Online Discussion: Teachers at Work

Attracting and keeping great teachers is the focus of countless reform efforts, and now one of four key measures for the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top fund. Teachers at Work argues that teaching quality will only improve—in the long run and on a broad scale—if some of the fundamental design problems that constrain teachers' work and limit teacher effectiveness are addressed.

Strategic staffing and scheduling are some of the best ways to address these problems, the report concludes, much in the way the Brooklyn-based Generation Schools model uses creative ways to maximize talent and time.

What is the link between teacher effectiveness and teachers' work? And how is it changing the teacher quality debate?Posted by: Education Sector from Education Sector

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

Highly effective teachers for all students is absolutely the right goal, and it’s heartening to see “great teachers and leaders” as one of the drivers for federal education funds, and at the center of state and district plans for reform. But it strikes me that there’s something wrong with trying to identify and develop millions of talented teachers to work in the very structures and systems that constrain their talent. That’s why design matters. It is the missing link in the teacher quality conversation that can move us from just incentivizing individuals—pushing more talent into teaching and paying it to stay there—to creating the conditions in schools and districts that attract talented workers, recognize their differences, maximize their assets, and make their work more challenging, rewarding and, yes, effective.

Karen Hawley Miles from Education Resource Strategies responds:

I'm so glad to be participating in this conversation because at Education Resource Strategies, our work is all about restructuring school resources to organize people and time in schools to fit 21^st century understandings of how learning happens and how to organize professionals for high impact.  Most of the discussion of teaching effectiveness right now revolves around how to link compensation to it. The  link between teaching effectiveness and school design (strategic staffing and scheduling) is not widely discussed.  But, unless we figure out how to get the issue of school design front and center, measuring teaching effectiveness and rewarding the best teachers won't make a difference for kids.  This is because schools won't be organized in ways that enable teachers to know their students and respond to their learning needs or to leverage their combined gifts, passions and expertise.  Right now, most secondary school schedules don't promote either of the above goals.  Teachers of core subjects typically have well over 100 students and limited if any time to work together or alone to understand how students are learning and how best to help them do better.  Most teachers teach 5 classes a day and many have to prepare lessons for more than one course.  It's no big insight to see that such a schedule leaves little time for teachers to engage in meaningful individual work with students or colleagues. 

Joel Rose from NYC Department of Education, Schoo of One responds:

The link between teachers effectiveness and teachers work is no different than in any other profession.  Success is determined both by the quality of talent and the job we ask them to do.  So while there are rules that can limit effectiveness, we need to start by asking ourselves whether we are putting our teachers in a position to be as successful as we need them to be.  Is this job doable?   It's not just a question of class size; it's a question of our overall model of putting 25-30 kids in a room with a teacher x five periods a day (for MS/HS) and expecting all students to get the education they need.  How realistic is this model?  The fact that half of all teachers leave in 5 years no doubt tells us something about this question.  Airlines hire the best pilots they can find, but they also buy planes that (as we learned recently) basically fly themselves.  Hospitals hire the best doctors they can find, but also leverage advanced medical equipment to enhance the quality of care.  We simply don't have that complement yet in education, and as a result, we've become completely reliant on the quality of the teacher to succeed in what we know is a very challenging job.   So we need to explore more broadly how we redesign our entire system for delivering instruction so that we can put all teachers in a position where they can be more successful than they otherwise would be.

Jonathan Spear from Generation Schools Network responds:

We all recognize that teaching is demanding.  Teachers have to do the heavy lifting of supporting all that society puts on schools - to teach the next generation, prepare the workforce, train citizens, overcome poverty.   Teachers have heavy loads.  Some can lift this heavy load all by themselves and hold it for a while.  

But what if we could give teachers a rope and a couple of pulleys?  Could more teachers hold up the burden?  Could they hold them longer?  Could they do so without becoming exhausted and burnt out? 

The Generation Schools model focuses first on the structures that allow teachers to be more effective.  Teachers get to know students better, working with fewer students for longer periods of time.  They have time to talk to colleagues about the daily decisions they make and the challenges they face as they try to help the students they have gotten to know.    

We also reorganize the teachers roles and responsibilities.  We focus most teachers in the mornings on core instruction, so we need teachers who can contribute to a humanities, math or science team.  We give teachers the opportunity in the afternoons to use their passions to connect with students and address students other needs.  This set of responsibilities matches the talent pool.   We know the best and brightest graduating college each year are more than just disciplinary experts.  They are actors and athletes, write for the school papers and contribute to the community in a variety of ways. 

