Tinkering Toward Utopia, part 2 – Lessons learned

So, what can we learn from a century’s worth of experiments in progressive, student-centered education?

One important ‘lesson learned’ is the importance of continuity in instructional leadership – many of these attempts were undermined by high principal turnover and teacher burnout. But perhaps the greatest fault of reformers has been in placing too much emphasis on persuading fellow education experts, and not enough on convincing the greater public of the importance and value of change – and a clear picture of what it might look like. People have a deeply embedded idea of what ‘real school’ is; changing that mental framework is no small task.

Student-centered reform is not the only educational policy to have run in cycles. Back in 1921, a school superintendent wrote, “We all agree that one teacher differs from another, yet few practical schoolmen have attempted to rate and pay them by merit, and most of those … have lived to repent of their rashness.” Teachers have (correctly, I believe) traditionally “viewed merit pay not as an incentive, but as a threat to professional comity” and irrelevant to the intellectual and social growth of their students. ‘Merit pay’ became fashionable in the 1950s, but had almost disappeared by the 1970s. And yet, here we are again.

The fundamental problem with making merit pay work is that there is little agreement on “just what effective teaching is and how to measure it.” Beyond that, promoting competition among teachers is likely to reduce productivity because it incentivizes teachers to conceal their best ideas, and to pursue their own interests rather than the general good.

Another problem is the deep disconnect between what teachers find most valuable in their profession, compared with public perception. In the public’s view, the two greatest concerns for teachers in 1981 were poor discipline and salary. For teachers, however, their greatest concern was the public’s perception of education! (Little has changed since 1981.) Salaries came in fourth. (As I’ve argued more than once, it’s not about the money, it’s about respect.)  The greatest motivating factor for teachers: the intrinsic rewards of seeing their students grow intellectually, and as people. If we really understood this, merit pay would seem like the silly idea that it is.

Reforms that fundamentally hope to alter the cultural construction of ‘school’ won’t succeed without a lengthy and substantial public dialogue about both the ends and means of schooling. (What is the 21^st-century mission of the public school?)  The challenge is to negotiate a common ground of purpose sufficiently compelling that it unifies citizens in support of a renewed vision for public education.

One way we might approach this is to begin by asking people to recall their best experience as public school students. Invariably, they will recall the influence of a teacher who challenged them, made a subject come alive, or provided support at a stressful point in their lives. Which, come to think of it, aligns pretty well with what teachers identify as the most rewarding aspect of their profession. This suggests that the way to frame school reform is that we want to make such encounters between students and teachers more common.

A final note: it is essential that policymakers understand the limitations of what can be accomplished at the policy level. At best, education policy can set the conditions for effective administration and practice. The actual work has to be done by the administrators and teachers who interact with students on a daily basis.