WGBH Lectures; WGBH Forum Network; The Future of Teaching in Massachusetts Part 1

Thanks John and thanks WGBH for hosting today's forum. I mean it was a bit over a year ago actually that this series of new forms and discussions launched and launched right here in Boston at WGBH in the other studio. And in fact I think it was the week that before we moved into these wonderful new space. And so as my foundation is very gratified to fund this series of forms which has now gone to major country major Maybe that's next major countries in major cities across the nation. And we're pleased to really to return to Boston really where this. Second series I started to share insights that have been gained from those concerns. Those forums and to consider the very important topic which you see here the future of teaching in Massachusetts I think the

challenge that all of us face whether it's large school systems small school systems big schools or small schools is to find ways to encourage the development of cultures that truly encourage the development of collaborative supportive relationships that are student centered and focused on achievement and that support teachers and help teachers to learn grow and develop in their craft. Findings from our it's the MetLife survey of the American teachers recent findings increasingly have shown that there are quite marked differences in the way new teachers and veteran teachers see things. And so I think schools as communities need to balance Of course the value of experience with the value of new perspectives and each has

much to learn from each other over the next decade some new teachers may look very different than new teachers do today. We're beginning to be told that many mid career and later career professionals looking for no new meaning and a continuing working life may be become new teachers in fact. A recent. The study that was done by Woodrow Wilson National fellowships was support from MetLife Foundation documented that as many as 42 percent of working Americans between the age of 24 and 60 years old said they would consider becoming a teacher in the future. So teaching is being recognized again for the important and rewarding field that it can be. But what are we going to do to meet the demand for new

teachers and to meet the demands and expectations of new teachers whether they're 20 40 or 60. How are we going to support schools by making certain that good teachers wish to remain teaching. And how are we going to do this in a tough economy. And do it better than it's been done before. A good place to start always I think is looking for answers and ideas is with teachers themselves. And we had met life for just completing our 25th survey of the American teacher. The theme is past present and future and it really looks at questions over time. And though it's too early to release these findings I think a much has changed over 25 years and much has been remained the same. There is

marked improvement in teacher satisfaction so there is reason for encouragement in teachers views about their profession about their schools and about their students. But the teachers also identify substantial continuing challenges particularly in secondary education and in our our urban schools. There will also be good news when when this survey is completed about progress and parental involvement. Yet substantial concerns remain about whether collaboration among teachers principals students parents and communities is sufficient. And of high enough quality to help all students. And it's interesting and not surprising probably to those of us in the room that in this survey virtually all principals and teachers surveyed acknowledge the importance of teamwork. Yet they can

benefit from seeing what good teamwork looks like on the ground day to day. We Have Met Life Foundation think that Nick tat is not only well positioned to promote the importance of collaboration as a way to strength in our schools but also. To showcase the practical examples of how to do it well. Nick Tatham helps to connect educators policymakers researchers and community leaders sort of as the honest broker in very practical ways that can strengthen classrooms and lives supportive relationships a thriving culture. After all it is vital if we want to inspire and retain teachers and better ensure students success. Thank you servo. I'm time Carol and I'm the president of the National Commission on

teaching in America's future. And I want to begin the panel process in the discussion here with a couple of thoughts. One is as we all know we're in a new economy or in a knowledge workforce knowledge based workforce. It's a different economy than the one that most of us grew up in and went to school in. And the central feature of this economy is that learning is no longer preparation for the job. It is the job. Learning is the job. OK so we have to start to think that as we prepare students to participate in this economy we're not preparing them for work the learning itself is going to be the work throughout their lives throughout their careers. They're going to be engaged in a constant process of learning collaborative teamwork problem solving inquiry creativity. That's what their schools need to look like.

Learning is the job for the future and our students need to be immersed in that kind of an environment from the beginning. What it means is. We have to change the business model of our schools our schools need to shift from being teaching organizations to being learning organizations in fact. We need to organize them differently. And if we're going to do that then we have to start to ask and answer questions about what is the 21st century. Teachers need to know and be able to do to work in and to lead a learning organization with students. That is what we think the issue is for the future of teaching. If we focused on what that teacher needed to know and be able to do in effect what those students are going to need to know and be able to do. We also have to ask ourselves how do their schools need to be organized to make it possible for them to do that work. OK. No longer bounded by the walls of the classroom in the building

