This past week we conducted focus groups with one of the school districts that participated in our Parent Engagement and Satisfaction Survey in December 2009. The focus groups included over 100 parents from eight different public schools including a mix of elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. The results of our research – including survey benchmark data and qualitative findings – will be released by the end of March 2010 in our comprehensive K-12 Parent Engagement and Satisfaction Research Report. Here are a few common themes that we heard from parents:
1. Online Student Information is Important
Increasingly, parents are relying on the Internet to access information regarding their child’s school life. Parental use of email as a communication medium with teachers is increasing. In many school districts, parents are able to log into an electronic grade book to access information on their student’s grades, attendance, or – in some cases – scheduled tests and assignments. Parents are leveraging text message alerts to let them know when their student’s grade drops below a specified level, an absence or tardy is recorded, or when a missed assignment is logged into the grade book system by the classroom teacher.
Parents and students alike are increasingly requesting teachers to post course outlines, homework, study resources, and course calendars onto teacher-specific web pages. The use of teacher websites for parents to access information on their child’s courses has become vitally important. Teachers who do not keep their websites up to date are increasingly feeling the pressure from parents and students to do so. Given the ease of use associated with today’s web publishing platforms, the technology barriers for teachers of all ages is much decreased.
These online education resources are leveraged by parents more in secondary schools than in elementary schools. This makes sense when considering that a parent of a high school student may need to keep track of seven teachers and classes. Elementary school parents still use these technologies too. However when dealing with just one classroom teacher (in most cases) for each child, parents of elementary students sometimes find it easier to just talk.
2. Bullying and Discipline
Parents are very sensitive to the safety of their children. The issues that parent refer to in school are threats of physical violence, emotional / status related bullying, or the existence of drug and alcohol. All of these are big issues for parents.
True, the more serious threats to student’s well-being happen in secondary schools. However parents of elementary school students are concerned about bullying and the emotional damage it may cause to their children. Many elementary schools have proactive programs to educate students about bullying. These programs typically teach students how to identify bullying and what to do if the student is bullied. Parents appreciate these programs where they exist. In some schools, there is a lack of a formal character development or anti-bullying program. Oftentimes, these are the schools that need it the most.
High schools and middle schools often have more complex issues related to discipline and safety. Physical violence against students becomes more of a fear for parents in secondary schools. The primary complaint of parents is that the school is not more aggressive about catching and punishing students that cause problems and violate school rules. Parents often will describe school administrators as unwilling to make tough decisions regarding student discipline. Sometimes the criticisms of parents are founded but many times their criticisms are not accurate. High school principals have a difficult job in dealing with discipline. The future of a person often hangs in the balance when principals are considering expulsion or suspension for a student. On the balance, school leaders seem to make good choice. Communicating the wisdom of these choices to parents is not always possible.
3. Lack of Challenging Work
As educators, we know that challenging each individual student to his/her fullest potential is difficult. Differentiating instructional across a large class takes considerable skill and preparation. It is challenging to ensure that all students have work which pushes them as an individual. Teachers and schools work hard in pushing kids. Despite these efforts and according to our focus groups, not all schools do a great job of challenging the individual student.
Elementary schools, middle schools and high schools are equally mentioned with children not having challenging works. Parents with students of various ability levels will comment on this lack of challenging work – depending on the school. In some schools, the high achieving students are forced to do the same work that all other students do without regard for their aptitudes. Parents fear that their gifted children will become bored with school. Likewise parents with average students will – in some schools – comment that the school works too much with struggling or gifted students leaving out the students “in the middle”.
4. Lunch Nutrition
Parents are rightfully concerned about what their children eat. Many parents will comment on the lack of nutritious food options in their child’s school cafeteria. Our researchers have not yet cross-referenced parent comments on the school menu with any nutritional analysis to verify claims. That said, we take it as a positive sign that so many parents are mindful of what their children eat.
5. Homework
School homework is a big issue in some schools. Homework becomes a particularly sensitive issue in high school when students may have seven classes in a day. These high school students are typically involved in extra-curricular activities that also require significant time before or after school. Thus students are pressed for time but oftentimes significant amounts of homework will be due on the same day from multiple classes.
