Teachers are the most critical point in our system of education and we are not doing enough to support their effectiveness. While students are at the center of the system as the primary client, we would not have schools if we believed that kids could learn everything on their own. The rest of the personnel in the education system are really charged with marshaling or protecting resources to make classrooms – and the teachers who lead them – more effective or more productive. “Productivity” in education is the degree to which students learn what they are supposed to learn. For at least the next 15 to 20 years, and perhaps forever, teachers will be the major factor in determining educational productivity. If it is important to students, families, communities and economies that students learn the things they need to learn, then we need to seriously overhaul the human resource support system for teachers, for they are, by far, the most critical factor in student learning.
I am not thinking of simply making some improvements in teacher preparation, teacher pay, or professional development. I believe we need a redesign of the educational workforce and the career paths for educators. Then we need to design the recruitment, preparation, compensation and professional development to match. No more tinkering.What do I mean by workforce redesign? Let’s look at how workforces in other human enterprises have changed over recent decades. We all know how much manufacturing has changed. Fifty years ago, well-paying manufacturing jobs could be held by hard-working folks who hadn’t even finished high school. Now almost all entry level jobs in manufacturing (if you can find them) require a two-year degree. Additionally, requirements for those who want to succeed in these two-year degree programs are now very similar to those who succeed in a four-year degree program. You may think the manufacturing example does not apply because education deals with people, not things. OK, let’s look at healthcare, a people-centered business, much closer to education. Decades ago (for those old enough to remember), the hospital staff we encountered had one of three roles. They were either doctors, nurses, or someone called an “orderly”. Today there are all different kinds of specialized roles in a hospital environment. You may only be able to tell the role a staff person occupies by looking at a name tag, but each person has a very well-defined role with specific training, authorizations and compensation. Clearly, it is a very different healthcare workforce than 50 years ago. But, if you went into a typical elementary school today, what would you see? The same basic workforce from decades ago – teachers, principals and teacher associates. The preparation and compensation system for teachers and principals hasn’t changed much for a century!
What would the redesign look like? Here are some examples. They are not meant to be prescriptive solutions, but examples to stir discussion about possible courses of action, Career paths for teachers
- If you start off today as a second-grade teacher or high school science teacher, there is almost no opportunity for a more advanced teaching role without leaving teaching for a job in administration. Forty years is a long time for some teachers to remain in the same job without some advancement, even if they find their initial position satisfying. We should also recognize that teachers in their first year or two are not as accomplished as they need to be, and, therefore, deserve more limited responsibilities and better supervisory support. Some more accomplished teachers could receive specific training in providing that support to beginning teachers. Those teachers who chose to provide that support to the beginners could be recognized at a different level of career advancement. The same could be true of teachers who take on other leadership activities with respect to other teachers. This simple scenario could yield three career levels – beginning teachers, career teachers, and advanced teachers – to replace the single level that exists today. They would have different levels of training, compensation and differentiated responsibilities – all without having to severe a relationship to classroom teaching.
- Improved Teacher Compensation Systems
Over 90% of teachers in the United States are paid according to a “salary schedule” adopted by their school district. This mechanism for salary distribution is about a hundred years old. When it was first implemented, it was a great way to attempt to pay men and women equally for the same responsibilities. But it has some flaws. For example, it may take 20 years for reachers to reach the maximum pay for their cumulative experience. But research shows that teachers reach their full efficacy (without further training) in 5-6 years. Why wait 20 years get to the top level of pay for experience for doing the same job? In any other field, a person reaches the top pay for a job in 3-6 years. If the career path I mentioned above were implemented, a career teacher should reach the top level within five years.Under the old salary schedule system, teachers could also receive some additional pay as they accumulated some “units” of college credit or professional development. These are typically the kind of fragmented continuing education credits that have not been shown to have any significant effect on improved instruction or better student learning. We should trade those meaningless increments or “CEUs” for blocks of high-quality professional development that required a demonstration of improved skills on completion. That change would improve teacher effectiveness and teacher compensation as well as providing a leadership and advanced compensation level for those teachers qualifying to provide such training.
- High Quality, Research-Proven Professional Development
The current system assumes that teachers fresh out of their college program are ready to assume the same responsibilities as veteran teachers who have additional experience and additional training. As almost any first-year teacher will tell you, that assumption is unwarranted. There are two-year mentoring programs that can significantly improve a new teacher’s entrance into the profession. These support programs for beginning teachers help teachers and students enjoy greater success. Perhaps most important, if the system provided the kind of professional development design that is well-documented in research, and sketched in the paragraph above, teachers could continue to become more effective with proven teaching strategies that are only acquired through extensive practice and continuing collegial feedback. It takes a comprehensive support system to provide that kind of professional development, and I will address that in another post on support for school districts.
There are other possibilities, but this post is already too long. If you think no one would ever accept these ideas, you might be interested in looking at Chapter 284 of the Iowa Code. The legislation passed but was only partially funded. Only the first story of a three-story house was completed. It is not perfect, but it may be instructive.
(For a PDF of a PowerPoint that explains the Iowa law –https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/SD/21630.pdf–
For the actual law – https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/284.pdf)