Washington State and South Carolina have recently proposed alternative paths to the principalship.

Apparently education is the only profession that believes that it can increase the quality of those working in the profession, teachers and administrators, by reducing the minimum qualifications to enter. Actually, education professionals are not making such ludicrous recommendations, because unlike most professions, education is not controlled by practicing professionals. Education is controlled by legislatures, state departments of education, and a few high-profile foundations!

Imagine that there was a shortage of physicians in a specific field or region and a proposal was made to increase the number of physicians by allowing anyone with a master's degree in any field to become a physician. Substitute attorneys, accountants, dentists, or airline pilots for physicians in the previous statement and you get the idea.

In reality, the proposals in Washington State and South Carolina represent the latest in a long line of reform recommendations based on the belief that "anyone can do it." Anyone can teach, even with only five weeks of training. Anyone can be a principal.

Washington State - Thumbs Down

In a recent editorial, NASSP Executive Director, Gerald Tirozzi, addresses the Washington State plan. Tirozzi writes, "The shrinking pool of school leaders is a complex problem for which alternate certification provides an answer that is, to borrow from H. L. Mencken, “clear, simple, and wrong."

Tirozzi goes on to make some salient points:

-"These principals will have no credibility with teachers."

My Take: Research proves that the major weakness of school leaders is the ability to set instructional direction--instructional leaders. So, the answer to correcting that weakness and to improving student achievement and eliminating the achievement gap is to hire principals with no teaching experience?

- "The least qualified leaders will land in the highest need schools."

My Take: No reputable school system or school would hire a principal with no experience. What that means is those school systems and schools that are the poorest and most remote will be the only ones in the market for these alternative route principals. Ironically, it is these under-resourced schools that need the best, most experienced leaders and teachers. They also have the highest turnover in principals and teachers.

- It is hypocritical to advocate one educational approach for the masses and another for your own child. "Many a legislator sends his or her child to highly personalized private schools staffed by well-trained and experienced educators who, free from the burden of test prep, capitalize on a child’s natural curiosity with a curriculum as robust in art and music as in reading and math. There’s no hypocrisy in that—every parent wants the best for their child. The hypocrisy lies in legislators using their day jobs to advocate for a different kind of education for everyone else’s child."

My Take: Not only have the so-called reformers not attended public schools themselves, but they would never allow their own children to attend public schools with larger class sizes and less-qualified, underpaid teachers. Their mantra is 'High-quality education for my child and what we can afford for your child.'

South Carolina' Proposal - Thumbs Up

You can probably tell that I am not a fan of alternative certification plans for teachers or principals, particularly those that take shortcuts. When I first started heard about South Carolina's alternative route proposal, I was feeling the same way until I read an article that outlined the key features. Currently, South Carolina allows someone with a bachelor's degree in teaching can become a principal by being a certified classroom teacher for at least three years, then graduating from an approved college program in school leadership. The new proposal would allow someone with a master's degree in any field to enter a program that involves being an assistant principal for three years, then passing an exam to become a principal. When I read the phrase "serving as an assistant principal for three years," it caught my attention and, at least, partially changed my mind.

My Take: If someone, who has been a successful manager in a business, is willing to take a pay cut to enter education and will serve a three-year apprenticeship as an assistant principal, I say bring them on! Keep in mind that these individuals would not only serve an apprenticeship, but they would have to exhibit exemplary performance in order for the district to appoint them as principal after three years.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Bill Gates is a marvelous advocate for education in America.  He has clearly demonstrated his commitment both in time and money.  His views as an extraordinarily successful businessman and an educational outsider are both provocative and productive.  In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Mr. Gates has outlined a series of constructive proposals for improving U. S. student performance despite the significant financial problems confronting so many school districts.

Some great ideas

One aspect of Mr. Gates analysis is the classroom:

“We know that of all the variables under a school's control, the single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching. It is astonishing what great teachers can do for their students. Yet compared with the countries that outperform us in education, we do very little to measure, develop and reward excellent teaching. We have been expecting teachers to be effective without giving them feedback and training.”