For families that are focused on sending their children to college, homework is often a even bigger issue. These families (and students) recognize the importance of school, recognize the importance of grades, and often have rigorous a course load. In addition, students with college goals typically need to be involved in several extra-curricular activities.
One of the best practices that appears to deal with this most effectively is quite simple. Teachers are required to post the homework for the week on their website by Friday night. This encourages students to take personal responsibility over how to budget their time for homework, school and extra-curricular activities. And what is the worst that can happen? Students do their homework before the course discussion or lecture. We can think of worse things!
Showing posts with label School Climate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School Climate. Show all posts
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Monday, October 26, 2009
Why Are Teachers Afraid of Being Heard? Seven Ways to Address Survey “Response Fear”
“Response Fear” is a sometimes irrational skepticism of survey respondents who fear their loss of confidentiality. We can all imagine a scenario in which a feared boss uses survey data to explore the hearts and minds of his or her team. When conducting surveys with teachers and staff, it is important not to marginalize this fear as it is, in some organizations, a well placed fear. However, it is also one of the biggest factors (along with apathy) that hamper response rates of staff surveys.
We at the National Center for School Leadership are in the midst of our fall research study on School Climate and Culture. We conduct studies of this sort each school year with public school districts throughout the country. An employee survey is typically a significant component of our data gathering. Despite our years of experience in this, I am unfailingly surprised at one piece of input I receive consistently: teachers are, in some cases, very fearful that survey responses lacking confidentiality.
Our experience in conducting surveys with teachers is deep. Given that virtually all school districts who conduct surveys will deal with the distrust of teachers and employees to some extent, we put together the following list as a guide for schools and school districts to follow when soliciting input from teachers and employees.
1. Clearly Explain the Purpose of the Survey. When you ask for time from every teacher and every employee in your districts to take a survey, be sure to take the time to fully explain what you are trying to accomplish. If you are conducting a review of attitudes and beliefs, say that. If you are trying to understand morale, say that and tell staff why you are interested and what you plan to do with the information.
I have found that an explanation regarding your need to improve is helpful. Teachers and other staff like the idea of being problem solvers. People inherently form opinions and ideas about the organizations in which they work. Tapping into this vast pool of thoughts and commentary is, with the proper filter mechanism, and worthwhile pursuit.
2. Reassure Early and Often. The confidentiality of any survey needs to be stressed in every communication regarding the process. The confidentiality message should be succinct, clear and unambiguous. If you are promising confidentiality of all responses, be sure to underscore that point. Be clear about how the data will be used. Assure staff that this is about improving the organization and not sorting out “non-believers”, “bad apples” and the generally disgruntled.
3. Use a Third Party Administrator. We always act as a third party administrator for our members. It is our hope that with our involvement in the process, teachers see that this is not a case of the “fox guarding the hen house”. Primarily districts will use a third-party to administer a study based on the need for expertise and data management. Do not underestimate the important as well of having a neutral third-party act as your data aggregator. Teachers and staff tend to associate more credibility with those types of studies and feel more confident in the confidentiality of their responses.
4. Be Honest. The quickest route to destroying credibility is to be untruthful. If you are collecting information to evaluate schools (by the way, we do not recommend an employee satisfaction survey for this), then be honest and tell your staff that is what you are attempting. If individual responses can be reported, tell them that so they will answer accordingly. Usually schools and school districts spend a significant amount of time ensuring safety and confidentiality of response data. If there are any fears that are rooted in fact, it is best to be upfront with that information.
5. Summarize Data. Response data should always be grouped and never reported for sub-groups containing less than 3 respondents. This ensures that data users cannot apply multiple filters (e.g., Hispanic, Teacher-only, Specific-School, Specific-Grade level, etc.) to narrow response results that can only be for a certain person. Reports for survey data should never show response data unless a minimum number of respondents are included in the sample. In fairness, unless you have 20 to 30 responses in a sample, your sample is not statistically significant. Looking at smaller groups can still be very useful but when you drop below 3 respondents, the data becomes close to meaningless in drawing inferences about the organization.
