from the USDOE and speaks to the power of teacher leaders:

So let’s dive right in: What are some of those pathways and roles for teacher leadership?

More Than Administrators

Teacher leadership encompasses far more than moving into administration. There is nothing wrong with that, but it’s too narrow a definition. There is an enormous spectrum of teacher leadership, some roles defined, some forming, and some yet unknown. But we must have open minds to these new ideas and be solutions-focused in developing ways to make them happen. We must change the culture and climate of teaching as the definition of what a teacher is evolves.

Many teacher leaders—myself included—want to be involved outside the classroom walls in areas that affect students. But at the same time, we want to keep one foot in the door with the people we love most: students. This calls for out-of-the-box thinking and the development of new hybrid roles. In the book TEACHING 2030, a group of amazing educators dreamed about what these roles could look like. And it’s slowly happening.

Teacher Leaders in Action

I am going to take a moment to brag about some of my favorite teacher leaders who are blazing the path as we speak:

• Sarah B. Wessling is a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) who works with the Teaching Channel to record her classroom daily in Iowa, allowing a deep look at highly effective teaching.
• Jessica Keigan spends half her day poring over literature with her high school students in Colorado, and the other half as a CTQ teacherpreneur, advocating for positive change in education policy.
• Two of my colleagues currently sit on school boards: Michael Flynn, an amazing Massachusetts elementary school teacher, sits on his local school board, speaking for children in his district. And Holly Boffy, an NBCT from Louisiana, sits on her state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

International Role Models

We can also look to the lessons learned from other countries. They see teacher leadership roles as ways to effectively recruit candidates and build respect in the profession. In the Netherlands, the prime minister still teachers a half day a week.  Denmark offers a “taster course” for aspiring leaders to see the range of available leadership pathways. Singapore prides itself in never leaving its teaching talent to chance, continually assessing its teachers for leadership potential and providing opportunities for teachers to develop and use it.

So here is my charge: We must reshape the way we think about teacher leadership. Teachers must be at the helm of effective reform if we are to get it right. Teachers are the experts. We must realize that new roles may not fit neatly into the little cubbies that we’ve had for decades, but we must be flexible with finding ways to make them work. And we must recruit and cultivate leadership, finding that hidden talent that may be hiding behind each and every classroom door. It’s time to start knocking...

Eighty years ago, American scholar Willard Walter Waller (1899–1945) published his landmark book, The Sociology of Teaching (1932). The book describes a number of underlying conditions affecting teachers and their profession, including the despotic school organizations in which they work.

Waller claimed that "the reformation of the schools must begin with the teachers”—a proclamation still not heeded today by most policymakers and self-proclaimed reformers. As a nation we have not learned much from the erudite insights of sociologists like Waller. 

My teaching colleague Renee Moore describes how the “frazzled teachers” working in underperforming schools are beset by duplicative as well as conflicting reform programs layered on top of one another. Renee writes of today’s “big grant” reform agenda always coming with “its own curriculum materials, pacing guides, seemingly endless reporting requirements, and a troop of expert consultants.” 

Is it not time, as Renee suggests, to elevate teachers, working with parents and students, to lead the transformation (not just the reform) of the education system? Doing so will require a whole new way of organizing schools and developing and supporting teacher leaders (and teacherpreneurs), some of whom will teach students regularly while also having time, space, and reward to analyze evidence, figure out which poorly designed programs to abandon, and create their own TeacherSolutions.

Once again, MetLife’s Survey of the American Teacher offers deep insights into the status of America’s teaching profession.

Teachers report significant reductions in school budgets, programs, and services. Meanwhile, students and their families report an increase in needs.

And, strikingly, teacher satisfaction is lower than it has been in more than two decades, with a precipitous drop of 15 points since 2009.

The survey reveals factors connected to high job satisfaction: adequate opportunities for professional development, time to collaborate with colleagues, and more preparation to engage parents effectively.

Of course, other research has shown that these same factors benefit students.

Policymakers should take this data seriously—and take action. Why not redesign schools so teachers have the time, opportunities, and supports they need to help students succeed? TEACHING 2030, supported by MetLife Foundation, outlines bold yet practical ways to transform schools to better serve students.   

Each year, the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher promotes a nuanced understanding of challenges faced by teachers and those they serve. I hope policymakers will take note—and help to create the public school system that all students deserve. 

Want to continue the conversation? Twitter's a good place to start: Follow the hashtag #TeacherSurvey to read what teachers, policymakers, and the media are saying about the survey.

At last year’s International Summit on the Teaching Profession, I watched and listened to a serious dialogue among the ministers of education and union chiefs from many of the world’s top-performing nations. I was enthralled with the nuances of the convening, who sat where, who talked, and who delivered what messages. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was there. So was Henna Virkkunen, his Finnish counterpart.

The differences in how these two nations approach child development and student assessment as well as the teaching profession are legion. Let’s begin with student results. On the 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), Finland’s students consistently outperformed ours in reading, math, and science. In reading, Finnish students were ranked third; we were fourteenth. In math, they were third; we were thirty-first. And in science, they were first; we were thirty-seventh.

Here are a few more stark clashes in teaching and learning policies, which Pasi Sahlberg has helped bring attention to lately through his book Finnish Lessons:

Policy Clash #1: Finnish Teachers Are Very Well Prepared. The Finns not only recruit top students into teaching, but they also insist that every teacher have a master’s degree in education, fully paid for by the government, before they enter the profession. There is no such thing as Teach for Finland.

Policy Clash #2: Finnish Teachers Teach Less and Learn More from One Another. In 2007, Finland's teachers taught just under 600 hours, while their American counterparts taught more than 1,000 hours. Finnish teachers spend approximately 10 to 20 hours a week on joint professional development focused on understanding why students are learning or not.

Policy Clash #3: Finnish Teachers Are Responsible; They Are Not Held Accountable. Unlike in the United States, where teachers are held accountable to externally developed, high-stakes tests, well-prepared Finnish teachers use their own assessments to gauge their students' progress. The Finnish public trusts its teachers to assemble evidence and report to them on who is learning or not, and why.

Why are these Finnish lessons so difficult for America’s top-level policymakers to learn? I have some ideas, most of which have more to do with politics and less with substance. No surprise. But perhaps our policymakers have not been taught by some of our nation’s best teachers how to apply these powerful lessons in the American context.

This year, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has invited CTQ to work with 16 state teachers of the year, who will attend the summit (March 14-15 in NYC) and weigh in later with their own TeacherSolutions. I hope you join me in looking forward to hearing how our teachers learn from the Finnish lessons and their own pedagogical experiences to help us reshape our teaching policies.

By Anna Martin & Barnett Berry

Education reform typically follows an unfortunate pattern. Politicians and pundits drive the agendas, while students and teachers live out the consequences.

To better address our schools’ needs, reform efforts must be led by those who work with students every day. At an event in Sacramento last month, teachers like Anna Martin offered practical recommendations for improving teaching quality in California.

Anna entered the profession eight years ago as a Teach For America recruit—and she’s still teaching at the same high-needs school. She’s a member of the  New Millennium Initiative (NMI), a national network of forward-thinking teachers supported by the Center for Teaching Quality.

At the event in Sacramento, Anna and her NMI colleagues shared findings from their new report, “Many Ways Up, No Reason to Move Out.”

What follows is a chat between Anna and Barnett Berry.

Barnett:  Anna, you’ve seen many early-career teachers leave the profession. In high-needs schools, 50 percent depart within three years. Why?

Anna: Our NMI team cares deeply about such statistics—we’ve all seen it happen. Some teachers are overwhelmed: they haven’t been prepared or supported adequately for the challenges they face. Others are frustrated by the one-track nature of the profession.

Barnett: What do you mean by “one-track”? 

Anna: In most cases, the only options are to remain a classroom teacher—or leave the classroom for an administrative role. Many teachers, like myself, want to be challenged, show leadership, and have an impact beyond one classroom. But we are also passionate about teaching. We don’t want to leave the classroom entirely.

Barnett: It sounds like you’d advocate for more teacherpreneurs who split their time between teaching students and leading efforts to improve schools.

Anna: Absolutely. Our NMI team’s new report proposes radical changes in how we prepare, promote, and retain teachers. That includes developing more hybrid positions that make the most of teachers’ expertise. We hope talented teachers will stay in the profession longer and become the leaders of our education system.

Barnett:  You mentioned that some early-career teachers leave because they weren’t adequately prepared. What needs to change?

Anna: We ask too much of our newest teachers and too little of our veterans. Our team proposes a three-year apprenticeship model. Novice teachers would be paired with master mentor teachers. Over time, the novice teachers would take on more responsibility—similar to the medical residency model. 

Such a system would help prevent early career burnout. Novice teachers would gain practical experience and develop critical teaching skills before taking charge of their own classroom. And veteran teachers would have opportunities for leadership and influence. Most important, students would benefit from these changes. 

Barnett: In other top-performing nations, most administrators teach something, sharing leadership. And in Singapore, some accomplished teachers’ salaries are higher than their principals’.   

Anna: Right now in California, teachers earn more primarily by staying on the job longer. We’re proposing a model that ties salary increases to increases in demonstrated skill, responsibilities, and impact. This new career ladder will allow teachers to specialize and follow different leadership, mentoring, and specialization tracks. So they’ll continue to teach—but also can take on different kinds of roles that help schools better serve students. 

Barnett: Blurring the distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead them!

Anna: Yes. And improving what we can provide to students. Better using our schools’ human capital would help us to attract and retain the talented professionals our students need and deserve.

Barnett: I think Californians are ready for these transformative changes. In a recent statewide poll, most Californians (77 percent) rated teachers favorably. And 64 percent said they were willing to pay more in taxes to increase school funding.

Anna: Yes, Californians realize today’s students will be the workers and leaders of our state tomorrow. They also know that teachers—not politicians, administrators, or reformers—are the people most likely to help their children succeed. They should expect and demand that California attract, prepare, support, and retain talented teachers.

Barnett: So, as a teacher, you’re saying it’s time for big, bold changes?

Anna: Absolutely. We can’t be satisfied with isolated reforms. It’s time to transform California’s schools by transforming the teaching profession.   

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. 

This post originally appeared on the Silicon Valley Education Foundation's blog, Thoughts on Public Education.

Recently, I visited innovative charter schools in the Bay Area. At one school, physical spaces and teachers’ schedules are designed to encourage collaboration. Another school involves community organizations and parents in student learning during and after the school day. One is well stocked with technology. At another, teachers take on leadership roles.

And yet, everywhere I looked I noticed elements that didn’t quite connect. I saw missed opportunities to boost student learning. One of the schools gestured toward important ideas, but because of the lack of experienced teacher leaders, missed the mark when it came to implementing them. The other one greatly valued teacher leaders, but still had a long way to go in spreading teaching expertise from one classroom to another.

This points to a truth that is tough for reformers to swallow: America’s schools will be transformed only when we tackle the complexities of teaching and learning. We can’t rely on isolated policies or initiatives to sustain a highly functioning school. Few, if any, innovations can be implemented successfully over time unless other interlocking set of elements are in place—connected by  collaboration (not competition) among universities, school districts, charter networks, and nonprofits.

What I saw

So where do we start? Here are two situations I observed during my investigation:

• School A is known for “blended learning.” Yet there was little pedagogical coherence between how teachers taught in a regular classroom and how students were expected to learn in a high-tech lab staffed by low-cost tutors. School A teachers, who tended to have only a few years of experience and little clinical preparation, had limited interaction with the lab tutors. It was unclear whether many teachers were familiar with the technological tools so central to their school’s identity.

• School B is known for hiring new recruits who have extensive clinical preparation. Teachers know how to differentiate instruction and work with second language learners. But School B’s teachers did not always know how to effectively analyze student learning data and needed more training in how to use the collaborative planning time wisely provided to them (approximately two hours a day).

What would help connect the dots in these schools – and all schools? Teacher preparation programs could lead the way by readying pre-service teachers for a transformed public school system.

Accountability for teacher preparation programs

Recently, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan noted that too many education schools are “not up to the job.” He highlighted recruitment and accountability as key areas for improvement, and noted that few of today’s programs offer “rigorous, clinical experience that prepares future teachers for the realities of today’s diverse classrooms.”

And then there are the emergent realities of tomorrow’s classrooms—which few teacher preparation programs are adequately addressing. For example, tomorrow’s teachers will likely need to teach students who are “digital natives,” spread their expertise to colleagues through collaboration and leadership, connect families with community resources, and develop and use sophisticated assessments to measure student progress.

The federal government should hold teacher preparation programs accountable – but should look at more than the twentieth-century standardized tests currently in place. For example, what if teacher preparation programs (whether university-based or “alternative”) were judged on how long their graduates remained in the classroom, working effectively as leaders in schools and communities? What if programs were assessed on how well their graduates used student data to improve instruction? What if the accountability system considered graduates’ abilities to provide effective blended learning opportunities?

My organization, the Center for Teaching Quality, works with thousands of teachers nationwide to improve the teaching profession and our nation’s schools. Later this month, talented teachers who are part of our Bay Area New Millennium Initiative team will release a report with specific recommendations about how to ensure new teachers are ready for their roles. Watch for it!

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.  

By Jessica Keigan 

Jessica Keigan is a teacherpreneur who spends part of her week teaching English at Horizon High School in Denver and part of her time working to improve public schools through her work with the Denver New Millennium Initiative. This post was orginially published on the Impatient Optimists blog.

Last year, Colorado passed a landmark piece of legislation (SB 10-191, the EQUITEE Act) that created a new system of evaluation for students, teachers, and schools in the state. This new law promises to shake up the status quo, inspiring innovation in how we teach students and how we prepare and support teachers.

This month, the Colorado State Board of Education adopted regulations to implement the legislation—with some key revisions.

The revisions reflect the informed voices of classroom teachers and represent a unique breakthrough in my career. I have had many successes in my nine years of teaching, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen my efforts have such a long-reaching and concrete impact on the policies that shape my job.

I hope that it will prove to be a strong foundation for continued work of this kind, both personally and for my state.

The basic premise of the law is that all teachers will be evaluated yearly on a variety of measures to determine whether their non-probationary status will be maintained.

As a member of the New Millennium Initiative, a team of teachers working to transform our schools and the teaching profession, I have spent the past year working with a team of Denver-area teachers to research the implications of the EQUITEE Act on classroom practice.

In May, our team of teachers released a formal brief ("Making Teacher Evaluation Work for Students: Voices From the Classroom") sharing our ideas about how this law should be implemented.

I consider myself to be a teacher leader and, unfortunately, have sat on numerous committees that seemed to have little influence. But my work with the Denver New Millennium Initiative this summer and fall was an incredibly empowering experience.

During my public testimony, I spoke about how my unique expertise as a teacher helps me to determine how and when my students are growing. I recommend that the voices of classroom teachers should be heard and honored when creating standards that evaluate teacher effectivenes. 

No one is more qualified to comment on a student’s achievement than the person who works with that student every day.

Standardized tests have their purpose as norm setters, but a teacher who knows her students’ unique back stories and learning styles can provide a wealth of information about each student. This information should be included among the data used to measure the success of both teachers and students.

Specifically, we advocated for three important things:

• A clearer definition of the multiple measures that comprise 50 percent of teachers’ evaluation
• A strong representation of teachers in the process of implementation
• An ongoing evaluation process rather than an “event” that happens once or twice a year

The State Board of Education adopted the implementation rules this month. Upon reviewing the final draft of the evaluation standards, I was overwhelmed by how much of the language reflected the recommendations that my team made, in some cases almost verbatim.

I am genuinely excited about the potential for positive change that SB 191 brings to Colorado. In an often sluggish system that balks at overhaul and reform, this is a true game changer.

I am also grateful that policymakers were open to hearing my voice as a teacher. They honored and incorporated the experience and expertise that our Denver New Millennium Initiative teachers brought to the conversation.

I now have new hope that my profession can change—that I (and my colleagues) can be valued professionals.

The education world is abuzz about teacher evaluation reform. Over the last three years, 32 states and the District of Columbia have enacted policies that have changed how those who teach are assessed.

It seems like every day another inside-the-Beltway think tank offers its advice on which state is doing the most to make sure teachers are held accountable for their classroom practice. Most of these reports, like the recent one offered up by NCTQ (that is not us), provide a cursory overview through a very narrow lens. They provide little insight into the significant technical problems, like those experienced in Tennessee’s rushed “Race to the Top” implementation of its teacher evaluation system. Tennessee is struggling to accurately use value-added ratings and assess teachers on student growth measures in non-tested subjects. At the same time, it’s foisting unnecessary paperwork on classroom practitioners.

Commonly heard in NCTQ-esque circles is that "teacher-effectiveness measures don't have to be perfect to be useful.” I would agree in principle with this well-known reform adage—don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. However, as we’ve learned from teachers in Tennessee, a hastily implemented system can affect teachers’ perceptions of their careers. A job they used to “love” can easily become one they “hate.”

