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Public Education Ensures Our Future

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“What do you do?”, I was asked.

“I am a public educator.”

“What does that mean?”, he continued.

Declaring oneself to be a public educator is not a common response to “what do you do?”.  From a person working in education, one more commonly hears “I am a teacher”, “I teach math (or 2nd grade or children with special needs)”, I am a high school teacher”, “I coach basketball”, “I am a school counselor”, or “I am the principal at…”.  Those asked usually provide a more precise answer by stating their employment assignment.  Seldom is “public educator” given in a response to “what do you do?”. 

“As a public educator, I prepare each high school graduate to be an informed, inquiring, skill-based young adult citizen ready to be a productive member of our society.”

Is the concept of public important?  Not so much and then very much.

Teacher preparation is what and who we teach.

PI 34 or Chapter 34 of the Wisconsin Administrative Code is the “bible” for teacher licensing in our state.  Licensing programs are tactically written to validate a teacher candidate’s understandings and provide evidence of the candidate’s proficiency in each standard prescribed by PI 34 for a particular teaching license.  Successful candidates are endorsed by their college or university to receive a DPI license to teach a curriculum supported by the issued license.  That is to say, the job of a teacher has fences around it – the grade levels and the specified content of the license issued.  The term “silo” is applied to a variety of descriptors about teaching.  Teachers work within their licensure silo; they are content and grade level specialists.

Our local school is a confederation of these specialist teachers.  We display our faculty roster by teacher name as well as by teaching assignment.  When we advertise a teaching position, we do not list the simple word “teacher” but clearly state the specific licensure we seek.  Our mosaic of teachers is very effective in causing all our students to achieve success in their schooling.  Without failure, when asked “what do you do?”, our specialists will correctly identify their teaching license, their silo of expertise within our school’s faculty.

As a mosaic, take out any one of the many specialist pieces and our school fails to teach all children the curricula they need to learn.  We build a synergy of teaching by uniting all our specialists to our school’s mission and high-performance standards.

Public Education is why we teach.

Chapter 34 does not include the word “public” in its definitions or in its statutory requirements for the establishment of teacher preparation programs or the endorsement of a person as a licensed educator.  It determines what and who we teach, not why we teach.

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/pi/34/iv/012

In contrast to Chapter 34’s licensing teachers as specialists, Chapter 118 of the Wisconsin Administrative Code, General School Operations, provides the “public” to public education.  The chapter states the purpose, goals, and expectations of public schools.  Section one tells us “Public education is a fundamental responsibility of the state” and there is a “… common understanding of what public schools should be and do…”.  The “be and do” is “Each school board should provide curriculum, course requirements and instruction consistent with the goals and expectations established under sub (2) with … the development of academic skills and knowledge is the most important goal for schools…”.  This is the why statement of public education: to create an educated citizenry.

The specifics of public education, the goals and expectations of our state government for the education of all citizens, are detailed in the chapter’s subsequent sections.  The legislation describes the minimal education of the public in our state in the areas of

  • academic basic skills
  • vocational skills
  • citizenship, and
  • personal development.

I cherry pick statements from each to demonstrate the breadth of what a public education in Wisconsin is supposed to “be and do”.

From academic basic skills –

  • “Analytical skills, including the ability to think rationally, solve problems, use various learning methods, gather and analyze information, make critical and independent judgments and argue persuasively.”
  • “The skills and attitudes that will further lifelong intellectual activity and learning.”

From vocational skills –

  • “An understanding of the range and nature of available occupations and required skills and abilities.”
  • “Positive work attitudes and habits.”

From citizenship –

  • “An understanding of the basic workings of all levels of government, including the duties and responsibilities of citizenship.”
  • “An appreciation and understanding of different value systems and cultures.”
  • “At all grade levels, an understanding of human relations, particularly with regard to American Indians, Black Americans, and Hispanics.”
  • “A commitment to the basic values of our government, including by appropriate instruction and ceremony the proper reverence and respect for and the history and meaning of the American flag, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the constitution and laws of this state.”

