The Tempered Radical

Three Tricks to Retaining Teachers

Have you ever noticed that the constant stream of articles about the teacher retention crisis in America's schools never really ends? 

Poke through Google and you'll find bits on attrition in math and science, where candidates can easily move into the private sector and earn significantly more over a lifetime, and on the costs that attrition carries for schools and districts.  You can find reports drafted by national organizations like the Education Commission of the States and the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.  

Ed Week and Edutopia are writing about teacher retention.  So is Cal State University and the Virginia Department of Education.  

And in every case, the voice of practicing classroom teachers is missing!

Download Slide_AmericasPiggyBank  

Sure, if you look hard enough, you can probably dig up a quote or two from classroom teachers in all of these sources---but only after hearing from authors, researchers and various other "experts in the field" who are seen as more knowledgeable on the factors driving people from our classrooms than us teacher-types. 

So let me bring some reality to this conversation, built on nothing more than my 16 years of experience as a practitioner. 

Sadly, I’m Not Alone. . .

Cranky Blogger Warning:  You know the rules, here.  I’m blowing off a bit of digital steam in this one.  Take this post for what it’s worth—which might just be nothing by tomorrow morning. 

Look, I understand exactly who I am:  A sometimes-articulate, full-time classroom teacher who gets discouraged every now and then and believes that glasses weren’t made for being half-empty or half-full.  They were made for shattering against the wall in brief moments of emotional meltdown!

That leads to some brutally honest reflection here on the Radical—and brutally honest was what I was trying to be when I wrote about the torrid pace of change in schools.  I’m honestly exhausted, y’all, and I don’t mind making that exhaustion transparent. 

And if I were the only teacher slodging through a miserable November, I’d chalk this whole strand of digital misery up to sleep deprivation.  I do have a beautiful baby girl, after all.  I love her times ten, but 3 AM feedings got old months ago!

But check out some of the comments that my readers left on last week’s post.  They seem to suggest that I’m not alone.  Renee wrote:

This is my fourth year and I am so overwhelmed, still, when things are supposed to be improving for me. I look around at the veteran teachers in my department and realize they are all working hours and hours and hours with the expectation being that we will somehow find the time to transform ourselves in the next generation of teachers.

Renee’s comments should be particularly disturbing to decision-makers who are trying to see schools change.  Fourth-year teachers are the lifeblood of reform.  They’re generally idealistic and hardworking, and they’re looking for ways to lead.  More importantly, they’ve got their best professional years ahead of them, now that they’ve figured out how to manage a real live classroom.

When we chase away Renees, we’re hurting our future—and that ain’t good!

The Torrid Pace of Change

Dean Shareski, an educator and blogger that I respect greatly, recently reflected on the change efforts in his district, writing:

I also get to spend a great deal of time with our superintendents and other leaders in our division and to a person, they all want to create a division where students succeed, teachers are great and everyone loves their job...This is all good but simply telling people they need to change isn’t a great formula for success. Not that that has been the case but when I talk to teachers I’m hearing the same message.

"It’s too much"
"It seems the only things that are valued are Reading and Math"
"I feel like everything I’m doing is wrong"
"I’m not sleeping well"
"I need time to implement"

Something’s very wrong when a whole bunch of good people all trying to do what’s best for kids feel like this.

What's really frightening is that Dean's observations are pretty much spot on:  Most teachers I know feel overwhelmed and undervalued.  The pace of change in our schools is nearly crippling---and it is driving practitoners out of the classroom.

I’m a prime example: I’ve never wanted to be anything but a classroom teacher–and have turned down a dozen opportunities to work beyond the classroom to stay true to that commitment. But I’m actively considering getting out---and I’m nearly at the point where I'm willing to do anything EXCEPT teach: consultant, college professor, instructional resource teacher etc.

What I’ve seen happen in my work is that I still have all of the traditional teaching tasks to manage—grading papers, planning lessons, communicating with parents—-AND I’ve got to wrestle through countless efforts to redesign teaching at the same time. Nothing has been taken away.

I see this as an example of an imagination/implementation gap:  The well-intentioned people crafting plans for our schools have forgotten just how hard classroom teaching really is.  The ideas they propose are all valid, but they're also nearly impossible to put into action unless classroom teachers are willing to work way, way beyond expectations. 

Does this resonate with anyone besides me?