6. Focus on the Need to Improve. Superintendents and principals who focus of their desire to improve strike a chord with teachers and staff. Again, our natural tendencies to be problem solvers kick in and we want to be part of the process. Be clear about the role that teacher and employee input have in your process and the value you place on their input. There is a wealth of improvement ideas in your schools. Acknowledge this in order to tap into it.
7. Have a Manual Option. People understand that technology can do a lot without our knowledge. I often hear of the fear that the computer system is tracking an individual’s response to a survey. Usually the district administrators will roll their eyes and groan when they hear this fear expressed by teachers, considering it as more unfounded paranoia. But, the truth is that technology can be used to do this. We typically disable the ability to match response data to individuals unless we need to tie response data back to student achievement data. When we do enable the option, we never provide clients with the ability to report at the individual level. But the truth is, the fears of technology stripping us of the confidentiality of our responses are not without justification. Despite our assurances of how we are collecting and using data, this fear can persist. It is always wise to provide a paper hardcopy as a backup for individuals who express their fears of the technology. Sometimes just providing the option provides the necessary assurance that you take confidentiality seriously.
Utilizing these guidelines can help improve response rates by generating trust among your employee group. If you still cannot get over the trust hurdle, you need to acknowledge that you have found, without looking at any response data, a major culture issue within your school or school district: A lack of trust.
Scott Wallace is the Executive Director of the National Center for School Leadership. To learn more about their services and how they work to improve school culture and develop school leaders, visit their website at http://www.ncfsl.org/
We at the National Center for School Leadership are in the midst of our fall research study on School Climate and Culture. We conduct studies of this sort each school year with public school districts throughout the country. An employee survey is typically a significant component of our data gathering. Despite our years of experience in this, I am unfailingly surprised at one piece of input I receive consistently: teachers are, in some cases, very fearful that survey responses lacking confidentiality.
Our experience in conducting surveys with teachers is deep. Given that virtually all school districts who conduct surveys will deal with the distrust of teachers and employees to some extent, we put together the following list as a guide for schools and school districts to follow when soliciting input from teachers and employees.
1. Clearly Explain the Purpose of the Survey. When you ask for time from every teacher and every employee in your districts to take a survey, be sure to take the time to fully explain what you are trying to accomplish. If you are conducting a review of attitudes and beliefs, say that. If you are trying to understand morale, say that and tell staff why you are interested and what you plan to do with the information.
I have found that an explanation regarding your need to improve is helpful. Teachers and other staff like the idea of being problem solvers. People inherently form opinions and ideas about the organizations in which they work. Tapping into this vast pool of thoughts and commentary is, with the proper filter mechanism, and worthwhile pursuit.
2. Reassure Early and Often. The confidentiality of any survey needs to be stressed in every communication regarding the process. The confidentiality message should be succinct, clear and unambiguous. If you are promising confidentiality of all responses, be sure to underscore that point. Be clear about how the data will be used. Assure staff that this is about improving the organization and not sorting out “non-believers”, “bad apples” and the generally disgruntled.
3. Use a Third Party Administrator. We always act as a third party administrator for our members. It is our hope that with our involvement in the process, teachers see that this is not a case of the “fox guarding the hen house”. Primarily districts will use a third-party to administer a study based on the need for expertise and data management. Do not underestimate the important as well of having a neutral third-party act as your data aggregator. Teachers and staff tend to associate more credibility with those types of studies and feel more confident in the confidentiality of their responses.
4. Be Honest. The quickest route to destroying credibility is to be untruthful. If you are collecting information to evaluate schools (by the way, we do not recommend an employee satisfaction survey for this), then be honest and tell your staff that is what you are attempting. If individual responses can be reported, tell them that so they will answer accordingly. Usually schools and school districts spend a significant amount of time ensuring safety and confidentiality of response data. If there are any fears that are rooted in fact, it is best to be upfront with that information.