This reorganization of the school day and the teachers' roles changes the questions we have to ask.  We wonder what qualities and experiences we should look for in applicants, what training new and veteran teachers need to be most effective in our model and their new roles. We wonder what it will take to develop and continuously nurture a professional learning community and different generations of learners. 

We don't presume that our model is better for all students and all teachers.  But we want to think carefully about the opportunity our model creates for students to be successful, for good teachers to become great and great teachers to be deeply satisfied.    

How open and receptive have teachers and students been to such redesign? What elements, if any, were needed for buy-in?Posted by: Ashley Briggs from AFT

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

The results from Public Agenda's recent survey suggests that many teachers are dissatisfied with certain aspects of their jobs--they feel stifled in terms of career growth, for example, and overburdened by students. So new designs for their work would probably be very appealing. On the other hand, not all teachers were disheartened in this survey (2 out of 5, I believe), which is an important reminder that teachers are quite varied in their opinions about their work and education reform. See the MetLifesurvey and Education Sector's 2007 survey on teachers. The teachers I've spoken with at schools with conventional models are, I would say, cautiously positive about the main ideas---namely, teaming teachers to maximize talent and creating more dynamic schedules that both extend and stagger time. But reforms get piled on so it's smart for teachers to question what the theory is behind any big change. My sense is that teachers could really get behind this idea of using people and time more strategically as a way to improve teaching (for students and teachers). As for students, they're generally okay with extending time if they don't hate their schools. And the idea of teachers working together in teams and taking more control and responsibility for their work is fundamentally about making them better and more engaged teachers. That's what kids want.

Furman Brown from Generation Schools Network responds:

Chancellor Klein asked that same question when he visited our school this week. The students made it clear to him that they felt known and cared about at the school. They also expressed to him that the work they were doing was going to lead them to success in life after high school. When I heard them talking I realized that, in essence, the students had boiled their evaluation of the school down to three simple questions: Do you know who I am? Do you care about my success? Are you going to work hard to help me get there?

For our nonprofit organization, we had to answer those same basic questions to many different audiences. We knew we were proposing a complete redesign of the conventional school model and, as such, we had to engage many constituencies in the process long before we opened the school. That was essential work. This included a wide range of different and helpful voices from the teachers union, the school district, community-based organizations and others. This was not always easy, but was critical nonetheless, and has lead to an iterative process where we know we have thought partners dedicated to making this successful. This certainly includes students, families and teachers.

Jonathan Spear from Generation Schools Network responds:

Furman worked on the model for many years as a thought experiment.  He drew on his own experience and asked what it would take to create a better school for students and a better workplace for teachers. 

When we began to work towards the launch of Brooklyn Generation, we worked closely with both the NYC Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers.  Both were key thought partners as we refined the model and the articulation of the model.  We took responsibility for answering their questions and concerns.  We had key partners in each organization who worked to build consensus within their respective organization for the launch of the school.

Brooklyn Generation started as a new school, so all of our teachers were choosing to be part of the school model.  The first year, as part of the side agreement, teachers had the right to return to their previous position if, at the end of the year, they decided the new school was not for them.  At the end of the year, we had only one teacher return to her previous school.

I've been frustrated in the past with a seeming lack of will to confront the one of the most important working conditions: stress. Stress is directly related to the number of hours per day that a teacher has sole responsibility for a classroom of students. Some might call this teacher workload, but to me, it's a little different. It's not just about the number of preparations or just about the number of students a teacher sees every day -- although both are important. It's about reducing the time during the day during which a single teacher has sole responsibility for managing a classroom. My suggestion would be to reduce the full-classroom responsibility by one class period for core course teachers (so if a teacher has five classes, he/she would only have four per day). The additional period could be assigned as tutoring, staff mentoring, personal staff development, etc.. Any thoughts? Posted by: Kathy Christie from Education Commission of the States