Questioning Practice in a PLC

PLC expert Rick DuFour has started an interesting strand of conversation over at the All Things PLC blog this morning.  Referring to some of the interactions that we had in our recent Voicethread on professional learning communities, Rick wonders why teachers are unwilling to question colleagues engaged in questionable practices. 

He writes:

Not all behavior is professional. Not all ideas are of equal value.

If the very essence of a team is people working interdependently (rather than in isolation) to achieve common goals (rather than individual interests) for which members are mutually accountable (rather than every man for himself…then we must have the courage to engage in crucial conversations with one another.

The culture of every organization is determined to a large degree by the worst behavior people are willing to tolerate.

Now, I agree with Rick completely that questioning colleagues in a PLC is a professional responsibility.  Professional learning communities are defined by a collective commitment to ALL students.  No longer are teachers interested only in the 50 kids on their class lists.  Instead, they’re interested in identifying the kinds of practices that can result in learning for EVERY child.

But questioning colleagues is still really, really difficult in most schools!

Welcoming the Newest Radical

Meet Reece, y'all:

  

She was born on Monday, and if all goes well, my wife and I will be adopting her and heading home to North Carolina by Tuesday of next week!  I guess that makes her the newest member of Radical Nation, huh? 

I sat her down and explained all of the responsibilities that go along with joining our happy band of educational thinkers.  "You'll have to challenge the thinking of others, Reece---and be willing to have your own thinking challenged.  You understand that, don't you?"

She farted and smiled.  I think she gets it. 

While she may not know it, she's already challenging my thinking.  I'm wondering how her life has changed now that we've stepped in to it.  Would she have the same odds of success had her birth parents chosen to raise her by themselves? 

Don't get me wrong:  I know that my wife and I are going to do everything within our power to raise Reece well---this is a lucky young lady who has landed in the laps of two people who have wanted to be parents for a long, long while---but can our love overcome the loss that she'll someday feel, knowing that there's another mom and dad out there somewhere who were heartbroken to let her go even though they knew it was the right thing for their daughter?

And what consequences will the challenges that her birth mother faced during pregnancy have on Reece in the future?  Will she develop at the same rate as other kids---physically and cognitively?  Are the potential barriers that she'll face surmountable, or is she starting out at a disadvantage that will be impossible to overcome?

I'll also admit that I have NO IDEA how I'm going to pay the bills.  Between insurance, diapers, formula and day care, there's a ton of new expenses that I'm just not sure my teacher's salary can absorb---and honestly, that makes me mad.  I've done everything that I can to increase my take-home pay, earning a Master's degree and National Board Certification (which carries a 12 percent salary supplement in North Carolina), but I just don't think that I can make ends meet.

Maybe I'm finally starting to understand why so many of my colleagues have left the classroom already.  We spend our lives nurturing other people's kids, but don't make enough to nurture our own. I guess that I'll know pretty quickly about whether I can teach for my whole career---a goal I've always held for myself. 

I'll let the bounced checks be my guide!

I'm also wondering how being a dad is going to change me as a classroom teacher.  Will I have more tolerance and understanding towards my students?  More appreciation of the challenges that parents face every day? 

Are the best teachers always parents, too?

Or does having Reece mean that I'll be less of a contributor to my school because I've got something more important to spend my time on once the busses leave?  I mean, I've always been the guy who gave 1,000 percent to my kids----spending my weekdays coaching teams after school and my weekends designing whiz-bang lessons and reading constantly about my profession simply because it was my passion. 

Needless to say, I've got a different passion now----you did see the picture, right?  Tell me she ain't the cutest kid you've ever seen-----and it's crazy how much she's made me think in the past five days, even if she does poop a lot!

Looking past the Cheetos . . .

An interesting email landed in my inbox last week from one of my all-time favorite students, a boy that we’ll call Jack that I taught a few years back. 

  by  Muffet 

What caught my eye came at the end of Jack’s email, when he wrote:

Oh yeah, and on my last report card I got 5 As, 1 B, and for comments I got

• classroom conduct average
• classroom conduct is below average
• classroom conduct is average
• classroom conduct is excellent. Jack is a pleasure to teach
• classroom conduct is above average
• classroom conduct is average. Good work habits. Creative.

I don't get it, I behave the same in all the classes!?!

Now, I didn’t say it to Jack, but I know EXACTLY why his conduct grades are all over the board:  Because he is the PROTOTYPICAL middle school boy!

What does that mean, exactly?

