“Good people failing”: Teacher frustrations at underperforming schools
Carol Ascher's report, "Retaining Good Teachers in Urban Schools," provides concrete suggestions for helping good teachers remain in the classroom and for improving their ability to succeed:
- Strong, supportive leadership
- High teacher control of curriculum, instruction and decision-making
- Master teacher programs
- Continuous learning programs
Her findings are nearly two decades old, yet her recommendations seem quite contemporary when juxtaposed to the findings of educational researchers today.
Supportive leadership
The best teachers expect strong, supportive leadership, enabling them to focus on their students. When good teachers leave the classroom, they most often name frustration, lack of direction and support as the reasons for their departure. They chose education because they wanted to teach.
Teacher involvement in decision-making
The best teachers want to be involved in curriculum and school decisions. Sarah Fine may have spoken for all disenchanted teachers when she explained why she left: "More and more major decisions were made behind closed doors." In a recent Washington Post article, she tells of pointless hours spent on curriculum proposals, only to discover the administration made a decision without even looking at the teachers' work (August 9, 2009). For Fine, it was burnout—not salary—that caused her to leave.
Master teacher programs
Master teacher programs help teachers escape the isolation of their classroom and seek out expert help. Immediate help that addresses the small details of a teacher's experience may, ultimately, do the most to improve teaching and learning. In fact, effective teaching is largely a matter of managing small distractions and constantly improving ways of presenting material. A master teacher can talk a teacher through a specific problem and suggest an immediate, specific solution.
Continuous education
Good teachers always work to improve and seek out continuous learning experiences. They do not want exciting new programs or expensive, flashy software. They do want specific, modeled techniques for presenting information and coaxing reluctant students to engage.
Through continuous learning experiences, mediocre teachers can learn the seemingly intuitive methods that great teachers use to get stellar results. Simple things such as "stand still" while giving instructions or "catch them being good" are effective tools for classroom management. Through continuous education, teachers practice such techniques as asking questions, then allowing wait-and-think time before calling on a student. They learn to lead the "I don't know" student to an acceptable answer.
These are not dramatic and glamorous skills; they are not personality-driven. These are not the behaviors of "rock star" teachers. They are, however, several of the dozens of successful techniques effective teachers know and use. The good news is, ineffective teachers can learn these techniques.
Teachers are thoroughly educated in content
Vital to teacher success is a deep knowledge of content. With solid content preparation, they can steer a lively classroom discussion or capitalize on an outrageous comment from a student to make a point. They can think on their feet; they adjust their lesson plans on the spur of the moment, according to the climate of their classroom. An undereducated teacher with a weak grasp of material cannot call on this reserve. But again, they can learn.
A recent Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation study produced conclusions similar to Ascher's suggestions. The Gates Foundation results were reported in a 2009 article "Gates Foundation: Teachers trump class size," published at eschoolnews.com. Essentially the findings came down to supporting excellent teachers and what they do in the classroom.
In the Gates report, Jim Morris of the L.A. school district explains that "a great teacher in a low-income school helped students advance a grade and a half in one year. An ineffective teacher in a high-income school held student achievement to about half a grade of progress in a year."
More than class size, neighborhood socioeconomic factors, engaging personality, social conscience and good intentions, technology or bold new programs, effective education comes down to recognizing, hiring and retaining the best teachers.
