Professional Development

In my last post, I discussed the problems with evaluation systems for teachers. Let's see what we find when we compare the evaluation and professional development process in teaching with my husband's job in the corporate world:

Business: He is evaluated each year.
Education: In the past, teachers in my district were only evaluated every 3-5 years when their license needed to be renewed or their contract was up. (With the new evaluation system next year, it will be every 1-2 years.)

Business: The evaluations involve him and his direct supervisor meeting first to set up specific goals by which to measure his success. Then he works all year with those goals in mind.
Education: We write an individual professional development plan (on our own time) but are encouraged to make the goals very broad so that whatever professional development we end up doing will fit into those goals, not the other way around.

Business: At the end of the year, he spends several hours of his regular work day (usually spanning multiple days) gathering evidence and writing up a self-evaluation to prove that he met his goals. His boss does the same thing because his boss has been intimately involved in what he has done at work throughout the year. Then, they meet to discuss the final evaluation (which factors into his opportunities for raises, bonuses, and promotions).
Education: Once every 5 years, we have to put together a portfolio (on our own time) to show that we've completed enough professional development to renew our teaching licenses. We have a 10-minute meeting with a professional development committee member to show it to them. In addition, we are observed by an administrator once for 30-40 minutes and have a cursory pre-observation conference and a post-observation conference. So far, there are no opportunities for raises, bonuses, or promotions.

Business: He gets to request (and it is usually granted) professional development that will most benefit him and his professional goals. He can request specific training, certification classes, and all-expense-paid conference travel.
Education: The school has no money for teachers to request to go to trainings, conferences, and workshops. The school does provide free professional development offerings for us to be able to renew our licenses. But we do not get to request anything. We just go to whatever is offered within the district. If we want to go to a conference that isn't put on by the district, we would have to pay for it ourselves and take a personal day.

Those comparisons could continue for much longer, but I think you get the idea. Teachers are on their own for meaningful development. If anything, the school and district often get in the way rather than promoting actual development. For example, it seems that every year our district administrators read a few books and decide that they are really important to education, so they base our staff meetings for the year on the idea/model/concept from that book. And so they spend (waste) a bunch of their ($100,000+ salaried) time re-packaging those ideas for us teachers. Then, maybe because they feel bad about the waste of time and resources to do this, they force us to continue doing them all for the next few years while they also add in new ideas. So we've probably got about 10 different "initiatives" going on at any given time based on the whims of someone at Central Office. Of course, if we are actually interested in reading the book, the original source, not the interpretation of someone who doesn't even teach, we have to buy it ourselves.

Don't get me wrong--I think my school and district do a lot of things right. For example, a few years ago, my principal decided to have us all read the controversial book A Repair Kit for Grading: Fifteen Fixes for Broken Grades and meet in inter-departmental groups to discuss the ideas in it. Then each group had a "captain" who met with the principal to bring feedback to him from their discussion groups. He stressed that there was not (that he knew of) going to be any type of mandate about the ideas presented in the group, that he was more interested in our discussions. I felt like my professional abilities were valued with that activity and that my opinions were heard. Some of the teachers adopted some or all of the proposed ideas from the book, but no one was required to. And I truly do have more meaningful opportunities than teachers in other districts. My district has brought in some prominent speakers like Kelly Gallagher and Cris Tovani for us language arts teachers.

But the system in general is broken. When teachers aren't given meaningful information from their evaluations and aren't provided with meaningful professional development opportunities, how can we expect them, and the education system as a whole, to improve?

Oh, yeah...because most teachers want to make an impact on students, even if the politicians and administrators inadvertently stand in their way.

Teacher Evaluation: An Impossible Fantasy?

Nationwide, there is a push for teacher evaluations to be based on student test data. There are any number of analogies that can be drawn to illustrate why this doesn't make sense. For example, are dentists held accountable for patients who don't brush their teeth at home? Or who can't afford a toothbrush? Or who don't even go to the dentist regularly? I generally don't like analogies, but if they get people to think about the issue, then fine.

