Teachers need more time to teach

Simple ideas are a breath of fresh air. Simply put, they invoke the questions: Why did it take so long, or, why didn’t I think of that? Simple ideas are diamonds in the rough. They have provided solutions to many complex problems without having to throw a ton of money at them or working through many layers of bureaucratic static.

In some cases, simple ideas have saved lives. One case in point is the simple idea of providing mosquito netting, while sleeping, to African populations in the malaria-infested country of Senegal. This project exceeded one man’s expectations beyond the original goal. His goal was to reduce malaria by 50 percent. Yet it has reduced malaria by 90 percent. This one simple idea is saving countless lives. Fortunately, to our human benefit, there are many other examples of simple ideas like this that have had tremendous, positive outcomes.

However, and unfortunately, a simple idea has not come to fruition for our education dilemma. That dilemma is we have lost our competitive edge compared to more than a dozen other nations in the world. The research shows that up to fourth grade we are holding our own, but after that we fall behind — dramatically. We may not have found the simple solution to our educational problem (lack of achievement) but the firing of an entire high school staff surely isn’t the answer. This wholesale firing at an underachieving high school in Rhode Island isn’t going to attain the effect the federal government and the school district want. Research points to this type of technique not being the silver bullet. Those teachers did improve test scores over the past two years even though there was a turnover in principals and assistant principals, along with new programs with each new administration, according to U.S. News & World Report. Maybe the latter was the real problem and the teachers were the fall guys?

My first question is, “Wasn’t there one good teacher (or more) in the whole bunch?”

I believe there were 93 teachers not rehired for the next school year. Maybe a more important question would be, “Who would want to teach there now?”

If they want better performance from their students, the research prescribes hiring talented staff, continuing support for good teachers to become great and the hardest part, retaining them. The school district may have wanted to send a message of doing the right thing for kids through this sense of accountability, but I believe this was an example of using a chainsaw approach instead of surgically evaluating and diagnosing the real problem.

Herein lies the rub. How do you effectively evaluate schools to ensure learning and achievement? The federal government, along with some school districts like the Houston (Texas) Independent School District, want to tie test scores directly to the retention of teachers. Again, teachers are being the scapegoats. If that idea becomes the status quo, what would stop teachers from just teaching to the tests? And to continue down that road of thought, is that the kind of learning we want for our children? What about higher levels of learning, like the application of learned skills, or evaluation with providing a rationale for one’s reasoning? Don’t we want our students to have opportunities to think in science and social studies, experience art, drama and enrichment activities, and not just have rote recall for high-stakes standardized testing?

I would not have a problem with tying teacher evaluation to test scores if it was based on the growth model, and if that growth model had a reasonable growth curve. The last federal mandate, No Child left Behind, had, I believe (and many other educators agree) unreasonable expectations of increased percentages of learning. In fact, the mandate required 100 percent of students mastering state standards by 2014. Add to that, there were yearly unattainable benchmark goals for learning. Also, schools were hammered with penalties, labels of failing and funding losses if they didn’t meet those benchmarks.

Those were the schools that needed the most support, not to have it pulled out from underneath them.

The students needed interventions to improve learning and achievement. Hence, teachers needed additional training to administer those interventions, evaluate the results to fine-tune their instruction. And, unfortunately, due to the high-stakes expectations, tests and penalties, some states lowered their standards to meet the benchmarks. That didn’t help anyone, especially students. It was a recipe for failure.

Therefore, teachers need more time to plan, develop and execute an individual plan for each and every student to meet their learning objectives based on accurate and reliable assessment aligned with the highest standards. This is a simple approach to improving student learning, but involves overcoming barriers. The most cumbersome barrier is a public relations issue. The public believes teachers should just do their jobs, and teach. Yet anyone who has spent time in the classroom knows it is like pushing sand against the tide. There are always new programs that require teacher training. There are pacing schedules that set up accelerated rates of instruction, testing, re-teaching, re-evaluating and recording. And not to mention classroom management issues like disruptive students who create roadblocks to learning. Their behaviors need to be addressed when it happens, with appropriate consequences and without interfering with other students’ learning.

If we really want to improve learning and achievement, teachers and students need more time. We need to extend the school year or look at year-round school. We can’t, as teachers, get it done with the days we have now.

The break-neck pacing is not healthy for teachers or students. And it is not student driven, but driven by the calendar. Some students do not have the time to digest and master the material before a new concept is introduced. It is insane to believe we can get it all done in the limited number of days we have now. We keep expecting better results, but we as teachers have to continually do more.

In short, my plate is full, and it keeps getting stacked higher and nothing is ever taken away.

That is no way to help good teachers become great.

They will just burn out. Again, it is a recipe for failure. Let’s begin to at least look at extending our school year to provide adequate time to give our students a fair chance to catch up with the rest of the world. That is a simple enough start to regain our status globally. Teachers can make a difference if we have the time. Time is a simple idea to produce better results for our children. It’s simple enough, and the time is now.

Michael P. Carson teaches at Pioneer Peak Elementary School.