The world of the classroom teacher is not what it once was. Use all three tenses of the word change – past, present and future – and you are describing the status of a teacher in any classroom in the United States. In the comparative, today’s teacher is not the same as your mother’s teacher and tomorrow’s teacher will not be the same as yours. The future of teaching is not what it used to be and educational leadership is trying its darnedest to help the person known as a teacher transform into her next and her successive iterations.

My wife and I watched butterflies recently while walking in a nearby state park. A butterfly is transfixing; a swarm of butterflies is visually stupefying. They were beautiful and bewildering. But, watching these beauties peeked our aging memories. How long does a butterfly live? Is the butterfly we watched in late August the same butterfly that migrated from Mexico or thereabouts to Wisconsin last spring? So, sitting on a rock wall we Googled and were reminded that the answers are a matter of weeks and “nope”. A year of butterflies is comprised of four life cycles. We were watching the third, I think. This butterfly did not migrate from nor will it migrate back to Mexico. It was born locally, is living locally, and will die locally, but not before laying the eggs of the fourth annual cycle of butterflies, those that those will migrate south and lay the eggs of next year’s first cycle. Butterflies? So, what does this have to do with teaching?

Teachers must transform or their current status as a teacher will perish, metaphorically speaking, just like the third cycle butterfly we watched fly out over the waters of Green Bay will perish. The transformation of a teacher is a change from an older skill set through the chrysalis of professional development to newer skill set. If not a more beautiful teacher/creature, butterflies are more beautiful than caterpillars, what will a transformed teacher be after this transformation? That is a chrysalis question!

From reading much of the daily political and professional literature regarding mandates and demands for educational reform, the key word in a changing teacher’s world is “effective”. I will now proceed to overuse the word “effective” in the context of the mandates and demands. Tomorrow’s teacher will be more effective in causing children to be better learners and higher achievers that today’s teacher. The term effective relates to qualitative differences that may or may not be quantified but will be observed and recorded. Almost every program that educational leaders are examining to assist in transforming teachers includes the phrase “… a more effective teacher…” or “…more effective teaching practices…” In “administrative talk”, effective refers to the credibility and reliability of what the teacher does to cause children to achieve measureable learning.

How will we know that a transformed teacher is a more effective teacher? By their effects. If we place learning on a scale of 1 to 1oo and consider any aspect of child learning as the aspect of interest on that scale, teachers are responsible for moving the needle of measurement forward from the current status to an improved and greater status tomorrow. The particular aspect may be academic learning, such as reading and comprehending complex texts or quantifiable problems using mathematics. Or, it may be performance-based learning, such as in music, art or theater. Or, it may be social learning, such as the ability to collaborate and effectively work in groups. Moving the needle may refer to an immediate gain in learning achievement, as in causing annual growth, or it may refer to learning over time, as in causing all high school graduates to be college and/or career ready. In all matters related to teachers, the requirement is that teachers become more effective in causing positive changes in learning. No matter the aspect of education, the finger of change points to the teacher to be “the” causation of moving the needle that measures learning status. Effective teachers move the needle.

So, what will happen in the teacher chrysalis that will turn today’s apparently less effective teacher into tomorrow’s more effective teacher? In simple terms, it will be the same causation that teachers are expected to affect in their classrooms. Educational leaders and professional developers will be required to cause improvement in a teacher’s skill sets so that effective use of those improved skill sets will cause improved student achievement. Not yet close to answering the question of what happens in the chrysalis? Consider these two transforming agents.

First, the teacher must become a more effective learner of effective teaching practices. I used the word twice in the last sentence for a purpose. There is no getting around the fact that the teacher alone is the most significant element in changing teaching practices. Think of it as volition. If the teacher wants to, the teacher will. In the past, volition was soft. A teacher may or may not have chosen to change or even to engage wholeheartedly in professional development. Their professional life was not on the line. Today, volition is hard. In order to be an employed teacher, a teacher must be an effective user of effective teaching practices. Like the butterfly cycles, the soft era of teacher evolutionary change has ended and the hard era of teacher revolutionary change is upon us. The chrysalis of professional development is not optional nor is it for the lighthearted. Caterpillars do not exit the chrysalis stage as caterpillars.