For an alternative view of how to make teacher evaluation work for students and the profession that serves them, policymakers might just want to listen to teachers—the people who must implement these new teaching accountability systems.

In our latest edition of Teaching Ahead: A Roundtable, you have the chance to consider how Teacher Leaders Network (TLN) members—a number of whom are now engaged in teacher evaluation reforms through our New Millennium Initiative—view evaluation reforms, and how to make them work: 

• Jessica Hahn suggests that her evaluators ask themselves how they can “develop her as a better teacher."
• Jessica Keigan is ready for evaluations that draw on the expertise of students (and teachers themselves). 
• Ryan Kinser imagines how his evaluation experience will look in 2021. 
• Patrick Ledesma points out that if standardized tests are to be part of evaluation, they must be better. 
• Renee Moore argues eloquently that as teaching morphs into a true profession, we need transformed, not just reformed, evaluation systems. 
• Michael Moran makes the case for how teaching context must be a factor in teacher evaluation. 
• Ryan Niman meets the education genie. One of his wishes for teacher evaluation is to communicate the complexity of his work (and his colleagues’ work) to policymakers, practitioners, and the public. 

For those who could use a scholarly lesson on policy implementation in education, you might want to return to the 1970s RAND change agent studies. Transforming teacher evaluation, like most complex teaching policies, will require what Milbrey McLaughlin called “mutual adaptation” from those who enact and those who implement.

Is it not time to pay more careful attention to the implementers? Is it not time to consider policies that not just remove constraints to more results-oriented teacher evaluation, but policies that enable teachers to teach more effectively and serve students as they intended to when they entered teaching?

By Paul Goodland

Paul Goodland is a peer evaluator in the Empowering Effective Teachers (EET) program in Hillsborough County, Florida, and a member of the Hillsborough County New Millennium Initiative. The following post was originally published on the Impatient Optimists blog.

I evaluate teachers for a living. When I visit a classroom, I watch a lesson, discuss what I observed, share recommendations, and get additional feedback from the teacher. This visit—along with a principal’s evaluation—determines about 60 percent of the teacher’s “annual effectiveness rating.”

The remaining 40 percent is determined by a complex calculation of students’ progress on an annual test, as compared to the performance of students with similar characteristics.

This is a far better system than has ever been used before. But it is just a baby-step in gauging teacher effectiveness.

Baseball is a great analogy for teaching. Baseball works, in part, because the aim of the game is simple: to score more runs. Anything that improves the team's chances of scoring more runs is valuable. Anything that decreases it should be reduced or eliminated.

In baseball, managers make decisions based on a huge amount of statistical analysis (now called sabermetrics), thanks to technological tools and ready access to data. In the past twenty years, in fact, baseball has been transformed: the impressions and conventional wisdom of tobacco-chewing, road-warrior baseball scouts has been replaced by the results-oriented, proven effectiveness of sabermetrics.

Sabermetrics only exists because baseball statistics are "open source." We all have access to them. For many years we didn't. In the 19th century, baseball aficionado Henry Chadwick made value judgments about which statistics mattered. He created a scorecard highlighting those few measures—and his system was used for about a hundred years. Then people started challenging his assumptions, like the idea that "walks" aren't important, and baseball statistics took a huge leap forward.

Do we have all the statistics of teaching? Is the profession transparent? Do we have access to the data? The answer to all of these questions is “no.”

How badly would baseball talent be misjudged if only five of the 180 games that a team plays between March and October were considered? What if the players knew that two of those games were formal evaluation days? Would they play differently?

It isn't enough to just read the box score, watch three to five games, and pick the all-star team. You need to consider the whole game, and the whole season.

So how do we collect more and better statistics?

Clearly, we must bring what happens in the classroom into the light of day. We must develop meaningful statistical processes that correlate to teacher effectiveness—and give us a comprehensive view of it.

At the same time, it is important to balance this with the imperative to treat teachers as professionals.

Teachers deserve autonomy and the ability to do their jobs unimpeded. When it comes to classroom visits, for example, there should be clear rules to ensure they occur in a limited and non-disruptive way.

In baseball, isolated measurements can be wrong. Umpires miss the call sometimes. Similarly, many teachers are concerned that a measurement or subjective assessment of their effectiveness will be inaccurate. There is good reason to question the way things are done and to improve the metrics.

Still, accurate pictures of teaching quality can be developed over time. A bad call eventually gets balanced by an equally unfair good call. A batting average (or more importantly, an on-base percentage) emerges.

For the sake of the many teachers who teach effectively every day, and for the sake of the kids in classrooms where teachers do their jobs effectively only a handful of days each year, I hope we get the rest of the statistics soon.

By Alaina Adams

Alaina Adams is a National Board Certified teacher in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to teaching high school English, she serves as a cognitive coach and professional development coordinator at the Phoenix Union High School District and the Arizona K12 Center. You can read her blog at Stories from School AZ.

In my endeavors to elevate the teaching profession, I am fortunate enough to be part of the work that the Arizona K12 Center crafts around vision, leadership, learning, and technology in education. Recently, I was chosen as one of 20 teachers across the state to work as part of a TeacherSolutions team designed to improve teaching and learning in Arizona. This work will be based on the framework outlined in TEACHING 2030. On November 16th and 17th, I spent some time with Barnett Berry and CTQ staff to dream, play, and plan.

As my group explored teacherpreneurism and a future of innovation, phrases like "a league of extraordinary educators" and "teacher whisperers" playfully came up in conversations. At the end of my last day with the team, I found myself returning to an Outlook mailbox full of the current realities of teaching that I "have to" deal with. I'm frustrated that I don't have more cognitive coaches available to help advance my practice. I'm also frustrated that TV shows and movies (like Jersey Shore and The Horse Whisperer) will earn more money in one shot than I'll ever make in my entire career as an educator. To clarify my thoughts, I ended my day by posting this comparison between "horse whisperers" and "teacher whisperers."

***

Horse Whisperer: Horses that have suffered abuse from people or been traumatized through an accident may develop changed behavior that their owners find difficult to deal with, or may even result in the horse being labeled dangerous.

Teacher Whisperer: Teachers that have been traumatized by things like excessive testing, narrow teacher evaluation, misuse of national curriculum, data-driven instruction, stifling teacher accountability, elimination of tenure, competition for funding, punitive school labels, "education reform," and misguided philanthropists may develop changed behavior that some may find difficult to deal with, or may even result in the teacher being labeled dangerous.

***

Horse Whisperers spend years studying the horse and its behavior in natural surroundings. They learn to read the silent but incredibly powerful communication we call body language.

Teacher whisperers, given appropriate release time, can study the behavior of teachers in their classrooms. There, they can study body language like the elevation of voice, eye-rolling, head flopping on the desk, and sporadic tears to understand a teacher’s entire language of communication to best gauge their needs.

***

Horse Whisperer: Young horses that had received little handling but were destined to be riding horses, for example, were once trained to work using quiet, brutal methods of coercion. This system was called ‘breaking.’ ‘Making’ a horse is preferable to breaking one.

Teacher Whisperer: Probationary teachers that received little mentoring but were destined to be classroom teachers, for example, might have been ones hustled through subpar certification programs. This system is called ‘fast tracking.’ ‘Making’ a quality teacher is preferable to rushing one.

***

In some public demonstrations, a horse whisperer will stand in an enclosure, which a young untrained horse is released into. The horse’s natural instinct is to fight or flight. The whisperer becomes the herd, the safe place to be, by his use of body language. First, he sends the horse away; he has not yet invited it to join his herd! He drives the horse forward and keeps him away.

In some school districts, only one teacher whisperer stands per campus, of unreasonable sizes, in which un-mentored teachers are released into. The teacher’s natural instinct is to sink or swim. Though the teacher whisperer becomes the safe place to be, he or she is often busy corralling other un-mentored teachers, and the un-mentored teacher-in-immediate-need is often driven away.

***

Horse Whisperer: During this training period, the horse's body language is clearly visible to people watching. The horse whisperer approaches as if he or she has all day to stand there. The result is a clear understanding that can be successfully built on. No shouting, no fear, no pain. A calm and positive mutual understanding provides a sound basis for true partnership between man and horse.

Teacher Whisperer: Given ample exposure to teacher whispering methods, teachers can change their body language and perform better on evaluations. This process can take several weeks or years. It is always approached as if the teacher whisperer has all the time in the world to stand there. No shouting, no fear, no pain. A calm and positive mutual understanding provides a sound basis for true partnership between teacher and whisperer.

Summary:

The horse whisperer does not perform tricks. He, or she, uses the oldest language in the world in order to read the horse and communicate with the horse, combined with equine psychology, to achieve partnership.

The teacher whisperer does not perform tricks. He, or she, uses the oldest language in the world in order to read the teacher and communicate with the teacher, combined with human psychology and compassion, to achieve partnership.

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?

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

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!

By John Holland

John Holland, a preschool teacher and co-author of TEACHING 2030, represented CTQ at the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow Conference last month. Below is his take on the experience.

I walked into the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow conference with some trepidation. The conference had been organized to energize stakeholders about integrating technology in our schools. I knew that many of the attendees would be from the private sector, including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and online learning providers. I was surprised to find approximately 75 educators in the crowd of more than 300. Some, like Brian Crosby, were educational technology specialists. Brian is an elementary teacher in Reno who stepped onto the larger educational stage after Skype learned he’d used their services to teach a homebound student with leukemia. 

Brian secured his invite to the conference by emailing the New York Times to explain how wack it was the panels included no teachers. I got my invite easily enough, by filling out an online form.

But I was skeptical. I attended the conference so I could live by the advice I give my daughter about soccer. She often plays defense and has gotten quite good at the skill I call “being there.” To “be there” is to see the total field, the offensive positions, and your place in anticipating an attack. You can then get to where you need to be to stop the ball and turn the tide of the drive on the goal.

I went to the Schools for Tomorrow conference to “be there” as a teacher leader and passionate advocate for a hopeful vision for education. I wanted to meet the players, especially those who might consider technology a replacement for teachers.

The Spark

David Brooks, one of the most popular opinion columnists in America, opened with a surprising remark: “I want to start by expressing a note of skepticism about technology in education.” He continued:

My skepticism about the role of technology in the classroom is based on three arguments. The first is that people learn from people they love, they don’t learn from computers they love, and anything that gets in the way between the relationship between the teacher and the student is something I’m likely to be skeptical of. The second thing is that electronic communication is far inferior to personal communication…. And finally information processing. The tendency of technology is to make information processing easy. But the way you learn and remember is through processing information that is hard and challenging. You want to introduce trouble, not introduce ease.

Wow, I thought, David Brooks sounds like a teacher. Even though I consider myself a passionate advocate for the use of technology in schools, I still struggle with those same points. But if we can balance our enthusiasm about technology with our recognition of Brooks’s points, we can be the adaptive professionals that students deserve. 

From Defense to Offense

The first panel included a group of international experts on technology in schools. None of them were teachers. I decided to move from defense to offense—by asking a question: “What concrete action steps, from your various perspectives, can be taken to help teachers use technology to teach?” 

Here’s how Harri Skog, the permanent secretary of Finland's Ministry of Education, responded:

I think it helps a lot if a teacher has an autonomous way of having his own discretion at the level of the classroom....I think it is very important for teachers to be able to plan how they want to teach, but that needs to have this kind of trust situation. If I would be asked one thing to have, it would be more autonomy in schools.

I was sitting next to Diana Laufenberg, a powerful and visionary teacher from the Philadelphia Science Leadership Academy—we both started clapping.

Meeting the Players

Between attending panels and informally networking, I met many passionate advocates for 21st-century learning.

• Larry Berger, founder and president of Wireless Generation, spoke on a panel about technical tools for the classroom. He highlighted how technology could strengthen teachers’ formative assessment efforts.
• Jacqueline Botterill, director of social public good for Skype, shared news of Skype in the classroom, connecting teachers and learners across the globe.
• Scott Kinney, senior vice president at Discovery Education, described how the Discovery Educator Network enables public school teachers to leverage streaming media for student learning and professional development.
• Joel Arquillos is executive director of 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center that provides free writing programs for Los Angeles students, including after-school and in-school tutoring, field trips, workshops, and publishing resources.
• Erik Michielsen founded Capture Your Flag, a project that is conducting qualitative interviews with aspirational leaders, tracking them over time. Erik will apply tagging and coding techniques to these annual interviews, identifying themes that can drive an innovative approach to curriculum development for college and career readiness. 

What “Being There” Meant to Me

This conference confirmed one of my deepest held beliefs about teaching: there is a spark between human beings that is essential to the learning process. This fundamental spark in the engine of learning can never be replaced by technology. In fact, the best uses of technology in education will continue to involve person-to-person communication.

The human spark is also what will make a difference in important decisions about educational policy and practice. When teachers can “be there,” they can provide a much-needed window into how policies affect the learning of individual students. When teachers can “be there,” they can ask the questions that need to be answered. We will truly know this spark is alive when teachers (along with students and parents) are not just relegated to “being there,” but are sought-after panelists in important discussions about teaching and learning.

Thank you, David Brooks, for calling on my raised hand. Let's hope that next time, my colleagues and I will be answering questions, not just asking them.

Just recently, the U.S. Department of Education released its plan for teacher-education reform, pointing out that too many university-based programs “do not provide teachers with a rigorous, clinical experience that prepares them for the schools in which they will work.”

In an ironic twist, however, the Department’s Race to the Top guidelines have promoted the proliferation of alternative certification programs that shortcut pre-service training for new recruits. These programs give recruits limited or non-existent opportunities for “rigorous, clinical” preparation prior to teaching independently. Not only must university-based teacher education be improved, but we also need to think about what supports teachers are given while they're teaching. There is no reason to believe that school districts are sufficiently suited to prepare teachers for the schools of today — or tomorrow, for that matter.

A recent study has shown that few teachers receive the “intensive, sustained, and content-focused professional development” that matters for student achievement. For example, as reported in the same study, over the course of a year only 9 percent of elementary math teachers had more than 24 hours of content-specific professional development in math. Many school-district officials just don’t value the kind of high-quality professional development that teachers (and their students) deserve. Instead, as seen in this stark display below (from a local news report on how school districts view teacher learning), archaic district-driven professional development prevails.

From the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, Oct. 17, 2011

I wonder why USDOE officials, in pushing for much-needed changes in teacher education, don’t push school districts to transform their systems of professional development. The plan does indeed call for all teachers — including veteran teachers and recent graduates of preparation programs — to “receive professional development and career advancement opportunities that are aligned with their identified strengths and needs.”

However, USDOE does not call for scrutiny of school districts’ professional development programs. Maybe districts should be held accountable for the quality of support they provide to recently minted teacher-education graduates. Maybe if the USDOE called for such scrutiny, our nation would get a bit closer to creating the kind of comprehensive teacher-development system needed for the schools of today and tomorrow. 

By Mermuda Wilson

Mermuda Wilson, a policy assistant at CTQ, has been using her video-editing expertise to share teacher voices in an online video series. In this guest post, she describes her experience working with these teacher-submitted videos.

Relationships. AP scores. Graduation stoles. “Fast food” learners. Empowerment. Community partnerships. 

These are a few of the topics broached by teacher leaders highlighted in our CTQTube series. The series, which runs until mid-November, features Teacher Wall submissions from teachers in CTQ's Teacher Leaders Network (TLN).

The Teacher Wall Project is a virtual teacher town square where educators can share video clips and comments. It was built by Scholastic, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and DonorsChoose.org as a way to elevate teacher leaders' perspectives on their profession. The CTQTube series is a microcosm of the Teacher Wall, which has received hundreds of video responses.

The breadth of responses has been amazing. One aspect of the CTQTube submissions that has really stood out to me is that not a single teacher has listed a formal award as their “greatest succcess as a teacher” (a question the teachers were asked to respond to in their videos). These are Teachers of the Year, National Board Certified Teachers, Presidential Award recipients, and National Education Association Teachers of Excellence finalists.

Shannon C'de Baca talks about the value of student-teacher relationships.

Instead, they all chose student-centered measures as their shining moments. This reinforces what teacher Shannon C’de Baca says in her video: the relationships teachers have with students are more important than any specific program.

Building relationships is a common theme that arises in some form or another for all the teachers featured in our CTQTube series. A very clear example is Karen Van Duyn’s submission. In a creative twist on the assignment, Karen’s students put together their perspectives on why she teaches. It’s a fun video that sheds some light on her philosophy of student empowerment. The students seem to have really enjoyed the production process and looked critically at how their perspectives on their teachers shape how they learn. 

Putting this series together has reminded me that while every classroom and every educator is different, the top educators do share one commonality: the genuine desire to foster relationships that allow students to tap into their unknown potential.

Karen Van Duyn and her students share reasons why she teaches.