It means that he’s a constant ball of energy, tapping his pencil, blurting out answers, standing, sitting, squirming, moving, shouting, and running all over the room.  And if you let him stop by during lunch, he’ll burp the entire alphabet, stuff fourteen Cheetos up his nose, and chug milk like a frat boy on a weekend bender. 

It’s certainly a sight to see!

If you patiently sift through the movement, though, it’s hard NOT to fall in love with “Jack the Student.”  He is an inquisitive kid who is ALWAYS focused on what’s going on in class.  Everything that he blurted out in my room was brilliant, directly connected to the broad themes that we were studying in class and challenging the thinking of everyone in the room—including me.

He buries himself in books, writes touching short stories, engages audiences as a budding star in school plays, actively leads as a member of his school’s student council, and turns in amazing work—when it hasn’t been swallowed by his binder!

He likes a good political debate, ready to challenge you on universal health care or on the risks and rewards of standing up to power.  He’s deeply religious and can explain his personal beliefs better than most of the adults that I know.  Give him the chance to compete and you’ll see him work harder than anyone in your class.

The problem is that there are far too many teachers in schools today who are unwilling to look past the Cheetos.  For them, kids like Jack are walking disruptions to be dismissed and disciplined.  What’s worse, schools only get more frustrating for active boys as they get older.

They spend more and more time sitting in one place listening quietly to teachers who are lecturing for hours on end, sending the subtle message that knowledge is held by those who are in charge.  They either conform—pushing their energy and creativity to the side and beginning to believe that there is something ‘wrong’ with them—or they push back and end up labeled as troublemakers.

Is it any surprise, then, that boys make up almost 60% of the high school dropouts in our country, even though they make up only 50% of the student population?  Or that boys are suspended and expelled from school more often than girls?

Or that boys are placed in special education programs more often than girls?  Or that boys are diagnosed with emotional disturbances more often than girls?

In the end, I’m starting to think that schools are rigged against kids like Jack.

And that breaks my heart. 

Leadership Day 2009: Why Digital Change Efforts Fail. . .

(I'm a bit behind, but I wanted to get in on Scott McLeod's Leadership Day 2009.  It's one of the most important digital events of every year.)

Flipping through a paper copy of the eSchool News this morning left me more than a bit bummed.  Slapped across the front page is an article detailing the struggles of Philadelphia's Microsoft supported, tech-heavy School of the Future (SOF). 

  by  JenReeves 

Designed as a model for what education should look like in a knowledge-driven world, Philly's SOF turned away from textbooks, provided every student with a laptop computer, developed an online portal for organizing class content and activities, developed a new teacher hiring process, provided campus wide wireless access, and built a curriculum based on Microsoft's six Is:  Introspection, investigation, inclusion, innovation, implementation and in a slightly ridiculous decision, introspection again.

Unfortunately, Philly's SOF hasn't had the broad impact---on student learning, on instructional practices, or on school reform---that school leaders and Microsoft staffers were counting on.  As Jan Biros, an associate vice president for instructional technology support at Drexel University and former member of the SOF Curriculum Planning Committee, wrote:

"We naively thought, I guess, that by providing a beautiful building and great resources, these things would automatically yield change.  They didn't."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?  Schools turn to education's version of the Hail Mary pass all-too-often in today's day and age, filling classrooms with thousands and thousands of dollars of new digital tools and services, yet they continue to struggle to make any real change in the outcome that matters most:

Student achievement. 

What is most worrisome is the implications that the failure of Philly's SOF---a heavily funded program with the public backing of Microsoft and several area universities---carry for the rest of us.  "If THEY couldn't successfully shift to digitally-driven learning experiences," the thinking goes, "what hope do WE have?!"

The answer is that there IS hope for schools trying to fundamentally change the way that they do business in a rapidly changing world.  

Assessment's Either/Or Conundrum. . .

I'm enjoying the give and take of the conversation that has developed in the comment section of my recent blog post on the Danish system of assessing students because it is forcing me to think!  As always, diversity of opinion provides the kind of external challenge necessary for new learning. 

While listening, I've noticed two distinct viewpoints developing.  The first argues that an overemphasis on standardized testing as a form of assessment leaves parents and teachers with a superficial understanding of what it is that a student knows and can do. 

As Simon argues:

The point of education has to be to teach kids to do something that they couldn't do before. That's what learning is. Frankly, it's uninteresting how well a bunch of 14 year-olds can cough up the periodic table or list off the members of the Triple Entente in 1914. That kind of information is easily available when you need it and listing it is proof of memorization, not learning.