Second, teachers will need extreme coaching in order to effectively learn new skills sets for teaching more effectively. Why coaches? Because it is nigh unto impossible for a working teacher to become a changed teacher alone. The reason that help is necessary lies in this analogy. Try competing in a marathon and somewhere between the 6th and 20th mile learn that you don’t have a powerful enough kick to beat your competitors to the finish line. The only way to develop a powerful kick is to practice “kicking” or sprinting for half miles at a time while you run the marathon. Even though you can’t stop running your marathon, you must execute a series of sprints so that when you near the 25th mile you can kick to the finish line. Impossible! For a marathon runner, but not for a teacher. This is what the mandates for teacher reform are demanding. A “teaching” teacher who must become a more effective teacher while teaching children in her classroom every day and being held accountable for their learning achievement. This is why expert/coaches are essential.

Coaching provides the necessary and discreet focus on a set of teaching practices while the teacher teaches. During coaching episodes that take place within a normal teaching day, the expert/coach gives the teacher direct instruction, observed practice, insightful and clinical feedback, clarifying instruction, and validation for the effective use of an effective teaching practice. Some wonder why a teacher should not be expected to make these transformations alone, without coaching. They can’t because of the dual and contradictory demand that they conduct ongoing teaching of their assigned students and curriculum while at the same time learning new strategies for teaching those same curricula and students. They can, however, with the assistance of episodic coaching, clinical but not evaluative training, and time and assistance for inserting newly learned effective teaching practices into their ongoing teaching. And, that is why educational leaders are adding coaches to district personnel rosters.

Now, the hard work begins. Educational leaders must do what they are hired to do – make an informed decision, give direction and provide resources. It would be easy and fully unfair to say that tomorrow’s effective teacher must be effective in all of the new aspects of teacher effectiveness accountability. Administrators must make the hard decision of prioritizing the skills sets of effective teaching practices they will require a teacher to learn and practice. It is fair to assign different skill sets for different teachers but it is not fair to assign all skill sets to any one teacher or all teachers collectively. It is most fair and reasonable to point at one skill set at a time so that over time a teacher effectively learns improved effective teaching practices. Administrators must use backward design to cause this – children will demonstrate higher achievement as a result of their teachers using more effective teaching practices as a result of professional development between teachers and expert/coaches that was prioritized and supported by administrative actions.

Administrators must be careful not to hire token coaches or coaches without mandates. A token coach is a single or handful of trainer/coaches hired so that the district can take credit of having hired coaches to assist the professional development of district teachers. Token hires will not get the job done. A coach without a mandate is hired to cause an untold number of changes in an untold number of teachers. A mandate is the administrator’s accountability line with a coach – “you are hired to cause these teachers to learn and use these specific effective teaching practices.” Expert/coaches with clear mandates can cause the required effects.

What an incredible and exciting time in the life of a teacher. Change is and will happen. Change will be most effective if it is the natural result of a change process that is well thought out, well designed, well administered, well coached and well learned by effective teachers. The chrysalis is a magical place for changing a caterpillar into a butterfly. The chrysalis of change for effective teaching can be just as profound.

Parent, have you ever wondered how it happens when you tell your three children to “straighten up their room” that they respond in completely different ways. One may get right to the task and not only pick up and put away everything that lays about and put it all in the right places. Another may walk around the room, pick up several things and put them away, kind of, but then find something, undoubtedly something laying under the bed for weeks, and sit down in the middle of the room to play with it. And, a third may look at you as if to say “Totally not going to happen, Mom.” Most of the time, you, the parent, straightens up your children’s rooms.

Now, consider what happens when a teacher begins an instructional lesson for a class of children. Why would we think that the response of children is any different at school than it is at home? However, unlike the parent who asks children to straighten their rooms and then does it herself, a teacher cannot do the work of learning for her students. She needs to provoke them to learn in some mystical manner.

“Context is worth 80 IQ points.” So said Alan Kay, computer scientist and visionary. Let’s consider this statement and its relevance to teaching and the improvement of learning.

I enjoy watching televised golf and eavesdropping on a caddy talking to his professional golfer. The lesson begins as they approach the golf ball laying wherever it landed, hopefully in the fairway. Using his course book with all of its handwritten notes and measurements, looking at the treetops to discern wind direction and strength, and examining the ball of the ground and the lay of the land around it, the caddy tells the player everything that should be known about the context of the impending golf shot. And, certainly the caddy points to the glob of mud half-hidden on the underside of the ball. To every human endeavor there are impediments.

This conversation takes place approximately 70 times, give or take a few misplayed shots, during every round of golf. No golf shot ever is made in the same exact context as another. The variables are slightly different every time. But every professional golf shot is played in the context of the moment.

Also, I enjoy listening to a teacher replay what she was considering as she began a new lesson to her fourth grade children. Let’s say there are 25 children in the class, so let’s say that there are 25 sets of variables, some with small or large learning impediments, awaiting the new lesson. Each child is a complete set of variables unto her or himself and seldom no child presents the same exact readiness and preparation for learning today that she did yesterday or will tomorrow.

