Hey John,

As the year comes to a close, there’s a collection of very bold and progressive teachers voicing their opinions on the hot item of the moment: teacher evaluation. Some of my favorites include Renee Moore’s The Future Is Now for Teacher Evaluation and Michael Moran’s Context Matters. In each of these essays, there’s accurate and nuanced reflection about the profession and, more importantly, there’s a sense that we can’t rely on a random, outside observer handing out standardized tests as a measure of what the kids actually know and / or what the teacher actually taught.

From Renee:

How can we evaluate such rich complexity with all the varying levels of performance and experience they represent across the largest profession in America—with a few five-minute walk-bys and a checklist? Hardly. The old factory evaluation model, which was never a good fit for education, will be even less so as we move further into the potential of immersed learning and interconnected teaching. One principal trying to evaluate an entire faculty whose members practice a dizzying variety of pedagogical skills will be painfully ineffective. Like our students, teachers need assessment of our work based on a combination of measures and reviewers, with teachers taking responsibility for our own professional growth based on mutually established, student-centered goals.

To get there from here will require transformed thinking and some significant power shifts, neither of which, history reminds us, come easily. But I believe we are on the verge of such a shift as teaching finally morphs into a true profession. One of the trademarks of a profession is peer review of each others’ work against high standards established by the profession.

From Michael:

So, what should teacher evaluations look like? They should look like the teacher. They should look like the students and the classroom in which those students learn. Teacher evaluations should look like the grade level, content area, and community the teacher teaches. They should look like the goals that teachers, students, and administrators set for themselves, their classes, and the school as a whole.

The point I’m trying to make here is that a lot of the evidence that indicates teacher effectiveness is dependent on context. Sure, great teachers are great leaders, and great leaders can lead anywhere, but you run into a problem when an art teacher is evaluated on the standardized test results of one grade level in mathematics. Evaluations need to be multifaceted, taking into consideration not only student performance on standardized tests, but the academic growth of students as demonstrated by a portfolio of artifacts, the relationships that teachers build with students and their parents as demonstrated by student and family evaluative surveys, and observations from not only administrators, but peers and master teachers.

Powerful pieces there. Read the rest (and more opinions) here.

We are in a profession that needs voices on the school level discussing teaching. With so much misinformation getting out about the teaching profession, it’s not enough for teachers to stand by and let evaluation happen to that. We ought to shape policy and create our own solutions.

John,

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to jump on a panel at Bank Street College with a few education colleagues (including representatives from Hechinger Report and Gotham Schools) about education and the media. Save for a few questions about my blog (see: teacher voice), the general topics at the panel centered around perceptions of teachers in the media. Teachers on the panel were asked how they felt about the constant teacher-bashing by the Rush Limbaughs and Fox News pundits while education reporters and researchers discussed how difficult topics like value-added measures and teacher working conditions were to fully write for the American public.

One part of the discussion that struck me was teacher preparation. While I have a hard time recalling every bit of the conversation, I remember I mentioned three things (which you’ll probably recognize)

• We ought to have differentiated pathways into the profession, so long as …
• We find ways to ensure that teachers are adequately prepared for the system they’re encountering
• There’s a certain privilege in attending places like Bank Street in the kind of education those students receive that I didn’t necessarily get

I might have gotten under some people’s skin with the last statement, but there’s an element of truth to it. In no way am I suggesting that we only need to come from so-called elite colleges. Actually, I’m suggesting we need to discuss what we consider “elite.” There’s a functional difference between a college with an awesome name but whose students don’t see a correlation between what they learned in the ivory tower and their experience in the classroom. While most teachers surveyed here believe that their teacher preparation program was satisfactory, they tended to trust in-school dimensions of their preparation much more than anything the college can provide. That probably has to do with the fact that many colleges concentrate too much on theory instead of practice.

Thus, the place doesn’t have to be elite in name, but functionality.

I know plenty of folks who graduated from a smaller school, but whose professors gave them the rigorous, thorough foundations to at least get the technical sides of the profession right before they came in the classroom. Things like lesson plans, unit plans, rubrics, assessments, creating independent thinkers, differentiation, and questioning don’t come naturally to people and have to be taught. Some of this stuff requires tons of professional development from inside and outside sources. Walking into the classroom and surviving (!) the first year is hard enough without knowing how to create a critical question from the top of the lesson, but if we’re given the tools and techniques to withstand the culture shock of standing in front of a live audience for 10 months out of the year, then that goes a long way in creating a stronger teaching core.