Our nation has so many of these accomplished classroom practitioners who have so much untapped potential to lead school improvement efforts. Now is the time to make these expert teachers more visible to policymakers and the public. They can and must lead the way. There are only 18 years, 2 months, and 12 days until 2030. We have a lot more work to do to "blur the lines of distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead them." 

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.” 

How do you create space for innovation when a system is already in motion? In education especially, it often feels like we're trying to build the plane as we’re flying.

What would our schools look like if we solicited the expertise of teachers and recognized classroom problems as opportunities for innovation? How might learning outcomes be transformed if teachers were equipped to investigate and design solutions?

Given that most teachers aren’t afforded such opportunities, the education-reform world has been captivated in recent years by other another model of innovation: the incredible efforts of education entrepreneurs. Their accomplishments engage and inspire the public with seemingly endless possibilities for our schools. New Tech Network, Harlem Children's Zone, School of One, and Khan Academy have rocked the foundations of the education establishment by transforming the identities of school and classroom.

Though these schools have been successful, their ideas have proven difficult to scale and sustain in a way that benefits all communities. Fortunately, there is an untapped reservoir of expertise that can generate even more profound change in our nation's schools. 

Enter the teacherpreneur.

As defined by the authors of TEACHING 2030, a teacherpreneur is a teacher leader of proven accomplishment possessing a deep knowledge of how to teach, a clear understanding of what strategies must be in play to keep schools highly successful, and the skills and commitment necessary to spread their expertise to others — all while keeping at least one foot firmly in the classroom. 

Entrepreneurs may have brilliant ideas that often require venture capital and years of planning, but teacherpreneurs’ innovation is grounded in their daily experience in schools and classrooms. While education entrepreneurs experiment with novel theories for student learning, teacherpreneurs serve as action researchers by hypothesizing, implementing, troubleshooting, and learning from their daily interactions in the classroom. 

Prioritizing their responsibilities to students, teacherpreneurs are making a name for themselves by creatively packaging and delivering instruction. Some are 'flipping' their classrooms by allowing students to watch lessons online and using class time to complete work traditionally reserved for home. Others are using social media tools to develop a more modern take on classroom discussion, effective writing, and community action. 

The prevailing form of teacherpreneurship occurring regularly in schools across the nation is teacher leadership. Running everything from their departments and grade levels to professional learning communities, teachers are cropping up as managers, directors, mentors, and guides. Outside their buildings, teacher leaders are transforming unions, community organizations, after-school programs, and online professional-development communities.

CTQ works directly with three teacherpreneurs: Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello in Denver, and Noah Zeichner in Seattle. In addition to their primary roles as teachers, all three are involved with education policy work for the New Millennium Initiative. Jessica and Dana also work alongside the Colorado Legacy Foundation, and Noah collaborates with Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Education Association to increase teacher leadership opportunities. These teacherpreneurs will ideally serve as models for other organizations and districts that want to support similar hybrid positions.

Both teacherpreneurs and entrepreneurs play valuable roles in advancing the development of a 21^st-century school system. While entrepreneurs inspire a vision of what schools can become, teacherpreneurs demonstrate the caliber of individuals we need in schools to realize that vision. Teacherpreneurs elevate the entire profession by ensuring that colleagues, policymakers, and the public know what works best for students.  

To participate in a discussion about teacher career paths and hybrid teaching positions, join our Twitter chat on Thursday, October 20, from 8:30-9:30 p.m. ET, hashtag #teaching2030.

By Bill Farmer

The Illinois New Millennium Initiative has been doing some terrific work in response to the state’s recent efforts to reform its teacher evaluation systems. I’ve asked Bill Farmer, an Illinois NMI member and high school science teacher in Evanston, Illinois, to share his thoughts about the team’s recent report and interactions with state policymakers.
–-Barnett Berry

Like many other financially strained states, Illinois is engaged in significant educational policy reform propelled by the carrot of Race to the Top federal funds. One of the primary products of this reform is Senate Bill 315, passed in January 2010. SB 315, more commonly known as the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), provides the framework for a major overhaul of teacher and principal evaluation systems, using student growth as a significant component of evaluations. 

Illinois teachers have long recognized the flaws in current evaluation systems and have been advocating for an improved model that provides useful, timely feedback and professional support that can enhance classroom practice. In fact, in 1984 Art Wise and Linda Darling-Hammond, both then at the RAND Corporation, identified many of the same evaluation problems reformers and teachers are concerned about today.* Almost 30 years ago Wise and Darling-Hammond pointed out that we need clearly defined standards of professional excellence, well-trained and pre-qualified evaluators, and more frequent feedback. And today PERA is calling for similar guidelines for a teacher evaluation system.

The Complex Task of Measuring Student Growth

In the political and public realms, linking evaluations to student growth seems like common sense. Research consistently indicates that teachers are the most important school-based variable in a student’s educational growth. But somehow the school-based segment of that conclusion is frequently omitted. In reality, innumerable factors both inside and outside schools affect student growth.

And although many of us educators are already frequently monitoring student growth in our individual classrooms, systematizing such a complex measurement is an infinitely challenging task. This is particularly the case when trying to quantify an individual teacher’s contribution to student learning. Teachers often teach multiple grade levels and courses, spend varying amounts of time with students, and are aided by specialist teachers. Team teaching, which is much needed, can confound efforts to identify which teacher is responsible for student learning gains.

Involving Teachers in the Implementation Process

Implementing PERA is the responsibility of a joint committee called the Performance Evaluation Advisory Council (PEAC). Of this group of roughly 30 education stakeholders, only one is a current K-12 teacher. 

Around the same time PEAC was organizing, the Illinois New Millennium Initiative was assembling a dynamic group of early-career and veteran teachers to do the exact same thing. With such a huge transformation under way in Illinois, our goal was – and is – to bring teacher voice to the forefront of the conversation around the implementation of PERA.

Our NMI team’s virtual community provided a way for teachers to share research on teacher evaluation systems, helping us better understand the complicated matrix of educational policy in Illinois and around the country.

We then combined this knowledge with our own teaching experiences to write our report, “Measuring Learning, Supporting Teaching: Classroom Experts’ Recommendations for an Effective Educator Evaluation System.” 

Making Our Teacher Voices Heard

Since the report's release, key stakeholders and educators have taken notice.  

The NMI team has hosted webinars with members of PEAC to share our recommendations and provide feedback on PEAC’s work. NMI teachers have also attended monthly PEAC meetings to make connections and share perspectives from the classroom. These experiences have made us feel like our teacher voices are being heard and considered.

This month, we plan to attend regional teacher forums PEAC is sponsoring to present its progress and solicit teacher feedback. We’re eager to engage in (and maybe even help initiate) the next layers of policy reform that will strengthen our professional practice and produce better student outcomes. Evaluation reforms of 30 years ago never bore much fruit because teachers weren’t involved in implementing them. NMI teachers are ready to help lead the way.

*Wise, A. E., Darling-Hammond, L., McLaughlin, M. W. & Bernstein, H. T. (1984). Teacher Evaluation: A study of effective practices. Santa Monica, CA. RAND.

Below is a blog post I wrote as part of an online discussion for Learning Matters, a nonprofit media production company that has produced many education-focused reports and documentaries for PBS. Along with several experts in the education field, I was asked to write about teacher quality and teacher training. I encourage you to read the other participants' responses and leave comments on the full Learning Matters discussion — it's absolutely worth the read.

 

Recently, I collaborated with twelve expert teachers to write TEACHING 2030: What We Must Do For Our Students and Our Public Schools … Now and in the Future. We argue that universities’ teacher education programs — and highly-touted alternative certification programs like Teach for America — perpetuate out-of-date models of teaching and learning.

Teacher recruits need a very different kind of preparation to teach the diverse, tech-savvy learners of today and to ready those learners for the 21st-century global marketplace. To make this happen, we must move far beyond reform rhetoric — and we must do so quickly. Here are six big strategies that can help teacher preparation programs break the mold:

1. Ensure that recruits are being prepared for the roles that are most needed in area schools: School districts should develop “labor market” reports, allowing universities to carefully consider how many recruits should be prepared and for what.

2. Jettison traditional three-hour course credits in favor of performance-based pedagogical modules and assessments: This nimble, practical approach will help recruits to develop specific teaching skills and will better identify who is ready to teach, when, and under what conditions.

3. Split the time: Work with school districts to create hybrid roles for the most effective teachers to spend half their time teaching and half their time as lead teacher educators.

4. Understand the community: Require recruits to complete a substantial internship in a community-based organization, developing deep knowledge of how and where students and their families live.

5. Embrace online: Engage recruits in a virtual network of teachers, preparing them to teach effectively online and to collaborate virtually with teaching colleagues.

6. Emergent Tech: Work with school districts to expose recruits to live and digitally recorded “lesson studies,” in which teams of candidates learn to critique teaching and assess student learning using emerging technologies.

Finally reaching the bottom of one my reading stacks, I found myself fascinated and frustrated by the findings of a new study on the relationship between teacher turnover and student achievement.

The study, led by Matthew Ronfeldt and his education economist colleagues, used sophisticated methods to uncover empirical evidence on how teacher attrition, especially in high-need schools, seriously harms low-income and black students. They point out that previous researchers assumed that turnover rates negatively affected high-need students because high quality teachers were the ones leaving.

But this is not the case.

Teacher attrition has a detrimental effect on student achievement “even after controlling for different indicators of teacher quality” — including value-added ratings for teachers who leave and the ones who replace them. The researchers claim that teacher turnover “negatively affects collegiality or relational trust among faculty” or “results in loss of institutional knowledge among faculty that is critical for supporting all student learning.”

Other research has revealed complementary findings. Tony Bryk’s path-breaking analyses, for example, link trust and collegiality among teachers with higher student achievement. 

It’s time for policymakers to seriously consider who is recruited into teaching, for how long, and how they are placed in schools. Thoughtfulness in these areas will ensure that teachers contribute to, not undermine, faculty cohesiveness and long-term instructional strategies. It’s time to confront policymakers’ embrace of recruiting underprepared teachers to high-need schools without adequate training, supervision, and support.

At the same time, we need to question their dismissiveness of the positive effects working conditions can have on teaching and learning. It's time to build 21st-century school organizations that support teacher teams that have staying power and that are rewarded for working effectively with their students, families, and communities over time.

This commentary by Barnett Berry originally appeared as a guest post on Getting Smart's blog on September 1, 2011.

Imagine a new teaching profession — the one that students of today and tomorrow deserve. Here’s how “schools” and “teaching” could look:

• In transformed learning environments, digital tools enable students to learn 24/7 and use skills demanded by local and global economies. Meanwhile, similar technologies allow teachers to learn from each other anywhere, at any time.

• Expert teachers create seamless connections in and out of cyberspace. They bridge students’ virtual learning with what goes on in brick-and-mortar schools (including afterschool programs to deepen and extend learning for our most vulnerable students).

• Students learn from collaborative teams of teachers with varied strengths and roles.This is made possible by a career matrix (as opposed to the traditional career ladder) that includes differentiated pathways. The system places a premium on the spreading of teacher expertise—and is structured to encourage our best teachers to remain in the profession.

More than 600,000 “teacherpreneurs” are making a difference in our schools. These are effective teachers who continue to teach students regularly, but also work part-time on results-oriented efforts to improve student learning. They might design new instructional programs, orchestrate community partnerships, develop digital learning tools, and advance new policies and practices. Teacherpreneurs will be the “highest-paid anybodies” in a school district—and their roles will finally blur the lines of distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead.

These four possibilities, described more fully in TEACHING 2030, a new book I penned with 12 expert teachers, can help us imagine what teaching could look like. Here’s the catch: we have to move past the tired 20th century struggles over how we recruit, train, and pay teachers. Yes, some serious politics are involved, as described vividly, if not always accurately, in Steven Brill’s new book, Class Warfare.

But we must also contend with the 15,000-hour problem. Most Americans have attended schools for 13 years—and have watched teachers teach for more than 15,000 hours, usually in the company of 25 or 30 other students (40 or 50 in hard times). And while most Americans may want improved schools and better teaching, they do not want teaching and learning to look all that different from when they were in school themselves. The public’s familiarity with teaching reifies expectations. It may even breed contempt for the specialized skills that effective teachers and administrators need to develop—after all, an expert teacher can make the job look easy.

But the 15,000-hour problem besets teachers and administrators as well. Almost four decades ago, Dan Lortie, the well-known education sociologist, described the 15,000 problem as the “apprenticeship of observation” — when teachers and administrators come into the profession thinking they already know how to teach and lead. In fact, since many educators have had the experience of “liking school” as K-12 students, they often resist major transformative changes. They may not want to think differently about teachers’ roles, teaching methods, and how and when students are expected to learn.

So what do we do? We shouldn’t simply seek more recruits from alternative routes. Plenty of evidence suggests that even teachers and administrators from “alternative routes” reify the current system of teaching and learning.

Instead, we should consider how teachers’ and administrators’ preparation can set the stage for a new expectations about what schools and learning look like.

And now is the time for public engagement campaign that informs and inspires, helping Americans shift their own beliefs about what schools and teachers can accomplish — and how they should go about it.

Selling a bold new vision of teaching and learning is far from impossible.

The American people have the capacity to let go of old patterns of thinking when the evidence is compelling and well-presented. Consider how our nation’s adult population changed its collective mind about cigarette smoking. In the early 1960s, cigarette smoking was common. In ads, the Marlboro Man (portrayed as a rugged cowboy) gave cigarettes a free-spirited, back-to-basics, all-American image. Then studies began to identify empirical links between smoking and cancer. Early anti-smoking commercials, starring “Johnny Smoke,” showed cowboys keeling over with poisonous fumes in their lungs, parodying the Marlboro Man. Public awareness grew and behavior began to change, as TV ads for cigarettes were banned and the Surgeon General’s warnings on cigarette packages became more stark and visible. Within 40 years, the percentage of American adults smoking cigarettes decreased from 45% to 20%.

An inefficient public education system mired in 20th-century debates may not be blackening our lungs. But the status quo is doing something just as serious: failing our students, our communities, and our democracy. We must help the public understand what is possible. We must get past the 15,000-hour conundrum. We must work together to create the transformed system of teaching and learning that 21st-century students deserve.

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.  

 

By Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello

One of the most exciting parts about working with expert teacher leaders is seeing their hard work and expertise appreciated. The Denver NMI team’s positive contribution to shaping and implementing teaching policies in Colorado attests to the importance of teacher voice in the policymaking process. I’ve asked two members of the Denver NMI team, Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello, to share some of their recent involvement with the state legislation process. Jessica also spoke about her involvement during a special Rocky Mountain PBS roundtable held last Friday, where she represented her team with solutions-focused comments and compelling stories. --Barnett Berry

Here in the Mile High City, there has been a lot of buzz about Senate Bill 191, a law that calls for the creation and implementation of a new evaluation system for principals and teachers.

Among other things, the bill requires that half of a teacher’s evaluation be determined by student growth measures and that the other half -- loosely labeled as “multiple measures” -- include classroom observations by peers or administrators, goal attainment processes, or other similar tools.

But the tools used to assess teachers’ effectiveness on the basis of gains on a once-a-year standardized test are still pretty raw. As noted in a recent Congressional briefing, the grade-level standardized tests do not capture “teacher effects” when students are way below or above where they are supposed to be.  Some teachers teach a disproportionate share of second language learners or special needs students. Some teachers are part of teaching teams and it is difficult to determine who is most responsible. Some teachers work with students who get all kinds of help from afterschool and summer programs, but others do not.

As members of the Denver New Millennium Initiative, we knew it was important to be part of the conversation about the bill’s implementation. Since the release of our report “Making Teacher Evaluation Work: Voices from the Classroom,” various stakeholders have solicited our suggestions for specific and concrete suggestions. And last week, we had the fantastic opportunity to share our expertise at a state board public hearing.

The Process

This past May, the State Council on Educator Effectiveness (SCEE) began working to define what makes an educator effective, and since then it has made several recommendations to the Colorado Department of Education (CDE). The council has drafted and revised rules and has encouraged general feedback through public hearings – an opportunity we decided to take advantage of.

After releasing our report, our team spent the summer months researching teacher effectiveness and various topics introduced in the drafted rules (e.g., comparability, assessment tools, state vs. local control). Deciding to focus on what we thought the state’s definition of “multiple measures” should be, we submitted a list of recommendations to the board. At the public hearing, NMI team members supplemented the list by sharing our classroom realities, e.g., how highly mobile students or a large number of second language learners who just entered our classes, could influence the accuracy of the test score evidence. We described how teachers can assemble a wide array of data on their students so we can figure out how to improve our teaching.

Why Do We Care?

As teachers, we want stronger teaching accountability systems. We want to reach beyond our classroom walls and influence the policies that drive the work we do each day. Conversations about education reform need to include perspectives of people who know what happens inside the classroom.  We have solutions, we have ideas, and we want to share them.

