Education Week - April 15, 2015 - 21

erage of five periods each day, working more
hours a week than their global counterparts,
and spending the bulk of the day isolated in
their classrooms, teachers are quite literally
left with no space to learn from each other. In
teaching, you're on your own.
Finally, teachers get very little feedback
about their effectiveness. Day in and day out,
teachers can't really see the results of their
work. In part, this is because teaching is about
human improvement, and measuring personal
growth is difficult. But in equal part, this is
due to ineffective approaches to measurement.
Current data efforts are focused almost
entirely on student standardized-test scores,
which often tell teachers little that they don't
already know.
So, could we build systems that incentivize
teachers to work harder or longer? Yes.
And might making it easier to fire teachers
help weed out the very worst performers? Sure.
But such efforts won't make much of a difference
in the overall quality of instruction. Because
we don't have a problem with our seeds
so much as we do with the soil in which we ask
them to grow.
Drop down any teacher you want, and there's
going to be a problem. They'll stall out. They'll
burn out. They'll struggle more than they
should.
Of course, some don't. Those teachers are
truly amazing. But the vast majority could be
better. Not because of who they are. But because
of how their jobs have been structured.
If we want a teacher-centered reform that
might actually succeed, we need to begin by
ending the misguided attack on those in classrooms.
And then we need to get down to work
on a much more challenging and essential set
of tasks-overhauling the profession so that
all teachers can realize their full potential.
Broadly speaking, this means crafting a
national teacher strategy. Currently, our approach
to all questions involving teachers is
ad hoc. Even at the federal level, there is no
overriding philosophy, no consistency, and no
coherence to our teacher-related policies. This
is in contrast to every nation with a strong
professional corps of teachers.
W
ties. There is little upside to fighting this battle
or even being transparent if the law doesn't
require it.
Congress could fix it by eliminating the loophole
and honoring the intent of nclb, which is to
help equalize funding for the poorest children.
This would require true financial comparability
between poor and rich schools, measured with
real-dollar accounting of all school-level spending,
and full transparency to the public and to
stakeholders.
It may not happen in the current political environment.
But maybe there's a deal to be made.
America has an opportunity to better protect
kids at risk and give districts more flexibility
with scarce federal dollars. We should not let
the opportunity pass without a more robust,
honest debate on the issue of equity, comparability,
and how best to serve America's lowincome
children. n
JEAN-CLAUDE BRIZARD is the president of the Washingtonbased
UpSpring Education Group, an organization that
supports school leaders. He is a former superintendent of
schools in Chicago and in Rochester, N.Y., and began his
career as a teacher and administrator in New York City. He
wrote this essay in partnership with the national advocacy
organization Education Post, which is based in Chicago.
hat would a national
teacher strategy
look like?
It would begin
with widespread
changes to the
school schedule.
Teachers need more
time to plan, prepare, and reflect. And they need
more time to collaborate with each other. Of
course, more time is hardly a stand-alone solution;
but it is an absolute prerequisite. Recognizing
this fact, pioneering schools and districts have
already begun to experiment with the length of
the school year and the school day-creatively
using extracurricular time, utilizing paraprofessionals,
and renegotiating teacher contracts.
Next, we need to develop a new set of support
structures. At the most basic level, this would
include the creation of common, high-quality
instructional materials for teachers. Given the
emergence of the Common Core State Standards,
this is increasingly possible. Developing
a small set of world-class tools to replace a
grab-bag of idiosyncratic resources should be a
priority. Somewhat more challenging, though
perhaps even more essential, would be a move
toward embedding professional development
into the workday, rather than delivering it
through periodic one-shot workshops. One alternative
is the professional-learning-communities
model, in which teachers meet frequently
by grade level or content area to collaborate on
strategies, set goals, and analyze data. Another
model, used commonly in Japan, is lesson study,
a procedure in which teachers work in teams to
closely examine sample lessons. Whatever the
specifics, educators need more support centered
around both what and how to teach.
No less essential to teacher growth is access to
meaningful observation and feedback. If we are
serious about teacher quality, we need to make
a universal commitment to training and engaging
instructional coaches and teacher mentors
to regularly observe teachers, debrief with them,
and help them set challenging personal goals.