From personal development –

  • “The skills needed to cope with social change.”
  • “Ability to construct personal ethics and goals.”
  • “Knowledge of morality and the individual’s responsibility as a social being, including the responsibility and morality of family living and the value of frugality and other basic qualities and principles…”
  • “Knowledge of effective means by which pupils may recognize, avoid, prevent and halt physically or psychologically intrusive or abusive situations which may be harmful to pupils, including child abuse, sexual abuse, and child enticement.”

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/118/01

One graduating class at a time

School boards, according to the statutes and in real time governance, are responsible for the education of children on their pathway to becoming adult citizens.  Boards do this one graduating class at a time.  Although graduation requirements are a list of course requirements, they speak to the totality of what a student learns in elementary and secondary school.  A 4K-12, chapter 118-based curricula is both broad and deep, requiring attention to foundational and well-scaffolded skill sets.  An education is not achieved by learning or becoming proficient in one academic subject, but by learning the necessary content and skills of a broad array of subjects.

Although students complete annual grade level and course content curricula, most of the outcomes of a public education are not known until well after a graduating class leaves school.  Looking at the mandates of Chapter 118, we don’t know how well students understand and can apply knowledge of vocational skills until they do so in their post-high school life.  And, some outcomes, such as citizenship, are exercised continuously in adulthood.  The quality of a public education is not assessed in our statewide testing systems but is demonstrated by each graduate in their post-high school years.

The mandate of public education is a monumental task.  The role of public educators is to constantly keep our school boards and their educational programs focused on annual achievement goals that, in the aggregate, contribute to a well-educated public.  A person who identifies as a public educator takes a 360-degree view of a 4K-12 education, using achievement data to ensure students are on track to meeting the goals of Chapter 118.  While a teacher focuses on the test data of the content/skills the teacher teaches, a public educator examines a wider swath of data.  Math and reading test data indicates proficiency in math and reading.  Daily attendance data indicates commitment and persistence to being educated.  Student disciplinary data indicates abilities to work and achieve within social and organizational guidelines.  Problem-based and project-based experiences indicate abilities to set goals, analyze information, and strategize problem/project solutions.  Participation in school life indicates healthy socio-emotional dispositions.  Public educators monitor and adjust a multitude of factors that assist children to grow towards successful life as adults.

The graduation handshake

One of the joys for a superintendent and school board member is a handshake with each high school graduate.  In our smaller school districts, the administrator and board member knew each graduating senior over the years of her 4K-12 education.  When the graduate’s name is read, a panoply of memories of the student’s in-school experiences rises as she walks across the graduation stage.  Giving a diploma with one hand and a handshake with the other is a wonderful symbolizing that the goals of a public education will be met in the graduate’s future.

Given the privilege of time and opportunity, we get to check the verity of that confidence in interactions with our local school graduates when they are residents, homeowners, gainfully employed, and often parents of children enrolled in our schools. 

A public education begets our next community.

School Requires less Moore

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If I was educated in school, what am I now?  Am I edu-inoculated for years to come?  The concept of an educated person is a constantly moving target.  Each generation goes to school to graduate with a diploma certifying proficiency in a curriculum that is out of date or semi-irrelevant almost before the cap and gown have been removed.  How is this so?  We apply Moore’s Law regarding the speed at which computer chip generations change to education.  Except for “rear view mirror studies” of history and literature as soon as something is learned in the present tense it is morphed and altered with new applications and needs of the future.  Schooling today is not about being educated but about skills for a student’s ability to be constantly educating for all the years after graduation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

Want a case in point?  Members of the Class of 22 struggled to write the perfect college admissions essay or job application.  Members of the Class of 23 will insert key words and an AI bot will generate as many essays and applications as class members could want.  Moore told us this would happen.  Education does not stand still.

Why is this thus?

We are an additive addicted people.  We are addicted to the next new thing and want it immediately.  Our closets are full of past year’s shoes.  Our garages brim with gizmos that popped up in yesterday’s social media ad.  Our front doors are drop off stations for Amazon Prime.  We see it, we order it, we have it!  We are addicted to the next things to add to our lives and the almost instant gratification of Internet shopping.