So even though I don't really agree with the analogy, I do agree that teacher evaluations should not be based largely on student test data. Unless it is a REALLY good test. Maybe the tests that come out to evaluate the Common Core will be really good. But I doubt it. Have we had a really good standardized test ever in the history of education? I don't think so.

The other part of the teacher evaluation is typically an observation by a principal. This also does not fairly evaluate teachers.

My husband works in the "business world" and his supervisor is in charge of four people who do basically the same work but slightly different aspects or accounts or whatever. In schools, you might have one principal per 500 students and 30 teachers, spanning multiple content areas and grade-level curricula. Or more! How is that one person going to effectively evaluate all of those teachers in addition to the myriad other responsibilities they have? Obviously, they can't.

Luckily, teachers are trained to reflect on their practice often. Luckily, most teachers want to evaluate themselves. Luckily, most teachers want to improve each year and be as effective as possible. I mean, we got into this job to help students learn and grow. There are so many negatives and obstacles in this profession that a teacher's sense of fulfillment comes almost exclusively from connecting with students and helping them learn and grow. So that's what we're going to do, no matter what the government mandates.

Of course there are the few teachers who have lost that passion and hate their jobs. Those are the people who should be forced out of the classroom.

The teachers who want to do well but just aren't very good at teaching yet should be given effective feedback and training in order to become better teachers. But if the only feedback a teacher gets is from a once a year or once every three years, 45-minute "observation," then those teachers can't actually get any help from that. And a single composite score or even a few disaggregated scores from a standardized test does not help that teacher improve. In my next post, I will address effective professional development.

First of all, there should be a rubric of some kind that defines a teacher's job. (Wow! I can't imagine that one. Has anyone ever properly defined what a teacher is responsible for? Will this rubric include basically all aspects of parenting in addition to academics?) Teachers needs to know everything that is expected of them. How can we require teachers to assess students this way and then not assess teachers the same way?

So, assuming this job description and rubric exists,
How do we effectively evaluate teachers? With multiple sources of data:

1. Classroom observations with pre- and post- conferences: Not just a single isolated observation but a sustained relationship throughout the year so that the evaluator knows what really goes on both during class and during planning and assessment. 
2. Standardized assessments for students: The tests must have proven validity and reliability. They must be narrow enough in scope to measure what is really supposed to be taught in that specific class, not just content but also skills demonstrations. And they should be aligned throughout the grade levels. 
3. Student surveys: The students know what goes on in the classroom. Ask them.
4. Parent surveys: The parents are our customers. They should be satisfied.
5. Self-evaluation: This should not just be piled on top of all the other responsibilities teachers have. This should be something that the teacher is given additional compensation for and should happen at the end of the school year when their other responsibilities are over. Teachers should be able to evaluate themselves according to that hypothetical perfect rubric and set legitimate goals.
6. Past student surveys: We all know that a teacher's influence goes well beyond one year with their students. If you really want to know how good a teacher is, ask the students who had him/her in the past about how the teacher influenced them.

And how do we afford that? I don't know. But until someone figures it out, teachers won't be adequately evaluated.

A Peek Inside My Classroom

I'm very fortunate to have small classes. And in my experience, it makes all the difference.

Not to get too political here, but in the last presidential election, Mitt Romney was harshly criticized for claiming class size doesn't matter. And while that assertion is supported by some research, it's not exactly what he said. He said class size doesn't matter as much as teacher quality. And that's an important distinction.

If you give a bad teacher a small class, it won't make a difference. But if you give a good teacher a small class, it can have amazing results.

My district has committed to Scholastic's READ 180 program and they support it well. My freshman class is limited to 15-ish students. (This year it was 17, but 12-14 is really ideal.) And I have them for two class periods. During that time, they basically have four 20-minute activities. There is a whole group lesson, a small group lesson, an individualized computer lesson, and independent silent reading.

(I don't follow the READ 180 program perfectly. My students are more advanced than what the program was designed for. My district uses READ 180 in the middle school, also, so by the time they get to me, they are only a couple of years behind. I created a hybrid of our district's English 9 curriculum and the READ 180 program.)