Multiplied by 25, the readiness and preparation of all children in the classroom presents our teacher with a very complex teaching challenge. She is responsible for causing each child to learn this lesson, so must find the motivational words, the initial instructional demonstration, and the reinforcing examples that will cause most of the 25 children to begin to understand what is to be learned. She also must quickly extend and expand her instruction and exampling for children who will quickly grasp the new learning while taking the time to listen to and watch carefully for instructional feedback from children who will be challenged by this new learning.

For a perceptive and ped0gogically strong teacher understanding the contextual readiness and the preparation of each child certainly is worthy of an additional 80 IQ points. Atop normal intelligence, these 80 points make her a genius, or just smart enough to teach her lesson that day. But, tomorrow will be another day!

So, what does a smart teacher need in order to consistently have access to the additional 80 IQ points that comes with context? She needs a caddy beside her in the classroom just like Phil Mickelson has Jim “Bones” McKay beside him wherever and whenever he plays. Bones McKay is constantly providing Phil Mickelson with context. A teacher needs someone beside her often enough to assure that her teaching always is adjusted to the best contextual information available.

In many schools and school districts, this caddy-person is an “instructional coach.” Why there are not more instructional coaches assuring that teachers have the same contextual awareness as any professional golfer receives is not an answer I can make. If the general world accepts that professional golfers need caddies to give them the context for hitting a small ball back and forth in a perfectly landscaped park, then we should be more than willing to provide caddies to the teachers in whom we entrust the intellectual futures of our children.

It’s all about the context, stupid! Thank you, President Clinton.

As a golfer, I admired advice attributed to Tom Kite, outstanding PGA player and course architect. “Tee the ball as high as you can. Swing as hard as you can. Hit the ball as far as you can. We’ll fix the problems along the way.”

As a teacher, I admired a similar advice telling teachers to listen first and often and talk afterward and less. To your students, “Tell me what you know. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you would like to know. We’ll clarify and correct and then expand and extend along the way.”

Each of these seems to treat its pupils naturally. When we prematurely overlay the heavy hand of pre-direction, initiate compensating interventions and create the fear of mistakes, the resulting learning most frequently meets our expectations. It needs redirection, remedial interventions and correcting interventions to accommodate the mistakes of our foreshadowing.

Learning is a natural phenomenon. Let it unfold naturally and the learning child will remember you as a very wise teacher.

It is difficult to read educational literature nowadays without confronting an article regarding how to improve teaching. In fact, just Google “How to improve teaching” and you will receive 124,000 results. Add another word, like “instruction”, “quality”, “skills”, “practice”, “strategies”, and “performance” and you can sort through more than 200,000 results. Who isn’t writing about teaching? If the quantity of responses is astounding, so is the variance in quality and relevance of the writing. Many are blogs by classroom teachers. These are balanced by the blogs of “professional commenters”. If a result is not authored by a practicing teacher or professional commenter, it is a commercial for a workshop, conference, institute or online course designed to improve one or more aspects of teaching. Everyone wants to improve teaching, yet few write about improving the structural profession of teaching as a prerequisite for improving the professional work of teachers.

I propose that, if our communities, states and nation are serious about improving the quality of student achievement, and, if these entities truly believe that improving the quality of instruction is the pathway to improved student achievement, then it is time to employ teachers for a full calendar year instead of a nine month school year. Further, it is time to adjust a teacher’s salary from an annual salary based upon nine months work to a professional salary based upon twelve months work. And, it is time to demand professional performance for such a professional employment. These three structural changes to the profession of teaching set a proper stage for the improvements mandated by government, called for by commenters and wished for by practicing teachers.

Taken separately, the current ramp up of improvements in teaching and student achievement is designed within a traditional nine-month school year calendar. The expectation that such lofty improvements will be made inside the same nine month calendar that is the very calendar producing all of the alleged educational failures is a clear demonstration of Einstein’s definition of insanity: “To do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.” In this case, the repetition of sameness is expecting that teachers can simultaneously teach, evaluate ongoing student learning, and design new instructional strategies and, at the end of the academic year, have advanced overall student achievement and closed the achievement gaps of underachievers. Insanity indeed.

This is the equation that needs to be changed.

For 180 days teach more rigorous standards that will be assessed with more complex tests

+ continuously and SIMULTANEOUSLY evaluate learning in multiple subjects

+ continuously and SIMULTANEOUSLY design re-teaching strategies for children unsuccessful with initial instruction

+ continuously and SIMULTANEOUSLY design extended learning strategies for children successful with initial instruction

= closed achievement gaps between disaggregated child populations and internationally competitive academic achievement by all children.