“New and more” are our go to solutions to problems.  At the end of every commercial we anticipate the “…But wait!”, and the next bit of something we can purchase appears.  Check your credit card bills to ascertain your personal addictions.

Addictive addiction also applies to education and it makes our current concepts of academic education obsolete.  For our children to be educated for a life of education, Moore must become less to become better.

Where to start? 

Empty the closet of what no longer works or is needed.

For almost 120 years public education has used the Carnegie Unit, the assignment of one graduation credit for one hour of daily instruction for one school year, as the gold standard for validating school learning.  In our local school, a high school graduate must complete 26 credits of prescribed and elective course work.  These are piled on the faux credits of middle school’s annual curricula of ELA, math, science, and social studies, that are piled on annual grade level curricula in elementary school.  4K-12 schooling is a box of Carnegie Units that depict our concept of education as an aggregate of additives.

The purpose of the Carnegie Unit was to standardize and stabilize secondary education using a collegiate model.  This filled a need in 1906 that does not exist in 2023.  The fact that we still use the Unit is testimony to education’s resistance to change.  Sticking to four credits of English, three credits of math, three credits of science, and three credits of social studies assured that our out-of-date academics were change resistant.  When the next “add this” is discussed by a school board, the educator’s response should be “The class day is full and can take no more.

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/the-high-school-credit-hour-a-timeline-of-the-carnegie-unit/2022/12

Trade in the Unit for proficiencies

We, as educators, need to focus education on educational skills graduates will need to remain educable over time.  Here is the “new bimodal model”:  our 4K-8 students need to be proficient in academic skills needed for lifelong learning AND our grade 6-12 students need to be proficient in the use of knowledge and skills that can be expanded over time for their adult successes. 

We must teach the essential life skills and dispositions for children in our primary grades that will be the foundation of their life’s continuing education.  Everything else in 4K-12 and post-graduation education and training is application and extension requiring these essential life skills.  It really is easy once we scrape back all the “nice to do” and “momentary enrichments” that cloud our ability to educate children for lifelong learning.

Proficiencies for the elementary school; all else is secondary

  • Ability to read and listen, comprehend, analyze, and effectively use information to illuminate a student’s world.
  • Ability to effectively listen and communicate (express ourselves through speech, writing, art, and music). 
  • Ability to quantify, measure, and value through statistical analysis. 
  • Ability to tolerate, collaborate, and cooperate in a multi-cultural, multi-dimensional world.
  • Ability to respect and expect respect.

Why these?

The concept follows the truth of “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.  If you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime”.  Moore tells us that the speed of life changes is inexorable.  Information is a daily flood.  We are exposed to more things to see and hear every day.  Therefore, essential skill sets that universally underlie Moore’s predicted changes need to be the foundational curriculum for every child.  Regardless of what our future presents, these are skill sets that will allow children growing into adulthood to learn and always be educated to meet their future.

How do we do this? 

  • Align school board, administrators, and teachers to prescribed and defensible standards of student performance.

School boards, school leadership, and faculty are the products of past education.  Start by declaring a new day; set aside the confines of how you were educated.  Do not approve a future that is a clone of the past.

Historically, we provided children with instruction.  “Provided” was a soft euphemism for “here it is kids, learn what you can” of what the school offers.  Today, we must ensure student learning and performances validate learning.  “Ensure” means we teach until we have evidence that all children meet or exceed the board-adopted standards.  We no longer offer; we teach for learning.

Alignment starts with school board policies that are crafted by insightful school leaders and faculty.  Within each policy must be wording that tells teachers, children, and parents, “these are the minimum proficiencies that your child must perform to qualify for promotion to the next grade”.  Alignment continues with principals working with each teacher to write and teach units and lessons that incrementally cause all children to achieve the required proficiencies.  Alignment means that teachers can use all appropriate skills to ensure the teaching and learning of the required proficiencies.  Alignment means that parents must be adults with their children and support the teacher’s instruction.  This does not mean that parents do not partner with their children’s teachers to mutually understand and daily schoolwork; but it does mean that all partnering is focused on a child’s achievement of required proficiencies.