Our day-to-day experience allows us to anticipate pitfalls and envision successes in a way that wouldn’t be possible for most lawmakers. Because we believe we have the responsibility to be involved in education policy, we are continually searching for entry points, conversations, meetings, and committees that we can contribute our expertise to.

What We Learned

Classroom teachers often think they don’t know enough about policy, politics, or the legislative process. But the truth is that teachers hold the critical piece of the puzzle. Our stories from the classroom can corroborate expert suggestions or productively challenge them.

The great news is that we aren’t the only ones who think this.

Our team and two other teachers were the only teacher voices heard during the hearing, and we could tell that our input made an impact on the audience. After giving our testimony last week, a member of the SCEE cited our evidence specifically when discussing next steps with the board. We knew we were being listened to, and it was an exhilarating experience.

Each new encounter with policymaking is showing us that people want to hear what teachers have to say. They respect our contributions as experts in our field –especially when they are solutions oriented.

Next Steps

Last week we received tangible indication that our teacher voices are having a positive effect on policy. Witnessing such respect for teacher expertise makes us excited to continue contributing to this process.

The Denver NMI team will continue to review the commentary and drafts that stakeholders are submitting. The next public hearing is scheduled for October 5, and on that day we hope even more Denver NMI teachers will share personal evidence that will support our recommendations.

As always, we will continue to seek out opportunities to share our voices, in hopes that we can improve our profession and best serve our students, inside and outside the classroom. 

 

A few days ago, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave a shout-out to the University of Michigan for serving as a national model for “reinventing” education schools. Indeed, the UM education school, led by Dean Deborah Ball, has done much to recalibrate university-based preparation programs by focusing on the practical how-tos of teaching specific curricular content and drawing on new research about how students learn. And though Secretary Duncan has often called for more student teaching, not less, his Race to the Top policies continue to embrace shortcut alternative-certification programs. Such routes, like Teach for America, can’t come close to offering new recruits the kind of preparation provided by UM’s education school (or by the many other university preparation programs that have also overhauled their approaches).

Secretary Duncan’s contradictory stances on teacher training are difficult to reconcile.

I keep thinking back to a terrific conversation captured by Education Next a few years ago. Arthur Wise, a champion for professionalizing teaching, and Julie Mikuta, a TFA alum and partner in the NewSchools Venture Fund, discussed the merits of university-based and alternative-certification approaches to teacher preparation. The three-year-old piece brings to light a number of issues surrounding TFA and whether it’s a “valuable strategy for recruiting the best and brightest into education and energizing school improvement, or a distraction and a device for sending ill-prepared neophytes to serve some of the nation’s neediest students.”

Federal policymakers have much to learn from the Education Next conversation – especially from Dr. Wise, who points to the false dichotomies often promoted in the current policy debates over teacher education. Rather than demonizing TFA or claiming teacher education programs have it all figured out, he calls for a strategy that scaffolds learning for all novices, whether they are TFA members or university-based recruits. He envisions a “teaching team strategy” in which experienced teachers are ultimately responsible for students, “but in multiple classrooms and with the assistance of the novices.”

Both TFA and traditional recruits have much to contribute to the process of improving teaching and learning. No teacher, however, should teach independently until he or she has passed muster on performance metrics, including teaching diverse learners (such as ELL students) and using sophisticated assessment tools to determine student progress toward 21st-century academic standards. It’s time that our nation’s education leaders learn that teacher education and licensing is not about dichotomous choices, but inventive approaches that can support student learning today and tomorrow.

 

Finland Travel Log: Teachers, Poverty, and Policy

Below is the second in a series of posts I'm writing from Finland, as part of a trip with a delegation of U.S. education leaders. For a week, we're immersing ourselves in Finland's top-performing education system. Read Part One here.

As I begin my weeklong dive into the Finnish education system, and the theory of change that guides it, I was struck by two New York Times pieces I read today—one on getting tough on teachers from Frank Bruni, and one from Paul Tough on hard questions about President Obama and his commitment to addressing the “deep poverty” in which one in ten school children live. 

I will learn a great deal over the next five days about Finland and its comprehensive approach to early learning, transitions to public school, and social safety nets (Monday); primary school and the role of afterschool and summer programs (Tuesday); secondary education and preparation for career and college (Wednesday); the teaching profession (Thursday); and building and sustaining public will for investments in children and public education (Friday). 

But what I do know now is that in Finland policymakers do not build false divisions between improving the teaching profession and addressing the human condition.  Granted, there are parts of what Frank Bruni writes in his piece, “Teachers on the Defensive,” that resonate with me — for instance, teachers’ unions being out of step with much-needed reforms (cases in point: seniority and quality-blind hiring and placements). But Mr. Bruni’s call to get tough on unions suggests that by getting better teachers, we don’t have many good ones now. And his analysis, centered on the release of the new film Won’t Back Down, suggests that if only tenure and seniority rules were jettisoned, and policymakers could hire smarter teachers who worked harder, our public schools could overcome the ravages of deep poverty.  

On the other hand, Paul Tough challenges this assertion ever so poignantly in his piece “What Does Obama Really Believe In?”  Mr. Tough’s 6,000-word essay paints a rich portrait of our nation’s failed social and economic policies that have yet to address the deep poverty that affects so many like Jasmine and Damien who live in the South Side of Chicago, where President Obama worked as a community organizer. Tough questions Secretary Duncan’s well-meaning belief that the “only way to end poverty is through education”—a belief that has put educators on the defensive.  

Tough points out that Jasmine and Damien attended Christian Fenger High School—the target of many reforms under both Duncan and his predecessor, but never improved. Tough reminds us how “early stress” in children’s lives—including a “paralyzing mix of unforgiving economic conditions” and “destructive social influences”—make it “almost impossible” for young people like Jasmine and Damien to “escape.” He points to the neuroscience that shows how those early stresses on children “disrupt the healthy growth of the prefrontal cortex” and how the “absence of strong and supportive relationships with stable adults inhibits a child’s development of a crucial set of cognitive skills called executive functions.”

Tough has written extensively on the power and potential of the Harlem’s Children Zone and its comprehensive approach that, in addition to high-quality education, encompasses parenting programs, preschools, a medical clinic, a farmers’ market, and family counseling.  He questions why President Obama promised to invest in a billion dollars in the HCZ model, but has only come up with a mere $40 million over the last three years.

Mr. Tough reminds us that President Obama once said that to overcome poverty, of which failing schools is only a symptom, we must “heal the entire community.” It is time for us to think about teacher quality reforms in light of a teaching- and learning-development system.

As Dan Leeds, president of the National Public Education Support Fund and a very successful international businessman, told us this evening, "I learned a long time ago that you learn more from other companies sometimes than your own."

It's time to learn from Finland.

Economists: Return Your Salaries for Producing Flawed Studies

Would it be outrageous for economists to have to pay back part of their salaries if their theories don’t improve the economy? What if education economists had to return consulting fees to the think tanks that paid them if their methods were flawed? Or if their conclusions ignored other research findings and the realities of teaching?

If you think this would be a good idea, then Harvard professor and MacArthur Genius Grant winner Roland Fryer and Freakonomics co-author and University of Chicago professor Steven Levitt (and colleagues John List and Sally Sadoff) might just have to cancel their vacations this fall. They would have to return the pay they received for their recent paper and recommendation that teachers must return salary bonuses (paid up front) when their students’ test scores do not improve sufficiently from one year to the next.

The Study: What It Said

Funded by the Broad Foundation—and drawing on a study about how Chinese factory workers are paid (see page 2)—the report concludes that teacher-incentive programs should be framed in terms of losses rather than gains.

Frustrated by study after study showing that single-minded merit-pay plans don’t improve student achievement (e.g., see the RAND report on New York City’s program, and the exhaustive longitudinal Nashville experiment), these highly touted scholars are on a mission to prove, as one journalist suggested, that “the promise of a larger paycheck will motivate (teachers) to work harder when they're up in front of the chalkboard.”

Fryer and colleagues analyzed the student test results (from the ThinkLink Assessment System) of 150 K-8 teachers from Chicago Heights, Illinois. The teachers were divvied into one control group and four treatment groups, with opportunities to be rewarded or punished for individual and team gains or losses. The “gain” treatment group worked under a traditional year-end bonus structure, similar to merit pay proposals of past and present. This group could earn up to $8,000 extra based on their students' standardized test scores.

Another treatment group—the “loss” treatment group—was given $4,000 at the beginning of the year and knew up front that if their students scored below expectations on the end-of-year test, they'd have to return part of this payment, proportionate to their students’ results.  The researchers found that the gain group showed no significant differences in student achievement, while the loss-treatment group’s individual and team results were comparable to increasing teacher quality by one standard deviation.

What It Missed

I am certain that this study was conducted by very smart people, but people who know too little about teaching and learning, schooling and community, teachers and students.

Consider these issues:

1.     The methodology is built on the assumption that money makes teachers more effective, but there is a wealth of evidence, including a recent Gates-funded study, to the contrary.

2.     The researchers used a low-stakes standardized diagnostic test that is supposed to be aligned with state standards, but there is no evidence that is the case. Did the researchers read this recent report on how off the mark many standardized tests are?

3.     While the teachers were assigned randomly to the control and treatment groups to control for working conditions, the researchers do not own up to the fact they are making a summative judgment about teacher effectiveness on the basis of a 25-50-question multiple-choice test that may not be aligned with the standards that teachers had been using all year.  

More Considerations

The researchers did show some concern for how other factors might affect the achievement of these students.  They looked at student mobility. Check. They look at cheating. Check. They look at liquidity constraints. (What?)  Fryer and company considered how teachers who received upfront payments might have competitive advantage if they “purchase certain materials that facilitate instruction.” My first reaction was to offer kudos to Professor Fryer. Not so fast.

Fryer was concerned that teachers who had additional dollars up front might go out and buy “new workbooks or dry-erase markers” that would allow them to teach more effectively than those in the control and gain groups. Really? These concerns tell us so much about how little these researchers know about teaching and learning.

Other studies have shown that teachers are more effective when they loop with their students for more than one year, when they teach the same course (in secondary school) for more than one year, when they have high-quality curriculum materials, and when they work with a team to plan curricula and evaluate student work. All these factors contribute far more to effective teaching than the loss-aversion merit pay schemes posed by this study.

More questions arise about how Fryer’s scheme would work in reality: Would districts have to hire more bureaucrats to collect the dollars awarded to teachers when test scores did not increase? How would such a pay scheme affect teacher morale? What about the impact on collaboration, given that the authors’ statistical model promotes competition among teachers?

Economists like Fryer and company—and their funders—are desperate to find some kind of empirical link between short-term test score gains and teacher pay (or firings). The researchers found a model—based on a Chinese factory where “loss” workers saw only a 1 percent increase in productivity—and decided to use it in such a complex enterprise as teaching.

If they were truly interested in improving schools, they might want to take a look at teachers’ own bold ideas about pay. If they were truly interested in improving schools, they might want to take a look at a larger body of research on teacher incentives and student achievement. Perhaps in the future, economists like Fryer and company will have to return their consulting fees if they don’t.

There’s Room for Teacher Leaders in a Sci-Fi Future

Pete Wailes’ short story on the future of education (“The Life and Times of James Roebuck, Part 1”) raises some provocative issues about the teaching profession. 

It’s a worthwhile read, but make sure you read all 1,286 words. At first blush, it might seem like Wailes is another school reformer who thinks technology will replace 55 million teachers who currently teach in classrooms worldwide. In future-speak, Wailes writes:

Shortly after the invention of the quantum computer chip, and the laying of fibre optic broadband to almost every house in the UK, it had been clear that the days of teaching as a profession were numbered. Teaching had been relegated to a minority profession in a matter of years.

But then it gets a bit more interesting. Just as he was convincing readers that the teaching profession “couldn’t withstand the onslaught of technology”—to the delight of many self-proclaimed school reformers—Wailes pivots.

He raises questions about who would curate resources, moderate virtual learning, and oversee the interaction of children and adolescents. He raises questions about who would make sure that children have safe places to learn, and that all children have access to the knowledge and resources needed to be successful.

Wailes’ essay promises a “Part 2.” I’m hopeful that the sequel will suggest that though technology can democratize knowledge, without teachers—especially expert ones—there will be no opportunity for students to use that knowledge to promote and sustain democracy. 

Renee Moore, NBCT, Milken winner, and erudite teacher-author, pictured with one her students from her years teaching in Shelby, Mississippi. Knowledge of children, culture, and community, along with deep subject matter expertise make for excellent teachers. And Renee is one of the best.

Regardless of what the profession looks like in the future, we will undoubtedly need more teacher leaders—teacher leaders like Renee Moore, a longstanding member of our Teacher Leaders Network and profiled in our forthcoming Jossey-Bass book, Teacherpreneurs. Below, Renee reflects on her teaching practice:

When I sit down next to each of my students or with a small group of them (physically or virtually) to share their most recent work; to reflect on how they have grown as writers since their last piece or since the start of the course; to give sincere, critical feedback on what would help make it better—I am doing what no technology or software program can provide. It is through these very human interactions that I also show them that they have worth far beyond a number on a scale.  This is at the core of teaching.

I’m eager to read more of what Wailes has to say about technology and the teaching profession. Teacher leaders like Renee—and the millions like her around the world—will be the ones leading the technology revolution by implementing the technology and balancing it with real-life, personalized interaction.

Wailes’ story shows us that there’s more to look forward to in the coming years than just robot-powered cars. A future with a true teacher-led education system—now that’s something to get excited about.

More Time for Teachers Means Better Time for Students

As students across the country are enjoying summer breaks, many educators and education reformers are using their time to, well, think about time. Some schools are transitioning to year-round schooling. Others are extending the school day into the late afternoon.

While most of the recent focus has been on student time, a critical piece of the discussion should be teacher time. “Time can and must allow for us to engage with other professionals in order to hone our craft and, ultimately, to serve our students better,” writes Dedy Fauntleroy on this month’s Teaching Ahead: A Roundtable.

For most teachers in the Unites States, collaboration time isn’t built into the school day—it’s stolen in tiny intervals: in the hallways, after school, in the copy room. Teachers spend most of their days in front of students, leaving their lesson planning and professional development to before and after school.

Current school schedules are keeping teachers away from our nation’s best educational resource—their fellow teachers.

“I never thought I’d say it, but less time teaching might make me a better teacher,” wrote CTQ blogger Kate Mulcahy in a recent post.

An International Perspective

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel of extremely accomplished teachers at the International Symposium on Educational Reform (ISER) in Lexington, Kentucky. The group got to talking about how much time they have each week to collaborate with their colleagues and watch them teach.

The American teachers estimated their collaboration time to be, on average, about five hours a week, and their observation time at an average of about two hours a week. And these numbers are likely higher than the national average, since several teachers on the panel are involved in mentoring and other leadership positions that require them to observe and meet with peers.

Kimberly Shearer shared her schedule—one that’s fairly representative of other teachers in the U.S. She spends 30 to 35 hours a week in front of students, and though she gets planning periods and lunch each day, she often uses that time to meet with students.

In contrast, in Finland, a typical teacher might spend 15 hours a week—or a maximum of 24 hours—in front of students, said Mika Risku, a teacher-education researcher on the panel from Finland. The other part of the day is spent in professional development, planning lessons, and engaging with colleagues and parents. “If you want teacher leaders,” Mika asked the group, “when do you analyze the data and processes?”

Lauren Hill, an English teacher from Kentucky, shared that in her ten years of teaching in the same school as Stephanie Wooldridge—her colleague who was also at the conference—the closest she’d ever been to actually observing Stephanie teach was when she had to deliver a piece of tech equipment to her classroom. “And it was like being in a different country,” Lauren said. Both Lauren and Stephanie are members of Teacher Leaders Network and are actively engaged in our Implementing Common Core Standards initiative—which requires a great more time to build interdisciplinary lessons with colleagues, capitalize on new tools and resources, and unpack the data from new forms of student assessment.

We need to give teachers the opportunity to “travel” to their colleagues’ classrooms during the school day so they can infuse their own teaching with new ideas and strategies. These observations, which can be conducted live or through digital recordings, can propel productive and practical conversations, collaboration, and the much-needed scrutiny of one another’s classroom practice.

It's Time to Start

“What would be the value of five extra minutes in an educator's schedule?” Jessica Keigan asks on Teaching Ahead. “These five minutes might be spent learning about a new professional strategy, catching up on local and national policy or interacting with peers in virtual or real time venues.”

Five minutes is a good place to start—but we must do better. We must build dedicated collaboration time into every teacher’s schedule. Giving teachers time to work together and learn from one another will allow them to reflect on and improve their professional practice.