Absolutely the most successful part of class is the small group time. I can go so much more in-depth with students and really figure out their strengths and struggles when I'm only working with 4-6 of them at a time. I get a full 20 minutes every single day with each small group of students! Until you get the opportunity, you can't fathom how valuable that is!

Instead of teaching a few lessons and then having a test over something, here's what teaching looks like in my class. I teach a lesson during whole-group time. Then, I get to help students practice the skill or concept in a small group setting. I can get real-time information about how well they understand it, rather than having to wait until a quiz or test. And I can give immediate feedback to students so they can revise their thinking and try again right away. And by the time we get to the test, I know they are all ready for it. I could never do that with 30 students in a class!

And it's certainly not for nothing. My students average at least two years worth of growth on standardized reading tests each year. And they are able to truly master things, instead of just retaining them for one unit and cramming for the exam.

So for a good teacher who knows how to maximize the opportunity to have small class sizes, it can make all the difference!

One-to-One Computer Initiatives

Born in 1983, I'm kind of in-between Gen X and Gen Y (or the Millennials). Even though most of my colleagues are Gen X and my students are Gen Y, I identify more with Gen Y. I've had a computer for as long as I can remember and have been emailing since elementary school. I do remember actual encyclopedia books existing but I don't think I ever used one. We had a trusty Encarta CD by the time I was doing any kind of research for school.

So, yeah, I consider myself a digital native. And my first reaction is always to be excited about new technology and innovative approaches. But then my pragmatic side takes over as I think about actual applications of it and whether it will yield any better results than the former approach.

I'm very skeptical of online classes and think they only work for a narrow few situations (more on that in a future post). But on the other hand, I can't imagine teaching without a digital projector and some access to computers in my classroom. Currently, my school has public Wi-Fi for students, and students are encouraged to BYOD, but they don't all have one. Most of what they have are smartphones, with screens too small to do many things and too small for me to easily monitor what they are doing. Ideally, every student would have access to a computer (not a tablet) at all times.

And that brings me to a discussion of one-to-one technology initiatives in schools. I was reading "Districts Place High Priority on One-to-One Computing" from Education Week extolling the benefits of One-to-One and glossing over the myriad logistical problems: initial start-up cost, infrastructure costs to power and charge them all, costs to repair and replace damaged items, etc.

The article cites the Natick public school system in Massachusetts. They spent $1.8 million on Macbooks for all of the high school students. There isn't much hard data on the success of the program yet, just a vague comment about more students being on the honor roll and anecdotal evidence from teacher comments.

In fact, a quick Google search turned up no hard evidence. Maybe there is some out there? Leave it in the comments if you know of any.

The Auburn school system in Maine also tried a one-to-one program with kindergarten and the students that were given tablets outscored those without on all aspects of the district's literacy tests.

Awesome. Except no one pointed out the obvious reason for the success (probably because no one who was interviewed actually teaches students): the devices were cool. They were a motivational tool more than a real learning tool. Engagement went up because of the novelty.

So it seems like I'm arguing against these programs. But actually, I would LOVE for all of my students to have a laptop. As a Millennial, I find it more natural to learn that way. I feel like I am often adapting my lessons to fit the lack of computers. So for me, it would work out well. But even more than the hardware and infrastructure costs for these programs, the biggest problem is training teachers to think like Millennials and take full advantage of the resources.

School Environment: Fired Up for Education

My school is, of course, not perfect, but in general, we're doing many things right.

It's an excellent-rated school in a suburb of Columbus, the capital of Ohio. Columbus is a rapidly growing area. There are three large high schools in the district (approx. 2000 students in each). My school is in its fourth year of existence. It is located among cornfields that are rapidly being overtaken by new apartment complexes and cookie-cutter subdivisions. The other high schools are in more established areas.

Our district is generally middle to upper-middle class. Approximately 10% of the students are "economically disadvantaged." We have plenty of involved parents and a generally supportive community.

Yep, I'm lucky.

But what I feel even luckier about is the climate at our school. And this doesn't apply to the entire district. I credit our principal for establishing it for the most part. He got to set the tone from the beginning at a new school and had to meld teachers from other schools to form a new identity. And part of that was hiring the right teachers.