5. Summarize Data. Response data should always be grouped and never reported for sub-groups containing less than 3 respondents. This ensures that data users cannot apply multiple filters (e.g., Hispanic, Teacher-only, Specific-School, Specific-Grade level, etc.) to narrow response results that can only be for a certain person. Reports for survey data should never show response data unless a minimum number of respondents are included in the sample. In fairness, unless you have 20 to 30 responses in a sample, your sample is not statistically significant. Looking at smaller groups can still be very useful but when you drop below 3 respondents, the data becomes close to meaningless in drawing inferences about the organization.
6. Focus on the Need to Improve. Superintendents and principals who focus of their desire to improve strike a chord with teachers and staff. Again, our natural tendencies to be problem solvers kick in and we want to be part of the process. Be clear about the role that teacher and employee input have in your process and the value you place on their input. There is a wealth of improvement ideas in your schools. Acknowledge this in order to tap into it.
7. Have a Manual Option. People understand that technology can do a lot without our knowledge. I often hear of the fear that the computer system is tracking an individual’s response to a survey. Usually the district administrators will roll their eyes and groan when they hear this fear expressed by teachers, considering it as more unfounded paranoia. But, the truth is that technology can be used to do this. We typically disable the ability to match response data to individuals unless we need to tie response data back to student achievement data. When we do enable the option, we never provide clients with the ability to report at the individual level. But the truth is, the fears of technology stripping us of the confidentiality of our responses are not without justification. Despite our assurances of how we are collecting and using data, this fear can persist. It is always wise to provide a paper hardcopy as a backup for individuals who express their fears of the technology. Sometimes just providing the option provides the necessary assurance that you take confidentiality seriously.
Utilizing these guidelines can help improve response rates by generating trust among your employee group. If you still cannot get over the trust hurdle, you need to acknowledge that you have found, without looking at any response data, a major culture issue within your school or school district: A lack of trust.
Scott Wallace is the Executive Director of the National Center for School Leadership. To learn more about their services and how they work to improve school culture and develop school leaders, visit their website at http://www.ncfsl.org/
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Principal Interview: Sheri Marcotte of Chapel Hill 7th and 8th Grade Center
Chapel Hill 7th and 8th Grade Center is a middle school on the west side of Indianapolis. MSD of Wayne Township Superintendent Dr. Terry Thompson has overseen an impressive series of building initiatives which, most recently, included rebuilding the school into a state-of-the-art facility. As part of that makeover the school also got a new principal. I had chance to speak with Sheri Marcotte this past week. She is an experienced and impressive educator. I asked her to comment on lessons learned in her first year at her new school. Below are excerpts that I have paraphrased from her responses to a number of questions posed to her in our conversation.
What is your background?
I graduated from Indiana University and worked at a wholesale produce company while I did my student teaching. It was an invaluable experience and gave me some great insight into customer service and how to really focus on what your customers want and need. That experience has served me well as an educator.
My career has been spent in the Indianapolis area including teaching in IPS (Indianapolis Public Schools) and as a middle school administrator and principal in both Franklin Township and Warren Township. I have worked in 5 different middle schools of the past 35 years.
What motivated you to take a new position at Chapel Hill?
I live on the westside closer to Chapel Hill and I am very familiar with the school corporation. It sounds materialistic but the new building was a very attractive to me and a big reason I wanted to come. In the end though the Superintendent Terry Thompson and Assistant Superintendent Dr Jeff Butts both convinced me that this was a place that needed me and that would give me lots of opportunity to positively impact students.
Describe the situation at the school when you arrived.
First of all, the people were great. I could tell that the hiring process the school had been through was excellent. The staff was really top notch.
I was aware that some of the staff might be resentful of me. I was prepared for some groups of staff to harbor some animosity towards me. That seems typical for a lot of new principals. But, I did not really experience that. I felt very comfortable with the people almost immediately.
The school had plenty of instructional programs. That was not a problem. In fact, my first impression was that there were too many instructional programs. The school seemed to lack a bit of focus.