And it isn’t just Finland, either. Other top-performing nations, like Singapore, build in collaboration time willingly and without question. Mike Thiruman, president of the Singapore Teachers’ Union and former deputy in his nation’s education ministry, told me recently, “We would not think of having our teachers teach more than nineteen to twenty-one hours a week.”  Teachers also receive 100 hours of professional development per year, at government expense.  Is it not time for U.S. policymakers to follow suit and invest in more time for teachers so students learn more?

Teacherpreneurs and the Common Core

 

Enjoying dinner with members of CTQ's Implementing Common Core Standards (ICCS) team at the International Symposium on Educational Reform.

Teacher leadership is the focus of many conversations these days, especially ones about the Common Core. With their emphasis on interdisciplinary curriculum, the standards will require teachers to collaborate with one another and spread their expertise in and out of cyberspace. There will be new assessments (PDF) that teachers need to design, score, interpret, and integrate into instructional plans. There will be demand for an array of instructional resources, which teachers must learn and adapt for the specific contexts they teach in.

The Common Core cannot be implemented in lock-step fashion, as current teach-to-test curricula demand today. The Common Core cannot be implemented if we continue to promote short-cut teacher preparation and one-shot, “spray and pray” professional development. As TLN member Patrick Ledesma recently wrote about the Common Core, “Time and again, top-down implementation stalls as teachers fail to hear workable plans that reflect the realities of their classrooms.” We need teachers to lead the way.

Granted, teacher leadership has become more popular of late as a means for administrators to position classroom practitioners as department or committee chairs, coaches, mentors, or even “professional learning team” facilitators. But most of these roles are typically defined by administrators in response to external dictates. They reflect how policy wonks, curriculum designers, and publishers imagine schools and teachers’ roles within them. 

This type of teacher leadership—the “anoint and appoint” variety defined by Mark Smylie (friend and school reform scholar)—is for yesterday’s schools. We must exceed their narrow confines, because even if all these leadership roles were combined into one, it still wouldn’t come close to what a teacherpreneur does. Because teacherpreneurs spend half the day teaching students, their perspectives on education reform are grounded in the everyday realities of teaching and learning.

In the keynote address I'll deliver at the eighth International Symposium on Educational Reform (ISER) this week, I'll describe the barriers that undermine the kind of teacherpreneurial action needed for implementing the Common Core. Such obstacles include policies that isolate teachers from one another, as well as administrators and policy wonks who are threatened by teachers who lead.

Too many administrators are still focused on “monitoring” teachers to make sure they teach “bell to bell.” We need to jettison the organizational structures that have existed in our schools since the 1920s. Many of our schools' designs were based on Frederick Taylor's theories of scientific management, which allowed classroom teachers to be treated much like assembly-line factory workers.

It’s about time we jettison the “boss-worker” mindset of administrators and self-proclaimed reformers who cannot tolerate the blurring of lines between those who teach in schools and those who lead them. Our focus should be on meeting the challenges of 21st-century teaching and learning. In our communities, there are growing numbers of students from impoverished homes--many of them second-language learners--who need more well-prepared teachers, working in teams, than ever before.

Here at CTQ, teacher leaders are working hard to lead Common Core implementation in their schools, districts, and states. And as our organization continues to evolve, we will focus more and more on making sure that teacher leaders and teacherpreneurs are leading the way. 

What You’re Not Supposed to Know about Teachers’ Unions

By Melissa Rasberry

Barnett Berry will be joining school chiefs, union officials, school board leaders, and teachers from 41 states and more than 100 school districts this week in Cincinnati as the Department of Education and various partner organizations convene the second Labor Management Conference. In this post, CTQ staff member Melissa Rasberry reflects on her experiences with successful district-union relations and their efforts of "Collaborating to Transform the Teaching Profession" (the theme of this year's conference).

“I want you to leave here dissatisfied today.”

Teachers, parents, administrators, and community leaders looked on with anxious faces, uncertain how to respond. This was the first keynote I’d seen that wished for participants’ unhappiness by conference end.

“… I want you to leave here dissatisfied with the status quo,” the speaker continued, “and angry about what we are doing to our children.”

Where might you predict this conversation transpired?

I overheard the dialogue at a National Education Association (NEA) convening for its Priority Schools Campaign. If you listen much to reports in the media, you probably wouldn’t guess that the keynote speaker was NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. In fact, some journalists and policy pundits would have you believe that the NEA is a strident defender of the status quo. They purport that many ills of our educational system can be blamed on teachers’ unions. Stories of late proclaim:

•    American schools have declined, while the “teachers' unions have become more and more powerful.”

•    Unions “prevent teachers from being dismissed for incompetence” and don’t want to be held accountable.

•    Getting rid of the teachers’ unions is the “only fight worth having.”

But yet, here I sat in a room full of educators and community members—convened by the NEA and ready to improve our nation’s most deserving schools. The conference participants did not back down from acknowledging that we have failed some of our children, but they also were not embroiled in the false dichotomies that pit unions against reformers.

Blowing Away the Myth: Success in Action

Most reformers today think that unions, which hold on to seniority hiring rights and quality-blind teacher evaluation systems, prevent schools from improving. Though unions need to change their ways in some respects, so do districts and school boards that diminish teacher leadership and exepertise. Unions can't be the only problem if the same ineffective teacher-hiring and -evaluation practices are found in both unionized and non-unionized districts.

Indeed, we find many examples of teachers’ unions across the country leading reform efforts. I’ve witnessed several of these trailblazing efforts firsthand, as part of my work here at CTQ.

•    The Hillsborough County Teachers Association and Hillsborough County Public Schools gather at the table with one mission in mind: to improve the educational experiences of their students. Through the Empowering Effective Teachers initiative, district and union leaders created a system in which excellent teachers are identified, rewarded, and encouraged to spread their knowledge and skills to their colleagues.
•    The district and union joined forces in Denver, Colorado, to create the first teacher-led school. The Math and Science Leadership Academy operates solely through the leadership of teachers. The district strongly encouraged the union to develop the initial plans for the school, and both organizations continue to support its success.
•    CTQ is partnering to support schools involved with the NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign. CTQ prepared National Board Certified Teachers and other accomplished teachers to serve as virtual coaches for teachers in these high-needs schools. The trained coaches will facilitate virtual learning communities (VLCs), so that educators across the country can share ideas and resources for student success in an online environment.
•    In December 2011, the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching released Transformed Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning (PDF). This blue-ribbon panel of teachers and other educational leaders (including many from our own Teacher Leaders Network) outlines key imperatives for transforming the teaching profession, characterized by “collective accountability for student learning balanced with collaborative autonomy that allows educators to do what is best for students.”

These initiatives, as well as those highlighted at this week’s 2012 Labor Management Conference sponsored by the Department of Education, present excellent examples of how districts and unions can avoid letting “the perfect be the enemy of the good.” If we want our students to achieve in our highly competitive global economy, labor-management relationships must improve. Unions and districts alike must set aside their bickering and work on finding common ground. As Dennis Van Roekel instructed the crowd at the NEA convening, our students deserve nothing less.

Amid Evaluation Controversies, Florida Teachers Model Effective Reform

In the world of school reform, there is a lot of talk about teacher evaluation these days. Hardly anyone believes the systems in place are worth much, given that many districts report that administrators often rate almost all teachers “satisfactory” and pay little attention to student results. And most everyone knows the Race to the Top states are rocketing toward implementing new systems, replete with more intensive classroom observations, mechanical use of value-added ratings, and four-point rating scales.

However, the teacher-evaluation engines are already beginning to stall. Tennessee, for example, is struggling to find time for “micromanaged” principals to conduct effective and useful observations. And New York City is rolling out wildly inaccurate* value-added test scores results to judge (and then fire) teachers.

And now bright-eyed enthusiasts for R2T-esque teacher evaluations are raising hard questions about the rigid use of test scores to judge teachers. Many point out that if principals and teachers don’t trust one another, then these evaluation systems won’t do much to improve teaching and learning. Robin Lake, for example, of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at the University of Washington, recently wrote a guest post on Rick Hess's blog. There, she makes the good point that the system requires not just new “tools,” but serious “attention to organizational capacity and relationships.”

Making these relationships a priority will require not just more collaboration between administrators and union leaders, as Robin suggests, but developing new systems so teachers themselves can lead the way. This would allow more teachers like Ryan Kinser of Hillsborough County, Florida (and many of his 15,000 teaching colleagues in the Tampa-area school district), to drive reforms that will affect their classrooms. Ryan, in his powerful blog posts over at transformED, points to a number of huge issues with using value-added results to improve teaching and learning. He also suggests specific strategies for using VAM in ways that make sense for teachers and the students they serve.

Soon, Ryan and his CTQ-supported New Millennium Initiative team will release a powerful multimedia product that focuses on leveraging promising teacher evaluation reforms in their district to transform the teaching profession. In her blog post, Robin Lake cites the research of Tony Bryk on the importance of organizational trust and coherence in much-needed evaluation reforms. In Tampa, the school district and union—and now a growing group of solutions-oriented teachers—are showing just how it can be done.

* It has been shown that the use of “value-added assessments” in New York is grossly imprecise. For example, the margin of error spans 35 percentiles in math and 53 in English. Some teachers' evaluations were based on as few as 10 students.

A Good Laugh--A Sigh--And a Revolutionary Suggestion

The Good Laugh

Did you catch Matthew Di Carlo’s perfect April Fools’ Day piece on “Measuring Journalist Quality”? Observing that journalists have been leading the way in “outing” teachers based on unreliable value-added measures (VAMs), Di Carlo flips the picture. What if journalists were measured by similarly unstable “reader-added models” (RAMs)?

The Sigh

Like all fine satire, Di Carlo’s piece carries serious heft.  

Many VAM systems determine teaching quality on the basis of a one-time estimate of a gain score based on students’ performance on a single multiple-choice, standardized test. And researchers have pointed out that even the most sophisticated value-added calculations produce substantial errors: as many as one in four teachers is misidentified as effective or ineffective.

In a recent study of VAM, Heather Hill, Laura Kapitula, and Kristin Umland warned: “Although we do recommend the use of value-added scores in combination with discriminating observation systems, evidence presented here suggests that value-added scores alone are not sufficient to identify teachers for reward, remediation, or removal.”

Sobering—especially when VAM systems are being used to make or break teachers’ reputations.

I’m cheered by the fact that the Measures of Effective Teaching project, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is assembling an array of measures that reflect the complexity of teaching. And Bill Gates, of late, has written his own eloquent plea for journalists to cease their “shameful” approach of using VAM rankings to identify which teachers are effective or not, irrespective of the rating’s accuracy.

Meanwhile, it’s important to note that teachers aren’t opposed to being held accountable. In fact, many teacher leaders we work with are eager for their profession to be more results-oriented.

Teachers are even open to VAM as an element of a comprehensive teacher development and evaluation system. What disturbs them is the idea of VAM as a predominant, automatic marker of their effectiveness—especially if today’s inadequate assessments are its basis.

The Revolutionary Suggestion

Our nation’s schools could cling to the limitations of VAMs, passing swift judgments based on questionable data. Or—prepare yourself for the revolutionary—we could invest in teacher leadership to develop a comprehensive teacher development and evaluation system. (A recent paper, commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, makes this argument.)

We could draw on the expertise of accomplished teachers to craft better student assessments, additional evaluation measures (like peer observation), and systems that support the professional growth of all teachers (whether in their first year or their twentieth).  

Teachers are well-suited to inform teacher development and evaluation. They understand the nuances of the work they do each day—and can help create equally nuanced systems for gauging and supporting teaching effectiveness. They grasp the complexity of their profession.

Do we get a Day-After-April-Fools’-Day wish? If so, here’s mine: that more journalists grasp the complexity of teaching (and the potential of teacher leadership, too).

International Inspiration for Building Teacher Leadership

By Megan Allen

Megan Allen is a National Board Certified Teacher, 2010 Department of Education/Macy’s Teacher of the Year, and finalist for 2010 National Teacher of the Year. She is a member of the Hillsborough County New Millennium Initiative.

Last week, the best-of-the-best countries from around the world gathered in the Big Apple to discuss education at the Second International Summit on the Teaching Profession. One of the most intriguing topics of discussion there was teacher leadership.

In a thoughtful Education Week essay published in January, Marc Tucker pointed out that top-performing nations do “everything necessary” to recruit, prepare, and develop their teachers, while here in the U.S. we put all our policy emphasis on “accountability systems.” Top-performing nations take teacher leaders seriously—as leaders of assessment reform, partners in research, and teacher education faculty who prepare the next generation of recruits.

I attended the summit virtually, following along with streaming videos and Twitter. One of my favorite tweets came from the USDOE and speaks to the power of teacher leaders:

So let’s dive right in: What are some of those pathways and roles for teacher leadership?

More Than Administrators

Teacher leadership encompasses far more than moving into administration. There is nothing wrong with that, but it’s too narrow a definition. There is an enormous spectrum of teacher leadership, some roles defined, some forming, and some yet unknown. But we must have open minds to these new ideas and be solutions-focused in developing ways to make them happen. We must change the culture and climate of teaching as the definition of what a teacher is evolves.

Many teacher leaders—myself included—want to be involved outside the classroom walls in areas that affect students. But at the same time, we want to keep one foot in the door with the people we love most: students. This calls for out-of-the-box thinking and the development of new hybrid roles. In the book TEACHING 2030, a group of amazing educators dreamed about what these roles could look like. And it’s slowly happening.

Teacher Leaders in Action

I am going to take a moment to brag about some of my favorite teacher leaders who are blazing the path as we speak:

• Sarah B. Wessling is a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) who works with the Teaching Channel to record her classroom daily in Iowa, allowing a deep look at highly effective teaching.
• Jessica Keigan spends half her day poring over literature with her high school students in Colorado, and the other half as a CTQ teacherpreneur, advocating for positive change in education policy.
• Two of my colleagues currently sit on school boards: Michael Flynn, an amazing Massachusetts elementary school teacher, sits on his local school board, speaking for children in his district. And Holly Boffy, an NBCT from Louisiana, sits on her state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

International Role Models

We can also look to the lessons learned from other countries. They see teacher leadership roles as ways to effectively recruit candidates and build respect in the profession. In the Netherlands, the prime minister still teachers a half day a week.  Denmark offers a “taster course” for aspiring leaders to see the range of available leadership pathways. Singapore prides itself in never leaving its teaching talent to chance, continually assessing its teachers for leadership potential and providing opportunities for teachers to develop and use it.

So here is my charge: We must reshape the way we think about teacher leadership. Teachers must be at the helm of effective reform if we are to get it right. Teachers are the experts. We must realize that new roles may not fit neatly into the little cubbies that we’ve had for decades, but we must be flexible with finding ways to make them work. And we must recruit and cultivate leadership, finding that hidden talent that may be hiding behind each and every classroom door. It’s time to start knocking...

More Reasons to Expand Teacher Leadership and Transform the Profession

Eighty years ago, American scholar Willard Walter Waller (1899–1945) published his landmark book, The Sociology of Teaching (1932). The book describes a number of underlying conditions affecting teachers and their profession, including the despotic school organizations in which they work.

Waller claimed that "the reformation of the schools must begin with the teachers”—a proclamation still not heeded today by most policymakers and self-proclaimed reformers. As a nation we have not learned much from the erudite insights of sociologists like Waller. 

My teaching colleague Renee Moore describes how the “frazzled teachers” working in underperforming schools are beset by duplicative as well as conflicting reform programs layered on top of one another. Renee writes of today’s “big grant” reform agenda always coming with “its own curriculum materials, pacing guides, seemingly endless reporting requirements, and a troop of expert consultants.” 

Is it not time, as Renee suggests, to elevate teachers, working with parents and students, to lead the transformation (not just the reform) of the education system? Doing so will require a whole new way of organizing schools and developing and supporting teacher leaders (and teacherpreneurs), some of whom will teach students regularly while also having time, space, and reward to analyze evidence, figure out which poorly designed programs to abandon, and create their own TeacherSolutions.

New MetLife Teacher Survey Shows Economy's Effects on the Profession

Once again, MetLife’s Survey of the American Teacher offers deep insights into the status of America’s teaching profession.

Teachers report significant reductions in school budgets, programs, and services. Meanwhile, students and their families report an increase in needs.

And, strikingly, teacher satisfaction is lower than it has been in more than two decades, with a precipitous drop of 15 points since 2009.

The survey reveals factors connected to high job satisfaction: adequate opportunities for professional development, time to collaborate with colleagues, and more preparation to engage parents effectively.

Of course, other research has shown that these same factors benefit students.

Policymakers should take this data seriously—and take action. Why not redesign schools so teachers have the time, opportunities, and supports they need to help students succeed? TEACHING 2030, supported by MetLife Foundation, outlines bold yet practical ways to transform schools to better serve students.   

Each year, the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher promotes a nuanced understanding of challenges faced by teachers and those they serve. I hope policymakers will take note—and help to create the public school system that all students deserve. 