but starting to look like the learning organizations that they're going to work with collaborative team environments in Gage with all kinds of resources in the community. So that's the kind of discussion I think that we're going to need to have here and I hope that we have today really at two levels. One is there's a set of policies and leadership frameworks in place in states around the country that can help us get there. We need some new policies we need some policies to change. We need to think about what that is. But we also then need to think down on the ground which will be our second panel. How do we start to restructure schools restructure the teaching process what does it look like when we get down on the ground and that'll be our second panel. I want to take a moment and thank cival Jacobson and the MetLife Foundation VEI have been leading fund funders on this issue early on four years ago almost now they recognized the importance of shifting. The model

of teaching from the standalone teacher in an isolated classroom to a collaborative team environment and they've been working closely with us on this and we thank them for the support they've been giving us. I also want to thank Zimmerman who is senior fellow at UMass Donahue Institute. She's here somewhere and I think probably most of you if you're in Massachusetts must know Lisa she's been part of our coalition here putting this event together along with Charlie Desmond who's with the tougher Foundation and he's also a new member of the Board of Higher Education he's not able to be here with us this morning but we've been working closely with him on this to kick this off. I want to introduce. I'm a cultural anthropologist by the way and I'm always interested by the fact of introductions which are a ritual in which I introduce you to somebody that you are already know better than I know him. OK.

So but it is my pleasure to introduce someone who's leading the charge on change and reform in the Commonwealth. Prior to being appointed Secretary of Education Paul Rudd will serve as the president of the rainy center as well as the director of education policy and program management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Paul was the founding executive director of the Alliance for education and educational improvement organizations serving wester in central Massachusetts. Prior to his work at the Alliance Paul was a principal and education director and a teacher at two alternative secondary schools. Paul currently oversees the Executive Office of Education which is leading a statewide readiness project initiative which is a 10 year strategic plan for the future of education in a common row. Please welcome Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul revel. Thanks. Thank you and thank you Nick Taff and MetLife Foundation

and all of you for being here to talk about this important subject I'm honored to be on stage with this distinguished panel of colleagues all of whom have been co workers in the vineyards for a long time and I'm very excited about the prospects ahead as we think about teaching and where we're going in in the immediate future and on the subject of teaching. Nick Taft has been an enormous force for the good in advocating in challenging us to think different think more broadly about our concept of teaching and where we're going with teaching and nothing could be more important. Back to my prepared notes that somebody wrote today there's a the opening phrase about you know nothing is more important to students future than teaching and it strikes me looking at that. How we don't have to say that anymore we can take that sort of as a given in gatherings like this when we come together but the preeminent importance of teaching that wasn't the case 10 or 15 years ago it's become an established fact to the point where it's almost a cliche now. So the question becomes how do we enact it.

As I thought about talking about teaching course I'm a teacher and I'm glad they mentioned in the introduction. You know I began my career as a teacher as a street worker as an organizer of Street Academy in the housing projects in Somerville. And you know since then I have taught in a variety of capacities for have an easy life in teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where you have motivated students you know on a clear agenda and a selection process and so on and so forth. Periodically I'm reminded this past Sunday I was in my church where I teach in the Sunday school from time to time and there were three of us adults there were seven students three of them were ADHD students. There was a parent with us at the same time we had about 45 minutes. We had a very tight agenda and as I say very favorable ratio's. But it was one of those experiences that when it was over it just enhanced and deep in your appreciation for what teachers all across the commonwealth do because it was just too. We had we made the mistake of

having candles involved in this activity as a student engagement incentive. And it was really by the time we were done with it you were somewhat jangled for the rest of the day. And it was just a very challenging situation so I I deeply appreciate my co-teacher said afterwards I have such an enhanced appreciation for teachers in our Commonwealth do six seven eight hours a day every day five days a week and it's relatively speaking much easier for those of us to get together in gatherings like this and think about the future of teaching but it's a really important thing to do and it's something that we're governors deeply committed to. There's you know the readiness project and Jackie Jenkins Scott Co Chair that readiness project and I'll be talking about that in a moment saw the future of teaching and strengthening the teaching profession as a critical ingredient. And our new commissioner of education our Board Chair more

