Confrontation v. Collaboration

There is considerable political rhetoric these days that blames ‘overpaid’ teachers and recalcitrant unions for the so-called “crisis” in education. It’s sad when I hear school board members - who ought to know better - piling on, as I did at a recent state meeting.

(I say ‘so-called’ because educational quality has not declined over the past generation; the reality is that public education hasn’t kept pace with a vastly increased expectation, both in terms of the knowledge and skills we expect students to learn, but also the proportion of students - i.e., everyone - we expect to be successful.)

First, if teachers really are overpaid, how do we explain the fact that half of new teachers leave the profession after five years - three years at inner-city schools - long before they become vested in those ‘overly-generous’ pensions? Second, anyone who believes that a typical teacher works a 35-hour week, with three  months vacation, hasn’t talked to any real teachers lately.

What the rhetoric overlooks is that we have no chance of accomplishing the necessary transformation of our education system unless everyone – policy-makers, administrators, teachers, students and parents – begins to see themselves as on “the same side”; as partners with differing roles. This won’t happen if we continue to pit “sides” against one another. Even the feds appear to understand this: a top DOE official recently told a gathering of state lawmakers: “States need to take a more active role in promoting cooperation between teachers' unions and school districts”.

This is why Joel Klein had little chance of success in New York. As noted in Irving Hamer’s commentary in Education Week (Collaboration Is Essential in Public Education), Klein’s “combative approach …  ignores the reality that reform cannot be something we do to teachers.” (The same criticism could be made of Michelle Rhee.)

It continues to amaze me that it never seems to occur to these so-called reformers to ask teachers what they think could be done to improve education. Trust me, if you ask, you’ll find many teachers who’ve given a lot of thought to this and have something to say.

Instead, it’s often just the opposite: “teachers cite a lack of support and poor working conditions” as the biggest reason for leaving the profession, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education.  As Walt Gardner put it (in yet another response to Steve Brill): it’s not about finding “a way to motivate the rank and file. … these teachers are already motivated. What they are not, however, are masochists.”

At worst, a confrontational, toxic school climate will drive away the good teachers (or keep them from coming in the first place). At the very least, it will inhibit the collaboration, risk-taking and creativity that is essential to meaningful organizational change.

Simple solutions to Complex Issues

A couple of recent book reviews have shown a lot more insight than the book they reviewed.
I mentioned one Monday - Dana Goldstein's review of Steven Brill's “Class Warfare.” Today, I'd like to note Sara Mosle's piece from Sunday's New York Times.

Mosle is particularly critical of Brill's belief that "unions are the primary cause of failing public schools" in spite of the almost total lack of evidence to support that claim.

Let me repeat that. There is almost no evidence to support the belief that unions are the primary obstacle to education reform. Yet a lot of people believe just that, largely because unions are an easy, simplistic scapegoat that conveniently absolves everyone else of responsibility.

Human beings have an understandable affinity for simple answers to complex problems. The particular challenge of education reform is that it is tempting, and fairly easy, to make a simplistic argument about this particularly complicated issue; developing a coherent counter-argument is far more challenging and time consuming.

Brill bases much of his argument about unions on the success of the non-union KIPP charter schools in Harlem, which nearly everyone admires. But even a KIPP founder concedes that the program "relies on superhuman talent that cannot be duplicated in large numbers" - and cites examples of educators who unexpectedly quit, citing burnout and unsustainable workloads. KIPP does great work, but it's not a universal model for reform.

Mosle also makes a point that was emphasized by Goldstein: while teacher quality is the most important variable within schools, "mountains of data, going back decades, demonstrates that most of the variation in student performance is explained by non-school factors: not just poverty, but also parental literacy (and whether parents read to their children), student health, frequent relocations, crime­-related stress and the like."

The achievements of the Harlem Children's Zone - another oft-cited success story – are due to the fact that they specifically and deliberately attempt to address those issues.

Does this mean that exceptional teachers cannot make a real difference in the lives of these students, or that teachers shouldn't be held accountable?  No, what it means is that it's going to be extraordinarily difficult to design an accountability system - particularly one that depends primarily on test scores - that accurately takes into account all those non-school factors. And that's precisely what the simplistic reformers are proposing.

Any experienced teacher will tell you that even in a relatively homogeneous district such as ours, one year's class can be completely different from the next year's. How does one account for that?

I particularly like argument Mosle make towards the end: "Brill likens the battle over the nation’s schools to “warfare,” but the better analogy may be to the war on cancer. For years, scientists hoped a magic pill would cure this ravaging disease. But increasingly, doctors have recognized that they will have to fight a multi-fronted war, as cancers (like failing schools) aren’t all alike."

We should be outraged

Credit to the Centre Daily Times for running this recent AP story above the fold: “Cutbacks in state aid for public schools hit Pennsylvania's poorer school districts the hardest, slashing nearly three times as many dollars in aid per student compared with wealthier districts.