Want to continue the conversation? Twitter's a good place to start: Follow the hashtag #TeacherSurvey to read what teachers, policymakers, and the media are saying about the survey.

What American Policymakers Can Learn From Finland

At last year’s International Summit on the Teaching Profession, I watched and listened to a serious dialogue among the ministers of education and union chiefs from many of the world’s top-performing nations. I was enthralled with the nuances of the convening, who sat where, who talked, and who delivered what messages. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was there. So was Henna Virkkunen, his Finnish counterpart.

The differences in how these two nations approach child development and student assessment as well as the teaching profession are legion. Let’s begin with student results. On the 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), Finland’s students consistently outperformed ours in reading, math, and science. In reading, Finnish students were ranked third; we were fourteenth. In math, they were third; we were thirty-first. And in science, they were first; we were thirty-seventh.

Here are a few more stark clashes in teaching and learning policies, which Pasi Sahlberg has helped bring attention to lately through his book Finnish Lessons:

Policy Clash #1: Finnish Teachers Are Very Well Prepared. The Finns not only recruit top students into teaching, but they also insist that every teacher have a master’s degree in education, fully paid for by the government, before they enter the profession. There is no such thing as Teach for Finland.

Policy Clash #2: Finnish Teachers Teach Less and Learn More from One Another. In 2007, Finland's teachers taught just under 600 hours, while their American counterparts taught more than 1,000 hours. Finnish teachers spend approximately 10 to 20 hours a week on joint professional development focused on understanding why students are learning or not.

Policy Clash #3: Finnish Teachers Are Responsible; They Are Not Held Accountable. Unlike in the United States, where teachers are held accountable to externally developed, high-stakes tests, well-prepared Finnish teachers use their own assessments to gauge their students' progress. The Finnish public trusts its teachers to assemble evidence and report to them on who is learning or not, and why.

Why are these Finnish lessons so difficult for America’s top-level policymakers to learn? I have some ideas, most of which have more to do with politics and less with substance. No surprise. But perhaps our policymakers have not been taught by some of our nation’s best teachers how to apply these powerful lessons in the American context.

This year, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has invited CTQ to work with 16 state teachers of the year, who will attend the summit (March 14-15 in NYC) and weigh in later with their own TeacherSolutions. I hope you join me in looking forward to hearing how our teachers learn from the Finnish lessons and their own pedagogical experiences to help us reshape our teaching policies.

Transforming Teaching in California

By Anna Martin & Barnett Berry

Education reform typically follows an unfortunate pattern. Politicians and pundits drive the agendas, while students and teachers live out the consequences.

To better address our schools’ needs, reform efforts must be led by those who work with students every day. At an event in Sacramento last month, teachers like Anna Martin offered practical recommendations for improving teaching quality in California.

Anna entered the profession eight years ago as a Teach For America recruit—and she’s still teaching at the same high-needs school. She’s a member of the  New Millennium Initiative (NMI), a national network of forward-thinking teachers supported by the Center for Teaching Quality.

At the event in Sacramento, Anna and her NMI colleagues shared findings from their new report, “Many Ways Up, No Reason to Move Out.”

What follows is a chat between Anna and Barnett Berry.

Barnett:  Anna, you’ve seen many early-career teachers leave the profession. In high-needs schools, 50 percent depart within three years. Why?

Anna: Our NMI team cares deeply about such statistics—we’ve all seen it happen. Some teachers are overwhelmed: they haven’t been prepared or supported adequately for the challenges they face. Others are frustrated by the one-track nature of the profession.

Barnett: What do you mean by “one-track”? 

Anna: In most cases, the only options are to remain a classroom teacher—or leave the classroom for an administrative role. Many teachers, like myself, want to be challenged, show leadership, and have an impact beyond one classroom. But we are also passionate about teaching. We don’t want to leave the classroom entirely.

Barnett: It sounds like you’d advocate for more teacherpreneurs who split their time between teaching students and leading efforts to improve schools.

Anna: Absolutely. Our NMI team’s new report proposes radical changes in how we prepare, promote, and retain teachers. That includes developing more hybrid positions that make the most of teachers’ expertise. We hope talented teachers will stay in the profession longer and become the leaders of our education system.

Barnett:  You mentioned that some early-career teachers leave because they weren’t adequately prepared. What needs to change?

Anna: We ask too much of our newest teachers and too little of our veterans. Our team proposes a three-year apprenticeship model. Novice teachers would be paired with master mentor teachers. Over time, the novice teachers would take on more responsibility—similar to the medical residency model. 

Such a system would help prevent early career burnout. Novice teachers would gain practical experience and develop critical teaching skills before taking charge of their own classroom. And veteran teachers would have opportunities for leadership and influence. Most important, students would benefit from these changes. 

Barnett: In other top-performing nations, most administrators teach something, sharing leadership. And in Singapore, some accomplished teachers’ salaries are higher than their principals’.   

Anna: Right now in California, teachers earn more primarily by staying on the job longer. We’re proposing a model that ties salary increases to increases in demonstrated skill, responsibilities, and impact. This new career ladder will allow teachers to specialize and follow different leadership, mentoring, and specialization tracks. So they’ll continue to teach—but also can take on different kinds of roles that help schools better serve students. 

Barnett: Blurring the distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead them!

Anna: Yes. And improving what we can provide to students. Better using our schools’ human capital would help us to attract and retain the talented professionals our students need and deserve.

Barnett: I think Californians are ready for these transformative changes. In a recent statewide poll, most Californians (77 percent) rated teachers favorably. And 64 percent said they were willing to pay more in taxes to increase school funding.

Anna: Yes, Californians realize today’s students will be the workers and leaders of our state tomorrow. They also know that teachers—not politicians, administrators, or reformers—are the people most likely to help their children succeed. They should expect and demand that California attract, prepare, support, and retain talented teachers.

Barnett: So, as a teacher, you’re saying it’s time for big, bold changes?

Anna: Absolutely. We can’t be satisfied with isolated reforms. It’s time to transform California’s schools by transforming 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. 

Why Improvement Efforts Often Fall Short (Despite Good Intentions)

This post originally appeared on the Silicon Valley Education Foundation's blog, Thoughts on Public Education.

Recently, I visited innovative charter schools in the Bay Area. At one school, physical spaces and teachers’ schedules are designed to encourage collaboration. Another school involves community organizations and parents in student learning during and after the school day. One is well stocked with technology. At another, teachers take on leadership roles.

And yet, everywhere I looked I noticed elements that didn’t quite connect. I saw missed opportunities to boost student learning. One of the schools gestured toward important ideas, but because of the lack of experienced teacher leaders, missed the mark when it came to implementing them. The other one greatly valued teacher leaders, but still had a long way to go in spreading teaching expertise from one classroom to another.

This points to a truth that is tough for reformers to swallow: America’s schools will be transformed only when we tackle the complexities of teaching and learning. We can’t rely on isolated policies or initiatives to sustain a highly functioning school. Few, if any, innovations can be implemented successfully over time unless other interlocking set of elements are in place—connected by  collaboration (not competition) among universities, school districts, charter networks, and nonprofits.

What I saw

So where do we start? Here are two situations I observed during my investigation:

• School A is known for “blended learning.” Yet there was little pedagogical coherence between how teachers taught in a regular classroom and how students were expected to learn in a high-tech lab staffed by low-cost tutors. School A teachers, who tended to have only a few years of experience and little clinical preparation, had limited interaction with the lab tutors. It was unclear whether many teachers were familiar with the technological tools so central to their school’s identity.

• School B is known for hiring new recruits who have extensive clinical preparation. Teachers know how to differentiate instruction and work with second language learners. But School B’s teachers did not always know how to effectively analyze student learning data and needed more training in how to use the collaborative planning time wisely provided to them (approximately two hours a day).

What would help connect the dots in these schools – and all schools? Teacher preparation programs could lead the way by readying pre-service teachers for a transformed public school system.

Accountability for teacher preparation programs

Recently, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan noted that too many education schools are “not up to the job.” He highlighted recruitment and accountability as key areas for improvement, and noted that few of today’s programs offer “rigorous, clinical experience that prepares future teachers for the realities of today’s diverse classrooms.”

And then there are the emergent realities of tomorrow’s classrooms—which few teacher preparation programs are adequately addressing. For example, tomorrow’s teachers will likely need to teach students who are “digital natives,” spread their expertise to colleagues through collaboration and leadership, connect families with community resources, and develop and use sophisticated assessments to measure student progress.

The federal government should hold teacher preparation programs accountable – but should look at more than the twentieth-century standardized tests currently in place. For example, what if teacher preparation programs (whether university-based or “alternative”) were judged on how long their graduates remained in the classroom, working effectively as leaders in schools and communities? What if programs were assessed on how well their graduates used student data to improve instruction? What if the accountability system considered graduates’ abilities to provide effective blended learning opportunities?

My organization, the Center for Teaching Quality, works with thousands of teachers nationwide to improve the teaching profession and our nation’s schools. Later this month, talented teachers who are part of our Bay Area New Millennium Initiative team will release a report with specific recommendations about how to ensure new teachers are ready for their roles. Watch for it!

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.  

When Teachers Speak Up—And Policymakers Listen

By Jessica Keigan 

Jessica Keigan is a teacherpreneur who spends part of her week teaching English at Horizon High School in Denver and part of her time working to improve public schools through her work with the Denver New Millennium Initiative. This post was orginially published on the Impatient Optimists blog.

Last year, Colorado passed a landmark piece of legislation (SB 10-191, the EQUITEE Act) that created a new system of evaluation for students, teachers, and schools in the state. This new law promises to shake up the status quo, inspiring innovation in how we teach students and how we prepare and support teachers.

This month, the Colorado State Board of Education adopted regulations to implement the legislation—with some key revisions.

The revisions reflect the informed voices of classroom teachers and represent a unique breakthrough in my career. I have had many successes in my nine years of teaching, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen my efforts have such a long-reaching and concrete impact on the policies that shape my job.

I hope that it will prove to be a strong foundation for continued work of this kind, both personally and for my state.

The basic premise of the law is that all teachers will be evaluated yearly on a variety of measures to determine whether their non-probationary status will be maintained.

As a member of the New Millennium Initiative, a team of teachers working to transform our schools and the teaching profession, I have spent the past year working with a team of Denver-area teachers to research the implications of the EQUITEE Act on classroom practice.

In May, our team of teachers released a formal brief ("Making Teacher Evaluation Work for Students: Voices From the Classroom") sharing our ideas about how this law should be implemented.

I consider myself to be a teacher leader and, unfortunately, have sat on numerous committees that seemed to have little influence. But my work with the Denver New Millennium Initiative this summer and fall was an incredibly empowering experience.

During my public testimony, I spoke about how my unique expertise as a teacher helps me to determine how and when my students are growing. I recommend that the voices of classroom teachers should be heard and honored when creating standards that evaluate teacher effectivenes. 

No one is more qualified to comment on a student’s achievement than the person who works with that student every day.

Standardized tests have their purpose as norm setters, but a teacher who knows her students’ unique back stories and learning styles can provide a wealth of information about each student. This information should be included among the data used to measure the success of both teachers and students.

Specifically, we advocated for three important things:

• A clearer definition of the multiple measures that comprise 50 percent of teachers’ evaluation
• A strong representation of teachers in the process of implementation
• An ongoing evaluation process rather than an “event” that happens once or twice a year

The State Board of Education adopted the implementation rules this month. Upon reviewing the final draft of the evaluation standards, I was overwhelmed by how much of the language reflected the recommendations that my team made, in some cases almost verbatim.

I am genuinely excited about the potential for positive change that SB 191 brings to Colorado. In an often sluggish system that balks at overhaul and reform, this is a true game changer.

I am also grateful that policymakers were open to hearing my voice as a teacher. They honored and incorporated the experience and expertise that our Denver New Millennium Initiative teachers brought to the conversation.

I now have new hope that my profession can change—that I (and my colleagues) can be valued professionals.

Teaching Ahead: The Teacher Evaluation System Students Deserve

The education world is abuzz about teacher evaluation reform. Over the last three years, 32 states and the District of Columbia have enacted policies that have changed how those who teach are assessed.

It seems like every day another inside-the-Beltway think tank offers its advice on which state is doing the most to make sure teachers are held accountable for their classroom practice. Most of these reports, like the recent one offered up by NCTQ (that is not us), provide a cursory overview through a very narrow lens. They provide little insight into the significant technical problems, like those experienced in Tennessee’s rushed “Race to the Top” implementation of its teacher evaluation system. Tennessee is struggling to accurately use value-added ratings and assess teachers on student growth measures in non-tested subjects. At the same time, it’s foisting unnecessary paperwork on classroom practitioners.

Commonly heard in NCTQ-esque circles is that "teacher-effectiveness measures don't have to be perfect to be useful.” I would agree in principle with this well-known reform adage—don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. However, as we’ve learned from teachers in Tennessee, a hastily implemented system can affect teachers’ perceptions of their careers. A job they used to “love” can easily become one they “hate.”

For an alternative view of how to make teacher evaluation work for students and the profession that serves them, policymakers might just want to listen to teachers—the people who must implement these new teaching accountability systems.

In our latest edition of Teaching Ahead: A Roundtable, you have the chance to consider how Teacher Leaders Network (TLN) members—a number of whom are now engaged in teacher evaluation reforms through our New Millennium Initiative—view evaluation reforms, and how to make them work: 

• Jessica Hahn suggests that her evaluators ask themselves how they can “develop her as a better teacher."
• Jessica Keigan is ready for evaluations that draw on the expertise of students (and teachers themselves). 
• Ryan Kinser imagines how his evaluation experience will look in 2021. 
• Patrick Ledesma points out that if standardized tests are to be part of evaluation, they must be better. 
• Renee Moore argues eloquently that as teaching morphs into a true profession, we need transformed, not just reformed, evaluation systems. 
• Michael Moran makes the case for how teaching context must be a factor in teacher evaluation. 
• Ryan Niman meets the education genie. One of his wishes for teacher evaluation is to communicate the complexity of his work (and his colleagues’ work) to policymakers, practitioners, and the public. 

For those who could use a scholarly lesson on policy implementation in education, you might want to return to the 1970s RAND change agent studies. Transforming teacher evaluation, like most complex teaching policies, will require what Milbrey McLaughlin called “mutual adaptation” from those who enact and those who implement.

Is it not time to pay more careful attention to the implementers? Is it not time to consider policies that not just remove constraints to more results-oriented teacher evaluation, but policies that enable teachers to teach more effectively and serve students as they intended to when they entered teaching?

Keeping Score: What the Teaching Profession Can Learn from Baseball

By Paul Goodland

Paul Goodland is a peer evaluator in the Empowering Effective Teachers (EET) program in Hillsborough County, Florida, and a member of the Hillsborough County New Millennium Initiative. The following post was originally published on the Impatient Optimists blog.

I evaluate teachers for a living. When I visit a classroom, I watch a lesson, discuss what I observed, share recommendations, and get additional feedback from the teacher. This visit—along with a principal’s evaluation—determines about 60 percent of the teacher’s “annual effectiveness rating.”

The remaining 40 percent is determined by a complex calculation of students’ progress on an annual test, as compared to the performance of students with similar characteristics.

This is a far better system than has ever been used before. But it is just a baby-step in gauging teacher effectiveness.

Baseball is a great analogy for teaching. Baseball works, in part, because the aim of the game is simple: to score more runs. Anything that improves the team's chances of scoring more runs is valuable. Anything that decreases it should be reduced or eliminated.

In baseball, managers make decisions based on a huge amount of statistical analysis (now called sabermetrics), thanks to technological tools and ready access to data. In the past twenty years, in fact, baseball has been transformed: the impressions and conventional wisdom of tobacco-chewing, road-warrior baseball scouts has been replaced by the results-oriented, proven effectiveness of sabermetrics.

Sabermetrics only exists because baseball statistics are "open source." We all have access to them. For many years we didn't. In the 19th century, baseball aficionado Henry Chadwick made value judgments about which statistics mattered. He created a scorecard highlighting those few measures—and his system was used for about a hundred years. Then people started challenging his assumptions, like the idea that "walks" aren't important, and baseball statistics took a huge leap forward.

Do we have all the statistics of teaching? Is the profession transparent? Do we have access to the data? The answer to all of these questions is “no.”

How badly would baseball talent be misjudged if only five of the 180 games that a team plays between March and October were considered? What if the players knew that two of those games were formal evaluation days? Would they play differently?

It isn't enough to just read the box score, watch three to five games, and pick the all-star team. You need to consider the whole game, and the whole season.

So how do we collect more and better statistics?

Clearly, we must bring what happens in the classroom into the light of day. We must develop meaningful statistical processes that correlate to teacher effectiveness—and give us a comprehensive view of it.

At the same time, it is important to balance this with the imperative to treat teachers as professionals.

Teachers deserve autonomy and the ability to do their jobs unimpeded. When it comes to classroom visits, for example, there should be clear rules to ensure they occur in a limited and non-disruptive way.