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

Structuring teachers' time differently is a core part of improving teachers' work. As you've noted, most teachers right now are on their own--they accept and adjust to this from the first years of teaching. One theory is that we should give teachers more support to deal with the isolation and burdens of teaching. Another, and I think this makes a lot more sense, is to restructure how and when they do their work. At the end of each day, teachers' feet usually hurt from standing in front of their students--that's the necessary performance aspect of teaching (i always thought shoe companies should partner with teachers as much as athletes). But their brains should be throbbing just as much from thinking about how to improve learning, from working with their colleagues and planning creative and challenging lessons. Schedules that give teachers more time for planning and collaboration will reduce the direct contact time that each teacher spends with students (unless everyone's schedule is extended significantly)--that's not a bad thing if we create school models that allow for others, from retirees to career changers to community based organizations-- to participate in school-based education. We're accustomed to tracking and measuring the instructional minutes and hours of teachers and students as though these units of time are actually meaningful. They aren't. I spoke with a teacher, a 14 year veteran teaching in a Detroit middle school who, in describing her teaching schedule, explained it in a way that really illustrated some of the problems:  "In our first years, we learn to 'work the rule'--I'm not proud of this because it doesn't help my work and i know it doesn't help me do better by my students, but it's true." This admission is so profound. She doesn't want to be bound by rules that don't make sense to her but she's accepted them, even though it's humiliating to her. Teachers want and deserve to have work scheduled in ways that make them more effective, not less.

Karen Hawley Miles from Education Resource Strategies responds:

Kathy suggested reducing the number of periods that teachers carry a student load as one way to reduce stress.  First, I think reducing stress is a critical part of enabling high impact teaching and attracting and retaining the best people to the job of teaching.  We do see high performing schools that employ exactly this strategy.  Its important to realize though that this solution implies some important trade-offs and tough choices that require strong leadership, political will and changes to many union contract provisions.  Paying for a solution like this requires shifting resources from somewhere. One way to think about where the dollars would come from is to look at the choices high peforming schools with low levels of funding make.  We see that they shift resources away from the teaching of non-core subjects and they find ways to leverage community resources and other providers to expand non core instruction as well as provide social services and other student support.  That is, they pour everything into the teachers of core subjects. 

I would also say that we need to find models that go outside the boxes created by the traditional 6 or 7 period day, 5 days a week and think creatively about how time is structured each day and over the week.  Its not necessary for students to be directly supervised by a teacher to be engaged in powerful learning activities and some lessons require long blocks while others work well in shorter ones.  We could design work weeks for students and teachers that accomodate a variety of purposes.  You can find case studies for 9 high performing high schools and the templates for their student and teacher schedules on our website at www.educationresourcestrategies.org.

As the intensive work to develop the first roll out of common core standards in 2010 looms near, how do each of the panelists see the need to provide teachers with more time to plan and collaborate becoming an urgent need? Posted by: Geraldine Otremba from Library of Congress

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

The common core standards initiative is intended in the long run to make curriculum, instruction and assessment clearer and more coherent for teachers (and students and parents). But the next few years are going to be confusing, as states work to revise existing local standards and align them with common core standards. Add to this the federal funding streams that will push and pull states to take on big reforms--directly and indirectly related to standards. There's $350 million to develop assessments, for example, that link to common standards, so we will see states struggling to implement new standards and new assessments at the same time. Even if the standards are "fewer, clearer, and higher," teachers will be faced with making sense of these in the context of their own districts and schools. The burden of making these standards meaningful falls in large part to teachers, and this burden will be realized very soon. There is a lot of talk about how teachers will need "support" for implementation. Time to plan is absolutely one of the most practical and viable supports we can offer.

Everything you write sounds great, and it sounds great for excellent reasons. But I question whether it can be done at current levels of spending, and I'd like more details on that. By means of comparison, I have had more than 170 students this year in five classes. Of my 140 students in regular classes, 90 are on IEPs, ELL, or 504's for serious physical and/or mental illness (typically PTSD and bipolar) and many are just out of jail, homeless, and/or off their meds. How could we afford classes of 14 when I don't have a single class with less than 14 students who are seriously at risk in addition to 15 to 20 others? But, yes, stress does become an issue. Its tough enough for a veteran teacher, but the younger teachers are babbling incoherently every day as we stumble home. Posted by: john thompson

Karen Hawley Miles from Education Resource Strategies responds:

Finding ways to pay for new school designs that work for kids and teachers should be at the center of the discussion.  Teaching loads well over 125 with the student needs you describe are common in urban schools, but there are a lot of adults in most urban school building.  In 2005, the ratio of students per teacher was one teacher for every 17 students. ..and in many urban school districts we study the number is lower.  The question is, how do we organize these teachers and what do we prioritize?  We need to think about both class size and teaching load.   There are 3 big reasons that class sizes for core classes are so different from the ratios--1) Many teachers are working with much smaller loads of students in special programs, English Language Learners and Special education 2) elective and advanced courses are smaller than this 3) teachers don't teach all day and we require that students spend all of their school time with teachers all day--so we need more teachers to keep the class sizes down.  Schools that think differently about these 3 issues have lowered class sizes in all core subjects or sometimes just for one or two core subjects.  The second big issue is teaching load---if students took fewer courses and spent more time in them, then teachers would have lower loads.  This means redesigning how coursework is organized and how time is used, but it is possible.  For examples of schools

that have created schedules with much lower loads and class sizes, you can see our website www.educationesourcestrategies.org

Thank you so much for the article Teachers At Work, Elena, and thank you to the entire panel for being willing to share thoughts. The team of educator-leaders at Generation Schools are sending out a wake of inspiration and hope for us in this time of change. Aha, yes, there ARE models that make sense, that will allow educators to be their best for their students. The emphasis on collaboration through consistent planning and reflection time is paramount. Reduce isolation! Encourage teacher leadership! Give educators the opportunity to play multiple professional roles across their careers. You have built something wonderful, and I hope teachers in many more places get to experiment with and experience "new designs that will lift the teaching profession to its deserved status and reinvigorate public education." One of my questions is regarding elementary school. What are some ways you can envision restructuring the K-6 day and year? If you have "homeroom teachers" (who have the largest part of the students' time) and "specials" (music, art, PE, foreign language) who have the students for about a third of the time, how could we move away from one-room-schoolhouses working in parallel, to collaborative teams? I'm particularly interested in possibilities that lean towards interdisciplinary learning... and also very much interested in bringing elders (retirees) into the mix, which could be very good for children. It'd be much appreciated if you'd share ideas and references about restructuring elementary education. Posted by: Connie Weber from Fireside Learning network, and Emerson School

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

If this is about maximizing talent, and recognizing that teachers are not all the same--that they bring different skills, experience, and interests to the table--then the conventional elementary model could use some rethinking. Lucy Hood recently wrote a piece in the most recent Harvard Ed Letter about "platooning" or departmentalizing elementary schools, which means students in even the lowest grades move between two or more teachers who are subject experts rather than staying with one "generalist" teacher all day. As Hood notes, elementary school teachers are typically trained to stick with one group of students for all subjects, which is thought to be the best way to provide the stability that young kids need, and to ensure that students are taught across subjects. The flip side is that students might benefit from a team of teachers that are content experts. There's plenty of tension around this, however--read more here.

Jonathan Spear from Generation Schools Network responds:

Actually, the Generation Schools model is a K-12 model.  The same basic structures - Foundation Courses, Studio Courses and Intensives - can structure an elementary, middle or high school.  Obviously, the way we fill those structures may be different.  We may continue to have humanities and mathematics-based Foundation Courses.  But we might have an even  more interdisciplinary approach in the Foundation structures.  We don't need to have a College and Career program as the basis of Intensives in elementary school.  A team could use that time with younger children to do explorations in science or social studies.  Students could benefit from in depth, project based work.  There are many possibilities, and we look forward to working with communities and educators who are interested in using the model to launch an elementary school.

Beyond our work, we know there are other ways to organize teachers time.  We simply encourage people to think about what works for students and teachers, to engage with constituent groups early, working with the district, union and parents to organize resources differently.

Another question for you: Where do you envision this new breed of principal to be coming from? Where would you look for principals, and what "qualities of being" would you want to see in them?Posted by: Connie Weber from Fireside Learning network, and Emerson School

Joel Rose from NYC Department of Education, School of One responds:

This is a great question.  There is no doubt that we need to begin to cultivate a new generation of principals, particularly to serve in our most underserved communities.  This is immensely challenging work, especially for school leaders who must turnaround schools that have been underperforming for so long.  And our system does little to encourage these types of assignments.  The job requires a unique skill set that includes the ability to inspire, to make tough decisions on human capital, to manage up into politically charged (and often dysfunctional) bureaucracies, to manage a budget, to engage parent communities, to work through challenging issues relating to infrastructure, and (most importantly) to be fully accountable for student outcomes.  With this as the job description, I think many would-be principals would simply rather stay teachers or assistant principals -- especially since our lock-step pay system does little to encourage these types of assignments.  If we are thoughtful, I do think we would be able to recruit this type of principal from the teacher ranks.  We do have 60 or so teachers in every school for every principal.  But it won't happen if we simply wait for them to apply. Districts needs to recruit aggressively to fill these position.  We also need to understand that the principalship may no longer be a lifetime position.  Turning around failing schools can take 3-5 years, and those who do it are often so drained that the thought of doing it again is simply unimaginable.  So I think we need to think about the principalship as the most important position in a school district and think more strategically about where we find them, how we pay them, how we keep them, and how we can - over time - change their assignments to account for the challenges in the role.