It's certainly not perfect. We don't have all of the supplies we need. We have more access to technology than many schools but it's certainly never enough. And many teachers have a problem with the lack of discipline and punishment.

More importantly, though, many of the teachers here are allowed to, even encouraged to, and excited about trying new things. Teachers want to be innovative. That energy and passion makes a real difference.

I know I mentioned before that I almost quit teaching in the beginning of my career. Part of the reason I was so miserable is that I felt like I was stepping back in time at the school that hired me. I was fresh out of college with all these idealistic visions of how my classroom would be. But many of the teachers at this school were rather set in their ways and stuck to their materials and methods even though there was no indication that they were effective. I felt alone. I didn't know how I could learn to be a better teacher in that environment.

If you are interested in the idea of what makes a good school environment, check out Zapp! In Education: How Empowerment Can Improve the Quality of Instruction, and Student and Teacher Satisfaction. It is a really quick read, and a bit cheesy, but it would be some good food for thought for any principal.

Just as Pink advocates for autonomy, purpose, and mastery, Byham advocates for empowerment in a work environment.It's essentially the same idea, just different terminology. And this book is written specifically for schools.

Why Teaching Can't Attract Top Graduates

Today I'm tackling teacher pay from a teacher's perspective. I know we can and will argue this from so many perspectives. In my mind, it doesn't matter what is "fair" for a teacher's salary. What matters is the amount that will draw the top young talent into teaching instead of medicine, engineering, business, law, etc.

I was one of those top students. And I went into teaching mostly because I didn't really know what my other options were. I had been going to school my whole life and I was good at it, so I could see myself on the other side of it.

So the teaching profession lucked into getting me. (Yes, I know that sounds conceited, but the fact is that I was a top student in high school and college.) But I want to advocate for attracting top talent into teaching. And so in this post, I'm going to compare my experience with my husband's career to illustrate why top students might not choose teaching or might not stick with it.

I chose to compare just the basic financial and work time stuff. There are obviously other benefits and drawbacks to both careers when considering other factors.

(By the way, I highly recommend the article "The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries." It's a quick read. It starts out comparing our military to our schools: "When we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame...the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition." It goes on to advocate for attracting top students to the teaching profession and compares the prestige of the teaching profession in the U.S. with other top countries.)

	Teacher	Business Career
Qualifications	--Salutatorian at a public high school --97th percentile ACT score --Cum Laude from Central Michigan U. --M.Ed. from Ashland University	--Top 20% at a private Catholic high school --97th percentile ACT score --3.0+ GPA from Central Michigan U. --MBA from Ashland University
Salary	$55,000 with very small raises if any (which is very high for a teaching salary compared to other areas of the country)	$72,000 and rising exponentially faster than mine
Hours	183 work days times 9 hours per day equals about 1650 hours per year at school. (I’m not subtracting out my “lunch break” because I only have 20 minutes for lunch and I often work during it.) Plus fairly regular after-school meetings, summer professional development, and evening and weekend planning and grading at home. I estimate that I easily work a total of at least 1700 hours per year.	He works four 8-hour days at the office and one 8-hour “Work from Home” day per week. About 215 work days (but almost 50 of those are Work from Home days) 215 x 8 hours per day = just over 1700 hours per year (just over 1300 actually at work) (He occasionally travels for work but still averages an 8 hour day of doing actual work but some might consider travel inconvenient.)
Vacation and Holidays	10 weeks during the summer, 1 week Spring Break, 2 weeks at Christmas, other various holidays 3 personal days (the only flexible days)	30 days Paid Time Off (includes sick and vacation time) plus holidays
Sick Leave	Cumulative sick days (1.5 per month) but they also double as maternity leave, surgery, bereavement time, etc. If additional time is needed for an illness or injury, it is unpaid.	For regular short-term illness, it comes out of PTO. For any extended medical leave, 5 days PTO then paid leave.
Other Financial Benefits	My health plan is slightly better than his but quickly deteriorating in service and increasing in price.  Fee waivers and partial tuition reimbursement Pension plan paid into by me and employer 403(b) paid into entirely by me (no matching)	Yearly bonus of a few thousand dollars Tuition reimbursement 401(k) contribution matching Paid travel for conferences and meetings
Other Financial Drawbacks	Must pay $200 every five years to renew my teaching license Spend hundreds each year on classroom supplies

A Surprising Reason I Love Teaching

Teachers are often asked why they teach, especially considering the comparatively low pay and lack of respect. And most have some answer about loving children and how rewarding it is to help others. Which is all true.



