So Much Reform, So Little Change, part 3

'High expectations', Quality teachers & Professional development

There is similar nostalgia (see previous post) for Catholic schools, especially in urban areas. Historically, Catholic schools seem to do two things very well. One, there is a consistent message of high expectations; ‘no excuses’, if you will.  Two, explicit attention is paid to developing in students a sense of moral purpose. Students aren’t being educated for the sake of education, or just to acquire job skills. “Students are pushed to develop a moral vision towards which those skills should be pointed.” For the Catholic school, education does not exist in a vacuum; central to their mission is the idea that education is the means to fulfilling a higher purpose.

This brings us to the question of ‘high expectations’.  The degree to which students ‘invest’ in their education is greatly affected by their perception of what the learning environment appears to be asking of them, but this dynamic of high expectations is often misunderstood or misrepresented. Students may respond to demanding teachers, but only after the teacher has first established legitimacy, not only as a competent teacher, but as someone who genuinely cares for the student. It is not enough just to have ‘high expectations.’ 

Consider your own experience. I have no doubt that the teachers who ‘got the most out of you’ were not only ‘demanding’; they also expressed a genuine interest in you as a person.

It is therefore ironic that some (generally white) teachers mistakenly think that what ‘these kids’ really need is for someone to be ‘nice’ to them. Not that there’s anything wrong with being nice – nice is good!  Unless niceness is a stand-in for not expecting very much.

The quality teacher predicament is another issue that lacks an easy solution. Despite some positive rhetoric in policy circles about ‘placing teachers where they’re most needed’, I’ve yet to see a credible plan to address this. The problem is, we’d first have to repeal the law of supply and demand. Wealthy schools can afford to be picky; large urban schools with dysfunctional school cultures, not-so-much.  (Another problem is that states don’t hire teachers, school districts do.)

Making the matter worse, it’s hard for bottom-tier schools to keep the teachers they already have. Some of this is about money, but a lot of it is about school culture: lack of administrative support, lack of discipline, and the lack of teacher autonomy. But the challenge is greater than that. Even if you found a way to sprinkle in a handful of high-quality teachers, you may benefit a few students in the short term, but you’re not likely to change the overall culture of the school. Most likely, those teachers will eventually leave out of frustration, or adopt the norms of the school. Why?  Because the nail that sticks up tends to get hammered down. You’re making everyone else look bad!

It’s also important to note that ‘quality’ teachers don’t exist in a vacuum. A teacher’s ‘effectiveness’ is largely a function of the school environment. The best seed in the world won’t produce a good crop if the soil lacks nutrients and water!

Payne devotes an interesting chapter to the issue of teacher professional development. There are still many administrators who rely on the (albeit, inexpensive) model of ‘drive-by’ professional development: you send the teachers out to be ‘trained’ (or bring in an expert to deliver a lecture) and then send the teachers back into the classroom. This is based on a mindset that teachers are essentially interchangeable, programmable widgets, and shows little understanding of how adults actually learn. And so, even in places that have made arguably progressive investments in say, teacher coaching, you have administrators who don’t understand why coaches need time to collaborate, build relationships, or spend time in the classroom!  

In this model, it is the job of administrators to administer; it is, ironically, not part of their job description to understand how adults learn (as opposed to an organizational model in which principals are seen as ‘lead learners’). Which just highlights how important quality principals are to the educational capacity of a school.