Talking Points, sound bites, and other useful ammunition

Last night, I had a long conversation with someone very thoughtful, and knowledgeable about educational reform. Basically, she asked two things: how do you respond to various criticisms on the quality of teacher preparation, and what kind of innovation is happening at RIC. I tried my best, but in the process realized that I don’t have a list of talking points. Thinking on the fly is not hard, but formulating your thoughts is. And because I felt inarticulate last night, here is my attempt at the next morning come-backs, if you know what I mean.

1. Teacher quality is poor, - one should always ask, in comparison to what?

a. In historical terms, our graduates now are better prepared than any generation of teachers before them. Our grads know more about child development and learning theory than older generation of teachers; they know more about how to teach reading, numeracy, and other basic skills. They know much more about differentiated instruction, diversity, and English language learners. They have stronger content knowledge, and are more carefully screened.

b. In terms of international peers, there is no reliable data for these kinds of comparisons. However, there is no reason to believe that our new teachers are less prepared than those in any other country in the world.

c. If you are measuring up against an ideal – what a beginner teacher SHOULD look like, then no one can measure up to that. This is a moving target, and tends to be unrealistic. None of the pictures of an ideal teacher are based on any kind of research.

d. If you are comparing an average graduate to an exceptionally bright and charismatic young teacher that sometimes is also highly effective, it is a mistake, too. Just because exceptional talent exist does not mean we can count on millions of superheroes to fill the ranks of the most numerous profession. Traffic laws and roads are not designed with NASCAR drivers in mind; we should not assume the education system can operate as if every teacher had extraordinary talent.

2. Blaming teacher preparation for persistent achievement gaps in American schools is like blaming police academies for persistent crime, or blaming medical schools for persistence of the seasonal flu. How about blaming schools of social work for persistence of poverty? Where the problems are systemic, and solutions are elusive, looking for a scapegoat is a natural tendency, which reasonable people should resist.

3. Like in all advanced professions, pre-service training is only the beginning, and intensive in-service training and support are simply necessary. That need has been neglected for many years. Turning an 18 year graduate of a regular high school into a competent beginner teacher is already a miracle we accomplish in four years. Turning an 18 year old into an expert teacher equal to someone with experience is simply impossibility. We never promised that, and never will.

4. On innovation. While a radical redesign of teacher preparation is theoretically possible, not one has proposed it yet. Therefore, we concentrate on improving the existing approaches by learning to collect better assessment data, by organizing curriculum, and by improving quality of field experiences. We realize some people expect a more dramatic story, and a silver bullet, but we are not willing to produce a dog and pony show to entertain the public and harm our real work. It is an ethical and professional choice, not a lack of imagination.

5. We do have a lot of things to improve. For example we need to prepare teachers for classroom assessment, working with special needs and ELL kids, etc. You really need to be a professional to understand most of it. Just because you have children does not make you an expert on education, no more than having eyes makes you an ophthalmologist.

6. The way we are regulated by the State does more harm than good. Its review is all input-based, and takes our time and energy away from really important conversations about improving our programs. NCATE accreditation is marginally better, but the balance of time we spend on it versus actual improvements is still negative.

I am not saying we should always be on defense, but we simply must find a way of inserting our story into the public discourse. To do that, we need to make it accessible, and at least somewhat interesting. We should begin by challenging the most common myths, and knowing our evidence. For example the myth is that American education in general is in decline. That’s is simply not true by any account. International scores are slowly rising, the achievement gaps among ethnic and racial groups is still very large, but slowly shrinking. Teaching preparation is improving. What really does us all damage is the endless series of short-lived spasmodic attempts at reforms, which serve the purposes of building political capital in next election cycle. A lot of work is put in developing programs, which are abandoned as soon as there is a change of guard in state and federal offices. As an example: we looked at the list of state-wide initiatives which the State wants us to teach to our students. The document was revised in 2009, but about half of these initiatives are already defunct. Who can have any trust in reforms if none of them stick long enough to produce any results?