In baseball, isolated measurements can be wrong. Umpires miss the call sometimes. Similarly, many teachers are concerned that a measurement or subjective assessment of their effectiveness will be inaccurate. There is good reason to question the way things are done and to improve the metrics.

Still, accurate pictures of teaching quality can be developed over time. A bad call eventually gets balanced by an equally unfair good call. A batting average (or more importantly, an on-base percentage) emerges.

For the sake of the many teachers who teach effectively every day, and for the sake of the kids in classrooms where teachers do their jobs effectively only a handful of days each year, I hope we get the rest of the statistics soon.

Teacher Whisperers Wanted

By Alaina Adams

Alaina Adams is a National Board Certified teacher in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to teaching high school English, she serves as a cognitive coach and professional development coordinator at the Phoenix Union High School District and the Arizona K12 Center. You can read her blog at Stories from School AZ.

In my endeavors to elevate the teaching profession, I am fortunate enough to be part of the work that the Arizona K12 Center crafts around vision, leadership, learning, and technology in education. Recently, I was chosen as one of 20 teachers across the state to work as part of a TeacherSolutions team designed to improve teaching and learning in Arizona. This work will be based on the framework outlined in TEACHING 2030. On November 16th and 17th, I spent some time with Barnett Berry and CTQ staff to dream, play, and plan.

As my group explored teacherpreneurism and a future of innovation, phrases like "a league of extraordinary educators" and "teacher whisperers" playfully came up in conversations. At the end of my last day with the team, I found myself returning to an Outlook mailbox full of the current realities of teaching that I "have to" deal with. I'm frustrated that I don't have more cognitive coaches available to help advance my practice. I'm also frustrated that TV shows and movies (like Jersey Shore and The Horse Whisperer) will earn more money in one shot than I'll ever make in my entire career as an educator. To clarify my thoughts, I ended my day by posting this comparison between "horse whisperers" and "teacher whisperers."

***

Horse Whisperer: Horses that have suffered abuse from people or been traumatized through an accident may develop changed behavior that their owners find difficult to deal with, or may even result in the horse being labeled dangerous.

Teacher Whisperer: Teachers that have been traumatized by things like excessive testing, narrow teacher evaluation, misuse of national curriculum, data-driven instruction, stifling teacher accountability, elimination of tenure, competition for funding, punitive school labels, "education reform," and misguided philanthropists may develop changed behavior that some may find difficult to deal with, or may even result in the teacher being labeled dangerous.

***

Horse Whisperers spend years studying the horse and its behavior in natural surroundings. They learn to read the silent but incredibly powerful communication we call body language.

Teacher whisperers, given appropriate release time, can study the behavior of teachers in their classrooms. There, they can study body language like the elevation of voice, eye-rolling, head flopping on the desk, and sporadic tears to understand a teacher’s entire language of communication to best gauge their needs.

***

Horse Whisperer: Young horses that had received little handling but were destined to be riding horses, for example, were once trained to work using quiet, brutal methods of coercion. This system was called ‘breaking.’ ‘Making’ a horse is preferable to breaking one.

Teacher Whisperer: Probationary teachers that received little mentoring but were destined to be classroom teachers, for example, might have been ones hustled through subpar certification programs. This system is called ‘fast tracking.’ ‘Making’ a quality teacher is preferable to rushing one.

***

In some public demonstrations, a horse whisperer will stand in an enclosure, which a young untrained horse is released into. The horse’s natural instinct is to fight or flight. The whisperer becomes the herd, the safe place to be, by his use of body language. First, he sends the horse away; he has not yet invited it to join his herd! He drives the horse forward and keeps him away.

In some school districts, only one teacher whisperer stands per campus, of unreasonable sizes, in which un-mentored teachers are released into. The teacher’s natural instinct is to sink or swim. Though the teacher whisperer becomes the safe place to be, he or she is often busy corralling other un-mentored teachers, and the un-mentored teacher-in-immediate-need is often driven away.

***

Horse Whisperer: During this training period, the horse's body language is clearly visible to people watching. The horse whisperer approaches as if he or she has all day to stand there. The result is a clear understanding that can be successfully built on. No shouting, no fear, no pain. A calm and positive mutual understanding provides a sound basis for true partnership between man and horse.

Teacher Whisperer: Given ample exposure to teacher whispering methods, teachers can change their body language and perform better on evaluations. This process can take several weeks or years. It is always approached as if the teacher whisperer has all the time in the world to stand there. No shouting, no fear, no pain. A calm and positive mutual understanding provides a sound basis for true partnership between teacher and whisperer.

Summary:

The horse whisperer does not perform tricks. He, or she, uses the oldest language in the world in order to read the horse and communicate with the horse, combined with equine psychology, to achieve partnership.

The teacher whisperer does not perform tricks. He, or she, uses the oldest language in the world in order to read the teacher and communicate with the teacher, combined with human psychology and compassion, to achieve partnership.

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!

New York Times Schools for Tomorrow Conference: A Teacher's Take

By John Holland

John Holland, a preschool teacher and co-author of TEACHING 2030, represented CTQ at the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow Conference last month. Below is his take on the experience.

I walked into the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow conference with some trepidation. The conference had been organized to energize stakeholders about integrating technology in our schools. I knew that many of the attendees would be from the private sector, including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and online learning providers. I was surprised to find approximately 75 educators in the crowd of more than 300. Some, like Brian Crosby, were educational technology specialists. Brian is an elementary teacher in Reno who stepped onto the larger educational stage after Skype learned he’d used their services to teach a homebound student with leukemia. 

Brian secured his invite to the conference by emailing the New York Times to explain how wack it was the panels included no teachers. I got my invite easily enough, by filling out an online form.

But I was skeptical. I attended the conference so I could live by the advice I give my daughter about soccer. She often plays defense and has gotten quite good at the skill I call “being there.” To “be there” is to see the total field, the offensive positions, and your place in anticipating an attack. You can then get to where you need to be to stop the ball and turn the tide of the drive on the goal.

I went to the Schools for Tomorrow conference to “be there” as a teacher leader and passionate advocate for a hopeful vision for education. I wanted to meet the players, especially those who might consider technology a replacement for teachers.

The Spark

David Brooks, one of the most popular opinion columnists in America, opened with a surprising remark: “I want to start by expressing a note of skepticism about technology in education.” He continued:

My skepticism about the role of technology in the classroom is based on three arguments. The first is that people learn from people they love, they don’t learn from computers they love, and anything that gets in the way between the relationship between the teacher and the student is something I’m likely to be skeptical of. The second thing is that electronic communication is far inferior to personal communication…. And finally information processing. The tendency of technology is to make information processing easy. But the way you learn and remember is through processing information that is hard and challenging. You want to introduce trouble, not introduce ease.

Wow, I thought, David Brooks sounds like a teacher. Even though I consider myself a passionate advocate for the use of technology in schools, I still struggle with those same points. But if we can balance our enthusiasm about technology with our recognition of Brooks’s points, we can be the adaptive professionals that students deserve. 

From Defense to Offense

The first panel included a group of international experts on technology in schools. None of them were teachers. I decided to move from defense to offense—by asking a question: “What concrete action steps, from your various perspectives, can be taken to help teachers use technology to teach?” 

Here’s how Harri Skog, the permanent secretary of Finland's Ministry of Education, responded:

I think it helps a lot if a teacher has an autonomous way of having his own discretion at the level of the classroom....I think it is very important for teachers to be able to plan how they want to teach, but that needs to have this kind of trust situation. If I would be asked one thing to have, it would be more autonomy in schools.

I was sitting next to Diana Laufenberg, a powerful and visionary teacher from the Philadelphia Science Leadership Academy—we both started clapping.

Meeting the Players

Between attending panels and informally networking, I met many passionate advocates for 21st-century learning.

• Larry Berger, founder and president of Wireless Generation, spoke on a panel about technical tools for the classroom. He highlighted how technology could strengthen teachers’ formative assessment efforts.
• Jacqueline Botterill, director of social public good for Skype, shared news of Skype in the classroom, connecting teachers and learners across the globe.
• Scott Kinney, senior vice president at Discovery Education, described how the Discovery Educator Network enables public school teachers to leverage streaming media for student learning and professional development.
• Joel Arquillos is executive director of 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center that provides free writing programs for Los Angeles students, including after-school and in-school tutoring, field trips, workshops, and publishing resources.
• Erik Michielsen founded Capture Your Flag, a project that is conducting qualitative interviews with aspirational leaders, tracking them over time. Erik will apply tagging and coding techniques to these annual interviews, identifying themes that can drive an innovative approach to curriculum development for college and career readiness. 

What “Being There” Meant to Me

This conference confirmed one of my deepest held beliefs about teaching: there is a spark between human beings that is essential to the learning process. This fundamental spark in the engine of learning can never be replaced by technology. In fact, the best uses of technology in education will continue to involve person-to-person communication.

The human spark is also what will make a difference in important decisions about educational policy and practice. When teachers can “be there,” they can provide a much-needed window into how policies affect the learning of individual students. When teachers can “be there,” they can ask the questions that need to be answered. We will truly know this spark is alive when teachers (along with students and parents) are not just relegated to “being there,” but are sought-after panelists in important discussions about teaching and learning.

Thank you, David Brooks, for calling on my raised hand. Let's hope that next time, my colleagues and I will be answering questions, not just asking them.

USDOE Sends Mixed Messages on Teacher Education

Just recently, the U.S. Department of Education released its plan for teacher-education reform, pointing out that too many university-based programs “do not provide teachers with a rigorous, clinical experience that prepares them for the schools in which they will work.”

In an ironic twist, however, the Department’s Race to the Top guidelines have promoted the proliferation of alternative certification programs that shortcut pre-service training for new recruits. These programs give recruits limited or non-existent opportunities for “rigorous, clinical” preparation prior to teaching independently. Not only must university-based teacher education be improved, but we also need to think about what supports teachers are given while they're teaching. There is no reason to believe that school districts are sufficiently suited to prepare teachers for the schools of today — or tomorrow, for that matter.

A recent study has shown that few teachers receive the “intensive, sustained, and content-focused professional development” that matters for student achievement. For example, as reported in the same study, over the course of a year only 9 percent of elementary math teachers had more than 24 hours of content-specific professional development in math. Many school-district officials just don’t value the kind of high-quality professional development that teachers (and their students) deserve. Instead, as seen in this stark display below (from a local news report on how school districts view teacher learning), archaic district-driven professional development prevails.

From the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, Oct. 17, 2011

I wonder why USDOE officials, in pushing for much-needed changes in teacher education, don’t push school districts to transform their systems of professional development. The plan does indeed call for all teachers — including veteran teachers and recent graduates of preparation programs — to “receive professional development and career advancement opportunities that are aligned with their identified strengths and needs.”

However, USDOE does not call for scrutiny of school districts’ professional development programs. Maybe districts should be held accountable for the quality of support they provide to recently minted teacher-education graduates. Maybe if the USDOE called for such scrutiny, our nation would get a bit closer to creating the kind of comprehensive teacher-development system needed for the schools of today and tomorrow. 

Building a Wall of Teacher Voices

By Mermuda Wilson

Mermuda Wilson, a policy assistant at CTQ, has been using her video-editing expertise to share teacher voices in an online video series. In this guest post, she describes her experience working with these teacher-submitted videos.

Relationships. AP scores. Graduation stoles. “Fast food” learners. Empowerment. Community partnerships. 

These are a few of the topics broached by teacher leaders highlighted in our CTQTube series. The series, which runs until mid-November, features Teacher Wall submissions from teachers in CTQ's Teacher Leaders Network (TLN).

The Teacher Wall Project is a virtual teacher town square where educators can share video clips and comments. It was built by Scholastic, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and DonorsChoose.org as a way to elevate teacher leaders' perspectives on their profession. The CTQTube series is a microcosm of the Teacher Wall, which has received hundreds of video responses.

The breadth of responses has been amazing. One aspect of the CTQTube submissions that has really stood out to me is that not a single teacher has listed a formal award as their “greatest succcess as a teacher” (a question the teachers were asked to respond to in their videos). These are Teachers of the Year, National Board Certified Teachers, Presidential Award recipients, and National Education Association Teachers of Excellence finalists.

Shannon C'de Baca talks about the value of student-teacher relationships.

Instead, they all chose student-centered measures as their shining moments. This reinforces what teacher Shannon C’de Baca says in her video: the relationships teachers have with students are more important than any specific program.

Building relationships is a common theme that arises in some form or another for all the teachers featured in our CTQTube series. A very clear example is Karen Van Duyn’s submission. In a creative twist on the assignment, Karen’s students put together their perspectives on why she teaches. It’s a fun video that sheds some light on her philosophy of student empowerment. The students seem to have really enjoyed the production process and looked critically at how their perspectives on their teachers shape how they learn. 

Putting this series together has reminded me that while every classroom and every educator is different, the top educators do share one commonality: the genuine desire to foster relationships that allow students to tap into their unknown potential.

Karen Van Duyn and her students share reasons why she teaches.

Our nation has so many of these accomplished classroom practitioners who have so much untapped potential to lead school improvement efforts. Now is the time to make these expert teachers more visible to policymakers and the public. They can and must lead the way. There are only 18 years, 2 months, and 12 days until 2030. We have a lot more work to do to "blur the lines of distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead them." 

The Difference Between a Teacherpreneur and an Education Entrepreneur

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.” 

How do you create space for innovation when a system is already in motion? In education especially, it often feels like we're trying to build the plane as we’re flying.

What would our schools look like if we solicited the expertise of teachers and recognized classroom problems as opportunities for innovation? How might learning outcomes be transformed if teachers were equipped to investigate and design solutions?

Given that most teachers aren’t afforded such opportunities, the education-reform world has been captivated in recent years by other another model of innovation: the incredible efforts of education entrepreneurs. Their accomplishments engage and inspire the public with seemingly endless possibilities for our schools. New Tech Network, Harlem Children's Zone, School of One, and Khan Academy have rocked the foundations of the education establishment by transforming the identities of school and classroom.

Though these schools have been successful, their ideas have proven difficult to scale and sustain in a way that benefits all communities. Fortunately, there is an untapped reservoir of expertise that can generate even more profound change in our nation's schools. 

Enter the teacherpreneur.

As defined by the authors of TEACHING 2030, a teacherpreneur is a teacher leader of proven accomplishment possessing a deep knowledge of how to teach, a clear understanding of what strategies must be in play to keep schools highly successful, and the skills and commitment necessary to spread their expertise to others — all while keeping at least one foot firmly in the classroom. 

Entrepreneurs may have brilliant ideas that often require venture capital and years of planning, but teacherpreneurs’ innovation is grounded in their daily experience in schools and classrooms. While education entrepreneurs experiment with novel theories for student learning, teacherpreneurs serve as action researchers by hypothesizing, implementing, troubleshooting, and learning from their daily interactions in the classroom. 

Prioritizing their responsibilities to students, teacherpreneurs are making a name for themselves by creatively packaging and delivering instruction. Some are 'flipping' their classrooms by allowing students to watch lessons online and using class time to complete work traditionally reserved for home. Others are using social media tools to develop a more modern take on classroom discussion, effective writing, and community action. 

The prevailing form of teacherpreneurship occurring regularly in schools across the nation is teacher leadership. Running everything from their departments and grade levels to professional learning communities, teachers are cropping up as managers, directors, mentors, and guides. Outside their buildings, teacher leaders are transforming unions, community organizations, after-school programs, and online professional-development communities.

CTQ works directly with three teacherpreneurs: Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello in Denver, and Noah Zeichner in Seattle. In addition to their primary roles as teachers, all three are involved with education policy work for the New Millennium Initiative. Jessica and Dana also work alongside the Colorado Legacy Foundation, and Noah collaborates with Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Education Association to increase teacher leadership opportunities. These teacherpreneurs will ideally serve as models for other organizations and districts that want to support similar hybrid positions.

Both teacherpreneurs and entrepreneurs play valuable roles in advancing the development of a 21^st-century school system. While entrepreneurs inspire a vision of what schools can become, teacherpreneurs demonstrate the caliber of individuals we need in schools to realize that vision. Teacherpreneurs elevate the entire profession by ensuring that colleagues, policymakers, and the public know what works best for students.  

To participate in a discussion about teacher career paths and hybrid teaching positions, join our Twitter chat on Thursday, October 20, from 8:30-9:30 p.m. ET, hashtag #teaching2030.

Using Teacher Expertise to Improve Policy

By Bill Farmer

The Illinois New Millennium Initiative has been doing some terrific work in response to the state’s recent efforts to reform its teacher evaluation systems. I’ve asked Bill Farmer, an Illinois NMI member and high school science teacher in Evanston, Illinois, to share his thoughts about the team’s recent report and interactions with state policymakers.
–-Barnett Berry

Like many other financially strained states, Illinois is engaged in significant educational policy reform propelled by the carrot of Race to the Top federal funds. One of the primary products of this reform is Senate Bill 315, passed in January 2010. SB 315, more commonly known as the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), provides the framework for a major overhaul of teacher and principal evaluation systems, using student growth as a significant component of evaluations. 