abbat our colleagues on the Board of Education are deeply committed to enacting this call this challenge to strengthening the teaching profession in a variety of ways. Indeed our whole theory of action you know as we looked at the landscape of Massachusetts school reform and saw a lot of things to celebrate and a lot of things to be concerned about especially achievement gaps as we look toward the future depended on this notion of realizing the ideals we had in the Education Reform Act of 1993 of educating all of our students to proficiency. And what we have set in readiness is that we got the goals right. But we didn't sufficiently build the capacity especially the capacity in the area of teaching and also the capacity in the area of supporting students to take advantage of enhanced teaching. So it's one of our major theories of action. That it wasn't enough in 1903 to simply say that we want all students to be at proficiency and figure that teachers would know

how to do it or would operate under conditions that would allow them to do it. We needed to dig more deeply and think about what it is that teachers need to know and be able to do to realize that ideal and how we change the conditions of teaching and learning in order to make that possible. We want a profession a teaching profession in Massachusetts that it tracks that develops that sustains the very highest quality talent in our society for what is arguably the most important job in our society and for us and for the conception that's outlined in the readiness project. This means a fundamental re conception of the teaching profession from stem to stern. Everything from how we recruit teachers to how we prepare teachers to how we induct teachers and mentor them to how we reward them for their performance on the job to how we create career ladders to how we structure schools and school time to create communities of adult learners so that schools aren't

just places where children learn but there are places where adults are continually learning and they feel part of a team and part of a community in those environments. To how we conceptualize tenure in the profession that is is it. Are we aiming to get people to come into our profession for 40 years or would a dozen years or 15 years be a good target to shoot for. All of that comes with what I think we need to do which is reinventing the teaching profession. If we look at the data if we look at what's going on in this city for example the fact that we lose more than 50 percent of our new teachers after three years it should tell us we've not created an attractive sustaining profession and that we need to do a better job in that way. So it has to start with recruitment with who we who we draw into the field. We have to think about things that I think the value of this is exaggerated in popular discourse these days but I do think it's relevant to think about matters like differential pay to think about

if we have shortages in certain fields we were determined to educate our students to high levels and we can't find qualified teachers to come in at the salaries were willing to pay that we may have to differentiate in certain subjects to think about differentiating pay with respect to. How we assign teachers we know there are inequities in the way we assign teachers to schools and sometimes the most challenging students get the least qualified or the least experienced teachers. And we need to do something in our incentive system in that regard. We need to think more deeply the governor and I are not commence now's the time to go for merit pay and try to make a direct connection between student performance and teacher performance but we do need to think more deeply about how we evaluate quality in teaching and be willing to come forward as a profession to indicate what those indicators are what those metrics might be because in the general public's mind and in our own rhetoric for that matter we make a direct quote connection between the quality of teaching and student

learning. And if we make that connection rhetorically we ought to be prepared to show how to measure it in ways that are more than just the sort of historical intuitive black box explanations for what happens in a classroom. So we need to think about that. We need to look at the way we provide incentives for people to come into this field. A suggestion in the readiness project is to have another look at the way we do contracts to contemplate things like a master teacher contracts state wide to contemplate differential menus for benefits so we don't have a single kind of contract that applies to every teacher monolithically that comes into the profession but for those who may only want to stay 5 10 15 years in our profession they wait may want higher salary and and less in the way of long term benefits up front. So we need to think more about that and think about those assignment practices. We are convinced by the research on the first several years of

teaching in the field and that we've got to do a much better job on high quality mentoring. And we need I think to challenge our schools of education to be engaged in that work to see their work not just as the preparation of teachers but being engaged with teachers during their first three years on the job because that appears to be the time that makes or breaks them in terms of their future commitment to the profession and the degree of efficacy they develop on the job. You know I often mention my own experience in classes on Education Policy at Harvard where we we have dozens of students come who are refugees from urban school systems after two to five years on the job and feel they can no longer sustain a future working in that kind of capacity and they routinely tell us they didn't have much of anything in the way of mentoring in induction if they had a mentoring program it was inadequate or ineffective. They had professional development that was largely irrelevant to making them and they hear and a stronger teacher in their

classrooms with their students. And they tell us too often stories about drive by supervision and evaluation because principals and school leaders don't have time to do the job that we constantly exhort them to do that of being instructional leaders. But we haven't created the environment or structure. Within our schools to make it possible for principals in fact to be instructional leaders. So that's something we need to work on. We need to create the environment in schools it's what expanded learning time in Massachusetts is about the governor continues to be committed to expanded learning time that's not just about student time although importantly it's about student time because we're going to need more time for students to learn in structured environments. If we have any hope of achieving the 21st century goals and objectives that we've set they go far far broader than what our schools were expected to do a hundred plus years ago. But some of that time also needs to be dedicated to teachers to allowing teachers to do the professional work that we challenge them to do to look at data

