¿Is it not possible that if teachers were chartered to design curriculum and assessment methods geared to their own students they might provide an education that is closer to the lived experiences of their student?  ¿Is is possible that by enabling teachers to carry out their work as professionals the way most of them are prepared, school would be a better place?

¿Why not charter teachers, as we have done with schools, to use their professional knowledge and credentials to carry out a more relevant and substantive curriculum based on the needs and aspirations of students they teach?

Teachers as Professional Leaders

The models of identifying teachers as professional leaders have typically been based on raising students’ academic outcomes.  One example is the National Board Certification.  In these models, identifying outstanding professional teachers is based on what impact the teacher has on student achievement and learning.  In most cases, student achievement is measured with high-stakes content or subject matter tests.  The fundamental problem with using test scores is that even an outstanding teacher accounts for only 20% of the learning of students.  As we will see below, it is out-of-school factors that have have a larger share in determining student learning.  Presently, the Department of Education in Washington, and most state departments of education believe that it the teacher who makes the most difference in the success or failure of students.  Its simply not a valid position.

In my experience, teachers who are well prepared and experienced, are able of making professional decisions about curriculum and instruction that meet the needs of their students.  Collaborating with other teachers in their school and district, they can design and carry out a curriculum that student-oriented, and based on students’ prior experiences, needs and aspirations.

Anthony Cody described a case in which teachers working together in one of the lowest performing elementary schools in Oakland “transformed their school through a combination of teacher research and creative instruction.”  The case he described on his blog, teachers, with the support of their principal, are in charge of their reading curriculum.  There are hundreds of examples of teaching doing the same kinds of curriculum and instruction innovation.

Professional teachers do not need to be told what to do or how to teach by people who work in office buildings looking at spread sheets!!

Instead, teachers need to work in environments in which professional growth is the principle of quality teaching.  A good example is the Montgomery County, Maryland Professional Growth Systems (PGS) which is a collaborative system to improve teaching, rather than corporate and state led “value-added” or “student growth” approaches. Read more here…

Another example is the Lexington School District’s (MA) implementation of one of the first evaluation programs for teachers based on professional growth. The program was named the Teacher Leadership Program, and a teacher could apply for the program after three years of service. To do so required that the teacher create a portfolio of work including lesson plans, projects, student evaluations, peer evaluations, samples of student work, sample of teacher innovative products. The teacher’s portfolio was then assessed by a team of peers and administrators. If the teacher’s credentials were judged as high quality, the teacher entered the Teacher Leadership Program, and for the next three years, and would jump two steps each year on the salary scale. At the end of the three years, the teacher could reapply. The premise of the Leadership Program was to focus on professional growth, and high quality teaching. This program was created more than 40 years ago.

Hamstrung

Today, teachers are hamstrung by policies that are alien to their communities and neighborhoods.  Bureaucrats in Washington, and state departments of education make decisions about what teachers should teach, and what students should learn.  They hold students and teachers accountable by designing high-stakes tests based on lists of behavioral objectives or standards.  It was discovered was that students and teachers were held accountable using unreliable and invalid testing and measurement methods.  For research to support this, please follow this link to GREATER, Georgia researchers who are advocates for reforming evaluation methods.

In recent research published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST), Randall D. Penfield and Okhee Lee point out that there is a paradox in the assessment policy enacted by the U.S. Department of Education.  They report that the assessments used across the country are developed for a student population of White, middle- and upper-class, and native speakers of English.  Yet, minority students, who were intended as the primary beneficiaries of the NCLB test-based accountability policy, are students of color, low-SES, and learning English as a new language.

The kind of reform that is being leveled on American schools ignores the research, and the problems that have plagued schools and teachers for years.  Terms such as choice and competition have replaced ideas such as equity and coöperation.  Reformers have turned schools into corporate factories designed to turn out students who can pass a series of high-stakes tests.

Without any solid research evidence, the nation’s schools have accepted that a common curriculum in math, reading/language arts, and science is in the best interests of teachers and students.  According to Achieve, Inc., the developer of the standards, students are responsible for the mastering the standards, regardless of where they live.

