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Are Policymakers Listening to Teachers?
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Liam Goldrick, Director of Policy
One of the greatest benefits of engaging in policy advocacy and development for NTC is the organization's proximity to teaching practice. But even outside NTC, opportunities abound to hear the voices of America's teachers and to apply their perspective in crafting policy solutions to contemporary educational challenges.
I was recently reminded of the power and wisdom of teachers in listening to the 2011 National Teacher of the Year Michelle Shearer deliver the keynote address on the complexity of teaching at the annual summit of the State Consortium on Educator Effectiveness (SCEE). Shearer offered several insights that can helpfully inform the current policy conversation about effective teaching. Shearer spoke to issues related to defining great teaching, utilizing time effectively within schools and classrooms, and making teaching more of a team sport.
First, Shearer reminded attendees that, like students, educators are on a developmental continuum - always getting better. This matches our belief at NTC that "teachers are learners" and "great teachers are made, not born." Second, Shearer contended that much of what we want from great teaching - such as compassion, caring, and relationships with students - cannot be measured or observed. Such dispositions are critically important but may be in danger of being lost within data-driven evaluation systems. Third, Shearer shared that while teaching is competitive at times, it also must involve collaboration for the greater good. NTC's approach to new teacher induction embraces this notion in that it seeks to redirect the energy and knowledge of stellar, veteran educators outside their individual classrooms and into their work as coaches and mentors that impacts the wider school and district community. Lastly, Shearer told participants that effective teachers empower students to hold each other accountable for the utilization of classroom time. This is a very different notion of accountability from what is common in federal and state policy. Rather than an assumption of and penalties for under-performance, there is a teacher-driven spirit of collective responsibility built around a shared vision for learning. In Shearer's description of a highly functioning, rich classroom environment, teacher leaders and building leaders set the stage for the delivery of effective instruction.
Policymakers must consider what implications these complexities of teaching have for proposed education reforms. In part, the complexities suggest an opportunity to involve teachers in policy development and implementation. But another kind of opportunity also exists, one that policy can address. It is about creating a context and environment throughout the education system that empowers teachers and enables great teaching.
How can policymakers think systemically to create systems that unleash the power of individual teacher leaders - both within classrooms and without - and provide educators regular opportunities to collaborate, reflect, learn and improve? Start by taking a closer look at states - such as Colorado - and numerous SCEE state teams that are hard at work conceptualizing the policy challenge around effective teaching quite comprehensively. Also, consider engaging NTC to facilitate or inform such policy conversations in your state.
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Collaborating to Transform the Teaching Profession
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NTC conducted one of only five expert workshops at the U.S. Department of Education's (US DOE) "Collaborating to Transform the Teaching Profession" conference in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 23-24. The labor-management collaboration conference included teams of labor, management and board chairs from districts and states across the country. NTC's Eric Hirsch presented with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers on ways to measure, understand and improve teaching conditions based on our collective efforts in Pittsburgh.
In a vision statement signed by the heads of the eight sponsoring organizations (US DOE, AFT, NEA, CCSSO, AASA, NSBA, Council of Great City Schools, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service), one of the seven elements of a transformed profession includes "Conditions for Successful Teaching and Learning." As measured and promoted by NTC's Teaching and Learning Conditions initiative, the statement rightly acknowledges that "high-functioning systems can amplify the accomplishments of their educators, but a dysfunctional school or district can undermine the impact of even the best teachers. We need schools and districts whose climates and cultures, use of time, approaches to staffing, use of technology, deployment of services, and engagement of families and communities are optimized to continuously improve outcomes for the students they serve."
Read More About the Conference
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RESPECT Vision Released for Comment
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What would it take to make America's most important profession America's most valued profession? That's the question that 16 U.S. Department of Education (US DOE) Teacher Ambassador Fellows have been asking educators at listening sessions across the nation, including one at the NTC National Symposium this past February. It is part of the RESPECT Project, a US DOE initiative that stands for "Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching."
