Education Week - March 26, 2014 - 33

ology, would both inform a university and elevate the voices of
alumni who want to improve the programs from which they
graduated. We commend Indiana University Bloomington for
conducting these surveys, and we encourage other preparation
programs to follow suit.
Many of our Teach Plus Indianapolis colleagues, most of
whom graduated from preparation programs in Indiana, have
not been contacted by these programs since graduating. While
information a university collects at the end of each course is
valuable, alumni can also provide meaningful feedback on
which courses were essential to their growth as classroom
teachers and where a program was lacking. Schools and school
districts, especially in urban areas, are concerned about the
high rates of teacher turnover, and preparation programs can
improve this turnover by asking early-career teachers how
their training helped-or hurt-retention.
Finally, we encourage preparation programs to increase
the availability of the data they collect and the research they
perform. It is encouraging that Mr. Gonzalez is pushing to
publicly report the results of alumni in classrooms, and we
appreciate the data he shared in his Commentary. However,
prior to reading his essay, we searched the school of education's
website, but could not find these results or the surveys.
We do not doubt this data is collected and used to inform decisionmaking
at the university, but our Teach Plus colleagues,
some of whom attended Indiana University, were unable to
identify where this information is published.
Teacher-preparation programs must make sure that prospective
students, alumni, and employers are able to access data on
the results of various schools of education programs. Just as we
are asked to be reflective in our teaching practice, we would like
to see our alma maters being reflective in their efforts to improve
teacher preparation. As alumni, we would like a seat at the table
to help improve our respective programs. This would ensure that
current and future alumni are not only proud of their degrees,
but invested in the future of the schools they attended and their
careers. We can only do this if data is transparent and accessible.
We are very grateful for the opportunity to engage in this diaPAGE
34 >
CAITLIN HANNON is the executive director of Teach Plus Indianapolis.
Previously, Ms. Hannon taught high school English in Indianapolis. NATALIE
MERZ is a 1st grade teacher at School #61. JACOB PACTOR is a high
school English teacher at Speedway High School. JENNIFER ROGERS is a
5th and 6th grade reading interventionist at Creston Intermediate Academy.
Ms. Merz, Mr. Pactor, and Ms. Rogers all teach in the Indianapolis area and
are Teach Plus teaching policy fellows.
"
It's important for
us as classroom
teachers to focus
on the role
teacherpreparation

programs play in
elevating the
profession."
Teachers as Critical Thinkers
By David Ruenzel
I
by race/ethnicity, special education status, and
grade level to help each district identify the students
who are most frequently and severely disciplined.
For me, this clarified how big an issue discipline
disparity is in Beaverton's 51 schools. We
learned, for instance, that, in February 2013, 7.4
percent of black middle school students in Beaverton
had been suspended or expelled, compared
with 2.7 percent of white students. In February
2014, the percentages were reduced to 6.5 percent
of black students and 2.2 percent of white pupils,
but there's more work to do.
In the third report, REL reviewed individual
districts' discipline policies and procedures and
described how each aligns or does not align with
recommended best practices and Oregon school
discipline policies. Leaders in Beaverton and the
other districts were able to see where we had supportive
and equitable policies in place and where
gaps existed.
The district partners know that pinpointing the
problem is not enough. We need help in thinking
about potential solutions and communicating the
urgency of the problem to school leaders, teachers,
and community members. This partnership
work has given us new ideas about how to move
forward. This school year, Beaverton and the other
Oregon Leadership Network districts are identifying
strategies to enact solutions that will work for
our schools and students. Alliance members are
also identifying common measures that schools
might use to pinpoint their needs and track progress.

