A Letter to Time...

September 20, 2010

Dear Editor:

I read with great interest the articles A Call to Action for Public Schools and How to Recruit Great Teachers. I found many of the author’s points very interesting. However, there were also several points left out that should have been included, and several questions that went unanswered.

Many so-called ‘school choice advocates,’ as well as members of the current Admnistration, quite heavily favor the use of charter schools as an answer to many of the ills facing our country’s public schools. However, charter schools are not always the answer. Charter schools began as an educational ‘experiment’ nearly 20 years ago as a way for traditional public schools to gain new insights and innovations to apply in their own practices. However, nearly two decades later, very few of those innovations have made any form of a transfer to traditional public schools, and as you note in your article in a rather ‘roundabout’ way, many charter schools have become the middle ground between public and private schools and are just a method by which parents can opt out of their local public school.

One major issue that received precious little coverage in A Call to Action for Public Schools is that of the unfunded mandate. The greatest unfunded mandate of the current generation is that of the current Elementary and Secondary Education Act – also known by the misnomer of No Child Left Behind. The entire program of ESEA/NCLB is basically set up backwards. There is, as we are all aware, a heavy emphasis on standardized testing in the current legislation – but where is any notion of student growth? When a student comes into my 3^rd grade classroom on a 1^st grade reading level, and I teach that student for an entire year, and s/he leaves reading on a 2^nd grade level, have I not given that student a full year’s education? Where is the measure of the student’s growth? The answer is simple – no credit is given for such growth, and both the student and the teacher are punished for not being on grade level.

On that same page, there are a (rather well known) series of sanctions built into ESEA/NCLB that quite frankly are constructed backwards. The first sanction is to allow parents to move students to another school – and this sanction is put into place before any supplemental education services (also known as tutoring) are offered at the base school! What sense does this make? Why would you not offer the opportunity to improve at the school where the child has already made social connections and has a support system in place before uprooting him or her? Fixing the broken parts of ESEA/NCLB, and appropriately funding it – or not requiring those components that aren’t funded – is a great first step towards improving public education in the United States.

Throughout the article (and the movie referenced in the article “Waiting for Superman”) much mention is made of the Teach for America program. While Teach for America is a great program and it does show solid results, it is not a stopgap measure for solving all issues with regards to educator recruitment and retention. I had the privilege of teaching in the public schools of North Carolina for seven years before leaving the classroom to become an education consultant with the North Carolina Association of Educators. During that time, I worked with several teachers who were Teach for America fellows. The challenge that I, along with many others, see with Teach for America is that it basically creates ‘educational missionaries.’ These individuals are drawn to some of the toughest schools and have great training – but are only allowed to stay for two years? What sense does that make when one of the biggest issues facing these priority schools that are hard to staff is teacher turnover? Why not let those individuals who have had such intensive training stay? Fortunately, in North Carolina, we have made a provision for those teachers to stay in their schools through a modified alternative licensure program.

In your lengthy discussion surrounding Teach for America and other alternatives to traditional teacher preparation programs, you also omitted several different teacher preparation programs around the country, including one of the most innovative programs which can be found right here in North Carolina. The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, now in its 24^th year, has long been a leader in preparing educators for classroom experience. NC Teaching Fellows are awarded a scholarship of $6,500 each year for up to four years in college in exchange for teaching in a public school in North Carolina for each of those years in which the Fellow receives funding. As an alumnus of the program myself, I can tell you firsthand what this program does for those of us planning to become educators.

Unlike many of my college classmates at the Elon College School of Education, those of us who were NC Teaching Fellows were in schools in the second semester of our freshman year. Getting Teaching Fellows into schools for practical experience actually began the trend of doing such with all education majors that is now pervasive throughout schools of education in North Carolina. The program also provided us with opportunities for enrichment, guest speakers, professional conferences and internship experiences that other education majors were not afforded because they were not Teaching Fellows. As an alumnus of the program, I was more prepared for my first day of teaching than many of my colleagues who began teaching the same year.

The concept of ‘tenure’ is mentioned several times throughout the article. Whenever referenced, it is done so in a very negative light. There is more to the concept of ‘tenure’ than meets the eye. Allow me to explain. Tenure is not a guarantee that ‘bad teachers’ will stay in the classroom…it is mainly a change in status from probationary to career (which is why it is known as career status in many states, including North Carolina). This change in status really only removes the at-will clause, meaning that a teacher can’t simply be released from duty because they wore the wrong color one day, or because of a personality conflict – and yes, both of these are examples of reasons for which probationary educators I know have been fired. If administrators and school boards truly want to remove ‘bad teachers’ or ineffective teachers, they simply need to keep their documentation to prove when issues arise and when said teachers are not taking steps to improve themselves.

While on the topic of professional improvement, I often wonder why it is that we are so quick to throw teachers out into the street just because one evaluator may believe they aren’t meeting the evaluator’s definition of ‘effective’? I’m sure that Mr. Cloud wasn’t a distinguished author when she began her career. Was she supported in her career and nurtured, providing the opportunities for growth necessary to become a top-notch author, or was she simply cast aside with no opportunity for learning to improve her skills? Do we expect that simply because many refer to teaching as a ‘calling’ that every teacher come to work on the first day with every skill set refined to the hilt? Should we in our examination of reform take a look at how we mentor novice teachers, and how we mentor more veteran teachers?