But one of the reasons that I love teaching, especially at my school, hadn't occurred to me until I read Daniel Pink's book Drive: The Surprising Truth Behind What Motivates Us.

(Well, I say "read" but really I checked the audio book out from the library and listened to it on my commute to and from school. The library and audio books are two of my favorite things in life!)

The book wasn't amazing. It was very much meant to be persuasive, not painting a balanced picture. And Pink does this thing in all of his books where he "coins" new terms that do not need to be coined because there is already a word for it. But it did make me realize why I love teaching: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Those are things that when I decided to go into education, I didn't think of at all. I just knew I liked the teaching experiences I had already had teaching swim lessons and tutoring. But they make a huge difference to me in the enjoyment of my job.

Pink's argument is that those three things--autonomy, mastery, and purpose--motivate people. He pitches those ideas for the business world and advice to managers. And presents some pretty compelling evidence.

In my teaching job, I get plenty of autonomy. I am the only one who teaches my classes, so I don't have to coordinate with other teachers in my department. I can go at the pace my students need and give them extra practice when and where they need it. I don't have a supervisor making me do things his or her way. I don't have to turn in yearly lesson plans and stick to them. At my school, I feel that I am viewed as a professional and expert at what I do. And I get to make professional and expert decisions and judgments in order to best accomplish my objectives.

Speaking of objectives, I feel I have a purpose in my job. I get to set up goals within the framework of the Common Core curriculum, figure out how to assess them, and the best methods to teach them.

And as far as mastery, I get feedback on my performance. Yes, of course my principal comes in to evaluate me, but the meaningful feedback is in how my students perform on my well-designed assessments. And their attitudes toward me, my class, and their education.The one drawback is that there are so many demands and responsibilities that you can't start to achieve mastery of anything until you've been teaching a few years. That's one of the reasons I advocated in a previous post for fewer preps and more planning time for new teachers--so they can start to master a few things early in their careers in order to stay motivated.

Preparing New Teachers for the Negatives

I know you are sensing a theme in my posts of advice for new teachers. I think that's on my mind because right now I have a (pretty amazing) pre-service teacher in my classes with me. It has me thinking about things I wish I knew before I started teaching. Today will be the final installment along those lines. I've got some other topics to cover in upcoming posts.

College can be tough, but future teachers should be prepared for some of the things that will make their commitment waver, no matter how much they love teaching.

1. Public Opinion: It's tough to hear people talk about how easy teaching is while you are working 50+ hours a week and spending your evenings, weekends, and summers planning, grading, and taking classes. It hurts when you've got $50,000 in student loan debt and you've earned a Master's degree and people still think they could step in today and do your job. And it's difficult when people assert that because they pay taxes, they are your boss and should be able to tell you how to do your job.
2. Administration: Your administration (and colleagues) can make or break your teaching experience. Some schools encourage innovation, plan meaningful professional development, and support teachers as a top priority... and some schools require scripted curricula and superfluous standardized testing, demand daily lesson plans, and enforce no discipline. 
3. Parents: Even at the high school level, you can run into problems with parents. Anyone can procreate--even drug addicts, con artists, and people with varying degrees of mental illness. Before I began teaching, most of my relationships had been with generally positive contributors to society. They were all in college with me or working at a job with me. But when teaching, your students will have all kinds of parents: from "helicopter parents" whose child can do no wrong to drug-addicted felons who are allowed custody off-and-on. You don't always get to deal with logical, rational people.
4. Lack of Resources: ALL schools lack resources compared to a private business. Some more than others. If you teach in a school in a high poverty area, students won't bring their own paper and pencils. And most schools don't supply basics like that. So if you want your students to be able to write, you will be buying those yourself. Some schools have projectors and Smartboards; some have only chalkboards and don't supply chalk. But you'll never teach in a school that has all of the resources you need to teach your best.
5. Overcrowded Classes: Along the lines of lack of resources, you will also have more students than would be ideal to teach effectively. Students can benefit greatly from small group and one-on-one attention, but that is rarely possible. Sometimes you may not even have enough desks for all of the students, even in "wealthy" districts. And if your administration doesn't enforce basic discipline, you might be spending the majority of your time managing behavior instead of teaching.

