By Ruth Nelson
?Andy, I want to thank you for taking time this morning to share your insights on education and the state of the teaching profession. You, along with Michael Fullan, recently published ?Professional Capital: transforming teaching in every school?.? Can you tell me what you hope to accomplish with this book?
Michael and I wanted to try and shift the terms of the debate about teachers and discuss the teaching profession and its impact on student achievement. We are trying to get a wide range of people; politicians, districts, educators and unions, to work together to improve educational outcomes. We need to reframe our outlook on education so that we look at education as an investment, not a cost. We receive greater long-term economic returns from these dollars than any other investment.
High quality learning comes from high quality teaching. It is proven that investing in professional capital yields good results. We need to invest in these three areas of professional capital:
1)????? The quality of the people we attract to the profession and the effort we put into their preparation.
2)????? Developing strategies for getting our teachers to work together effectively for the benefit of their students
3)????? And increasing the rate of retention in our teacher ranks among the high quality people we attract.
In general can you share your views on the current state of K-12 education in the USA, both good and not so good?
There are two interesting and concerning indicators of how the US currently performs. The first is the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test where we are ranked from 17th to 31st depending on the subject. This is not good enough for one of the top two economies of the world. The second is a ranking on child well-being done by UNICEF where we are next to last among more than 20 economically advanced countries. (Only the UK is beneath us.) So we rank behind many countries in student achievement and in the health and well-being of our children, yet we have one of the strongest economies in the world. We can do better!
Both NCLB (No Child Left Behind) and RTT (Race to the Top) have created a much stronger sense of urgency to improve student achievement for all children, including the more vulnerable groups such as ELLs and special need students. This is a good thing. They have both brought attention to the need for equity in our schools. But there are two key areas where NCLB and RTT have created real problems. They have made school districts become even more inflexible, hierarchical and bureaucratic. There is a tendency for resources to be put into district and state department offices and increase the bureaucracy rather than in developing the capacity of our schools. Both NCLB and RTT have also created a culture of fear and of high leadership turnover and instability. They have turned standards into standardization and accountability into a relentless culture of teaching to the test. We are the only country that tests all our third through eighth graders each year in all the major subject areas. Other countries test prudently, by either only testing a sample of children or by only testing in a couple of grades. We don?t need to take all the blood out of a patient to test blood levels. This much testing is causing us to go backwards into mid-20th century learning instead of forward. We need to go forward, not back.
One of the common themes we find in high performing nations is they have strong professional associations. The culture of American unions has been defined too much in blue-collar terms and not enough in professional terms. Washington now has the attention of the unions and they are beginning to change. Charter Schools, which RTT supports, also have gotten the attention of school districts and districts are trying to react and change in response to the charters by creating pilot schools, innovative alternatives, and so on. But the strategies that got us into this position of getting people?s attention probably shouldn?t be the strategies we use to go further forward.
The HOPE ?What?s Working in Schools? is distributed to xx teachers and xx administrators.? I know they are interested in hearing your thoughts on what changes need to occur to continue to improve their profession. Can you give me a brief synopsis of what you think should be done to improve teaching and learning?
We need to get serious about bringing well-qualified, well- prepared, high-standard individuals into the profession at a considerable scale. Other countries have the equivalent of high-level certification.
?
First, we need to improve teacher quality by:
- Consolidating teacher education institutions? reducing their number and dispersion and strengthening those that remain
- Increase the coordination and collaboration between these institutions and the schools
- Aligning what is taught in them with the Department of Education?s standards, not so much through paper compliance but through constant communication as well as regular movement of staff between government, teacher education institutes, districts and schools
Second we need to improve teacher retention. According to the National Staffing Survey the most common occurring number of years in teaching is one! Half the qualified teachers leave within 5 years. In urban areas that number is 3 years. This is a massive waste of investment; a squandering of professional capital. There needs to be a great urgency for teacher education institutions, Teach for America and the teacher unions not to compete with each other but to work together to address this waste. We need to attract the best and keep most of them. To do this we need more flexible and diverse career ladders and ongoing professional learning opportunities. Singapore (highest performing country on PISA) has three different teacher tracks, teachers are appraised regularly and teachers can move tracks periodically. They have great professional learning opportunities and take an interest in teacher growth. They have strong mentoring programs and professional learning is not always related to implementation of the government strategy, but often to personal professional growth. In Alberta the teacher union devotes 50% of its budget to professional learning, often in partnership with the government. US teacher unions devote around 5% or less.