Most teachers would agree with these comments.  I have long argued that the majority of teacher evaluation programs currently in use need some serious improvement.  There must be a more comprehensive approach which includes professional evaluators, constant feedback and some student input. 

In addition, Mr. Gates is not happy with the use of seniority in teaching.

“The United States spends $50 billion a year on automatic salary increases based on teacher seniority. It's reasonable to suppose that teachers who have served longer are more effective, but the evidence says that's not true. After the first few years, seniority seems to have no effect on student achievement."

“Another standard feature of school budgets is a bump in pay for advanced degrees. Such raises have almost no impact on achievement, but every year they cost $15 billion that would help students more if spent in other ways.”

A solution that must be implemented carefully

Mr. Gates concludes with some thoughts about class size.

“Perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets - and one of the most unchallenged - is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement. This belief has driven school budget increases for more than 50 years. U.S. schools have almost twice as many teachers per student as they did in 1960, yet achievement is roughly the same."

“What should policymakers do? One approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students. Part of the savings could then be used to give the top teachers a raise. (In a 2008 survey funded by the Gates Foundation, 83 percent of teachers said they would be happy to teach more students for more pay.) The rest of the savings could go toward improving teacher support and evaluation systems, to help more teachers become great.”

It is important to note that Mr. Gates is referring to an increase in class size of about 15%.   When individuals less knowledgeable interpret enlargement of class size, things go awry.  Base on their current budget cuts,  the city of Detroit is anticipating classes in excess of 60 in the near future  – an increase of 100%.  Many classes in New York City are already at those levels.  Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has postulated that, for excellent teachers, working with large classes is no more difficult than working with smaller ones.  He mentioned that he had attended college classes that contained hundreds of students.  Of course those classes were at Princeton and Georgetown Law School which more than likely bear little resemblance to an Algebra 1 class in Detroit or New York or anywhere else for that matter. 

Great teachers not super heroes

The primary flaw in these arguments is the belief that increasing the size of classes only requires additional furniture.  There is no question that an excellent teacher can give high quality instruction to classes of 35 or more while poor ones will struggle no matter how small their audience.  But the belief that student learning is unaffected by significantly larger numbers is misguided.  A successful teacher has a great many tasks in addition to delivering instruction.  Students, like teachers, benefit from consistent and meaningful feedback on their classroom performance.  Twice as many students mandates half as much feedback. Any teacher will tell you that grading papers is easily as time consuming as preparing lesson plans.  Evaluating 60 quizzes or tests per class would be daunting to say the least.  Due entirely to time constraints, comprehensive exams would have to be replaced by short answer or multiple choice ones.  Extended essays and research papers would disappear. Answering student questions and individualizing instructions, the strengths of the best educators, would have to be curtailed.  Science labs would become virtually impossible due to a shortage of equipment and safety concerns.  Group projects and presentations would be untenable.  Even the simple acts of taking attendance, posting grades and parent conferences could become overwhelming. At the very least, they would require far too much valuable time.  The quality of the educational experience for students in these significantly larger classes would suffer greatly.

In the proposal by Mr. Gates he mentions that the vast majority of teachers would gladly take on more students if their pay was increased.  Unfortunately, this survey was of all teachers not just excellent ones.  I suspect that if that question were only asked of the best educators there might be a different result.  But even if the top teachers did agree, one stumbling block would remain.  While tactics could be put in place to increase salaries, no one has found a method of adding more hours to the day. 

It is true that the success of any class rests squarely on the shoulders of the teacher and creating more great teachers is the key to any future improvement of our schools.  They need to be identified, rewarded and emulated.  Having them teach a few more students makes perfect sense on many levels.  But too much of any good thing can lead to bad outcomes resulting in further degradation of the educational process and outcomes in the United States.  Proceed with caution—class size does matter.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently, Jay Mathews of the Washington Post, in preparation for an article on the accuracy of school incident reports, asked me to respond to the following question: "Do security incident reports adequately describe the climate of a school?" Here is my complete response.

