Have you seen this article in the Washington Post where Bill Gates shares his thoughts on saving American public education? I have followed the work of the Gates Foundation from the high school small school fix to his new initiative focused on pre-K, charter schools, and teacher effectiveness. I don’t know that this latest initiative will have any more influence at implementing and sustaining change than did the small school fix.
I’ll let you read the article and form your own opinions, but I will share some thoughts. First, let me share this excerpt from the article.
One purpose of measurement would be to deploy the best teachers to the neediest schools, and pay them accordingly; another, to fire the worst teachers. But the main point, Gates said, is that effective teaching can be taught: "The biggest part is taking the people who want to be good -- and helping them."
I don’t disagree that we know what effective teaching looks and sounds like and that we can support teachers in acquiring the knowledge base and skill set to become increasingly effective. The last sentence, however, is of grave concern to me and at the core of why I believe they have been and will continue to be less than effective. PLEASE, show me the teachers who do not want to BE GOOD and therefore should be fired. There are far more teachers that want to be GREAT, but need the learning opportunities and support over time than those that come to school every day wanting to harm young people.
Where is the positive presupposition that makes me want to engage with them? Telling me how bad our schools are and that the answer can be found in the KIPP charters does not put me in a position of wanting to be a part of their solution. It just ticks me off and puts me in my reptilian brain where I have the choice of fight or flight.
The fix must start with examining the cultures that are necessary to support teacher growth over time. In the absence of a safe and supportive culture, sustaining change will not happen. This does not mean that we do not place high demand on ourselves for the achievement of all students because we do. But, this must emerge from the adults at each building and in each district where this work takes place.
We must find ways to create a foundation of communication knowledge and skills that result in the capacity for the skillful conversations that are necessary to create these cultures. We must also find ways to distribute leadership to teachers. Effective change that sustains over time will not be possible until we put teachers in positions to support each other in these learning initiatives. When in place these cultures will demand and support the changes necessary for ALL students to achieve at high levels.
Our doors will not be open to influence from the Gates Foundation until they understand that our schools are living systems and that we won’t simply change because they tell us the KIPP schools are doing it. Labeling all those in public education as bad and praising a small charter movement as the only or primary alternative route to success will not result in the collaboration that is necessary to create and sustain change in public schools. Trying to embarrass us in the newspaper and every other media source they can find will not promote dialogue, but just the opposite; debate followed by fight or flight. Acting like a bully who is aligned with and supported by the President and his education secretary isn’t going to work. This bully won’t win in the long run, just like they haven’t in earlier initiatives. Until they change strategy and embrace us and our work they will not experience success. We could teach them something, but they won’t reach out to us. We don’t have Charter after Tahoma, we are Tahoma Public School District and proud of it.
Sorry for the length of this post, but sometimes I get a little wound up. After reading the article, what would you like to tell Mr. Gates?
2 comments:
Like most of the general public, they have no idea what actually happens daily in schools. Education is the great qualifier, we ALL, for the most part, have an experience! Therefore most people have huge "ladders" about what schools should be doing, what works and what does not work. We are constantly explaining how school has changed; most parents don’t believe how different it is from when “they” went to school! So to Bill Gates, spend a month in my room working to help my lowest reader, who has major speech problems, no help at home, and parents who are unable to help her! Then you can talk about teachers who don’t want to excel!
The idea that funding one alternative (KIPP charters) then attempting to "transplant what works" has problems of its own. Case in point, I used to work for a district with 4 high schools. As high stakes test scores rolled in each year, one of the four was consistently head-and-shoulders above the others. The top-down solution was, in essence, whatever School A is doing, we need to clone it and force Schools B, C, and D into the same model. I worked at School C. It was an UTTER FAILURE. We lost our block schedule, multi-disciplinary teams, etc, etc, etc. Staff morale plummeted, kids hated the imposed changes, and (as it turned out) the data motivating the changes was erroneous. The reasons behind School A's success was eventually traced to a combination of; a higher-than-average rate of parents-with-college-degrees, several socio-economic factors, and the fact that the school's largest "minority" population was not Somali, Ukranian, Hispanic, or transients (like Schools C, B, and D) but students from Asia (having families that place a tremendous value on educational investment). But it was too late, the damage was done (and yes, test scores in Schools B, C, and D didn't rise to match School A...in fact, they dropped significantly). Coincidentally, the middle managers in the district office that forced the changes left the district for new jobs in new districts (lucky them). By the way, I have no problem with long posts :-)
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