Illinois teachers have long recognized the flaws in current evaluation systems and have been advocating for an improved model that provides useful, timely feedback and professional support that can enhance classroom practice. In fact, in 1984 Art Wise and Linda Darling-Hammond, both then at the RAND Corporation, identified many of the same evaluation problems reformers and teachers are concerned about today.* Almost 30 years ago Wise and Darling-Hammond pointed out that we need clearly defined standards of professional excellence, well-trained and pre-qualified evaluators, and more frequent feedback. And today PERA is calling for similar guidelines for a teacher evaluation system.

The Complex Task of Measuring Student Growth

In the political and public realms, linking evaluations to student growth seems like common sense. Research consistently indicates that teachers are the most important school-based variable in a student’s educational growth. But somehow the school-based segment of that conclusion is frequently omitted. In reality, innumerable factors both inside and outside schools affect student growth.

And although many of us educators are already frequently monitoring student growth in our individual classrooms, systematizing such a complex measurement is an infinitely challenging task. This is particularly the case when trying to quantify an individual teacher’s contribution to student learning. Teachers often teach multiple grade levels and courses, spend varying amounts of time with students, and are aided by specialist teachers. Team teaching, which is much needed, can confound efforts to identify which teacher is responsible for student learning gains.

Involving Teachers in the Implementation Process

Implementing PERA is the responsibility of a joint committee called the Performance Evaluation Advisory Council (PEAC). Of this group of roughly 30 education stakeholders, only one is a current K-12 teacher. 

Around the same time PEAC was organizing, the Illinois New Millennium Initiative was assembling a dynamic group of early-career and veteran teachers to do the exact same thing. With such a huge transformation under way in Illinois, our goal was – and is – to bring teacher voice to the forefront of the conversation around the implementation of PERA.

Our NMI team’s virtual community provided a way for teachers to share research on teacher evaluation systems, helping us better understand the complicated matrix of educational policy in Illinois and around the country.

We then combined this knowledge with our own teaching experiences to write our report, “Measuring Learning, Supporting Teaching: Classroom Experts’ Recommendations for an Effective Educator Evaluation System.” 

Making Our Teacher Voices Heard

Since the report's release, key stakeholders and educators have taken notice.  

The NMI team has hosted webinars with members of PEAC to share our recommendations and provide feedback on PEAC’s work. NMI teachers have also attended monthly PEAC meetings to make connections and share perspectives from the classroom. These experiences have made us feel like our teacher voices are being heard and considered.

This month, we plan to attend regional teacher forums PEAC is sponsoring to present its progress and solicit teacher feedback. We’re eager to engage in (and maybe even help initiate) the next layers of policy reform that will strengthen our professional practice and produce better student outcomes. Evaluation reforms of 30 years ago never bore much fruit because teachers weren’t involved in implementing them. NMI teachers are ready to help lead the way.

*Wise, A. E., Darling-Hammond, L., McLaughlin, M. W. & Bernstein, H. T. (1984). Teacher Evaluation: A study of effective practices. Santa Monica, CA. RAND.

Six Ways to Improve Teacher Prep Programs

Below is a blog post I wrote as part of an online discussion for Learning Matters, a nonprofit media production company that has produced many education-focused reports and documentaries for PBS. Along with several experts in the education field, I was asked to write about teacher quality and teacher training. I encourage you to read the other participants' responses and leave comments on the full Learning Matters discussion — it's absolutely worth the read.

 

Recently, I collaborated with twelve expert teachers to write TEACHING 2030: What We Must Do For Our Students and Our Public Schools … Now and in the Future. We argue that universities’ teacher education programs — and highly-touted alternative certification programs like Teach for America — perpetuate out-of-date models of teaching and learning.

Teacher recruits need a very different kind of preparation to teach the diverse, tech-savvy learners of today and to ready those learners for the 21st-century global marketplace. To make this happen, we must move far beyond reform rhetoric — and we must do so quickly. Here are six big strategies that can help teacher preparation programs break the mold:

1. Ensure that recruits are being prepared for the roles that are most needed in area schools: School districts should develop “labor market” reports, allowing universities to carefully consider how many recruits should be prepared and for what.

2. Jettison traditional three-hour course credits in favor of performance-based pedagogical modules and assessments: This nimble, practical approach will help recruits to develop specific teaching skills and will better identify who is ready to teach, when, and under what conditions.

3. Split the time: Work with school districts to create hybrid roles for the most effective teachers to spend half their time teaching and half their time as lead teacher educators.

4. Understand the community: Require recruits to complete a substantial internship in a community-based organization, developing deep knowledge of how and where students and their families live.

5. Embrace online: Engage recruits in a virtual network of teachers, preparing them to teach effectively online and to collaborate virtually with teaching colleagues.

6. Emergent Tech: Work with school districts to expose recruits to live and digitally recorded “lesson studies,” in which teams of candidates learn to critique teaching and assess student learning using emerging technologies.

How Teacher Turnover Harms Students

Finally reaching the bottom of one my reading stacks, I found myself fascinated and frustrated by the findings of a new study on the relationship between teacher turnover and student achievement.

The study, led by Matthew Ronfeldt and his education economist colleagues, used sophisticated methods to uncover empirical evidence on how teacher attrition, especially in high-need schools, seriously harms low-income and black students. They point out that previous researchers assumed that turnover rates negatively affected high-need students because high quality teachers were the ones leaving.

But this is not the case.

Teacher attrition has a detrimental effect on student achievement “even after controlling for different indicators of teacher quality” — including value-added ratings for teachers who leave and the ones who replace them. The researchers claim that teacher turnover “negatively affects collegiality or relational trust among faculty” or “results in loss of institutional knowledge among faculty that is critical for supporting all student learning.”

Other research has revealed complementary findings. Tony Bryk’s path-breaking analyses, for example, link trust and collegiality among teachers with higher student achievement. 

It’s time for policymakers to seriously consider who is recruited into teaching, for how long, and how they are placed in schools. Thoughtfulness in these areas will ensure that teachers contribute to, not undermine, faculty cohesiveness and long-term instructional strategies. It’s time to confront policymakers’ embrace of recruiting underprepared teachers to high-need schools without adequate training, supervision, and support.

At the same time, we need to question their dismissiveness of the positive effects working conditions can have on teaching and learning. It's time to build 21st-century school organizations that support teacher teams that have staying power and that are rewarded for working effectively with their students, families, and communities over time.

Confronting the 15,000-Hour Problem

This commentary by Barnett Berry originally appeared as a guest post on Getting Smart's blog on September 1, 2011.

Imagine a new teaching profession — the one that students of today and tomorrow deserve. Here’s how “schools” and “teaching” could look:

• In transformed learning environments, digital tools enable students to learn 24/7 and use skills demanded by local and global economies. Meanwhile, similar technologies allow teachers to learn from each other anywhere, at any time.

• Expert teachers create seamless connections in and out of cyberspace. They bridge students’ virtual learning with what goes on in brick-and-mortar schools (including afterschool programs to deepen and extend learning for our most vulnerable students).

• Students learn from collaborative teams of teachers with varied strengths and roles.This is made possible by a career matrix (as opposed to the traditional career ladder) that includes differentiated pathways. The system places a premium on the spreading of teacher expertise—and is structured to encourage our best teachers to remain in the profession.

More than 600,000 “teacherpreneurs” are making a difference in our schools. These are effective teachers who continue to teach students regularly, but also work part-time on results-oriented efforts to improve student learning. They might design new instructional programs, orchestrate community partnerships, develop digital learning tools, and advance new policies and practices. Teacherpreneurs will be the “highest-paid anybodies” in a school district—and their roles will finally blur the lines of distinction between those who teach in schools and those who lead.

These four possibilities, described more fully in TEACHING 2030, a new book I penned with 12 expert teachers, can help us imagine what teaching could look like. Here’s the catch: we have to move past the tired 20th century struggles over how we recruit, train, and pay teachers. Yes, some serious politics are involved, as described vividly, if not always accurately, in Steven Brill’s new book, Class Warfare.

But we must also contend with the 15,000-hour problem. Most Americans have attended schools for 13 years—and have watched teachers teach for more than 15,000 hours, usually in the company of 25 or 30 other students (40 or 50 in hard times). And while most Americans may want improved schools and better teaching, they do not want teaching and learning to look all that different from when they were in school themselves. The public’s familiarity with teaching reifies expectations. It may even breed contempt for the specialized skills that effective teachers and administrators need to develop—after all, an expert teacher can make the job look easy.

But the 15,000-hour problem besets teachers and administrators as well. Almost four decades ago, Dan Lortie, the well-known education sociologist, described the 15,000 problem as the “apprenticeship of observation” — when teachers and administrators come into the profession thinking they already know how to teach and lead. In fact, since many educators have had the experience of “liking school” as K-12 students, they often resist major transformative changes. They may not want to think differently about teachers’ roles, teaching methods, and how and when students are expected to learn.

So what do we do? We shouldn’t simply seek more recruits from alternative routes. Plenty of evidence suggests that even teachers and administrators from “alternative routes” reify the current system of teaching and learning.

Instead, we should consider how teachers’ and administrators’ preparation can set the stage for a new expectations about what schools and learning look like.

And now is the time for public engagement campaign that informs and inspires, helping Americans shift their own beliefs about what schools and teachers can accomplish — and how they should go about it.

Selling a bold new vision of teaching and learning is far from impossible.

The American people have the capacity to let go of old patterns of thinking when the evidence is compelling and well-presented. Consider how our nation’s adult population changed its collective mind about cigarette smoking. In the early 1960s, cigarette smoking was common. In ads, the Marlboro Man (portrayed as a rugged cowboy) gave cigarettes a free-spirited, back-to-basics, all-American image. Then studies began to identify empirical links between smoking and cancer. Early anti-smoking commercials, starring “Johnny Smoke,” showed cowboys keeling over with poisonous fumes in their lungs, parodying the Marlboro Man. Public awareness grew and behavior began to change, as TV ads for cigarettes were banned and the Surgeon General’s warnings on cigarette packages became more stark and visible. Within 40 years, the percentage of American adults smoking cigarettes decreased from 45% to 20%.

An inefficient public education system mired in 20th-century debates may not be blackening our lungs. But the status quo is doing something just as serious: failing our students, our communities, and our democracy. We must help the public understand what is possible. We must get past the 15,000-hour conundrum. We must work together to create the transformed system of teaching and learning that 21st-century students deserve.

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.  

 

Expertise to Action in Denver

By Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello

One of the most exciting parts about working with expert teacher leaders is seeing their hard work and expertise appreciated. The Denver NMI team’s positive contribution to shaping and implementing teaching policies in Colorado attests to the importance of teacher voice in the policymaking process. I’ve asked two members of the Denver NMI team, Jessica Keigan and Dana Nardello, to share some of their recent involvement with the state legislation process. Jessica also spoke about her involvement during a special Rocky Mountain PBS roundtable held last Friday, where she represented her team with solutions-focused comments and compelling stories. --Barnett Berry

Here in the Mile High City, there has been a lot of buzz about Senate Bill 191, a law that calls for the creation and implementation of a new evaluation system for principals and teachers.

Among other things, the bill requires that half of a teacher’s evaluation be determined by student growth measures and that the other half -- loosely labeled as “multiple measures” -- include classroom observations by peers or administrators, goal attainment processes, or other similar tools.

But the tools used to assess teachers’ effectiveness on the basis of gains on a once-a-year standardized test are still pretty raw. As noted in a recent Congressional briefing, the grade-level standardized tests do not capture “teacher effects” when students are way below or above where they are supposed to be.  Some teachers teach a disproportionate share of second language learners or special needs students. Some teachers are part of teaching teams and it is difficult to determine who is most responsible. Some teachers work with students who get all kinds of help from afterschool and summer programs, but others do not.

As members of the Denver New Millennium Initiative, we knew it was important to be part of the conversation about the bill’s implementation. Since the release of our report “Making Teacher Evaluation Work: Voices from the Classroom,” various stakeholders have solicited our suggestions for specific and concrete suggestions. And last week, we had the fantastic opportunity to share our expertise at a state board public hearing.

The Process

This past May, the State Council on Educator Effectiveness (SCEE) began working to define what makes an educator effective, and since then it has made several recommendations to the Colorado Department of Education (CDE). The council has drafted and revised rules and has encouraged general feedback through public hearings – an opportunity we decided to take advantage of.

After releasing our report, our team spent the summer months researching teacher effectiveness and various topics introduced in the drafted rules (e.g., comparability, assessment tools, state vs. local control). Deciding to focus on what we thought the state’s definition of “multiple measures” should be, we submitted a list of recommendations to the board. At the public hearing, NMI team members supplemented the list by sharing our classroom realities, e.g., how highly mobile students or a large number of second language learners who just entered our classes, could influence the accuracy of the test score evidence. We described how teachers can assemble a wide array of data on their students so we can figure out how to improve our teaching.

Why Do We Care?

As teachers, we want stronger teaching accountability systems. We want to reach beyond our classroom walls and influence the policies that drive the work we do each day. Conversations about education reform need to include perspectives of people who know what happens inside the classroom.  We have solutions, we have ideas, and we want to share them.

Our day-to-day experience allows us to anticipate pitfalls and envision successes in a way that wouldn’t be possible for most lawmakers. Because we believe we have the responsibility to be involved in education policy, we are continually searching for entry points, conversations, meetings, and committees that we can contribute our expertise to.

What We Learned

Classroom teachers often think they don’t know enough about policy, politics, or the legislative process. But the truth is that teachers hold the critical piece of the puzzle. Our stories from the classroom can corroborate expert suggestions or productively challenge them.

The great news is that we aren’t the only ones who think this.

Our team and two other teachers were the only teacher voices heard during the hearing, and we could tell that our input made an impact on the audience. After giving our testimony last week, a member of the SCEE cited our evidence specifically when discussing next steps with the board. We knew we were being listened to, and it was an exhilarating experience.

Each new encounter with policymaking is showing us that people want to hear what teachers have to say. They respect our contributions as experts in our field –especially when they are solutions oriented.

Next Steps

Last week we received tangible indication that our teacher voices are having a positive effect on policy. Witnessing such respect for teacher expertise makes us excited to continue contributing to this process.

The Denver NMI team will continue to review the commentary and drafts that stakeholders are submitting. The next public hearing is scheduled for October 5, and on that day we hope even more Denver NMI teachers will share personal evidence that will support our recommendations.

As always, we will continue to seek out opportunities to share our voices, in hopes that we can improve our profession and best serve our students, inside and outside the classroom. 

 

Reshaping the Teacher Preparation Debate

A few days ago, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave a shout-out to the University of Michigan for serving as a national model for “reinventing” education schools. Indeed, the UM education school, led by Dean Deborah Ball, has done much to recalibrate university-based preparation programs by focusing on the practical how-tos of teaching specific curricular content and drawing on new research about how students learn. And though Secretary Duncan has often called for more student teaching, not less, his Race to the Top policies continue to embrace shortcut alternative-certification programs. Such routes, like Teach for America, can’t come close to offering new recruits the kind of preparation provided by UM’s education school (or by the many other university preparation programs that have also overhauled their approaches).

Secretary Duncan’s contradictory stances on teacher training are difficult to reconcile.

I keep thinking back to a terrific conversation captured by Education Next a few years ago. Arthur Wise, a champion for professionalizing teaching, and Julie Mikuta, a TFA alum and partner in the NewSchools Venture Fund, discussed the merits of university-based and alternative-certification approaches to teacher preparation. The three-year-old piece brings to light a number of issues surrounding TFA and whether it’s a “valuable strategy for recruiting the best and brightest into education and energizing school improvement, or a distraction and a device for sending ill-prepared neophytes to serve some of the nation’s neediest students.”

Federal policymakers have much to learn from the Education Next conversation – especially from Dr. Wise, who points to the false dichotomies often promoted in the current policy debates over teacher education. Rather than demonizing TFA or claiming teacher education programs have it all figured out, he calls for a strategy that scaffolds learning for all novices, whether they are TFA members or university-based recruits. He envisions a “teaching team strategy” in which experienced teachers are ultimately responsible for students, “but in multiple classrooms and with the assistance of the novices.”

Both TFA and traditional recruits have much to contribute to the process of improving teaching and learning. No teacher, however, should teach independently until he or she has passed muster on performance metrics, including teaching diverse learners (such as ELL students) and using sophisticated assessment tools to determine student progress toward 21st-century academic standards. It’s time that our nation’s education leaders learn that teacher education and licensing is not about dichotomous choices, but inventive approaches that can support student learning today and tomorrow.