What I Wish I Had Learned in College

Teacher preparation programs need to prepare students for all aspects of the teaching profession, not just the teaching part. Below are some things I wish I had learned more about during my undergraduate years.

1. Communicating with Parents: You can love working with kids but teachers spend a lot of time communicating with adults, too. Teachers-to-be need to learn how to deal with conflicts with parents.
2. Being Professional: Sure, all of my professors told me to "be professional" but I think teachers-to-be need to be explicitly taught what that means.
3. Politics: I wish I had known how much politics was involved in teaching! Not only normal "office politics" but also government politics, union politics, and campaigning for school levies.
4. Special Education: General education teachers absolutely should have a least one class that teaches about the special education world, in particular how laws and IEPs pertain to them. ALL general education teachers have students with IEPs in their classes and districts can get into big trouble if their teachers don't follow the letter of the law regarding special education.
5. Reading and Writing: This is a topic for multiple blog entries, but the short version is that English teachers are trained in literature and composition, not teaching reading. ALL teachers need to be taught how to teach reading and writing within their content area.

Finally, no college course is more valuable than time in the classroom with teachers and students. I learned more during my student teaching and first year of teaching than I learned in four years of college. 

It is especially helpful to spend a significant amount of time with several teachers and types of schools and classrooms. Teaching can be wildly different depending on the school. Pre-service teachers need to see some ideal schools and some schools that might scare them away from teaching. 

Ways to Support New Teachers

After my first year of teaching, I was ready to quit. I literally went on several interviews for non-teaching jobs and actually accepted one initially before deciding to give teaching another year. And most of us have heard the ubiquitous statistics that roughly a third of teachers leave the profession within the first three years and almost half leave within five.

I'm now very happy and successful teaching. I'm sure my colleagues would agree that I'm an asset to the teaching profession. So what can schools do to make sure they don't scare good teachers away?

According to NEA's article "Why They Leave," the main reasons teachers leave are government mandates, lack of support from parents and administrators, lack of respect for their profession from the community, and lack of influence in decisions that affect education.

In addition, funding is always a problem. Many teachers don't have the resources at their schools to do their jobs properly. At a recent staff meeting, we watched a video about the perfectionism that Apple encourages in their employees, but teachers often have to go for "good enough" due to lack of resources, support, and time. It's frustrating to always be scrambling to keep up and juggling multiple responsibilities and never really perfecting anything.

But some things can be done locally. So if schools can make it work, following is my list of suggestions to help schools retain good teachers. Obviously, these would be great for all teachers, but when resources are short, we can at least make them a priority for new teachers.

1. Smaller Classes: New teachers should have reasonable class sizes, even if it means distributing a few extra students to veteran teachers. Veteran teachers should not get the best classes, best resources, and top priority just because they have seniority. They should unselfishly support the newbies.
2. Fewer Preps: In secondary schools, new teachers should only be teaching one or two different classes if at all possible, so they can work to perfect some things that first year.
3. Useful Duties: Why have new teachers spend an entire period supervising lunch? If the school can make it work, allow new teachers to observe other teachers and read and reflect on professional texts as their duty.
4. Safe Environment: Create an environment in which new teachers feel safe asking for advice. Everyone knows you won't be really good at teaching your first year, so let new teachers know they don't have to feel like a failure if they aren't perfect. Encourage them to reflect, evaluate themselves, and ask for help.
5. More Accountability: If there is adequate support in the first four areas on this list, then hold those new teachers accountable. Pop in for unscheduled, informal observations and give constructive feedback. Give them deadlines for when they should have those essays graded and returned. And if they have to turn in any lesson plans, reflections, curriculum maps, etc., have someone actually review them and give feedback.