The answer is simple. No single data point can accurately depict student performance nor can incident reports describe the climate or culture of a school. Experience has taught me that the only way to truly assess the climate of a school is to spend time in the school and to use that time to observe as well as to gather data from multiple sources.

Ask the teachers!

What teachers say is a much better indicator of school climate than incident reports. I admit that I pay close attention to reports from teachers, which identify specific issues and incidents. Experience has taught me that teachers are generally reluctant to make such reports, but when they do, it is usually a sign of a much larger problem.

What affects consistency in reporting?

I have found discipline reports to often be inconsistent within a school and wildly inconsistent among a large number of schools across a district. Schools in which several administrators deal with student discipline could have a wide variation in how some incidents are reported.

The more serious the incident, the more consistent the reporting. Many schools and school systems have zero tolerance policies for drugs, weapons, and gang-related behaviors. The more clearly defined the behaviors, the more consistent the reporting within a school.

NCLB has dramatically improved the consistency of reporting. States like Virginia developed reporting systems that met federal requirements and districts aligned their reporting to match state systems.

Another factor that greatly impacts the consistency of reporting relates to the police presence in a school. In schools with a full-time school resource officer, the reporting will be more consistent.

Pressure to avoid negative labels

We know that schools are under tremendous pressure to raise test scores. However, that pressure pales in comparison to the need avoid the stigma of being labeled a "persistently dangerous" school. Parents will absolutely refuse to send their child to a dangerous school and school leaders know it.

School Discipline and Grey Areas

Like most school issues, there are a number of grey areas, and that is particularly true when reporting student behavior. For example, one student brings a knife to school to protect him, but since the blade is shorter than that specified in the code, the knife is not considered a weapon. Another student goes on a camping trip and forgets that he left his knife in his backpack. However, because the knife is of a specified length, it is considered a weapon.

Generally speaking, the tendency is to downplay incidents. In fact , I cannot imagine a case in which a school would want to overstate the number of serious incidents. Truth be told, some principals pressure school resource officers to downgrade some incidents. Likewise, some police officers don't want to deal with juveniles and the juvenile court system and they want to downgrade incidents.

Data can be misleading

In the short run, a school can look better when less is done. Principals can reduce the number of incidence by not showing up or by simply doing nothing. Schools that take a less aggressive stand could look better on paper than they actually are in real life. On the other hand, schools that actively and consistently address discipline issues could, in the short run, have a high number of incidents. In that case, the school could look worse on paper than it actually is.

The Bottom Line

School culture is a product of the values, beliefs, mindsets, and behaviors of the entire school community. Just as no school and no student can or should be judged on the basis of a single data point, neither can the number of incidents portray the culture or climate of a school. When it comes to reporting student behavior, I would trust first-hand experience and the word of the teachers and students rather than a state or district report that simply lists the number of incidents.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Winston Churchill may have defined it best.  “Success,” according to the former British Prime Minister, “is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”  As his country’s leader in the midst of a world-wide conflict, it is clear that he understood the critical importance of realistic appraisals.  Unfortunately, the prevailing philosophy in the upper echelons of the educational hierarchy does not share that view.  In schools throughout the country there are escalating efforts to avoid giving failing grades to under-performing students.  The problem with these approaches is that most are more focused on eliminating the appearance of the letter “F” on report cards than on finding approaches to improve actual student performance.  Such grading is not a zero sum game.  Barring teachers from giving valid feedback to failing students does not automatically result in a proportional gain in student knowledge acquisition.  To the contrary there is growing evidence that such manipulations are having the opposite effect.  Jay Mathews in the Washington Post explained how Montgomery County (MD) has found yet another method to avoid giving students an accurate assessment of their poor classroom performance. 