In a way, educators who believe in this Teaching 2030 vision are, in fact, seeking a secret technocracy, where the merits of our most expert individuals hold more merit than the whims of an appointed few. In this case, the experts happen to be educators, educational researchers, and those who seek to enhance this valuable profession for our students. We can’t rely on the unreliable (i.e. standardized tests) to tell us whether teachers actually matter. We have lots of evidence for things that do matter, though, and one of those is whether people can push out of their comfort zones and into the mode of a professional teacher.

New teachers entering in the profession deserve the best foundation possible, and secretly, we’re going to need a few more technocrats like us.

Hey John,

First, let me say how shocked (SHOCKED) I was to see that Ron Thorpe actually reads our blog. I’ve known him since he moderated a panel Ariel Sacks, Barnett Berry, Jon Snyder [President of Bank Street], and me. As we ran into each other at different events, most recently at the MetLife Foundation 35th Anniversary gathering, I realized how awesome it is to have access to some of the most active and influential minds in education … meeting with some of the most active and influential minds in the classroom. Yes, he’s worked in the field of progressive education for decades, and he carries those listening skills wherever he goes. But it seems that we don’t just hope to gain some wisdom from him, but also have a conversation in the truest sense of the word.

Back when we set a course to deliver a message for education, about education, and by educators, we had a hopeful and realistic vision of what we believed 2030 could look like if the right minds got into the huddle with us. The difference between our study and so many others is that we didn’t come from a strictly policy point-of-view, but one of a practitioner with our hands firmly in the work of building better schools one classroom at a time. We didn’t want to simply wait after dinner was served and then join for the dessert menu when all the rich conversations were gone; we had our own dinner table this time with allies in the form of CTQ guiding us in the charge.

As we continue to push this message of teacher as expert, we’re speaking truth to power in a major way. Our voices over the last few years have reached teachers, parents, college presidents, leaders of non-profits, and leading ed-researchers. The work being done in these small enclaves is multi-faceted and important all the time. Why settle for just one dimension of education we’d like to tackle when we have so much talent? While some of our interests lie in policy, others have gravitated towards pedagogy. Wherever we land, we must swim in it with both feet.

With people listening in on voices like yours, it’s become clear that we’ve made a dent. While there’s been a large discussion around certain entities capitalizing on the definition of “ed-reform,” there is a growing movement in the minds and hearts of people doing the real work to ensure that the people working closely with children have a huge say in what happens, and not as a token response either.

Even a simple comment on a blog can make that abundantly clear.

Hey Jose –

As you know, I have been following the NBPTS search for a new CEO as both a disenchanted NBCT and a passionate teacher. A little while ago the new leader was announced. Ron Thorpe, Vice President & Director, Education for WNET public TV in New York, seems to be just the candidate the NBPTS needs to create a new culture for the organization charged with defining, evaluating, and promoting accomplished teaching in America’s schools. Below is my open letter to Ron that describes what I think he might need to know about accomplished teaching and the NBPTS and what I hope he can accomplish during his tenure.

Dear Ron Thorpe

President & CEO

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS),

We know what great teachers do. When we peek into their classrooms, it’s easy to see. They are engaged with students, they know their content, they assess student learning to improve their teaching, they influence their peers in positive ways, and they work collaboratively with other teachers. While easy to recognize, these traits can be difficult to measure. One organization has made significant headway, though: the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS).

For 25 years, NBPTS has worked to define excellence in teaching. Its mission is “to establish high and rigorous standards for what teachers should know and be able to do, to certify teachers who meet those standards, and to advance other education reforms for the purpose of improving student learning in American schools” (NBPTS, from What Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do, 1989, p. 1). NBPTS has accomplished the first two goals, having established rigorous standards and developed processes for certifying accomplished practitioners, including a performance-based assessment that is widely accepted as scientifically valid.

But now it’s time for NBPTS to tackle its third goal: “to advance other education reforms for the purpose of improving student learning in American schools.” The organization has raised the profile of accomplished teaching in America—but it represents only a fraction of highly accomplished teachers. It is time to extend that reach and also to advocate for the best hopes of the teaching profession.

The Future of NBPTS

I hope you are a special kind of leader: a “boundary spanner” who is future-oriented and ready to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders, including NBCTs.

What do I mean by “future-oriented”? TEACHING 2030 outlines a hopeful vision for how schools and the teaching profession can change to better serve all students. Improving student outcomes will require educational leaders to work collaboratively, rely on teachers to apply their expertise locally and nationally, to create a more flexible and vibrant teaching profession. And we call upon everyone—teachers, students, parents, policy makers, and national organizations like the National Education Association (NEA) and the NBPTS—to take a solutions-focused approach to creating a better future for ALL students and families.