Interestingly, it is not the discrete tasks that are daunting. Teachers can cause children to learn more rigorous standards. Teachers can cause children to succeed on more complex educational tests of academic achievement. Teachers can design re-teaching and extended learning strategies to assure learning by all children and more learning by learning-efficient children. Teachers can close achievement gaps. Finally, teachers can cause the academic achievement of children in the United States to be internationally competitive. These discrete tasks are not the problem. The problem is SIMULTANEOUSLY in a traditional school year that used to be 180 days and now is shrinking to between 160 and 170 days for academic instruction.

Efforts to extend the school year for children have not fared well. There are break out school districts that have organized extended year instruction and year-round instruction. However, there are very few of these examples. And, those that have done so still face the same dilemma. How can teachers teach, evaluate and design in the same moment, and in the case of extended year districts, do so over even greater time?

It is much more feasible to maintain a nine-month school year for children and create a twelve-month professional employment year for teachers. Acknowledging the need for teacher vacation time, a year-round employment with a four week vacation, that should be inclusive of all school vacation time such as Christmas and spring breaks, will result in eleven months of professional work. This professional calendar will provide dedicated time for teaching (nine months or thirty-six weeks), time for a continuous, careful and collaborative evaluation of student learning, and time for the design of instruction that can advance the learning of children who were immediately successful and complete the learning of children who were less than initially successful. Time for the last two tasks, analysis of student learning and design of “next” instruction is sorely absent in today’s school year calendar for teacher work and is further abused by mandated reforms to be accomplished within the insanity of a school calendar.

To be successful with the reform mandates, teachers need time to do professional work. That time includes evaluating learning and planning next instruction to assure that all children learn. A professional year rather than a school year is a sane solution to the problem of time.

The second aspect of a new professional employment is annual salary. Money is the elephant in the dilemma of improving the profession of teaching. Local property taxes carry the “elephant’s weight” relative to teacher compensation. The debate over teachers’ salary and benefit packages and the local school’s millage in the local property tax bill has been ongoing for decades. This is why I point to the commitment of the nation and states, as well as local communities, for the improvement of educational achievement. Because the nation and each of the states have a stake in educational improvement, they also must share in the cost of the improvement. If the nation and state do not share in the cost, they should diminish their educational mandates. It is the age old commandment to “put up or shut up.” Demanding something for nothing and pointing to the lack of quality instruction is fully disingenuous when these governmental leaders know the insanity of expecting significantly different results from the age-old teaching/evaluation/instructional design dilemma.

The current federal ante of money is heavily weighted toward entitlements and incentives. Although many of the historic titles have been abandoned, there still is considerable money in the annual ESEA awards to states and through states to school districts. Earlier in Obama administration, federal economic recovery money was funneled through the states to thwart the drastic lay-off of teachers that would have occurred during the dire recession. Also, the Race To The Top funds have provided incentive grants to spotlight districts’ work on federally-inspired projects. Federal money, though important for a district’s compliance efforts, is not significant in everyday teacher compensation.

The relationship of state money to teacher compensation varies with the economic status of a local school district. In Wisconsin, state funding under the “two-thirds” funding formulas of the last century committed the state money to paying up to two-thirds of a local school district budget. The “two-thirds” promise was more political than economic as there were many school districts that received “special adjustment aid” only, often less than $10,000 on a $10,000,000 district budget.

There has not been a state commitment to establishing and maintaining a professional teacher’s salary in Wisconsin. To the contrary, teacher compensation is a political football kicked heavily when there is a state budgetary deficit and state expenditures exceed revenues.

A professional compensation should accomplish three goals. First, young professional teachers should no longer need to be engaged in non-educational summer employment in order to pay their bills. In too many communities, a beginning teacher with a family qualifies for food stamps and must hold a non-educational summer job in order to support a family. A nine-month teaching contract is a part-time contract that pays part-time wages on an annual basis. This is not professional.

Second, a professional salary should be large enough to retain the very best teachers in the profession. Too many quality instructors leave education because their salary is not competitive with the salary they can demand in another profession. Too many quality instructors leave education due to the knowledge that their salary “tops out” well below the salary of other comparable professionals. There is a belief that teachers accept a relatively lower annual salary because they are in a “helping” profession and the real rewards that satisfy a teacher are “of the heart” and not “of the wallet.” This is not true and it is not professional.