Framing the argument

Long considered one of the elite school systems in the country, Montgomery County Public Schools has legitimate reason to be concerned about the performance of their high school students.  According to Mathews, “The SAT and Advanced Placement results, put out so proudly by the Montgomery County school system, suggest that it is among the best districts in the country, but the county has seen no significant increase in math or reading achievement for 17-year-olds in 30 years.”

Dan Stephens, a math teacher in the district for twenty years, has a relatively simple explanation for the cause of that stagnation.  He believes that too many of his students are convinced that regardless of what they do in the classroom, they will still graduate. One of the primary reasons for this attitude according to Stephens is a final exam written and mandated by the county.  The tests are given in every core subject and are allowed to constitute as much as 25% of a student’s final grade.  The problem revolves around a decision that MCPS like many other groups had made concerning the percentage value of a failing grade.   No matter how poorly students may perform on these tests the lowest allowable score is 50%.  "The majority of my pre-calculus students”, says Stephens, “have never passed one of these exams in either Algebra 1, geometry or Algebra 2, all pre-calculus prerequisites. Nevertheless, they proceeded to the next level. . . . Students are well aware that failure, even pathetic failure, will not prevent them from going on to the next level. Most of my students have failed multiple final exams in other subjects as well, but they still earned credit for those classes.”

Even the most ardent supporters of the “50% conversion rule” have to accept the reality of this potential negative outcome.  However, regardless of any damage to student motivation, a growing number of schools are gravitating toward this approach as the best avenue to student success.

The problem is in the numbers

The main impetus for arbitrarily raising poor grades is the misguided belief that low failing scores can be overly punitive.  At first glance this assumption can appear to have validity.  Using a typical grading scale of 90-100 as A, 80-89 for B, 70-79 C, 60-69 D and below 60 as an F, it would appear that a score of 22% would unfairly skew the overall average.  Unquestionably a 22% would have considerably more negative impact than a 50%.  The follow-up argument makes some superficial sense.  If the other four grades have a ten-point range, why should the “F” have one of sixty?  Does that give a low “F” too much impact? 

Even if one accepts this premise there is still a nagging issue of fairness. One student works diligently to prepare for a test and earns a 58%.  Another who does little or nothing receives a well deserved grade of 22%.  After that grade is changed to 50%, is this a fair outcome for the dedicated student?  But this argument is usually trumped when someone trots out the traditional closing equation—three 100s (A) and one zero (F) average out to a 75 (C).  While this argument often ends the discussion it is not mathematically persuasive. 

It is all in the paradigm

 To understand the flaw in the “50% solution” it is necessary to re-evaluate how the grading scale is interpreted.  When assessing a student’s score on an assignment there are two potential outcomes.  A result of 60-100 is passing while one from 0-59 is failing.  When comparing these two potential options the disparity in size has diminished considerably.  The real difference is that in our traditional grading system we have designated four distinct grades for success and only one for failure.  To make the two categories parallel different levels of failure would have to be introduced—G for 40-49, H 30-39, etc.   While such a change would be of little actual value it does bring into perspective the overriding problem with ignoring poor grades.

What happens if passing scores were handled in a manner similar to failing ones?  Any grade below 90 (ten points below the highest possible score) would be converted to 90.  Thus a 92% would be unchanged but scores of 82%, 76% or 65% would be recast as 90.  The argument in favor of this fictitious approach would be “It is not fair to saddle a student with a 62%—that would make it almost impossible to earn an A.”  Clearly such a plan would be both unfair and unacceptable.  No one would argue that a student who receives a grade of 65% should be given equal status to one who worked to earn an 87%.  And yet we are implementing programs that are using precisely the same philosophy in the failure area of the grading scale. 