We have reported on this blog that changing or writing new standards will have little to no effect on student achievement.  Loveless, in the 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education, explains that neither the quality nor the rigor of state standards is related to state NAEP test scores.  He points out that if there was an effect, we would have seen it since all states have had standards since 2003.

In another important study reported in the prestigious Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Carolyn Wallace found that science standards actually present barriers to teaching and learning.  Wallace analyzed the effects of authoritarian standards language on science classroom teaching.  She found that curriculum standards based on a content and product model of education are “incongruent” with research in science education, cognitive psychology, language use, and science as inquiry.

I am going to suggest that we find a way to charter teachers with the authority to make curriculum and assessment decisions based on the tenets of professional credentialing and practice.   In order for teachers to enact their charters, we need to stop using high-stakes tests as tools to punish and reward teachers and schools.  In tandem with eliminating high-stakes tests, we need to reverse the move to “standardize” education,” and say out loud that one size does not fit all.  There is no evidence to support the notion that the curriculum for all 49 million U.S. students should be based on a single set of standards.

One size does not fit all!

But in order for teachers to succeed as professionals, we need to face head on the issue of poverty and the kind of pedagogy that will help students become successful citizens in the 21 Century.

Poverty

¿May it not be that just as students who attend schools in wealthy neighborhoods, do well in school, and go onto higher education and into 21st century careers, that students attending schools in poor neighborhoods would experience the same successes if they had similar social, financial, and academic attributes found in wealthier neighborhoods?

¿Is it not possible to say that if students lived in housing environments that were safe and less prone to violence that they might do better in school?

¿Is it not possible to say that students with adequate access to health care, nutrition and activities would have a better chance at success in and out of school?

It is a policy at the federal and state levels that poverty in not an excuse for not succeeding in school.  The policy promotes the idea that as long as a students have a great teacher, we can not use any excuse for students not doing well. ¿Is it not possible that even with a great teacher that a student who lives in a family with little income, poor housing, and fears her mother will be deported, just might not do well in school, even with a great teacher?

Anthony Cody provides evidence that even with a great teacher, only 20% of student success is in the hands of that teacher.  There are simply too many factors, most of which are out of school control, to claim that focusing on teachers will change schooling for children in poverty.  Yet, organizations such as the Gates Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education have repeatedly ignored the effects of poverty on student success in school, and instead have put the full burden on teachers.   Anthony Cody, on his blog, Living in Dialog put it this way:

First of all, let’s take a closer look at what “out of school factors” really are about. One of the central tenets advanced by many education reformers is that poverty is used as an excuse, a bogus justification for poor academic performance, that allows schools and teachers in poor neighborhoods to remain ineffective. Therefore, the best way to beat poverty in these circumstances is to set high expectations for everyone, hold teachers accountable for increasing test scores, and accept no excuses. So I want us to understand just what these schools, teachers, and children are up against.

Cody then goes on to discuss the impact of violence, the effect of health and housing on child development.  According to Cody, about one-third of children living in the nation’s violent neighborhoods have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  He also talks about the effect of murder, reporting that living in a murder prone neighborhood affects academic achievement in school.

Until reform focuses on poverty, test scores will not meet the expectations of the current force of corporate reformers.  Using the code words of choice and competition, American education is rapidly moving toward a market driven educational system.  The Charter School, which was designed to empower teachers, free them from overly bureaucratic regulations, and strengthen their voice in school and curriculum decision-making, has become a politicized and corporate movement that is slowly taking control of public schools.  Although there are more public schools in the U.S. than charters, many states seemed to have thrown up their hands, and are passing laws that will make it possible for state appointed commissions to create charter schools without the approval of the local school district.  Many of these charter schools have been established in poor neighborhoods and are being staffed with teachers who have as little as six to eight weeks of teacher preparation.

Critical Pedagogy

The Common Core State Standards, and the emerging national testing movement (such as PARCC), American schools are soon to become a national, centralized system of education.  Through Federal acts and laws such as the No Child Left Behind Act, the Race to the Top, and the ESEA Flexibility Requests (waivers on some aspects of NCLB), state educational departments are being “regulated” by federal mandates.   Again have the state education departments just given up.  This regulation extends to every local school district that must now follow a singular set of standards, and are required to administer high stakes tests that find the success or failure of students, teachers and administrators.  The race is on to train teachers to use the Common Core State Standards.  Does anyone have an idea how much this implementation will cost.  It’s in the billions.