In North Carolina, we have made great strides towards creating an evaluation system that not only recognizes and encourages professional growth, but it also supports educators who are most in need of nurturing and growth. It also has a mechanism for the removal of those educators who are not growing, and are not effective. Our state’s Professional Teaching Standards Commission crafted – with input from educators, parents, and legislators – a set of five professional teaching standards by which all teachers are measured. To further the goal of making those standards a living embodiment in our public schools, those same standards are the backbone of our new Teacher Evaluation Process in North Carolina. Each standard has a series of elements, most of which are demonstrable through an educator’s actual teaching practice. Each teacher will be rated on each element as Developing, Proficient, Accomplished or Distinguished. The evaluation process is truly a growth model, one that will empower teachers to have real involvement in their own professional growth, but which will also encourage teachers and administrators to examine areas in which they need to grow professionally. North Carolina is the first state in the country to have an evaluation system like this in place. Why is it that such a program was not mentioned in this article that so loudly touts other education reforms, focusing those reforms on teachers?

As well, in these highly expansive articles discussing how teachers must grow and how teachers must be effective, why is there absolutely no mention of proven, standards-based and research-driven processes for teacher growth and effectiveness such as National Board Certification. Teachers who pursue National Board Certification must not only deeply examine their own professional practices, but they must reflect on those practices and how their actions impact student learning every day. The National Board Certification process involves four portfolio-based entries which are completed over a series of months, and include an examination of student work samples, videotaped teaching lessons, and an in-depth reflection of the teaching practices that are employed by the teacher. Over the course of the last decade, study after study has shown that National Board Certified Teachers do have a measurable impact on student achievement, and the almighty test score which we have clung to as a measure of student intelligence in this country. Why did Ms. Ripley not examine this process while discussing school reform and teacher effectiveness?

Referring back to Mr. Cloud’s article regarding recruiting better teachers, many good points are made. The byline sums it up nicely – pay and prestige are part of the problem – but there’s one major challenge that he didn’t discuss, and many people for some reason consistently fail to do so, and that is the issue of teacher retention. What good does it do to recruit a teacher if they leave after a few months or a couple of years? As I shared earlier, one of the major issues facing many of our most challenged schools is the amount of heavy teacher turnover. Such turnover exists for a number of reasons – a lack of ‘exciting’ living environment, poverty in the community, an unsupportive administration at the school, an uninterested or undeveloped parent population, and the list goes on. When are we, as a country and an educational ‘establishment’ going to take seriously the issue of teacher retention?

As the article notes, pay is one major issue. When I left the classroom, I made roughly $38,000 per year – and that included extra duty pay. That was after having taught for seven years. Why should someone have to work for ten years just to break the $40,000 per year barrier? I realize that to many, $40,000 may seem way too high to pay “just a teacher,” especially “just a teacher who gets three months off in the summer.” But they are wrong.

The justification? First, I don’t know of any teacher who actually gets ‘three months off in the summer.’ Most teachers don’t end the school year until mid-June, and then there’s a series of workdays after that. Thus, the real “summertime” break for traditional schools is actually two months, not three. School in many states may not begin until after Labor Day, but you can rest assured that teachers are back in schools before then, as there’s also a series of workdays prior to students returning. Most teachers also spend time in the summer months pursuing professional development while school is not in session (for traditional calendar schools), thus the notion of a three month vacation is not only a misnomer, it’s a myth.

Second, if one were to calculate the number of hours an average teacher spends working both in and out of the classroom during the regular school year, it would likely be about twelve hours (time teaching, time planning, time meeting, time grading…). Now…take that twelve hours per day, and multiply it by the North Carolina teacher’s school year – 215 days (180 of which are student contact days). You end up with 2,580 hours. Now, divide that into the base salary of a fifth year teacher in North Carolina, which is $31,290. That gets you $12.13 per hour. $12.13 per hour. Why would anyone want to work in a profession that is consistently beaten down, consistently criticized as ‘not good enough,’ and where the professionals themselves are rarely heard when raising issues about their own jobs for less than one could make as a manager at Wendy’s? That doesn’t even take into account the number of education professionals who must work a second or third job to make ends meet!

Most assume that this issue is where teachers unions come into play, and why ‘all we ever hear is unions harping about teacher pay and benefits.’ But salary and benefits is not all for which teachers unions stand. In full disclosure, I mentioned earlier that I am an education consultant for the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE). NCAE is the state affiliate in North Carolina for the National Education Association. Prior to joining NCAE staff, I was a proud member of NCAE as a classroom teacher, and was a local leader in both Forsyth and Wake Counties. I will always be Proud to be NCAE, because of the work that we do every day to exemplify the mission of creating great public schools for every student in our actions as both a union and a professional association. Quite frankly, I’m rather tired of hearing how unions are bad, how unions block progress, and how unions prevent true education reform. I fail to see how guaranteeing one’s due process rights a bad thing! Such is one of the major functions of teacher unions, and the NEA specifically.

In this country, our legal system is based upon the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty. Why would we run our schools differently? And where is the mention of the good work that unions do? The National Education Association has for decades worked to find solutions to issues such as teacher retention, improving graduation rates, lowering dropout rates, working with students of poverty, and supporting priority schools. Where is the mention (or the discussion) of the work of teachers unions around closing achievement gaps? Where do your authors share thoughts about teaching students of all achievement and socioeconomic levels? Teachers unions are about more than pay and benefits. We are about educating the whole child, and every action we take proves it. As the motto of the North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey says, ‘Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions!’ None of these issues, or these viewpoints, were taken into account in the articles published in Time. I fail to see how this magazine can maintain its reputation as a fair and non-biased publication with such one-sided and slanted articles that leave out information.

Very truly yours,

Elic A. Senter

Franklinton, NC