Unfortunately these arguments will have little impact on educational decision-makers.  They will continue with various plans such as requiring the use of a 0-4 scale for averaging grades (A=4, C=2, F=0) and the “50% conversion”.  The reason these policies will continue is because they are designed to cosmetically make student performance appear to be better.  Such superficial solutions will only result in thirty more years of negligible improvement.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

As everyone knows by now, the Los Angeles United School District decided to publish a list ranking all of the system’s  6,000 elementary school teachers based on students’ standardized test results.  One of the most prominent proponents of the proposal was Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who said that the decision was an excellent way to recognize the best educators in the district.  I and many other people who have made a career of standing in front of students in a classroom found these remarks both troubling and inaccurate.   I find Secretary Duncan’s latest argument in favor of the practice very predictable.  According to Mr. Duncan, “In other fields, we talk about success constantly, with statistics and other measures to demonstrate it…Why, in education, are we scared to talk about what success looks like? What is there to hide?" Duncan added, "Every state and district should be collecting and sharing information about teacher effectiveness with teachers and - in the context of other important measures - with parents."  Unfortunately in an attempt to connect all of the dots to justify this decision Mr. Duncan has used some very suspect reasoning.

Misconception Number 1

The Secretary’s first mistake is to equate the LAUSD rankings to the use of statistics in other professions.  A quick look at the use of data in the most number-consumed vocation, major league baseball, shows the weakness of Mr. Duncan’s argument.  Every day on the nation’s sports pages one can find a listing of the best batting averages, home runs, victories, strikeouts, etc.  However, a baseball fan with even a minimum knowledge of the game understands the complexity of such numbers. They are aware that the player with the highest batting average or the pitcher with the most victories is not automatically the best in their league.  There are a significant number of other factors that must be considered when evaluating MLB data.  What is the quality of the player’s teammates?  For how many years has this athlete performed at this level?  Is this season an anomaly or is it the continuation of years of excellence?  What additional talents does the player bring to his team?  The actual value of a Derek Jeter cannot be measured with a few numbers.  In fact, sometimes such figures are completely upside down.  Several years ago there was a pitcher who lost twenty games in a single season. This number represented the most defeats by a wide margin. Using this singular measure this player would be viewed as the worst pitcher in the league.  But anyone with a basic knowledge of the game knew that was not necessarily the case.  At the time, a strong argument was made that in order to lose that many times, a team actually had to have a great deal of confidence in the talent of the individual. Only a pitcher who was adjudged to be competitive would be allowed to continue to play enough games to reach that level.  Thus a highly negative number, after all is said and done, proves positive.  That statistical disconnect presents a question to be asked of Secretary Duncan.  Would the average L.A. parent understand enough of the subtleties of teaching and testing to make equally educated judgments?  Can a single number next to a name give that kind of perspective?  And of equal importance do the tests measuring student performance have the same validity as the extremely precise numbers used to evaluate a baseball player?

Misconception Number 2

The marriage of the media and teacher evaluations that Mr. Duncan envisions may not end in wedded bliss.  Unlike the Education Secretary, the media is not enamored with good news stories.   Bold headlines are reserved for disasters not celebrations.  This approach was demonstrated in the original article about the release of the teacher rankings by the LA Times.  In a related link to the story was a picture of a teacher in front of a room full of students.   The caption read:  “Over seven years, John Smith's fifth-graders have started out slightly ahead of those just down the hall but by year's end have been far behind.”  While showing the more successful fifth-grade teacher would have been in line with Mr. Duncan’s stated desire to celebrate great teaching, this approach was a demonstration of traditional journalistic instincts.  Consequently, the story becomes a negative for Mr. Smith and his students or teachers and education in general.

Misconception Number 3

Mr. Duncan does not appear to understand the subjective nature of many measurement tools in education.  He may approve of the “one number tells all” LAUSD approach to rank teachers but would he approve of similar methods directed toward students?  Would he endorse evaluating a student’s overall performance with a simple look at the numbers in the grade book?  Or would he prefer a more nuanced approach that takes into consideration whether the student was in an ELL class and had a deficit in English?  Should a long-term absence for illness be factored into the mix?  Does the student have a learning disability or an unstable home life?  If a student transfers from another school with a weak background should some extra time be considered?  Evaluations of students and teachers require different tools but there are parallels.  The data being considered in both cases requires a high degree of sophistication.