on student performance to compare strategies for teaching in order to get better learning results to observe one another in practice to have opportunities to talk about those practice experience and to redirect their strategies within the classroom. All of this takes time and it takes a structure within our schools that the current framework six hours a day one hundred eighty days a year simply doesn't allow for. So we need to think about that. We need. Think in our preparation programs of more of a client server kind of relationship between our school systems and those who prepare are teachers. It's why we're so encouraged by the work of the Boston teacher residency program and programs like that all across the country that are kind of reinventing preparation and immersing students in work in classrooms with the kinds of students who they will work with in their futures and giving them wrap around support in understanding and learning from those situations as new teachers.

We are proposing and intend to move forward on readiness centers and readiness centers are regional associations of people in pre-K K-12 and higher education who come together for the expressed purpose of working collaboratively to improve the quality of teaching within that region. And there are many roles in many different directions in which these centers may go. We intend that they be focused on central challenges in our field like that of educating English language learners or working with new teachers in their first three years on the job or early literacy or any number of other topics. But we intend to move forward on that in the near future and we've had a number of volunteers in different regions of the state where we need capacity. To move forward on that our proposal for readiness schools is another challenge in this way. It's a challenge to the field of education to invent schools within our existing mainstream school systems under the jurisdiction of our school

committees that allow for teachers to step forward and take professional practice responsibility to in effect go into professional practice as a group themselves and to no longer be managed by others of whom they've complained for a long time but in fact to take over management of schools under performance contracts with school committees and to run the schools in the way that honors instruction and honors the teaching profession that we've not been able to do before and we'd like to see those readiness schools move forward. We don't believe that the only people who can be innovative that the only people who can offer choice that the only people who can offer challenging 21st century schools are people outside of our school systems we believe the people in the systems can do it themselves. But it takes shutting certain traditions and moving forward and stepping up to new responsibilities. We're looking at the Board of Education you'll be hearing a lot soon about 21st century skills. We know that we need to get all of our students to

proficiency in the core subjects as we define them in 1903 but we also know we want a well-rounded education for all of our children and we want our children. To be globally aware we want them to be able to work in groups we want them to be able articulate oral arguments to use complex modern technology to solve complex problems. We want them to be creative and be able to think in inventive ways about solving problems and carving out a niche for themselves as high knowledge high skill workers of the 21st century. So we're going to be doing a lot about re-examining the kind of content and the way we assess that and accountability in the way we prepare teachers the way we develop curriculum that will soon be a major push from the board. We know that data is critical to teachers doing their job more effectively as well as the expertise to use the data and the time to examine it. So we're going to be working on formative data and value added kinds of data that gets real time data in the hands of teachers so that they can act on it with today's students and do

something tomorrow to be more effective in their practice. So in the end there are a lot of different fronts we need to move on. Many have suggested in the in recent weeks that given the financial crisis that we're facing we can't afford to move ahead on the readiness vision. And quite to the contrary the governor I believe strongly that these matters that we're talking about today and in other areas of the readiness project. Urgently needed now in fact they're imperative if we're to avoid finding ourselves as a society and as an economy in this kind of predicament for the foreseeable future. If we're going to turn this around the cost of not doing what we have proposed doing in readiness will far exceed the cost of doing it. So that's going to in effect make a challenge for all of us at every level of the system at the policy level at the level of management administration at the level of practice. We all have to work together to reinvent the profession and re describe the profession

management has got to step up and let go of certain kinds of responsibilities and authorities they've historically had to work collaboratively with people in the teaching profession unions are going to have to step up and let go of the sort of historical industrial model of the way in which we think about teaching and teachers and teacher time in this environment. Policymakers are need are going to need to provide the resources and create the conditions and challenges that will enable the field to reinvent itself and develop that kind of profession that I described earlier. That will serve as a beacon to attract the top talent in our society to develop that talent were it were an industry that's heavily invested in people and we spend so little in developing the talent that we have to sustain that talent in this profession which is so critically important to the future of our society so I commend you on your deliberations today your work here. Governor I are

eager to move forward on this agenda and to work with all of you who contribute in so many different ways to this important work. We have no time to lose we can afford to take a year or two off to wait a financial crisis to go away we're going to get going on it immediately and I look forward to working with you. Thank you very much.