Posts Tagged ‘
teacher advocacy ’
Jennifer Singleton is an elementary school music teacher with seven years of teaching experience in Portland metro area schools. She was born, raised, and educated in Oregon, and loves nothing more than connecting with kids through music. We’re excited to have her joining the conversation about teaching and education reform as the newest member of the ChalkBlogger team.
My seven-year teaching career has taken me to five different schools in the Portland metro area. Most of them, including my current school, have had low socio-economic status (SES), which refers to the income, education and occupation of the students’ parents. While there were definitely some advantages to teaching in a high SES school, I choose to teach in a difficult school because for me, the rewards outweigh the challenges.
Obviously, there were a lot of great things about working in a high SES school. For the most part our students were well cared for physically and emotionally. Classroom management mostly meant controlling chatty kids. My program was adequately funded, and our school had a supportive community with plenty of volunteers for classrooms and school events. In many ways, teaching in a high SES school was a breeze.
The learning environment I’ve just described sounds ideal, but there were also some frustrating problems. I have a few colleagues who, like me, have taught in both kinds of schools. And like me, they prefer to teach in a low SES school. When asked about it, one of my colleagues even exclaimed, “You couldn’t pay me to go back!” The question is: Why? With all of the advantages, why choose a school with so many struggles? The answer for us boils down to a lack of appreciation.
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Category:
career paths for teachers, parent involvement, teacher advocacy, teaching strategies |
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Tags: inspiration, reflection, teacher advocacy, teacher career paths, teacher frustration, teaching strategies
My class of teacher candidates and I are reading Teaching 2030, a book that uses wonderful ideas from practicing teachers to discuss their changing roles. As the title suggests, the authors (Barnett Berry and the TeachersSolutions 2030Team) offer analyses of the present to project a positive future. The book discusses the union movement and its effects on the present roles; learning ecologies and technological changes; differentiated pathways and careers for teachers; and teacherpreneurism and innovation. It is the latter concept – teacherpreneurism – that most intrigues my teacher candidates and me.
First, a definition. Teacherpreneurism is not educational entrepreneurism: recruiting people from outside schools to “fix” what is inside the present schools. Instead, teacherpreneurs are “teacher-leaders of proven accomplishment who have a deep knowledge of how to teach, a clear understanding of what strategies must be in play to make schools successful, and the skills and commitment to spread their expertise to others – all the while keeping at least one foot firmly in the classroom.” (Teaching 2030, p.136) In other words, the goal of these people would be to work from within to make schools better. The premise is that good teachers, especially, but not exclusively, young ones, want to stay within teaching but not within the cradle to retirement of working only in a classroom. Instead of moving to administration, these newly envisioned roles would allow teachers to work with students but also with their colleagues and students beyond their own classroom in a variety of ways – and they would be paid accordingly, both in personal satisfaction and in salary differentiation.
When my students talked about these ideas, they became interested in what happens in schools now and wondered why these sorts of opportunities don’t seem to exist. So I had them watch videos of the CLASS Project, especially the Sherwood District which is trying anew salary schedule to allow teachers to move in that direction. http://educators4reform.org/participating-districts/sherwood-school-district/ I wanted them to see that in Oregon change has begun. (A side note: many were really surprised how the teachers in the CLASS project talked about the lack of supervision and evaluation before implementing these changes. Most of them have a very limited understanding of the profession they are entering, and I often think how their lack reflects society as a whole.)
We here in Eugene are experiencing yet another round of deep cuts, school closures, and furlough days. All of this publicity discourages my class – will there be jobs for them? And that is why I have them read this book so they can envision an alternative kind of schooling. While Rahm Emmanuel’s comment of “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” came back to bite him, I do agree that this present funding crisis offers us a way to rethink how we teach. Or, more specifically, how children learn. Whether we reexamine our outdated high school Carnegie units and the structures that result or apply technology to allow for individualized instruction in our over-crowded classrooms or some other yet-to-be-thought-of idea, we have the opportunity to create a new future. We Oregonians pride ourselves on innovation in environmental and health issues; why not in education?