In the US, teachers are over regulated, and the agenda is always changing.? In Finland (the highest performing country outside Asia on PISA), when Pasi Sahlberg, the expert on that country, asked teachers what would make them leave teaching, they almost always said ?Feeling that I am not treated as a professional in my classroom and too much standardization?.
Since it is the start of the new school year, could you share with our readers ideas they can implement locally/individually to improve teaching and learning in their classroom or school?
Sure, let?s start with some ideas or thoughts for principals. Principals already know they need 1) a clear focus; 2) good data to inform instruction, and 3) strong PLCs. The big question, which Michael and I raise in Professional Capital, is do you push change as a principal, outside of the teacher?s comfort zone, by forcing them into new and desired practices? Do you believe in tough love? Or do you pull teachers into change? Do you engage them in conversation, inspire them with compelling beliefs, and connect them with their colleagues? success?
In Professional Capital we state that you must pull people whenever you can, by connecting them with inspirational purposes, successful teachers and exciting practices. You will still need to push people from time to time ? not to comply with a program, or put up a word wall, for instance, but to stretch them professionally, just as we stretch our students in class. Between pushing and pulling is nudging and principals should do this all the time. With a nudge, people still feel in control of their choices, but because of the way the choices are framed they are more likely to choose what needs to happen in ways that will most likely benefit their students? learning and their own professionalism. Nudging is not about manipulating teachers into doing what you want them to do. It is about moving them towards a greater professional purpose that serves all students? good. An example of a nudge is to not isolate a new teacher in a portable classroom but to put that teacher next to a highly accomplished colleague. Another is to provide time for a group of teachers to visit a school doing exemplary work in a key area ? the best nudging will occur during the drive in one vehicle, there and back.
Principals understand that performance will improve if you have strong human capital ? the individual gifts, qualifications and skills that a teacher possesses High social capital is the additional and separate ability to work effectively with colleagues. High social capital increases individuals? human capital but the reverse is not true. So improving social capital in your school by building your trust levels and improving the quality and frequency of collaboration is what will most improve your educational outcomes.
Meanwhile, teachers can increase their impact on student achievement by working more with young colleagues who are starting out. Approach a new colleague and suggest working together on a new idea. Welcome them and offer yourself as a resource. Don?t leave them to struggle on their own. Welcome a new principal too. Praise your leaders when they deserve it. Leadership is lonely and positive feedback (as well as critical feedback when it is warranted) helps leaders be the best leaders they can be.
Established teachers can also think about changing grade levels or class assignments from time to time (which is not the same as being forced to change assignments every year!). Keep learning, meeting new colleagues and picking up new ideas and you will expand your skill-sets and professional support networks.
Finally, and this is for both principals and teachers, next summer break consider taking a vacation in another country and visiting their schools while you are there. Walking the classrooms and corridors of another culture and country is guaranteed to set the mind whirring. I guarantee you will have a great vacation and pick up some new ideas.
In summary, the book Professional Capital stresses the importance of both individual human capital and social capital. Investing in both of these is hugely important everywhere. They provide the power of making change together and of moving all of the profession forward.
Andy, I want to thank you for sharing your insights with me and The HOPE Foundation?s What?s Working in Schools readers today.
?About Andy Hargreaves
Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. The mission of the Chair is to promote social justice and connect theory and practice in education. Before moving to Boston, he taught primary school and lectured in several English universities, including Oxford. Prior to coming to Boston College, he was co-founder and director of the International Centre for Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. He has been awarded visiting professorships in the US, Canada, the UK, Hong Kong, Sweden, Japan and Singapore. He has received multiple awards for his contributions to research, teaching and learning. Andy has delivered invited addresses and provided staff development in 37 US states, 42 countries and all Australian states and Canadian provinces.
Andy Hargreaves? recent book with Michael Fullan is titled Professional Capital: transforming teaching in every school, and is published by Teachers College Press, March 2012. Endorsed by NEA, AFT, AASA in the US and by NCSL and NAHT in the UK, the book takes apart the old stereotypes that are used to attack the teaching profession, and sets out a vision for the future of the teaching profession where we get a high return from teachers and teaching by investing in, accumulating and circulating the professional capital of the teaching profession. His newest book on The Global Fourth Way: the quest for educational excellence, with Dennis Shirley, is just published by Corwin Press.
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