What is interesting is what you can do with such information. Analysis, critical thinking, using technical terminology - these are skills, and skills that are very hard to measure in a multiple-choice quiz. They are also fairly easy to judge in a conversation. If it is unclear whether the pupil is parroting or not, just ask another question.

The Problem with Scripted Curricula. . .

I had the chance to spend about an hour today talking about education with a parent who is also a business woman.  It was one of the better conversations that I've had in the past few months.  She started by mentioning how "over the top" our state's end of grade testing program is:  

"This kind of testing doesn't tell me anything about the students that you'll turn out and that I'll want to hire someday.  The kinds of skills that it takes to answer a multiple choice question aren't the kinds of skills that I need students to have in the workplace."  

She went on to describe what she'd like to see students doing in my room:

"You're a science teacher.  Why can't you pair with the math teacher to study buoyancy.  The students could build boats in your classroom made of different materials, experimenting with density and floatation.  They could study friction and resistance.  And in math, they can study surface area when making sails. 

You have a pond outside.  You could set up races on the pond and hand out awards for the students who can figure out the best ways to get their boats from one side of the pond to the other.  Learning between your classrooms should be completely joined.  Imagine how excited the kids would get!"

As our conversation went on, I mentioned how the kinds of learning experiences that she was so passionate about were becoming less and less common in many classrooms simply because teachers are bound by pacing guides that don't leave a ton of room for experimentation.  Literally, instruction in most subjects is spelled out day-by-day in some of the thickest three-ring binders you've ever seen.  

"I know how many days I'm supposed to spend on light, sound, heat, the solar system, the rock cycle, and the carbon cycle," I explained, "and if I get behind because of an activity that takes too long, I feel incredible pressure, knowing that the only thing I'm going to be held accountable for is performance on the standardized tests."

She was pretty shocked by the idea that there was no room for exploration in the school day---and she picked up on something that few parents ever notice:  

"That amount of structure has to take the joy out of teaching, doesn't it?  So why are these kinds of rigid pacing guides even used?"

Good question, huh?  And one that I've figured the answer out to:  Rigid scripting of the work of classroom teachers is designed to raise the quality of instruction in classes with underqualified teachers---and I'm ashamed to admit it, but scripted curricula often produce "measurable results."  

That shouldn't be too hard to believe, though.  After all, with scripted curricula, teachers who knew little about their content areas are given lessons that cover the kind of critical content that they regularly avoided in the past, teachers who spent months on their favorite subjects are forced to touch on objectives that they may never have taught, and teachers who have little time to plan no longer have any excuses because every lesson---down to the words that teachers should say---is assembled ahead of time by instructional experts working beyond the classroom. 

In districts that embrace scripted programs, every teacher in every classroom has at least an AVERAGE lesson that they can deliver-----and that means that every child in every school is getting some kind of "education."  The greatest impact of these attempts to control the work of teachers are seen in our poorest schools---where undercertified or inexperienced teachers are common and where scripted curricula have resulted in HIGHER test scores than ever before.  

Of course, the hidden damage is that scripting curricula DOES take the joy out of teaching for our most accomplished teachers----and those teachers flee classrooms, looking for positions where they will be given the professional flexibility to explore their field and leaving their schools struggling to find competent replacements.  

After listening to me describe the impact that scripting has on schools, my parent said something brilliant:  

"That's crazy.  Schools are letting an HR problem----attracting enough accomplished teachers that you can trust to do the job well without a script----create a curriculum and instruction problem.  Address the HR problem instead."

She's right, isn't she. Now, what do we do about it?  

Can teachers take the lead, working to make the impact of scripted curricula transparent to parents and policymakers?  Is this an issue that parents have to champion, standing up for the kinds of instructional experiences that they want their children to have? Are we all waiting for a legislator willing to put his neck on the line and advocate for new salary structures that reward the best and brightest who choose to teach?

I get all worked up because everyone----including parents and business leaders----seems to realize that what we're doing isn't enough and yet nothing ever seems to change!  I want to take action, but I don't know what that action should be.  

Can anyone help?

What I'm TRYING to Say Is...

Wow.  Working through my recent thoughts about organizational juice has been a real challenge for me.  Based on responses from readers, I'm not sure that my point has been terribly clear!  That's the beauty of blogging, though----the pushback provided by readers forces me to polish my own thinking. 

So let me try again.  