On the same weekend of that story, I heard the following comparison of the “top” and “bottom 50” of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts:

	Avg. teacher salary	Avg. education	% of students in poverty
“Top 50”	$74,000	Master’s +	17%
“Bottom 50”	$44,000	Bachelor’s	47%

Of course, correlation does not imply causation. Higher teacher salaries do not “cause” better education; it’s far more complicated than that. On the other hand, it’s pretty hard to say that teacher salaries don’t matter, or that level of education doesn’t matter - or that poverty doesn’t matter.

Which, of course, is exactly what the Corbett administration is saying, has said, and has backed up through action. As hard as the state budget cuts were on every Pennsylvanian school district, poor districts were hit the hardest.

It should also be noted that as part of this year’s omnibus school code bill, all reference has been removed of the ‘costing-out study’ that was developed during the prior administration. The study, of course, acknowledged the Commonwealth’s responsibility towards equity in education funding.

As a member of a district that came out of this relatively well, perhaps I shouldn’t say anything, but there’s no other way to put it: it’s unconscionable, and probably unconstitutional.

A post-script:

This article from Dana Goldstein is worth noting.

In a review of a recent book by Steven Brill - he of "Rubber Room" fame - Goldstein takes issue with the commonplace claim that teacher effectiveness can overcome the disadvantages of poverty. (The impact of some of these disadvantages - food insecurity, lead poisoning, etc. - should be hard to ignore.)

Well, no one disputes the value of good teachers, nor - it ought to follow - the importance of "focusing education policy efforts on sustainable teacher quality reforms such as ... requiring new teachers to undergo apprenticeship periods working alongside master educators, and creating career ladders that reward excellent teachers who agree to stay in the classroom long-term and mentor their peers."

However..

"the work of the many researchers Brill cites shows that while teaching is the most important in-school factor affecting student achievement, family and neighborhood characteristics matter more. The research consensus has been clear and unchanging for more than a decade: at most, teaching accounts for about 15 percent of student achievement outcomes, while socioeconomic factors account for about 60 percent."

I share Goldstein's frustration that this point has to be made over and over again. 

A natural synergy

There is a natural synergy between two of (what ought to be) the most important ideas in education reform: 21st-century skills and school climate.

To review: the concept of 21st-century skills is based on the understanding that in order to prepare today’s students for successful careers and lives, nearly every student will need far more than the primarily content-based education that most of us received if we went to school in the 20th century. They will also need learning and application skills, such as:
    * Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
    * Communication and Collaboration
    * Creativity and Innovation

Good communication skills will be essential: how to communicate with different audiences, in multiple ways; knowing when to speak and how to listen. They’ll need to understand and balance diverse views in order to reach workable solutions, particularly in multi-cultural environments. (What I refer to as ‘deliberative skills’.)

Tomorrow’s citizens will need to be able to work with others collaboratively, but also know how to lead. They’ll need to be flexible and adaptable. They will need a deep understanding that learning is a life-long and self-directed process. To a far greater extent than our generation, they’ll need to make their own way.

Much of this may not sound all that revolutionary; what’s changed is that in tomorrow’s world, every student will need to be so equipped. There used to be an understanding that only the ‘elite’ students needed these skills, which they’d pick up when they went off to college. 

Most schools, however, are not currently designed to accomplish these outcomes for average students. How do we get there?

One of the keys will be that we pay much closer attention to the school's learning environment, also referred to as "school climate”.

School climate is defined as “the character and quality of school life”. This includes:
     • school norms, goals, and values
     • the nature of interpersonal relationships (student-student, student-adult and adult-adult)
     • teaching and learning practices
     • leadership styles and organizational structure.

The first argument for the importance of school climate is obvious. Students are more likely to learn when they feel physically, emotionally and intellectually safe, when their classes are engaging, and when their voice is valued (key elements of a positive school climate). 

There is also what we now know from brain research: learning performance is deeply affected by the student-teacher relationship and the emotional environment in which learning takes place. (By the way, business leaders increasingly understand the significance of employer-employee relationships on business success.)

Similarly, teachers are more effective when they have opportunities for professional growth and collaboration with other teachers, and when the insights gained from years of experience are valued. Parents are better positioned to help their children with their education if they feel welcomed and valued in the school.

This may all seem obvious, but it doesn’t occur consistently without focused, intentional effort.

The second argument is more direct: many of the characteristics of a positive school climate model for students these essential skills.

To take an obvious example, a school environment in which collaboration is the norm helps to develop collaborative skills in students. Similarly, a teacher who encourages students to ask their own questions, in so doing, helps to develop their critical-thinking skills.

Well, you get the point, but I’ll suggest one more that gets to the heart of several key 21st-century skills: ”the school community develops practices that promote social and civic responsibility”.