The job description posted by NBPTS stated the organization seeks a “visionary” individual to “take the helm” of the organization. This metaphor reminds me of a sea captain or old-school “captain of industry”—not a team player (and definitely not an accomplished teacher). Doesn’t NBPTS really need a new type of leader, a passionate professional who will take a collaborative approach to improving the culture, reach, and impact of the organization?

A New Type of Leader

The NBPTS holds at the ready what may be the most powerful untapped resource for educational change in our nation: 91,000 accomplished teachers. Ron, I hope you are prepared (and eager) to collaborate with these expert educators in authentic ways. I hope that you, an accomplished executive, are able to recognize the limits your expertise—learning from and leading with accomplished educators who have a deep understanding of teachers and teaching. Here’s a truly radical idea: what if your right hand person was actually a teacher? Richard Riley took this approach when he moved from Governor to heading up the U.S. Dept. of Ed. In an interview in July 2011 Riley said,

I never made a major decision in Washington dealing with education without a teacher in the room. Normally that was Dr. Terry Dozier, who was Teacher of the Year in South Carolina and National Teacher of the Year, and had a phenomenal record as a social studies teacher. I enjoyed having people there who disagreed with me. I welcomed that and people knew that.

And the new leader must be able to collaborate effectively with external organizations, too. As NBPTS works to spread the expertise of thousands of NBCTs, organizations like the Center for Teaching Quality could be valuable partners. And of course, developing productive partnerships will be critical to the NBPTS’s financial sustainability. For example, consider the local, state, and national partnerships developed by the National Endowment for the Arts, which have improved the funding structures and impact of the arts by linking local and federal support.

Finally, I hope you are willing to support a flexible teaching profession, encouraging NBCT leaders to advocate for accomplished teaching and the changes necessary to spread our best teachers’ expertise. What if NBPTS worked with local systems to create hybrid roles that let NBCTs continue to teach while also applying their skills and knowledge to schools’ most pressing problems? For example, what if NBPTS helped a terrific teacher to spend part of her day teaching third graders—and part of her day mentoring future NBCTs in a high-poverty, hard-to-staff school?

The key point made in NBPTS’s job description were that the new CEO needs to be visionary: the word “vision” was included three times. I sincerely hope that your “vision” is truly future-oriented. I hope it is not the singular vision of a Captain Ahab type, but a shared vision, incorporating the hopes of thousands of accomplished NBCTs who have the potential to dramatically change the teaching profession.

John,

Long time no see. I’ve obviously been missing in action on this side of the hemisphere as I prepare for eventual fatherhood. The thought makes me nervous but excited for this new future I’ll have. For one, when people ask me about my kids, I don’t have to say “Some of them are OK, but we’re having a hard time with negative exponents.” I can actually talk about my own at home. Secondly, the child is coming into a world that’s rapidly changing with little regard to whatever the older generations believe about the current world. As many of us relish the “good ol’ days,” whatever that means, the younger generation has already deemed the absurd as possible and the eccentric as normal when it comes to communication in different platforms. To wit, please watch this:

We knew this was bound to happen. We just didn’t know in what capacity. Not only is the baby befuddled by having these media, she prefers the newer medium, possibly because of aesthetics, but also because of the ease of us for the child. She sees the magazine and tries to use the same methods she used for the iPad on the magazine and got immediately frustrated rather than try to learn how the magazine works.

That’s prescient for those that believe that publishing is dead. After ruminating on this some more, I thought about how many purists say, “Back in my day, books mattered. Now all kids want to do is play on their little devices. They’re gonna be an illiterate bunch!” Not so fast. I can’t imagine that, back when the printing press was invented, that purists said, “Back in my day, writing books by hand mattered. Now all kids want to do is get books already printed for them and then they quickly move on to the next one. They’re gonna be an illiterate bunch.” Libraries look cool, but if we could store 1000 books in a fraction of the space, why wouldn’t we?

More importantly, if a portable reading device is more intuitive and more interactive, doesn’t that (at least minimally) connect the reader with the text? People still want to read, but no matter what the medium. Much of it is a matter of relevance and engagement. Conde Nast, for instance, made an excellent move recently by developing app versions of their magazines. Wired Magazine particularly functions MUCH better under the iPad than the print version. Computers lend themselves to a different depth than the print version. Kids get that. Why don’t we?

In no way am I saying we should dump the hard copies of everything we have. My living room has stacks upon stacks of books from all different genres. In a few years, I know that, while I’m sitting next to my son reading a book, he will, too. They’ll both have pages, both tell a story, both have an author, and both be available to us as often as we like. Mine will require both hands. So will his. Mine will require my finger tips to turn the pages. So will his. When I’m done with mine, I can put it back in my library. So will he. It just so happens that his will be thinner than the width of a pencil, and he can get his books much quicker than I can.