We also need to reorient our teacher-evaluation
systems away from punitive "valuation" and toward
support for improvement. The high stakes
of current evaluation practices only encourage
teachers to hide their flaws, and have been generally
ineffective in transforming the labor force.
Instead, all teachers should be able to look forward
to a thorough annual performance review,
and a year-long follow-up process, designed to
help them grow.
Finally, we must strengthen the teaching profession
by broadening the roles and expectations
for teachers. We can encourage teachers to take
on greater levels of responsibility by developing
new pathways-career ladders being the most
common proposal-that recognize and compensate
great teachers. We can foster higher levels
of autonomy for teachers who have demonstrated
their abilities. And, perhaps most importantly,
we can create opportunities for teachers
to take on new roles leading innovation at the
school and district levels.
It's a lot to ask for, certainly. But perhaps now
is the time.
For more than a decade under nclb, our dominant
national approach to improving schools
has taken the form of a demand: Get better or
else. And that approach has failed. In this next
reauthorization of the esea, then, Congress
might want to try the opposite tack: building
school capacity for improvement. Because
if policy leaders stop issuing threats and start
building capacity, they might build a better kind
of teacher. n
JACK SCHNEIDER is an assistant professor of education
at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass.
He runs the opinion blog K-12 Schools: Beyond the
Rhetoric on edweek.org.
"
If we want a
teacher-centered
reform that
might actually
succeed, we
need to begin by
ending the
misguided attack
on those in
classrooms."
LETTERS to
the EDITOR
Don't Blame the Schools
For Rich-Poor Academic Gap
To the Editor:
The Inside School Research blog
post regarding Robert Putnam's new
book, Our Kids: The American Dream
in Crisis, hit home with me ("Robert
Putnam: When Did Poor Kids Stop
Being 'Our Kids'?," March 9, 2015).
Finally, someone who gives voice to
the truth with the statement, "Schools
are not to blame for the academic gap
between rich and poor students that
starts before kindergarten."
For years, educators and schools
have been blamed for this academic
gap, even though they are dedicated
to helping their students every
day-providing snacks, clothes, and
emotional support, just to name
a few ways they help-while still
maintaining academic focus. Miracles
happen every day in schools.
My school has, as have others,
developed a mentoring program to
provide positive role models for our
students. This is because we educators
have known all along the importance of
"all kids being our kids." Society must
quit blaming schools and educators,
and step up and take collective
responsibility for education. We need
positive, not only negative, coverage
of what is actually happening in our
schools. We need businesses to take a
vested interest in being authentically
involved in schools. Parents need to
make time to converse with their
children. Communities need to support
adequate funding of schools.
Our future hinges on the ability
of young people to work together,
problem-solve, and have empathy for
one another. How can we expect them
to learn empathy, compassion, and
community-mindedness if the adults in
their communities are not displaying
those values?
Legislators must quit measuring
the success of a school by looking at
one set of data points. Educators know
that student growth is shown in many
ways, not just in numerical form. We
need more of our political leaders to
visit schools, so that they can make
educated decisions about the supports
schools and children need.
Sherry A. Watts
Principal
Minneola Elementary Charter School
Minneola, Fla.
Prepare Teachers to Adapt
To Factors Outside School
To the Editor:
There are kids entering urban
classrooms every day hungry, sad,
tired, and angry. Name an obstacle
to learning, and most urban teachers
have seen it play out firsthand among
their students.
In January, the Horace Mann League
of the United States released "School
Performance in Context: The Iceberg
Effect," a report on the "unparalleled
levels" of poverty, inequity, and violence
faced by U.S. students. Though
outside factors such as these are not
the reason for increasing gaps in
achievement, they're barriers teachers
must understand and address to
have an impact on student learning
("International Study Ranks Schools on
Social Stress, Equity," Jan. 28, 2015).
To develop this understanding and
provide the tools needed to surmount
such obstacles, we must first look to
educator-preparation programs.
All our programs must proactively
train their candidates to deal with the
issues they'll face in the classroom.
Programs preparing candidates to
do this successfully must share best
practices with their peers.
In February, professionals in
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Education Week - April 15, 2015

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