I'll start with a few details that may have gotten hidden in the emotion of my recent rants:  Most days, I love what I do.  I work in one of the most progressive schools in one of the most successful districts in one of the most education-oriented states in the nation.  When I moved to North Carolina from Upstate New York 16 years ago, I would have never guessed that I'd end up in a place led by some of the most committed educational policymakers on earth.  

And watching the kids in my classroom make new discoveries still gives me a rush.  That's why I'm still a full-time, practicing teacher, actually.  The thought of giving up those moments is almost incomprehensible to me.  My choice has been to try to change the profession rather than to hang up my chalk and move on to something new.  

What I'm wrestling with, though, is a very clear disconnect between the rhetoric and reality of life as a "teacher leader."  For at least a decade---the better part of my career---educational experts have been churning out inspirational charges, encouraging schools, districts and states to empower classroom teachers.  

Consider some of the following quotes as examples:

• "A crying need exists for excellent, practicing teachers to advance---to lead---by taking a more formal and explicit role in the supervision and improvement of instruction."  Mike Schmoker 

• "The leadership shortage may be dire, but the leadership development potential is great, if only schools and systems will tap into the potential of teacher leadership.  Even though 50,000 leaders will retire in the first few years that this book is in print, hundreds of thousands of teachers will be at the peak of their professional experience."  Douglas Reeves  

• "When decision making is dispersed, when many minds are brought to bear on the knotty, recurring problems of the schoolhouse, better decisions get made about curriculum, professional development, faculty meetings, scheduling and discipline.  The better the quality of the decisions, the better the school."  Roland Barth  

And let's not forget this quote from Redefining the Teacher as Leader, a 2001 report that literally changed the way that I think about my role as a classroom teacher:

• "It is not too late for education’s policymakers to exploit a potentially splendid resource for leadership and reform that is now being squandered: the experience, ideas, and capacity to lead of the nation’s schoolteachers." 

I'd argue, though, that despite this drumbeat of support for teacher leadership, most practitioners are still struggling to have the kinds of influence that educational experts believe is essential to school reform.  

Please understand that I don't see any inherent malice in that reality at the local level.  It's just that we work in large organizations operating under layers of restrictions passed by local, state and federal authorities.  Finding influence is never easy for those working at the bottom of bureaucracies, is it?  

It's also difficult to define "accomplishment" in our profession.  How can we truly be sure that we're empowering the right teachers when outcomes are as murky as they are in education?  Worse yet, educators have a long history of refusing to accept accountability for our work, so teachers suddenly asking for opportunities to lead has to seem slightly ridiculous to those who are holding on to power. 

And I've got to believe that it's hard to imagine creative ways for teachers to lead in an accountability culture that depends on nothing more than warm bodies to walk students through pre-determined pacing guides before testing season begins.  Teacher leadership is slightly pointless when the outcomes that we're expecting schools to produce can be churned out by nothing more than rigid implementation of scripted curricula.   

Whatever the reason, I believe that the Institute for Educational Leadership got it right when they wrote:

The infinite potential the nation’s teachers possess for sharing their hard-earned knowledge and wisdom with players in education’s decision-making circles—or even for becoming part of these circles—remains largely unexploited. There are a growing number of glittering exceptions, but they do not add up to much in American public education’s universe of 46-plus million students, 15,000-odd school districts, and 100,000-plus schools. If they constitute a trend toward recognizing the teacher as leader, it is surely a slowly developing one.

And that's what drives me nuts.  

Even with focused attention centered on the need to involve and empower teachers in the decision-making process, I still find my work restricted on a pretty regular basis.   The best shot that we have at truly being influential is to "catch more flies with honey," to "feed admins...a consistent flow of good news about a successful student(s) so they come to expect it from you" and to "work harder at building relationships rather than burning bridges"----advice given by readers and friends in response to my recent writings.  

That doesn't mean I'm ready to quit the classroom.  What it does mean is that I'm coming to a point of acceptance---with no value judgments attached---that the role of the classroom teacher is unlikely to change much during the 14 years that I have left before I retire.

And for me, that means making a decision: Either I've got to find satisfaction in the role that I'm filling or find a new role. The kinds of significant changes that I want are just not going to happen.

The advantages of staying where I am: I get to continue working with kids and to hold on to the credibility that comes along with being a practitioner.  The advantages of leaving: I might just wind up in a position where I have a bit of the organizational juice that I write about wanting.

I should just make a decision and live with it.

Does any of this make sense?