And, third, a professional compensation should pay teachers for the addition of approximately seventy working days to their professional work year. When a professional teaching calendar that approximates 255 working days is adopted it is rational to assume that additional time creates additional costs. However, there also is need for a rational discussion of instructional time with children and instructional evaluation and planning time without children and a differentiated cost of each kind of time. Professional salaries for a professional work calendar need to be competitive with comparable professions and a target annual salary should be in the neighborhood of $100,000.

How to raise the revenue for increasing professional salaries is the perplexing problem. Because the number of teachers in a state is a very large number and the number of teachers in a school district still is a proportionately large number, it may be reasonable to incrementally add employment weeks and employment salary to the profession over a schedule of time. The important accomplishment is the realization of national, state and local leaders that if they demand improvements in educational outcomes and accountability, they must supply a reasonable professional work year and a reasonable professional salary to accomplish their demands.

And, lastly, it is time for professional educators to cause professional educational results. It is time for every child to accomplish their annual curricular goals, regardless of any impediments they may face. It is time for every child to advance a grade level and be promoted with commensurate grade level knowledge, skills and working processes every school year. And, professional accountability, that supports a sustained professional employment, should be contingent upon a teacher causing all children in the teacher’s assignment to accomplish their annual curriculum.

Are these three recommendations valid? “Backward design” has been a concept in educational planning for several decades. Backward design applied to the improvement of educational outcomes starts with a consensus understanding of those outcomes. The backward design then creates valid and reliable processes that when executed faithfully and annually will cause those outcomes to be realized. So lets’ state the proposition in terms of backward design.

We want to improve the educational outcomes of all children. Or, in mandate language, all high school graduates must be college or career ready, and all children must be academically competitive with their international peers. The causal factor in this mandate is the improvement of instruction of all children. The focus in the improvement of instruction is the improvement of teaching. And, necessary to the improvement of teaching is the institution of a professional teaching work year and a professional teaching salary.

Finally, I return to Albert Einstein. “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used to create them.” Our old thinking about the profession of teaching leads us to expecting improved educational results based upon greater demands placed upon teachers working in the same work environment that produced unsatisfactory results. If educational achievement is a problem, we need to apply new thinking to its solution. It is the sane thing to do.

A school is a very complicated organization. Public schools, especially, are becoming ever more complicated with federal and state mandates trying to cooperate or maybe compete with local control. There are many interests each trying to influence the nature, purpose and outcomes of public schools. That being said, it is critically important for school leaders to know when to listen and take heed of the constant banter and when to listen but not take heed.

Why is this important? Educators often use metaphors to illustrate their lessons, so here’s another. A school is a very large ocean-going vessel. More to the point, a school is a training ship. Think of the USCG Eagle, the Coast Guard Academy’s training ship. Can you envision this tall-masted sailing ship with its many sails? School is not a cruise ship for entertainment and it is not a freighter hauling goods to distant ports. It is not an excursion boat out for a lark and it is not a submarine meant to sail unseen. A school is a working vessel that sets sail for the purpose of educating its children, just as the Eagle embarks trainees and disembarks Coast Guardsmen. School Boards and school leaders give great attention to the planning and preparation of a school’s annual voyage of education. Planning is done with the purpose and means for giving every child aboard a complete year’s learning of their grade level curriculum. Once at sea, a school is in constant motion until it reaches its destination in June.

The helm of the ship keeps the ship on its course. There is little worse than a ship with a helmsman who is beleaguered with constant course changes. “Go this way! Go that! Make these changes! Make those!” Such a ship is as good as dead in the water. And, that sadly is the state of too many school leaders, adrift at sea due to the constant course change demands of reformers, politicians, and special interest groups who envision education as a means to their disparate ends.

For this reason, I advise school leaders to follow the organizational, curricular, and instructional design charts they made for their academic year. Do not attempt great sea changes while in motion. Do not attempt structural reforms in school organization or in curriculum or in instructional design while teachers are engaged in the daily teaching of children. School leaders, like the captains they are, will, of necessity, make minor adjustments en route. No ship sails in a perfectly straight line and no school year advances without adjustments in the margins of its plan. But to make major changes while in motion is an injustice to the education of children.

It also is an injustice to teachers. Teaching begins with a linear design from one end of the academic year to the other. Along the way, it becomes impossible to find any straight lines as the learning needs of individual children at any point along the voyage require a teacher to make many mid-course adjustments. To institute major curricular or instructional delivery changes once the school year is launched is tantamount to floundering the on-going instruction of children.

It is best practice to have filed your course of study, as a ship files its sailing plans, well before your launch date. Once filed, keep the helm on the planned course. Reformers had their chance to influence the course of the school year before it was launched. Keel haul anyone who demands major mid-year changes!