Earlier this month, the US DOE released an eight-part draft vision statement on the teaching profession. Secretary Arne Duncan is seeking your feedback on the draft. We encourage you to add your voice about the importance of high-quality induction and mentoring opportunities for our newest educators.
Read the ED Blog
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Time to Succeed
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NTC recently became a signatory on the Time to Succeed Coalition. It focuses on ensuring that children in high-poverty communities have more and better learning time in school to prepare them for success. The movement believes that additional learning time gives students a better opportunity to succeed and gives teachers a chance to collaborate with colleagues and individualize instruction. The Coalition focuses on five areas including; education equality and fairness, more time for core, more time to go beyond the core, empowering teachers, and stronger communities.
Empowering teachers greatly interests NTC. Teachers report that they do not have adequate time to collaborate with colleagues and that they do not have enough time to individualize work to meet the needs of their students. By expanding their time blocks during the day, teachers will have time to problem solve with colleagues and will spend less time completing additional work at home. "More time also enables teachers to review student assessment data, identify areas where students are falling behind, and build individualized strategies to help them catch up," according to the Coalition.
Read more about the Time to Succeed Coalition
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NTC Assesses Teaching Conditions in Fairfax Co., VA
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A recent article in Fairfax News summarizes the results of NTC's teaching and learning conditions survey in Fairfax County, Virginia. More than 12,000 district educators responded to survey questions about overall conditions, time, leadership, decision making, facilities and resources, professional development, student conduct and community support.
The article also references a presentation given by Eric Hirsch, NTC Chief External Affairs Officer, to the county's School Board that details how the data can be used to highlight what the county should celebrate, consider, and potentially create going forward in its continuous improvement efforts.
Fairfax County's work with NTC's Teaching and Learning Conditions Initiative is just one example of how validated research can facilitate data-driven policymaking and improvement planning.
Read the article
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In a recent edition of Educational Leadership, Brandeis University professor Sharon Feiman-Nemser argues that teacher induction needs to "welcome" beginning educators into "a collaborative professional learning community." She describes three visions of induction: (1) a temporary support to reduce the stresses of first-year teaching, (2) individualized professional development, including professionalized mentoring; and (3) a cultural transformation that takes place within a professional learning community and a supportive school culture. Feiman-Nemser notes that the gap is wide between this third transformative vision and the assistance and support actually offered to new teachers today.
Read the article
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In his blog post Ask the Teachers, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discusses the feedback he's received from teachers across the nation. Duncan says that educators mention time as the most important thing they lack. Time to collaborate with colleagues, to plan lessons, and to meet with students is in short supply. As a result, teachers spend additional time outside of the school day to make up for it. Teachers also say that more mentoring and feedback in their first years of teaching and better preparation from their schools of education prior to entering the field would have been helpful.
Read the blog post
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NTC Policy News is a monthly publication by the New Teacher Center. It is produced with funding support from the Joyce Foundation. Based in Chicago, Illinois, the Joyce Foundation invests in initiatives to improve public education and works to close the achievement gap by improving the quality of teachers in schools that serve low-income and minority children.
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Newsletter Archive
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Ellen Moir on Teacher Appreciation Week |
NTC CEO Ellen Moir recently penned a post for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week (May 7-11), Moir wrote a thank you letter to her high school Spanish teacher, Ellen Hayward. She talks about how Ms. Hayward never stopped encouraging her, which ultimately led her to pursue a career in education where she began working as a Spanish teacher and which allows her to pay it forward to students and new teachers every year through NTC programs.
Read Moir's letter |
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State Policy Updates |
Visit the NTC website for updates to our 2011 state induction policy summaries. Summary pages for the states of Hawaii, Ohio and Vermont to reflect policy changes from the latter half of 2011.If information for your state has changed, please contact us at policy@newteachercenter.org. We plan to release updated policy summaries for all 50 states early next year.Read NTC State Policy Summaries |
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