Category:
CLASS Project, education reform, professional development for educators, teacher advocacy |
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Tags: advice from students, collaborative culture, education reform, innovation, teacher advocacy, teacher frustration
A great school has at its core, I believe, a strong leader. Great schools, like winning teams, have leaders with coordinated plans of action, intimate knowledge of the skills of players and a determined, focused eye on outcome. I’ve been in a few schools and have seen the styles of quite a few principals. All principals want their school to churn out successful students. Like the fans of teams who second-guess a coaching decision, I have wondered about the decisions of some of my principals. It’s an easy thing to do, to coach from the stands, but the reality of the game is much more complicated. A principal’s job is a lonely one that demands a leader who is Teflon coated, personable, tactful and caring. It’s a tough recipe to find.
My current principal seems to fit the bill pretty well. He exudes enthusiasm even in the face of last year’s lackluster test score data. He understands that the work of teachers is more complicated than seen from the stands. Some qualities that make him stand out:
- He has been a teacher so he has credibility and a deep understanding of the challenges we face in the classroom.
- He not only encourages collaboration but has also put in place measures that demand it. As grade level teams we look at the state standards every month and align our monthly curricular plan to meet those standards. There is no set allegiance to a textbook. Whatever lessons that get our kids to meet the standards will do. That respects our professionalism, and allows for creativity.
- He demands evidence that our students have met the standards set forth from the previous month. What assessments have we given and what percentage of kids have met those challenges?
- He is a frequent visitor to the classroom. He is often talking to kids about their learning and will even take on a group and teach them.
- Above all, his positive nature permeates the school.
He’s only in his second year as a principal and I’m hoping that his work reflects on our school “Report Card”. He already has an “Outstanding” rating from his staff, but is that enough for a quality leader to stay in the profession?
What can be done to measure the progress of principals that goes beyond looking at only their school’s test scores? The stress of making adequate yearly progress sits squarely on the shoulders of school principals. I would like to see evaluations by teachers and parent input put in place to ensure that our principals are recognized and retained for qualities that go beyond mere numbers.
Category:
teacher advocacy, teacher effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations |
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Tags: collaborative culture, inspiration, teacher advocacy, teaching strategies
Originally published in the Oregonian, as “How about some straight talk about fiscal crisis?”
This past election I received 146 political mailings. They contained hundreds of promises, including vows to support businesses and seniors, improve healthcare and education, and reduce taxes and regulations. Beautiful promises all. But not one of the promises was to cut public programs or raise taxes. Troubling, since state and national fiscal crises suggest we must do both.
My economics students understand this. This fall we watched “I.O.U.S.A.,” which revealed that federal debt swelled to $12.7 trillion in 2009. Bad news, considering we have not budgeted for the additional $46 trillion Social Security and Medicare will cost over the coming decades.
My government students understand as well. A state senator visited with us recently and said Oregon must cut over $3 billion from a $15 billion budget over the next two years, about 20%.
Our national leaders understand, too, but sadly, they’re unwilling to admit it. This month our president and Congress turned their backs on the recommendations of the deficit reduction commission, then declared victory as they extended expiring tax cuts and heaped another $850 billion onto our mountain of national debt.
Why won’t they confront reality? Is it because we aren’t willing to? Consider Oregon. About 93% of our discretionary budget is spent on education, human services and public safety, so cutting 20% means cutting vital services. And in education, where about 85% of spending goes to wages and benefits, that means cutting people. But public servants are quick to react against this, understandably so.
Do I deserve to have my wages cut? I don’t think so. I care a great deal about our kids, and I work hard to support their growth and success. My commitment is reflected in my hours. I’m paid for a 40-hour week, and on that basis, I make about $40 per hour, a good wage. I don’t work 40 hours per week, though. I average 55 – my longest last year was 77 – so my true hourly rate is under $30. If you include the 135 hours I worked last summer unpaid to prepare for this year, my hourly rate is under $28. Factor in the $5070 my pay is cut this year due to 15 eliminated school days and my rate is just over $25.
