Let’s assume that Bill and Melinda Gates really want to improve the teaching profession. Let’s assume that they have no idea about the negative effects of their current agenda. Let’s assume they want to do what is best for teachers and students and American education. Certainly, they are not in it for the money; they have enough. The chances are they are surrounded by compliant staff who never tell them what is really happening on the ground.
Since this teacher does not work for them and has no skin in the game, she offers this advice for them, which I am pleased to pass along:
| Perhaps I’m being naive but I do believe Bill and Melinda Gates are truly interested in teacher quality. So am I and so is Diane Ravitch and almost everyone else.From what I’ve read I believe the Gates couple are just beginning to realize that all their donated money is (once again) having unintended consequences. Are their practices luring more talented people to the profession or are many young people being scared away? Are dedicated urban teachers electing to stay in low-performing schools or are they trying desperately to get transfers to “better” (i.e. more affluent) schools where test scores are almost certain to improve? Are young women still preparing for K-12 jobs or are they electing to follow men into many professions that promise higher pay, autonomy and prestige? Personally I don’t know a single young man or woman who is planning on a career in elementary or secondary education. Yes, there are many recent college graduates who are searching for teaching jobs but how many are entering college programs at this time?Is someone from the Gates Foundation reading this blog? If so, why not try tried and true methods for attracting and retaining talented people to the field of public school teaching. Here’s what I’d like to see:Fellowships at excellent colleges and universities for talented individuals to prepare to become teachers;
Schools where highly qualified teachers can be fully professional. At these schools these teachers would make most decisions regarding budget, governance, curriculum, and instruction. They would elect a head teacher who would serve at the pleasure of the faculty and vote on promotion for colleagues. Like their college teacher counterparts, these teachers would have a career ladder: assistant teacher, associate teacher, teacher, mentor etc. They would not have to leave the classroom in order to advance. Their unions would morph into the associations they were originally meant to be. With teachers at the helm, we’ll see an end to the ineffective teacher. And, yes, salaries, working conditions and benefits will need to be improved. Perhaps the Gates people can help talented teachers open their own schools where they would be free to make almost all decisions. We know how to encourage talented people to enter other occupations. Let’s try these same strategies to improve the teaching profession. Humiliating, shaming and depriving teachers of hard-won benefits isn’t going to improve the profession and we don’t need a Stanford or Harvard researcher to tell us that. The contempt that so many of our citizens feel for schoolteachers ( mainly women) is at the root of our problems. If we want to see improvement, we have to find a way to change this unfortunate cultural characteristic of the American people. Hopefully Bill and Melinda Gates will use their money to help. They will realize the success they want when they help to elevate the profession and not demean it, as is happening at this time. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I agree with everything you stated. I worked at a school which had some of the characteristics you mentioned, mainly greater teacher autonomy and an elected department chair. While I agree Bill Gates certainly misunderstands the problems in education, it is President Obama that really gives the Gates Foundation and other “reformers” much greater legitimacy with his support of firing all high school teachers in Rhode Island. If the President believes that teachers are the problem that is bad enough. If he is just pandering for votes then that is much worse. Reading “Audacity of Hope” informs me that he believes teachers are the problem. As long as the leaders such s the President feel this way it will be really hard to change the cultural characteristic of the American people as it relates to education. Perhaps all the resistance to standardized testing that is cropping up around the country will begin the process by forcing a closer examination of what the real problems are in education. Poverty!
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I certainly agree with Michael that such professionalization of teachers is not politically viable at this time, but right now I mostly want to applaud the concept. Years ago several of my good friends and most talented colleagues left teaching, partly because they were exhausted by the hours (with three hours after dinner each night and six to eight hours most weekends) and partly because they saw so little way of advancing in the profession except by becoming an administrator–and that route was not attractive to those who became teachers because they love classrooms, because they love working with kids. I didn’t leave, and thirty-eight years later I have few regrets, but it has been hard and, over the last several years, it has been truly demoralizing. I am depressed by the fact that, for the first time in my career, I no longer encourage my students to think about a teaching career. Even though my own has been tremendously satisfying, teachers today are scapegoated, demeaned, and distrusted. To work hard over long hours, to raise a family in a modest home, to approach the one major financial reward — a comfortable retirement with a good pension — and then to be sneered at for enjoying that one great benefit…Well, that’s pretty demoralizing. I have worked to be a professional, I have behaved professionally, I have been locally appreciated by colleagues and students, and now, by politicians and “reformers,” I would like to be treated accordingly.
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[…] A Teacher’s Advice for Bill and Melinda Gates (dianeravitch.net) […]
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This vision is already being realized. But, yes, it could use some support so many more teachers can be in this position!
My colleagues and I recently completed book about what teachers do when given collective, professional authority to make the decisions influencing school success. Not just classroom authority, but authority to collectively manage their schools in up to ten areas (curriculum, budget, hiring, evaluation, and more).
The title of the book, due out in September 2012, is Trusting Teachers with School Success: What Happens When Teachers Call the Shots. It has been endorsed by Linda Darling-Hammond, Dennis Van Roekel, Adam Urbanski, Deborah Meier, Thomas Toch, Roger Sampson, Andrew Rotherham, John Merrow, and a number of others.
As you are well aware, every day the news is full of stories about policy developments designed around the idea that teachers’ activities must be tightly controlled. But we find that autonomous teachers collectively create the schools that many of us profess to want. They individualize learning. Their students are active (not passive) learners who gain academic and life skills. The teachers make decisions associated with high performance. They accept accountability and innovate, and make efficient use of resources.
Trusting Teachers documents that autonomous teachers, working as a team in charge of whole school success, often choose and implement 360-degree and peer evaluation methods. They often commit to restorative justice discipline strategies. They sometimes hire principals, but principals are accountable to them—the collective group of teachers, who are responsible and accountable for school success.
This is not easy, There are stumbles and struggles — these are all documented in Trusting Teachers. Nonetheless, most of these teachers say the nature of their work makes it all worthwhile.
We shared the book with a small group of teachers and got very enthusiastic responses. Some were ready to go out and start a school run by autonomous teachers. Others wanted to take the ideas that autonomous teachers advance and try them in their own schools.
Currently there are around 60 schools with collectively autonomous teachers in the nation (and growing…). Autonomous arrangements for teachers have appeared in district, chartered, and independent schools. Some are union-affiliated, others are not. There are schools with teacher autonomy in urban, rural, and suburban settings across the nation serving students from preschool to age 21.
This is a means, Diane, to accomplish what is happening in Finland within a US policy environment.
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