Thank you for having this important discussion. I agree that thoughtfully re-writing teachers' job descriptions will go a long way toward improving teacher retention, quality, and effectiveness for all students. What can states do to give school leaders the flexibility, resources, and incentives to re-engineer the structure of teachers’ work to maximize effectiveness? For example, how can states support networks of school leaders who are experimenting with innovations in staffing so they can learn from one another? Do current state teacher licensure policies present a barrier to innovation?Posted by: Jane Coggshall from Learning Point Associates

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

Great question. There are some things, like calendars and hours of instruction, that should be easy to fix. At least a dozen states have some type of calendar restriction on when the school year may start and end--the reasons for this are many but don't generally align with learning goals. Relaxing these restrictions will open up opportunities for schools to be much more creative about how they use their days, weeks and months, without having to go through some sort of waiver process. Being less prescriptive about how much instructional time is required, and what counts as instructional time, would also help teachers avoid the "work the rule" pitfall that I mentioned earlier--this is a state issue (instructional hours required) but most certainly one for districts and unions as well. Other things at the state level, like licensure, can be more complicated since this gets to the fundamental question of what kind of training teachers need to be effective. If you look at Generation Schools as a model, it relies on teachers being more than just an expert in a single content area, since most also teach some kind of "studio" course. More dual-certified teachers, especially for special ed and ELL in the upper grades, would facilitate these kinds of designs. Online or virtual teaching is another issue for states to take on, as right now licensing is a real barrier, often preventing teaching across state lines.

Great discussion on redefining teacher and principal roles in order to create a better management model but, bringing these kind of changes to scale will require engaging the entire public education community. What are the next steps and what does that pathway look like? Posted by: Greg Ahrnsbrak from Denver Public Schools

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

Thanks, Greg. You're right, this isn't tweaking one piece of the puzzle. It's changing some basics about how we set up and manage public schools and the teachers that are so central to the success of these schools. Part of the challenge is to create the policy conditions that allow these changes to happen. That requires removing some barriers--overly restrictive regulations on how schools and educators can use their time and how school leaders can hire and utilize their staff and finances. What do you think, for instance, about the Innovation Schools and School Zone Act in your state of Colorado? It is trying to do some of this--push for more autonomy for schools that are trying new approaches. Part of the challenge is also about changing how teachers see their work (and how prospective teachers see teaching) since new structures won't do much good if teachers aren't part of building these and moving them forward. Ultimately, some of the key policy questions in ed reform right now--how to evaluate teachers, how to distribute talent, how to support them, whether tenure should be reformed--are best answered by looking at the bigger picture and reframing some of the core elements of teachers' work. Teachers should have a professional work schedule that isn't based on minutes and hours but on what they are accomplishing with their students. They need time to think, to plan and assess their students' work and their own work if we expect them to welcome new evaluations. They should be selected and rewarded for the skills they offer, and arranged in ways that maximize these talents to fit the need of schools and students--so they know they are valued, and why they are valued. They shouldn't work in isolation and without support, especially in the early years when they are first learning what it means to teach, both in terms of content and pedagogy. None of these are new ideas. But at a time when there is a lot of opportunity to improve public education and create a better workforce of teachers, we need to be very clear and deliberate that all of these conditions are necessary for teaching to really improve.

Joel Rose from NYC Department of Education, School of One responds:

We are at a stage now where the two things we need more of are ideas and capacity.  That's what will change policy.  Teach for America was a great idea that resulted in changes in how we think about alternative certification.  The New Teacher Project has done the same.   There is nothing that changes policy more than hearing about the things that work. So the next step is really to inspire, catalyze, and support a generation of entrepreneurs and "intrapreneurs" who can conceptualize and implement new school models that have the potential to for transformational outcomes.