So no, as a guy with a master’s degree and 25-years professional experience, I don’t think I deserve a cut. But I suspect none of us do. And that’s okay. In fact, I hope all of us, be we public or private sector, believe in what we do and that we deserve all we get. The problem is, fiscal reality suggests that the question before us is not what do we deserve, but what can we afford? The answer: increasingly less.
So, to elected officials reluctant to speak the truth, I, a voter, invite you to do just that. If you’re in Congress, tell me you may need to means test me for Medicare, or raise the age at which I’m eligible for Social Security.
If you’re in the Oregon legislature, tell me you may need to raise the gasoline tax, or ask me to pick up part of my public employee retirement contribution.
I invite you to be honest with me, and if you will, I promise this – you’ll have my vote.
Category:
education reform, teacher advocacy |
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Tags: activism, budget cuts, teacher advocacy, teacher frustration
Even though I’m not teaching this year, I often miss having students. I miss the personal connections with kids and their parents; I miss having my own classroom, a safe space for learning and exploration. I miss the creativity of lesson planning and the challenge of developing good curriculum. Sometimes, I just miss school.
In those moments, I’m lucky to have a lot of friends who are still teachers. I can often visit their classrooms, help out for as long as they need, and leave feeling refreshed, hopeful, and invigorated by what I’ve seen. My last visit, however, to see a friend who’s in his third year of teaching, left me feeling disheartened and frustrated—not because of his teaching, but because of the policies that are making it increasingly difficult for him to continue teaching well.
During his three years of teaching, my friend has taught four different subjects: language arts, social studies, PE, and finally this year, his actual endorsement area, math. As you might imagine, even with the best of intentions it’s been difficult for him to improve his teaching of any one subject. With the district bumping and reassignment that happens every year, it’s not what he’s good at or trained in that matters. What seems to matter is simply that he’s a warm body, capable of being plugged into any necessary teaching assignment. Is this the way we want to be using our skilled teachers, as interchangeable and menial labor?
Furthermore, my friend just received news that his district, still facing budget shortfalls, will likely be cutting an additional 100-120 teachers at the end of this year. As a teacher at the bottom of the experience scale who has each year very narrowly avoided being laid off, he’s fairly certain he will finally lose his job this time. So even though he, like me, is excited about teaching, loves his students, and wants to give them the best education possible, his motivation to improve on what he’s doing this year or to create long-lasting curricular plans is basically shot. Who wants to pour their soul into something, only to have it taken away, again, in several short months?
I don’t want this to simply be a complaint about Oregon’s districts, because I know that some of them are doing great things to avoid what my friend is going through. But I just want to know what the plan is here. Clearly schools are going to have to get used to not having enough money, but how can they adjust to that while not killing teachers’ continued desire to do well? How can we continue to give good teachers a chance to shine?
Category:
education reform, teacher advocacy |
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Tags: activism, budget cuts, school funding, teacher advocacy, teacher frustration
Teaching is a lonely profession. At some point in their career, everyone bemoans the fact that teaching, planning, grading, attending meetings, and tending to bureaucratic necessities leaves little time to reflect on one’s practice, much less to talk to another knowledgeable adult about it. It’s one of the paradoxes of education: to get better at something, you need time to reflect on what you can do to improve, but with so much pressure to show improvement, there’s no time to get real feedback on how to get there.
With that in mind, I was thrilled to see how many English teachers showed up in Orlando last weekend for the annual conference put on by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Over three days, teachers attended sessions on everything from using Facebook as an instructional tool to helping middle school students talk more deeply about literature, from improving grammar to being mindful of the social justice obligations of English instruction, and everything in between. Teachers had a chance to hear from other successful teachers what was working in their classrooms and also had the opportunity to mingle with principals, instructional coaches, and professionals whose experiences were drastically different from their own. It was an amazing opportunity to learn from each other’s experience and successes—not to mention a chance to be constantly inspired by the good work that’s going on across the nation.
