Teacher autonomy
I’m still on the email list for D’s old school, because I still care a lot about the students and the school. Like many other Northern Virginia schools, it failed to make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP). But because it’s failed in the past, it is now in the fourth year of "Title I Improvement Status." What does that mean? Here’s the official Alexandria public schools explanation:
"The sanctions dictate that ACPS must take one of six corrective actions. The Superintendent chose the first option and as a result, has made significant staffing adjustments in several key areas. In addition, this year a school oversight committee will (1) monitor the implementation of JHAA’s three-year school improvement plan, and as necessary, modify it to better address the needs of students; (2) verify weekly that teachers are effectively teaching the division’s curriculum and following the pacing guides; (3) analyze a variety of data to inform instructional practices and remedial programs; (4) provide staff development opportunities that focus on bolstering student achievement; and (5) ensure JHAA staff and parents are aware of the committee’s decisions."
I have to say, number 2 on that list made me shudder in horror. The best teachers I know all modify the curriculum to respond to children’s interests, or take advantage of a special event in the community. This kind of pressure makes it harder for them to do things like this.
And I just found out from another parent that D’s kindergarten teacher from the start of last year (before D was switched into a different classroom), who started every day with children gathered around him listening to a story, was not invited to return this year. Because he paid more attention to the children than to the curriculum. Sigh.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 6 months reading about what makes jobs good or bad, for a paper on job quality.* One of the things that struck me is how much the ability to control how you do your job, what I call "worker voice" in the paper, matters to people’s evaluation of whether they’re happy at work. I’m afraid that we’re systematically making teaching a worse and worse job in that respect.
*Executive summary here. If you’re curious as to what I sound like, here’s a podcast interview with me talking about the report.
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Autonomy is huge reason why I have a love/hate relationship with my own job. There are times when I can literally do whatever I want. But then there are times when I get told what to do and I’m always chafing against that. I have no desire to teach at the secondary level because I would not want to be told how to manage my class and curriculum.
It’s bad for the kids, too. 🙂
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
“…have to say, number 2 on that list made me shudder in horror…” – it’s worth at least thinking whether you are reacting in a class-appropriate way as an educated middle-class person, and not in the interests of the kids at that school. At least, one of the messages I took from the stuff I have read about KIPP, and from Klitgaard’s earlier work on education of lower-socioeconomic children, is that success has often come from rigid adherence to a curriculum and demanding drill. And lengthened time in school, both longer days and shorter vacation. Not so fun, not so cuddly, but effective.
The French national curriculum is similarly rigid, and a kid whose parents move from Nanterre to Lyon can leave school on Friday and start on Monday and not miss a beat. My own kids’ teachers have complained about teaching to the test, and my kids all know about Lincoln and Helen Keller and nothing about Woodrow Wilson. Is this so dreadful? At least they know something…
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I am somewhat confused about this issue since it is possible to be creative while covering the coursework. In my college curricula we are required to cover certain topics, but we are given the academic freedom to create our own assignments. Some of the colleges I have taught at had to reign in the curricula because profs were doing whatever they wanted and it started to become detrimental to the students. Some topics were not being covered while others were being duplicated. You may think, how does this relate to the lower grades? In a computer class I have a roster of all different levels. If I teach to the advanced students, the remedial ones get lost. It is possible to cover the basics and challenge the advanced students. If I taught to my student’s interests I would not have a class. I am a liberally minded teacher and have changed projects around to interest students, but there are just some things students need to learn that are not the most exciting, which in reality is a part of life.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
That is such a shame about the kindergarten teacher.
September 4th, 2007 at 6:26 am
Hmm, this school failed to make AYP (it’s about the students), and now it’s being monitored and held accountable for teaching the approved curriculum. Sorry, but I can’t feel sorry for this.
I have observed and read about a lot of wasted time in schools, including such things as carving time out for unproven character education activities. DARE comes to mind. I want my kids’ teachers to teach according to the curriculum. (Although the quality of any given curriculum may be questionable, but that’s another topic.)
KIPP, as mentioned, has achieved success by adhering to a well-defined curriculum. I agree that teachers should be able to apply some degree of flexibility in the class, but the bottom line is that schools need to held accountable for teaching our kids.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I’m interested in what you say about worker voice. I wonder if modern, extremely high training requirements for many jobs make it ever harder for a worker to have a voice? (I’m not speaking about teachers here specifically, but more about the economy in general.) I work in an industry where someone with 8 years of experience is considered junior. It’s just really hard for people to get to the point where they can make consistently good decisions, and so they are more closely observed than they would like to be.
September 9th, 2007 at 7:08 am
Even though Jen was not talking about teachers specifically, the suggestion that rigid-curriculum elementary education may serve young children better, and particularly those whose parents don’t have middle-class habits of reading to them every day, museum trips, etc., is quite important to KIPP and schools like it.
Elizabeth, I blew right past your remarks about worker voice in my first comment. There are an awful lot of jobs where really the question is, how much worker voice is possible? Security guard? Walmart cashier? Forming and pouring concrete? I want my radiologist to be really good at looking at dots’n’spots, not particularly to be creative, really.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Another voice chiming in against too much teacher autonomy. Maybe when there is a glut of teachers, tenure is gone, and school districts can hire only the most intelligent and talented, but not until then.
With the current autonomy in our local system, many children go to the next grade much less prepared than their peers. The second grade teachers decide kids should learn cursive in third grade, and the third grade teachers don’t have time, so the kids don’t learn cursive. My first grader, reading at a second grade level, learns absolutely nothing.
A good teacher can use her judgement and creativity to devise assignments and projects within a given curriculum – there is no reason why individual teachers should determine the content.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Alex Tabarrok makes a clarion call for rigid curriculum: “You know the plot. Young, idealistic teacher goes to inner-city high school. Said idealistic teacher is shocked by students who don’t know the basics and who are too preoccupied with the burdens of violence, poverty and indifference to want to learn. But the hero perseveres and at great personal sacrifice wins over the students using innovative teaching methods and heart. The kids go on to win the state spelling/chess/mathematics championship. c.f. Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, Dangerous Minds etc.
We are supposed to be uplifted by these stories but they depress me. If it takes a hero to save an inner city school then there is no hope. Heroes are not replicable.
What we need to save inner-city schools, and poor schools everywhere, is a method that works when the teachers aren’t heroes. Even better if the method works when teachers are ordinary people, poorly paid and ill-motivated – i.e. the system we have today.”
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/09/heroes-are-not-.html