Improving education is complicated.

The need to create an evaluation process that identifies the strengths and weaknesses of teachers is critical. Finding a tool that will improve a successful educator’s performance and expedites the removal of an under-performing one is an essential goal.  Creating precise tests to determine student mastery should be a priority.  But the Secretary of Education and other leaders must understand that using public exposure through the media, although easily accomplished, is not the best avenue toward achieving these objectives. 

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You’ve heard the old adage, if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting the same results. In the same way, if we keep holding learning time constant, we will continue to have significant numbers of our students, who simply need more time to master some subjects, fail. It is time to rethink our views on summer school and maybe to rethink our approaches to summer learning as well. “In many ways, the summer months are the last frontier of school reform.”

A recent Education Week commentary may help school leaders change their opinion on summer school and summer learning. The authors point out that “the literature is clear and compelling on the fact that summer is a season of huge risks and setback for low-income youths.”

The Facts

• Two-thirds of the achievement gap in reading is directly related to unequal summer learning opportunities.
• Secretary Duncan views summer learning loss as “devastating.”
• In one study, low-income students lost ground in reading each summer compared with their higher-income peers, who actually made progress.
• The accumulated summer learning loss over eleven successive summers played a big part in determining whether a student graduated and whether the student attended post-secondary education and training.

The Bottom Line

• We don’t have an achievement gap. We have a learning time gap.
• The research is clear, given time, students can learn. The question then is, who will give students the time they need?

Next: Summer School – Part 2

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some high ranking officials and several big foundations believe that merit pay for teachers will raise student achievement. I worked in a merit pay system that we were all happy to see end. Merit pay never improved student achievement but was extremely divisive. Instead of encouraging teachers to work collaboratively, merit pay placed them in competition with each other. In addition, the absence of a growth model or any valid way of measuring student progress, the system degenerated into a “dog and pony show.” Those who could put on the best show were awarded merit pay. Merit pay also put a lot of pressure on principals and assistant principals to overrate teachers. Merit pay became an expectation not an exception. Some schools in our district had 90% of their teachers receiving merit pay.

I am currently in New Orleans speaking at the Plain Talk About Reading Conference sponsored by The Center for Development and Learning. Long time school reformer, Michael Fullan, was speaking about his new book, All Systems Go. Fullan directly and pointedly addressed the whole idea of merit pay saying, “Merit pay pleases a few and angers the rest.” He went on to talk at length about what research shows actually motivates teachers and merit pay is not on the list. By the way, neither are punishment, threats, or coercion.

Here is Fullan’s list of “Incentives That Work for Teachers:

• Good salaries
• Decent Surroundings
• Positive Climate
• Strong Induction
• Extensive Professional Learning
• Opportunity to work with and learn from others
• Supportive, and even assertive, leadership
• Helpful Feedback
• Reasonable Class Size
• Long-term Collective Agreements
• Realizable Moral Purpose (Fullan cites this a most important)

Research on motivation does not support the use of financial incentives for long-term professional growth. At best, merit pay is a temporary “satisfier.” Teachers deserve to be well compensated, but merit pay is not the answer. When asked about merit pay, I say that we should reward the behaviors that we really want. We want schools and teams of teachers to succeed, not individuals. Therefore, if we provide incentives, we should reward schools.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Think about it, if the first assumption we make is false, then every behavior that comes after that is wrong. What if the entire school reform effort was based on a number of false assumptions?

Recently, I participated in a meeting of high-ranking education officials. After the meeting, I quickly wrote down a list of approximately 20 false assumptions that I heard expressed by participants in the meeting.

Keep in mind, that the key strategies and policies under which we are currently operating have all been conceived on the basis of these false assumptions.  Not surprisingly, most of the participants and policy mavens in the meeting had never worked in a school, and none had worked in a school under high stakes accountability.