In a nation with 50 states,  320 million people, 15,000 school districts, and the continuing call to make sure that schools eliminate inequity, it is unfortunate that we are creating centralized educational reforms.  It doesn’t make sense!

By their very nature, standards are  authoritarian documents offering teachers very little flexibility in their use, and essentially remove the professional judgement of teachers in deciding how to make their courses relevant to their students. Combined with high-stakes tests, we have a system that is centrally controlled. ¿Is this not an odd mixture in a democratic society?

Instead of relying on an authoritarian system of standards and tests, many teachers and researchers suggest that education should be in the service of providing students with the tools to improve themselves and take part in a democratic society by engaging in “progressive social change.”

One of the emerging progressive ideas in the teaching of science and mathematics over the past twenty years has been social constructivism.  According to researchers, such as Dr. Mary Atwater, professor of science education, The University of Georgia, constructivism provides a lens to view multicultural education in a democratic society.  In order to provide for equity in teaching and learning, social constructivism in light of a multicultural vision is crucial in making decisions about teaching.  Atwater suggests that we embrace critical pedagogy.  Critical pedagogy helps students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, a connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action.

Critical pedagogy calls for teachers who are free and conscious of their role in helping students become active and life long learners capable of making decisions, and taking positions on issues that are close to their hearts.  Thus the students would become leaders in their community, think creatively, and to use knowledge to innovate and solve problems, all the while taking part in a democratic society.   Critical pedagogy faces head on the issue of poverty and equity.  To many researchers, critical pedagogy is based on the idea that there is an unequal social stratification in our society based on class, race, and gender.

As discussed on this blog, critical pedagogy is a progressive world-view, as a opposed to the conservative world-view, which dominates American education.  Based on the research of George Lakoff, a progressive view emerges. There are four principles which would drive education:

• The Common Good Principle–Citizens bring together their common wealth to build infrastructures that benefit all, and contributes to individual goals.
• The Expansion of Freedom Principle–Progressives demand the expansion of fundamental forms of freedom, including voting rights, worker’s rights, public education, public health, civil rights.
• The Human Dignity Principle–Empathy requires the recognition of basic human dignity and responsibility requires us to act to uphold it.
• The Diversity Principle–Empathy involves identifying with and connecting socially and emotionally with all people regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation. Ethic of diversity in our communities, schools, workplaces.

Chartering Teachers

Chartering teachers based on this pedagogical ideology would change the way curriculum is developed and selected, and way students are viewed as learners.  Charter teachers would be empowered to shape school curriculum, to work collaboratively on innovative projects, and take-risks to improve the education of their students.

Students in the progressive classroom would be respected, nurtured, and encouraged to communicate with peers and the teacher from day one. The classroom would be viewed as a community of learners. The progressive teacher’s beliefs about teaching are formulated by many factors, but two that stand out are empathy and responsibility.

The chartered teacher would be a highly qualified and certified professional who not only has a strong background in content and pedagogy, but has a range of experiences with youth enabling them to understand students and treat people through the eyes of progressive morality.

Chartered educators would be research oriented. That is, they would tend to experiment with new approaches to teaching and would also do action research in their own classrooms to improve the teaching/learning environment.

Chartered/Progressive educators would ask lots of questions:

• ¿Why is our state and district willing to accept a top-down authoritarian set of standards that weren’t developed with our students’ interests or aspirations in mind?
• ¿Do you know what the research tells us about the ineffectiveness of using high-stakes tests on students achievement?
• ¿Why does the state department of education have so much authoritative power over the inner workings of every school district in the state?
• ¿Why aren’t educators involved in the development of curriculum is based on the lived experiences of students, and the interests that students might have for getting involved in real work?

¿Do you think it is possible to charter teachers?  ¿Do you think it would make a difference?

I have used this symbol ¿ with my own editorial license.