To get in front of teaching and learning problems, enroll every teacher in an instructional coaching program and attach a coach to every first-year teacher. The investment in “up front coaching” is a fraction of the cost of remediating ineffective teaching and unacceptable student learning and their associated public distress.
Public education historically stands with a mop looking at milk spilt on the floor wondering what could have been done to prevent the waste of talent, time and resources after the fact. We treat teachers and teaching the same way by always working from behind a problem. A majority of classroom teachers are competent instructors and capable of successfully meeting their student learning challenges. These teachers don’t make the mess, yet always wind up with the mop. Their colleagues who are less effective do make the mess and seldom are capable of the mopping. Looking back upon the mediocre instruction of less capable teachers and the lackluster learning demonstrated by their students, we wonder what can be done to make their instruction more effective and to raise the quality and equity of student learning. Invariably the response almost always includes initiatives with money, mandates dressed as guidelines, timelines and potential consequences for failure. And, here we go again.
This week the US Department of Education (USDE) issued new guidelines to the states for the addressing of “teaching gaps.” Teaching gaps refers to the distribution of teacher talent among school districts and schools. Recent data gathering indicates that low-income and minority children have a significantly lower access to the more effective instruction of talented teachers than do more affluent and white children. That is the mess. The mopping reads as follows – “States are not required to use any specific strategies to fix their equity gaps. They can consider things like targeted professional development, giving educators more time for collaboration, revamping teacher preparation at post-secondary institutions, and coming up with new compensation systems,”
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/11/ed_dept_states_must_address_te.html
Also this week, Harvard University announced a new fellowship program to better prepare seniors to enter the teaching profession. Teacher preparation programs are being called to participate in the mopping. “The students will take a reduced course load during that semester (second semester of their senior year) as they begin student teaching under a mentor teacher. For the following academic year, they will complete their school-based training and classes on subject-specific teaching methods. And finally, they will finish up with an additional summer of courses and mentored teaching. After they have become full-time teachers, the fellows will continue to be given feedback and coaching by Harvard faculty.”
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/11/harvard_u_initiative_will_prep.html?print=1
We know what working from behind the problem looks like. Not only isn’t it pretty, it also isn’t effective. By the time an ineffective teacher is “in the program”, her ineffective teaching practices have become ingrained in her routines. She is professionally hardened with these routines. Unlearning bad practices so that effective teaching practices can be learned is both a hard pill for her to swallow and harder for her to do. Worse, years of children in her classroom have been ineffectually taught by ineffective practices. What a mess!
Identifying teachers in a school whose daily teaching is lackluster and unacceptable is not difficult; just hard to prove. Students know. Parents know. And, fellow teachers know. Also, they know and can quickly identify teachers who are highly effective at causing all children to learn.
Sadly, the procedures for dealing with ineffective teachers outlined in most school district policy manuals is a three- to five-year process. Given the time it took to identify the teacher’s history of ineffective teaching, successful remediation stretches the professional mopping to a five to ten year stint – all the while, children are being taught by the teacher “in the program.”
So, why wait until there is milk on the floor to determine who the spiller is and how much damage the spill will cost to clean up?
Instead, create a new professional practice today. In most school districts, this only requires action by a resolute school board. Insert the following in your Employee Handbook:
• This school district is committed to providing a high level of quality instruction for every student. Pursuant to this commitment, the School Board employs instructional coaches to assist every teacher in exercising everyday effective teaching practices associated with higher levels of student learning.
• At the time of hire, each new teacher to the district will be assigned to work with an instructional coach for the purpose of assuring that the probationary teacher is informed about and trained in the use of effective teaching practices.
• Beginning with the ____ school year, every teacher in the district will be assigned to an instructional coaching program for the purpose of assuring that veteran teachers are informed about and trained in the use of effective teaching practices.
• Beginning with the ____ school year, the Teacher Evaluation Procedures will include 1) observations by the school principal to validate the teacher’s use of effective teacher practices on a continuing basis, and 2) analysis of the teacher’s student learning outcomes to validate that the teacher is causing all children to achieve significant learning.
There are no guarantees that every child will earn academic honor status every year. Very complex variables are at play. However, the variables associated with effective teaching and student learning can be significantly narrowed when schools get in front of problems rather than dealing with them afterwards. A proactive teacher coaching program is a very good way for a school district to address the variables within its control. Schools always will be engaged in some mopping up, but student learning need not be the major mopping problem it is today.