The biggest thing I noticed was that the school generally did not deal well with large groups of students. Classroom management was fine but once students were in the halls, moving between classes, going to lunch, attending an assembly or going to the buses the environment became chaotic. This was not acceptable to me. I believe that students should behave well at all times in a well-run school. The passing periods and going to buses should be no exception. The lax atmosphere was sending a message to our students that acting in this way was acceptable behavior.
Fortunately, I came from a very similar school with a very similar demographic of students. Instilling order is second nature to me so I knew we could address this need.
What was the culture of the school when you came in? What did you do to change things?
Many of the staff members seemed to feel powerless in their inability to impact and address negative student behavior. I think they felt some underlying needs but didn’t really know what could be done about it. I tried to be focused and deliberate in my first year. I focused on just a few things.
First, as I mentioned, we added a lot of structure around how we dealt with large groups of students. The staff was skeptical that we could easily deal with this. Dismissal, in particular, was horrible. When you have 1,200 middle school students headed for the buses at the same time, it is important that you have order or things can get out of hand. We began by having teachers walk their classes to the buses. Students were required to be quiet and orderly. We saw an immediate and drastic change regarding how smoothly dismissal went. It was great. Teachers would come up to me in the halls and thanked me for creating such an orderly dismissal process.
Shortly after we began this practice, some teachers began to ask how much longer we would be walking kids to the buses. I realized that our management of students was not yet part of our culture. I became encouraged though when other teachers began to speak up and request that we always walk students to buses. This told me that they got it. It wasn’t a one time thing. We needed to maintain our focus on managing the environment of the school. I my mind it, starts on ensuring that the classrooms, halls and all common areas were as orderly as possible.
Another thing I changed pretty quickly was when the schools leadership team met. As a group they met each morning at the start of school. This meant that many of my best teachers were not in homeroom classes with students. To me, students are our number one priority so I changed the schedule around so that every teacher had a group of homeroom students – including those on the leadership team.
What are your plans for the coming school year? What will be your focus in the coming year?
Generally a lot of what I did in the first year was to instill order. The school was a chaotic environment and one where not everyone felt safe. We worked hard to address that immediately.
This year we are working on “Engagement by Design”. We want to ensure that our students are truly engaged in their studies. I don’t think this happens by accident and it doesn’t always happen naturally. We are being intentional about engagement with our students.
The other things we are doing this year is nothing. By that I mean we are doing nothing new. This school corporation is well known for its excellence and for staying on the leading edge of educational practice. But sometimes it translates into doing too much or changing practice too much. For this year, we are going to stick with the great curriculum we have and make it work for us. I am excited about that.
Scott Wallace is the Executive Director of the National Center for School Leadership. To learn more about their services and how they work to improve school culture and develop school leaders, visit their website at http://www.ncfsl.org/
What is your background?
I graduated from Indiana University and worked at a wholesale produce company while I did my student teaching. It was an invaluable experience and gave me some great insight into customer service and how to really focus on what your customers want and need. That experience has served me well as an educator.
My career has been spent in the Indianapolis area including teaching in IPS (Indianapolis Public Schools) and as a middle school administrator and principal in both Franklin Township and Warren Township. I have worked in 5 different middle schools of the past 35 years.
What motivated you to take a new position at Chapel Hill?
I live on the westside closer to Chapel Hill and I am very familiar with the school corporation. It sounds materialistic but the new building was a very attractive to me and a big reason I wanted to come. In the end though the Superintendent Terry Thompson and Assistant Superintendent Dr Jeff Butts both convinced me that this was a place that needed me and that would give me lots of opportunity to positively impact students.
Describe the situation at the school when you arrived.
First of all, the people were great. I could tell that the hiring process the school had been through was excellent. The staff was really top notch.
I was aware that some of the staff might be resentful of me. I was prepared for some groups of staff to harbor some animosity towards me. That seems typical for a lot of new principals. But, I did not really experience that. I felt very comfortable with the people almost immediately.
The school had plenty of instructional programs. That was not a problem. In fact, my first impression was that there were too many instructional programs. The school seemed to lack a bit of focus.