  • Commit to 4K through grade 5 learning proficiencies. 

Commitment means to ensure that every child has successfully learned grade level proficiencies through 5th grade for these essential skills.  Every child must be proficient.

For too long instruction has been time-based and taught to the standard of “if you don’t learn it this year, you will be taught it next year”.  In an industrial culture that needed socialized and literate workers, graduates who never achieved proficiency in their essential skills found employment and adult life in factories.  They were taught shop specific skills necessary for daily work.  Many became skilled in the trades of the shop – foundry men, iron workers, mill operators, fabricators, assembly linemen (and women).  I worked in the 60s and 70s with meat packers who started on the hog side of the plant doing entry level work and were promoted to skilled knife trimmers over the years.  These men and women earned a good living and raised their families based upon the industrial wage and benefit.  Those jobs no longer exist.

School boards must devise policies for administrators to enforce true proficiency standards for each grade’s skill sets.  This starts with board members holding firm to standards of student performance, because there will be hue and cry for exceptions.  No problem.  Accommodation will allow all students to meet the standards without disregarding the standards.

  • Commit to the professional development required for all teachers to teach to high student performance standards.  This level of teaching does not exist universally today because educational traditions expect student performances to conform to a bell curve and teachers teach to that expectation.  To lop off the left-hand side of the bell curve, teachers need training in explicit assessment and instruction and reinforced commitment that all children will perform at or above the former mean.
  • Achieve the impossibility:  Every child reads, writes, speaks, and listens at a 5th grade level of a standards-based curriculum.  Every child not just the top 10%.

No school board has been able to say this historically.  No community has ever been able to say this to all their children.  It has been impossible when boards were blindly locked to archaic concepts of schooling.  And, as long a board lacked commitment to universal high standards for student performance.  And, if excuses were acceptable.  Eliminate the archaic concepts and accept no excuses.

What is the future of Moore?

There always will be change.  The speed and volume of change will increase.  Moore got it right.

If we separate 4K-5 education from 6-12 education, we ca apply Moore to secondary education only after we have made all children in elementary school secure with the skill sets that will allow them to understand and apply the changes they are presented.  No Moore until children are ready for Moore.

If you want parrots, teach birds not children

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Talking about education cannot withstand a vacuum.  Just when the reading wars are subsiding, and masks have come off other versions of passion-based arguing rise to poke public education.  Peruse any recent educational journal, education reporter in your local newspaper, and be prepared for oppositional values wars (oppositional meaning my side v. your side, not just red or blue).

And hypocrisy knows no bounds.  The banners read “Educate, Don’t Indoctrinate”.  If the subliminal message is “Indoctrinate with my doctrine only”, are we having a discussion or a demand?

What do we know?

We were forewarned.  The first warning long ago was “all politics are local”.  Regarding education, partisan value issues have a difficult path at the national level.  Congress has little to do with schooling.  It is not easier at the state level; fifty states and cats are hard to corral.  Efforts at the statehouse level face tough sledding unless the governor, house/assembly, and senate are on the same page on the same day.  If they are, all that follows is a one-sided story.  Grass roots politics are at the county, city, town, township, and village levels and this is where the real arguments about education are being waged.

The second warning was “local schools and local rules” mean “who controls school board elections controls local schools”.  School board membership has become the logical and easy target for any faction of a community active and driven enough to change local schools into their own image.  Split the ballot with enough candidates, narrow the field with a primary, and run for the board in a spring election on a non-Presidential election year.  The spring election is the ballot that traditionally brings out the fewest voters.  And, voila!  A person or persons representing a small fraction/faction with a particular agenda can be school board members.  Swinging several seats and a new majority of a usual seven-member board can control local schools through local rules.  Easy peasy!

What do we know about school governance?