It is important to note that, at least from my perspective, these were all sincere, well-intentioned people who truly wanted the best for all students. However, good intentions do not, in and of themselves, necessarily translate into viable plans.

I am not going to address all 20 false assumptions here. I will do that in later posts. Instead, I will talk about two related assumptions that seemed to dominate the conversation. Both assumptions relate to the models for turning around the lowest performing schools.

Keep in mind that these false assumptions need to become true assumptions if we hope to educate all students to high levels. Just as lasting change in one school depends on changing the school’s culture—attitudes, beliefs, expectations—so too will we have to change our national mindset in reference to the educational landscape if we hope to improve all schools, particularly the lowest performing.

False Assumption #1: Experienced teachers and principals are anxious to work in struggling schools.

Actually, the opposite is true. Experienced principals and teachers want to work in the highest performing schools. Being a principal in a struggling school is a risky proposition. In fact, it can be a career-killing experience. A risk that most of my colleagues who not volunteer to take on.

When principal positions opened in our district, the more affluent schools had more applications than could be processed. On the other hand, when positions opened in low socioeconomic schools, there were only a few applicants.

Recruiting teachers to work in under-resourced schools is a real challenge. We had to convince people to drive farther so they could work harder for the same pay. Instead of asking applicants what they could do for us, we had to convince prospective teachers what we could do for them. From our staff’s perspective, it was a buyers market and we were the seller.

We had far fewer applicants for our vacancies than did other more affluent schools in the district. Now, as the years went by and our student achievement and reputation improved, recruiting was not as difficult. In fact, our teachers were such strong believers in our school and its success that they became our best recruiting tool. However, in the early days of our school improvement effort, we had a hard time competing with the top schools for talented teachers.

The truth is that there was a pecking order among the schools and it related to socioeconomic status of the students and families. I was told by more than one district official that our school never received the kind of recognition that it deserved because no one wanted a “school like that with students like those” to be the face of the district. It simply was “not good for business.” I always felt looked down upon by my peers just as our students were constantly put down by students from other schools because they attended a “ghetto school.”

Having said that, I know that I could take our staff and raise the achievement level of students in any school. I also know that many of the teachers in those resourced school wouldn’t last a single day in our school. So, who is the better teacher?

False Assumption #2: The best teachers want to teach the neediest students.

Every practicing principal and teacher leader knows how hard it is to convince the best, most experienced teachers to teach the neediest students. In fact, the culture of most schools is the exact opposite. The neediest students are most often assigned to the newest teachers who have the least seniority. Just try getting your most experienced teachers to teach ninth graders.

Over time, less experienced teachers work their way up the ladder and earn the plum assignments like honors, AP, or IB classes. In most schools, the teachers who teach to lowest performing students are looked down on by the other teachers as being intellectually less capable. Given the prevailing attitudes of their peers and the current climate, why would teachers who teach in high-performing schools want to apply to teach in low-performing schools, particularly when they read every day about teachers in those schools being fired or sanctioned. Teaching in a high-impact school today is career threatening and a risky proposition at best.

Believe me, it takes a special person to work in high-poverty, highly diverse schools, many of which are located in the poorest areas. People who work in those schools do so, not because of money, but because their heart is in the work.

The Solution

We need to begin changing the mindset of educators regarding the need to work in less affluent schools. Talking alone won’t change the culture. Changing the culture means changing our behavior by creating incentives for teacher and principals to work in those schools including up-front financial incentives, a promise of small class sizes, upgraded facilities with the latest technology, and award and recognition programs that recognize teachers in less affluent schools.

The Best Kept Secret

Everyone who has ever worked in a diverse, high-poverty school knows full well that they receive more appreciation in one day than their colleagues in more affluent schools receive in a lifetime. They learn as I did that the more you give, the more you receive and that, giving to the neediest students is receiving. Our national challenge is to create a culture in which those who work in those schools, instead of being looked down on, are honored and revered.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)