Are we making progress? That's the final con-
tribution that evidence can make to continuous
improvement. While we have a long way to go to
achieve equity, I now have confidence that principals
in my district are increasingly asking the
right questions. They are also receiving high-quality
data to provide accurate answers about what
to do, and how well their actions are affecting results.
The support of REL Northwest has been a
critical factor in leveraging our progress.
All of the partners in the alliance have benefited
greatly from the reciprocal learning that
happens when researchers and practitioners
work together, and the regional educational
laboratory has provided a critical link between
evidence and effective action. I am confident
that our districts will make strides to eliminate
discriminatory and disparate discipline practices
in our schools.
In Beaverton, we have four "pillars of learn-
ing" that describe our commitments to students
and our community and represent what we as
a district want to be known for. One of those
pillars reads, "We embrace equity."
The lives of our students are in our hands, and
it is a moral imperative that we establish discipline
practices and policies that reflect our pillars
and honor our students. By basing policy changes
in research, we feel we are doing just that. n
JEFF ROSE has served as the superintendent of the
Beaverton, Ore., public schools since 2011. He has
worked in education for 19 years, including as a
classroom teacher, principal, and director of school
improvement.
n my last few years of teaching
high school English, I
developed a senior elective
called "The Art of Memoir,"
for which students read such
authors as Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Ernest Hemingway,
Richard Wright, and
Mary Karr. The students wrote essays
evaluating and comparing and
contrasting the works; they also wrote
short memoirs of their own that we
workshopped in class.
Because this was a new course, I
designed the curriculum, created the
rubrics and assessments, and came
up with the "big" questions I wanted
students to consider, such as, "Does the
reading public's fascination with memoir
suggest a healthy interest in other
people, or does it too often indicate a
voyeuristic urge to look through the
debris of broken lives?" I also sought
out colleagues for advice on choosing
texts and dealing with the problems
such a new endeavor would inevitably
encounter.
In essence, the thinking and problem-solving
I took on were akin to
the kinds of things the Common Core
State Standards now ask students to
do in the 46 states that have adopted
the standards for English/language
arts: to analyze complex texts, to weigh
evidence, to make clear and effective
arguments, and to work with others
with very different views.
In short, I had to think my way
through this new course every day,
exactly as students are supposed
to do in courses
aligned with the
demands of what
many call the common
core's "thinking
curriculum."
This point is
important because
too much
of the discussion
about the
common core has
focused on what
students are going
to have to do-and
not enough on the fact
that the standards can
succeed only if teachers
become the critical thinkers
we now expect students
to become. There is no other
way. Teachers cannot push
students to think more deeply
unless they do so themselves.
All great coaches have to have
played the game, and the teacher is
first and foremost the students' coach.
This represents a huge shift for
teachers because, in the United States,
the public has often perceived teachers-and
the education schools that
have prepared them-not as thinkers,
but as taskmasters who force-feed
"content" to students who have to be
kept in line. The goal has long been
coverage-to go at supersonic speed
over everything from the Roman Empire
to thermodynamics-without ever
having to stop to explore anything in
depth. In short, teachers have often
Teachers cannot
push students to
think more
"
deeply unless
they do so
themselves."
been asked to focus on the lowest rung
on the Bloom's taxonomy pyramid: remembering.

This is beginning to change, especially
within the teaching profession
itself. An increasing number of
education schools are now emphasizing
higher-order thinking skills, and
many teachers rightly chafe at being
seen primarily as purveyors of basic
skills and information. Nevertheless,
the historical tendency to dumb down
teaching remains largely in force.
This can be seen in some of the highly
scripted common-core materials popping
up in curricula and teacher-development
materials.
One website marketing commoncore
products, for instance, writes of
a "suite of solutions [that] takes the
guesswork out of the common core so
you can ensure ... all teachers consistently
provide students with successful
learning opportunities." Another
company advertises its common-core
product as taking teachers from "Zero
to Mastery in as Little as One Year."
Yet another consulting company actually
calls its program "Common Core
Made Easy."
"Easy," as it turns out, is a favorite
word in common-core marketing. But
it's an illusion. It can never be easy, for
teachers and students alike, to analyze
texts such as the Federalist Papers,
or to understand the causes of World
War I, or to use effectively any of the
intellectual skills the common core now
charges students with mastering.
And it's not easy to assess students
on the common core, either-especially
with a new wave of
the same old fill-in-thebubble
tests. The common
core requires,
or should require,
that teachers do
the hard work
of assessing
real work by
students-their
writing, their
labs, their presentations-that

showcases what the
standards are really
about.
The proponents of
the common core like to
talk about how the standards
set out a new vision
of learning for students. And
this is true; it will no longer
be enough for youngsters to
memorize information or rely
on formulas. But if the common
core is to succeed, it must
set out a new vision for teachers, too-
one that helps them practice the kind
of deep-thinking skills they will now
be required to preach. n
DAVID RUENZEL is a freelance writer
who reports on education for several
organizations, although the opinions
expressed in this essay are his alone. He is
a former contributing editor for Education
Week and senior writer for Teacher
Magazine. He taught English at several high
schools, most recently from 2001 to 2012
in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is on
Twitter @druenzel.
EDUCATION WEEK | March 26, 2014 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary | 33
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Education Week - March 26, 2014

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