The biggest thing I noticed was that the school generally did not deal well with large groups of students. Classroom management was fine but once students were in the halls, moving between classes, going to lunch, attending an assembly or going to the buses the environment became chaotic. This was not acceptable to me. I believe that students should behave well at all times in a well-run school. The passing periods and going to buses should be no exception. The lax atmosphere was sending a message to our students that acting in this way was acceptable behavior.
Fortunately, I came from a very similar school with a very similar demographic of students. Instilling order is second nature to me so I knew we could address this need.
What was the culture of the school when you came in? What did you do to change things?
Many of the staff members seemed to feel powerless in their inability to impact and address negative student behavior. I think they felt some underlying needs but didn’t really know what could be done about it. I tried to be focused and deliberate in my first year. I focused on just a few things.
First, as I mentioned, we added a lot of structure around how we dealt with large groups of students. The staff was skeptical that we could easily deal with this. Dismissal, in particular, was horrible. When you have 1,200 middle school students headed for the buses at the same time, it is important that you have order or things can get out of hand. We began by having teachers walk their classes to the buses. Students were required to be quiet and orderly. We saw an immediate and drastic change regarding how smoothly dismissal went. It was great. Teachers would come up to me in the halls and thanked me for creating such an orderly dismissal process.
Shortly after we began this practice, some teachers began to ask how much longer we would be walking kids to the buses. I realized that our management of students was not yet part of our culture. I became encouraged though when other teachers began to speak up and request that we always walk students to buses. This told me that they got it. It wasn’t a one time thing. We needed to maintain our focus on managing the environment of the school. I my mind it, starts on ensuring that the classrooms, halls and all common areas were as orderly as possible.
Another thing I changed pretty quickly was when the schools leadership team met. As a group they met each morning at the start of school. This meant that many of my best teachers were not in homeroom classes with students. To me, students are our number one priority so I changed the schedule around so that every teacher had a group of homeroom students – including those on the leadership team.
What are your plans for the coming school year? What will be your focus in the coming year?
Generally a lot of what I did in the first year was to instill order. The school was a chaotic environment and one where not everyone felt safe. We worked hard to address that immediately.
This year we are working on “Engagement by Design”. We want to ensure that our students are truly engaged in their studies. I don’t think this happens by accident and it doesn’t always happen naturally. We are being intentional about engagement with our students.
The other things we are doing this year is nothing. By that I mean we are doing nothing new. This school corporation is well known for its excellence and for staying on the leading edge of educational practice. But sometimes it translates into doing too much or changing practice too much. For this year, we are going to stick with the great curriculum we have and make it work for us. I am excited about that.
Scott Wallace is the Executive Director of the National Center for School Leadership. To learn more about their services and how they work to improve school culture and develop school leaders, visit their website at http://www.ncfsl.org/
Saturday, July 25, 2009
How Will Performance Pay Impact School Climate? It Depends on Leadership.
There is considerable discussion on performance pay for teachers given that it is a cornerstone of the Obama administration's education policy. Arne Duncan has spent considerable time discussing the issue to reporters and in public forums. The NEA has weighed in on its resistance to the notion. But the administration has remained steadfast: performance pay will be part of the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) regardless of the new name.
Teacher groups have shown tremendous resentment towards these plans. One has only to listen to the NPR interviews and read the news clipping to understand that teachers feel strongly that this is not a good thing. So the question is: how will this impact school climate? Will it adversely impact teacher morale? My guess is that it will impact teacher morale adversely – but maybe just in the near term.
I remember conducting focus groups with teachers six or more years ago. All I heard about (it seemed though I am sure they talked about other things too) was how the accountability components associated with No Child Left Behind were an unfair attempt to discredit public education. Introducing accountability was absurd. Accountability was an unwelcome hardship laid at the feet of teachers. The teachers believed (and perhaps many still do – right or wrong) deep in their hearts that accountability was unjust. They also believed that it would not last. Clearly, however, accountability is here to stay.