Of course, the teachers who were there had predominantly been supported by their districts. Most needed to take at least one day away from their classrooms to attend; many balanced their time attending sessions and talking to other teachers by day with time spent in their hotel rooms at night, grading the student work that never quite comes to an end. Regardless, for one weekend, the focus was only on being reflective about one’s practice, about doing things better. To me, it seemed double or triple the worth of any district-sanctioned professional development.
So does it seem reasonable to assume that conferences like the annual NCTE conference, events that bring professionals from all walks of the nation together to reflect on their work, are the way education is going to improve? Sort of a grassroots movement that comes from those who are actually implementing change in their classrooms? To me it seems to embody the way change should happen: brought about by those who are most directly involved and knowledgeable about it. Is it possible that this is the way to make sure the important voices in educational change are heard?
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teacher advocacy |
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Tags: activism, education reform, teacher advocacy
A lot has been said recently about doing away with the tenure system which is said to unfairly protect sub-par teachers. So what then are the benefits of the tenure system? There must be some reason for its existence. I believe that tenure often protects innovation and the passion for teaching that keeps dedicated teachers in the profession. Lack of tenure can make teachers feel obligated to kowtow to every new “researched-based” idea that is being pushed by a district.
Here’s an example. When I was first hired to teach in the early ‘90s my district asked principals to go around to remove all the phonics based reading instruction material from the classrooms. Phonics was out and whole language was in. I was told by the tenured teachers to give up my materials since I was only a temporary employee and could be easily fired. The tenured teachers were going to hide their materials and teach phonics when no one was looking. Of course, today research tells us that phonics and phonemic awareness are keys to learning to read. Apparently, in the 90’s research told us otherwise.
Quality teachers with experience know what works for their students and want a myriad of materials to get the job done. They also know that trends in teaching come and go. What if tenure was eliminated, forcing teachers to teach in ways that they knew were not appropriate to their students? Of course we can question whether educational research with all its issues with outside variables can ever dictate teaching methods. The main point is that there are lots of ways to get our children to grow intellectually.
Some of the most effective teachers I know have balked at the current trend to follow a reading series with fidelity. (Fidelity means plodding methodically through the reading book so all students in the district are exposed to the same core curriculum.) These teachers favor a more right-brained creative way of teaching, or they teach with holistic units, or possibly with real novels. These teachers all have tenure. They are revered by parents and somewhat looked down upon by administration. The students in their classes are blessed with an approach that differs from approaches offered to them in other years. Many kids blossom with this variety.
There are lots of ways to teach. I admire those who stick with their convictions and teach their passion. Creativity and critical thinking skills are the outcomes of these approaches and nowhere on OAKS (Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) is there room to show innovative thinking, the kind of thinking that drives an economy. Teachers need to feel secure in their employment in order to be able to teach “outside the box” and to not bend to the pressure of “teaching to the test” shallow curricula. While it’s true that a tenure system creates roadblocks in getting rid of sub-par teachers, it does benefit kids by protecting veteran teachers whose experience can sometimes outweigh prevailing teaching trends.
Category:
teacher advocacy, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies |
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Tags: teacher advocacy, teacher attrition, teaching strategies
Waiting for Superman is a powerful reminder that children and parents care about their own education. By choosing to focus on several children and their families, the director Davis Guggenheim translates large data sets about school and child failure into personal stories. The two former elementary teachers, present teacher educators, who attended the film with me, were in tears at its end. (Even this hardened secondary teacher’s eyes were moist!) All three of us are familiar with the statistics, with the arguments of the policy makers, with the demands from our own constituency to send them better prepared teachers; those numbers and demands are never as convincing as seeing the effects of bad policies and unresponsive schools.
And it is just that manipulation of our emotions through the struggles of five students and their search for better schools that worries the film’s critics. They know that tugging on heart strings will get a greater response than, for example, Deborah Meier’s argument in the October 27, 2010 Education Week. She says that, instead of blaming “‘lazy’ teachers and power-hungry unions” (p. 12), Guggenheim might rather illustrate the issues between the wealthy and the poor that allow people like him to escape the public schools. Her exposing an obvious, but still extant, problem is important. It does not, however, resonate as much as hearing the story of Bianca whose mother can no longer afford the small tuition of a Catholic school and hopes the public, free charter school is the answer.