There are 421 school districts in Wisconsin, each with its statutory school board.  By statute, members are agents of the state responsible for local school governance including adherence with state rules and policies.  Board membership involves attendance at the board’s regular business, committee, and special meetings.  The Milwaukee Public Schools Board is an outlier with member salaries of $36,000+ and the meeting demands of a large, complex, urban district.  Board work is a business in our largest district and a small, part-time job in most WI districts.  Typical board members in the hundreds of small districts receive an honorarium of $2-3,000 and meeting obligations require less than 10 hours per month.

School board members typically are not prepared for the vitriol of agenda-based arguments or attacks.  Most members rise from the traditional school booster groups of parents committed to educational programs for their children and their children’s peer group.  Their usual challenges are how to sustain current programs with reduced state financial aid, whether to buy a new school bus this year or next, and what is an optimal class size in their schools.  These are significant yet not “attack dog” issues.  When the dogs are out, many boards either close up shop or cave in.

What must we remember?

At the heart of most, if not every school board discussion and decision, should be children.  “How will this enhance the education of children?”, should be our constant mantra.  Played large, this mantra informs everything from reading programs to school remodeling to employee salaries to football uniforms.  Simply put, schooling is about children not adults.

This blog is not used to promote any point of view or specific, contemporary agenda.  Rather, the blog advocates for best practices for causing all children to learn.

What do we know about educating children?

Personal inquisitiveness is a foundation for lifelong learning.  The first word, personal, is essential.  Most of us want to learn to know, not be told how or what to know.  The intrinsic motivation of personalized learning is a powerful force for exciting children to learn and helping them persist in learning.  Somethings children learn have a social context and they must engage in learning with other children.  Yet, when a child feels a personalized engagement with what is being learned, a child is more likely to learn and remember.

Inquisitive is the operant word in personalized education.  To inquire is to ask a question.  It says, “I want to know about this”.  Its synonyms are equally powerful.  To explore.  To investigate.  To examine.  To analyze.  To inquire opens the door for learning with a question leading to all sorts of new information and experiences.  To inquire retains a personal control of the learning as what unfolds may not be of interest or significance.  To inquire about something opens the door to ask about something else.  Life is full of inquiry.  We want children to be inquisitive.  When we start with this purpose, untold possibilities for significant learning emerge.  Without inquisitiveness, we are training puppets of our thinking.

The ability to inquire should be a bedrock in child education.  We know –

  • Inquisitiveness is innate.  The interest to know, if not the need to know, is within every child. 
  • Inquisitiveness is to wonder and “I wonder …” is the beginning of an adventure.
  • Inquisitiveness is unbiased.  A child learns the winds that will fill their personal sails and there are many winds.
  • Inquisitiveness leads to exploration and invention and creation.  Our world needs exploring, inventive, and creative people.
  • Inquisitiveness allows individuals to grow and develop and to share.  “I wonder…” initiates learning that frequently results in “Hey, did you know …”.  Then, our children begin to educate others.

We learn more about inquisitiveness by addressing what it is not.  To not want a child to be inquisitive is to insist she –

  • Accept what she is told without question.
  • Ignores options and possibilities.
  • Considers all things she is told as facts whether true of not.
  • Abandons the joy of being surprised.

What do we want for our children?

“I want our children to be wiser and braver than me and prepared to meet the unknowns they will encounter.” 

This is both a personal statement and one that I hear from many of my generation.  We Baby Boomers had our whack at the world.  In hindsight and with the judgments of successor generations, Boomers had some significant successes and left some very significant messes.  After studying, I found the same to be true of predecessor generations. 

I am proud of our local schools where inquiry and exploration are prized and supported.  Our purpose is to provide all children with opportunities for learning.  We would rather our children are reading and learning broadly so that when asked “What do you think about…?”, or “Show us what you have learned?”, they will give informed and insightful responses and performances and not parrot back limited incantations of what they were told.  Their 21st century requires no less.