Interestingly, as the years progressed I heard a shift each year in my conversations regarding accountability. It started with administrators but trickled down to teachers. They seemed (albeit slowly in some cases) to accept the need to objectively measure student performance. Even more promising, educators were able to figure out how to think about accountability as more than just
I credit much of the shift in sentiment regarding accountability to district and school administrators. The leaders who were successful recognized the need to measure student performance. But more importantly, they recognized the need to bring teachers along. To convince them that this was important. To challenge their assumptions without challenging their dedication. Effective leadership was key for many schools who undertook the significant cultural transformation towards being data driven. The same type of leadership will be necessary to lead this transformation.
Now let’s be fair and accurate. Many teachers still feel that they are teaching to the test. And perhaps they are. But many educators have embraced the need for measuring progress and have adapted well within the framework of No Child Left Behind. Most senior-level administrators I know firmly support accountability today despite that fact that far fewer supported the legislation when it was first introduced.
Will performance pay for teachers follow a similar pattern? Will teachers and administrators, after several years of protesting, realize that the best in the profession might actually be able to make more than the worst in the profession? Clearly the devil is in the details. Issues remain and details are fuzzy. How will the legislation work for great teachers who work with challenging student populations? How will it ensure that teachers who teach in suburban schools with great test scores aren’t the beneficiaries of higher pay simply because they inherited schools with higher test scores?
As the details of the new administration’s platform emerge, many of these questions will be answered. However, time will tell. We all know that the No Child Left Behind legislation was not perfect. But parts of it did work. It is my hope that we will see further, though different, gains in education through the Obama administration’s plans.
Please share your thoughts and comments. And remember, we can disagree without being disagreeable.
Teacher groups have shown tremendous resentment towards these plans. One has only to listen to the NPR interviews and read the news clipping to understand that teachers feel strongly that this is not a good thing. So the question is: how will this impact school climate? Will it adversely impact teacher morale? My guess is that it will impact teacher morale adversely – but maybe just in the near term.
I remember conducting focus groups with teachers six or more years ago. All I heard about (it seemed though I am sure they talked about other things too) was how the accountability components associated with No Child Left Behind were an unfair attempt to discredit public education. Introducing accountability was absurd. Accountability was an unwelcome hardship laid at the feet of teachers. The teachers believed (and perhaps many still do – right or wrong) deep in their hearts that accountability was unjust. They also believed that it would not last. Clearly, however, accountability is here to stay.
Interestingly, as the years progressed I heard a shift each year in my conversations regarding accountability. It started with administrators but trickled down to teachers. They seemed (albeit slowly in some cases) to accept the need to objectively measure student performance. Even more promising, educators were able to figure out how to think about accountability as more than just
teaching to the test. Positive developments in the thinking about how schools were or were not successful began to emerge. Educators learned to study data in complete new ways. They had a new and healthy appreciation of the challenges that were theirs.
I credit much of the shift in sentiment regarding accountability to district and school administrators. The leaders who were successful recognized the need to measure student performance. But more importantly, they recognized the need to bring teachers along. To convince them that this was important. To challenge their assumptions without challenging their dedication. Effective leadership was key for many schools who undertook the significant cultural transformation towards being data driven. The same type of leadership will be necessary to lead this transformation.
Now let’s be fair and accurate. Many teachers still feel that they are teaching to the test. And perhaps they are. But many educators have embraced the need for measuring progress and have adapted well within the framework of No Child Left Behind. Most senior-level administrators I know firmly support accountability today despite that fact that far fewer supported the legislation when it was first introduced.
Will performance pay for teachers follow a similar pattern? Will teachers and administrators, after several years of protesting, realize that the best in the profession might actually be able to make more than the worst in the profession? Clearly the devil is in the details. Issues remain and details are fuzzy. How will the legislation work for great teachers who work with challenging student populations? How will it ensure that teachers who teach in suburban schools with great test scores aren’t the beneficiaries of higher pay simply because they inherited schools with higher test scores?
As the details of the new administration’s platform emerge, many of these questions will be answered. However, time will tell. We all know that the No Child Left Behind legislation was not perfect. But parts of it did work. It is my hope that we will see further, though different, gains in education through the Obama administration’s plans.
Please share your thoughts and comments. And remember, we can disagree without being disagreeable.
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