I am a great admirer of Meier and certainly agree that our country’s acceptance of the wealth gap is a disgrace. Her own response to that gap was to start her own successful alternative school in Harlem; she is certainly familiar with the stories in the film. Those stories bring us closer to the problem than any kind of lecture on the problem: poverty, systems’ failures, bad teachers, unions. (more…)
Category:
education achievement gap, education reform, parent involvement, teacher advocacy |
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Tags: at risk students, education reform, inspiration, student achievement, teacher advocacy
Due to budget cuts and low seniority, I have had the privilege (or curse) of teaching at three different schools in the past two years. All three schools are in the same district, but each is vastly different in culture and climate. My current school is literally just up the hill from one of those where I was last year, but it seems like stepping into a different world.
My two former schools were Title 1 schools, where the pressure to meet benchmarks was stressful for teachers and kids. The meeting load, paperwork, and planning for multiple levels of learning took so much time that collaboration and thoughtful lesson planning seemed to take a back seat. The most high needs school lacked funding for innovative projects and hands-on teaching that is so beneficial for kids with little enrichment at home. Most of the dollars coming into this school were used for much-needed personnel and not for supplies, field trips, and innovative teaching tools. Now that I am at a non-title school not only do I have more capable students, I also have a bevy of talented volunteers, and a large PTO cash flow. These aren’t the kids that desperately need trips to get out of the neighborhood and experience life, but they are the ones that receive these benefits. Last year on my one field trips to OMSI, one of my kids asked what the Willamette River was. They had never taken a look at the river! This year as my kids write narratives, they recount stories of skiing and trips to Hawaii.
I can also tell you that for the same pay, I worked much harder at the Title 1 schools than I do now. I wrote out lesson plans for two assistants, ran 5 reading groups, managed 6 special ed students, and accommodated curriculum for 17 English Language Learners. The nagging feeling of inadequacy hung with me the whole time I was there. I knew that if I secured a permanent position there, I would burn out. This year, my class size is the same and the grade the same, but this year I can actually eat lunch. Today, I had a parent come and grade papers for me!
My message is this: teachers teaching in areas of high poverty need:
- more dedicated time for collaboration
- higher pay because of increased hours worked out of class
- lower class sizes
- a greater variety of resources in order to offer catered instruction
- a group of capable classroom volunteers for support
- a fundraising machine such as grant writers or sponsors
Until we address these inequalities, there will continue to be a high rate of teacher burnout and turnover at those schools where stability and experienced teaching is most desperately needed.
Category:
education achievement gap, education reform, student success, teacher advocacy, teacher effectiveness |
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Tags: at risk students, education reform, school funding, teacher advocacy, teacher frustration
Where’s the outrage? That question was posed by the Oregonian Editorial Board June 29th. I’ve been mulling that one around in my head for awhile so it was nice to see it make headlines. Oregon’s budget is causing the carving away at some of the basics that bring kids to school and get them ready for the future. No PE, limited electives, larger class sizes. Ouch. Yet it seems pretty quiet around town and among my teacher colleagues.
The canary in a coal mine role that I played in the staff room this year was not a hit. Maybe because I’m not as cute as a canary or that my flustering was just that, flustering. You see I used to teach in California (LA area and SF area). I saw the gradual destruction of a once ground breaking educational system. When I left the state it was because I was burnt out and frustrated. I had over 30 kids in both of my 6th grade Core sections. More homogenous classes can function with high numbers but I had three kids whose moms were dying, a kid who got mauled by a dog, 3 kids in foster homes, one arrested for dealings with bombs. It was a crazy year, like many crazy years before that and since. For me the last straw was the lack of a school counselor. We hadn’t had a counselor in years and there was no talk about getting one. It was exhausting to try to be both a teacher and caregiver. So I moved to Oregon. (more…)
Category:
education reform, student achievement, teacher advocacy |
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Tags: class size, education reform, student achievement, teacher advocacy