Children are great people, and we assist them to be great adults through the type of education we provide in their formative years.  I tell all but my bachelor bird loving friends, if you want parrots, raise birds.  I tell my school board colleagues, if you want a braver and wiser next generation, don’t educate them like parrots.  And resist anyone who wants to make a classroom into a parrot factory.

Celebrate All Who Go To State; There Are More Than You Think

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“Who went to State this year?”, I asked, and the line-up of students was wonderful, remarkable, and insightful.  “Going to State” traditionally identifies high school students whose performances rise above local and regional competitions to a select number who qualify for best-in-the-state competitions.  We are a small, rural school.  Based upon enrollment, we are always in the smallest school divisions.  Based upon “going to State” experiences, we are heavyweights with a high percentage of high school students who are staties.  (I take a liberty to label students who go to a state tournament “staties”.) 

It is March.  For many, March is tournament madness, not just NCAA but WIAA.  March is when the long winter of high school seasons rise to a finale of state tournaments.  Boys’ and girls’ basketball, boys and girls hockey, boys and girls wrestling, boys swimming, and girls gymnastics find their frenzy in their respective state tournaments.  Perhaps it is due to their being winter, indoor sports that causes such madness.  When we mention going to State, a lot of folks think of March tournaments.  Our line up of “statues” disabuses us of that thought.  We are staties of all seasons.

There are high school trophy cases loaded with trophies and WIAA plaques for athletics.  Some schools are considered dynasties in their sports.  We have a dynasty in the theater; we dominate in One Act competitions.  Our “staties” are students of “parts” who, under the direction of one of our state’s most awarded drama directors, each year find a new piece to perform.  They perfect their parts and their roles and polish their total performance with the aspiration that they too will go to State.  And they do.  Every year it seems.  And they bring home a full slate of awards from the WI Interscholastic Speech and Dramatic Arts Association. 

Our musicians go to State in the WI School Music Association’s solo and ensemble competition.  Standing tall in our lineup of staties are singers and instrumentalists whose perfected performances rank among the best the in the state.  Many go to State each year of high school.  We go to State in the arts!

Small business, the heart of our local economy, makes business and marketing education an important curriculum in our school.  Perennially, we send students in their blue blazers and neckties to the WI DECA state competition.  Of all our staties, it is the DECA competitors who have the strongest connection between their high school state tournament experience and their post-high school and career goals.  They are coached by local businesspeople who see future business owners in the making.

The WASB student art competition has honored our student artists at the annual school board convention.  An art competition is unique; it is not about Mano a Mano competition but about the quality of what a student produces.  It hangs on a wall or on a shelf or stands on the floor and says, “look at this – I did it!”.  The artist stands to the side trying not to smile too much.

When the WIAA approved 8-man football, our team of sleek, fast players shed long time slugfests with bigger enrollment teams and went to State in this new division.  Immediately, we became football staties.  There is something to be said for sending major sport teams to State.  Schools pop their pride buttons over this.

Going to State also is podium time.  Team and large group competitions have their award ceremonies but individual performance competitions place students on a podium to designate their personal awards.  Track and field are primed for podium time and every year runners, sprinters, and jumpers carry our school colors to the state track meet.  Sadly, our spring sport tournaments are held after the last of school in June and the joy of returning to school in triumph is not part of their celebration.

Finally, our lineup includes March Madness staties.  After a long drought of staying home, our boy’s basketball team played in the state tournament.  And yes, there is magic in going to State in March.  It lights up the school and community like no other state trip can.

In reflection, going to State, like so many of life’s experiences is a fading glory.  Kids in all competitive activities strive to go to their State, work for it, and then it is over.  For a very few, scholarships and opportunities to continue in their competitive sport or arts performance in college derives from going to State.  For most, it is benchmark memory, a moment of glory that will fade with time. 

In the final analysis, does going to State matter?  I think so.  When a student commits time and energy to a specific competitive performance and works hard to climb from local, sectional, and regional competitions to go to State and does so, it gives that student an accomplishment that is remembered for their lifetime.  We also know that students don’t get to State without the support of parents and family, and coaches and directors and teachers.  At its core, it is talent development and a student’s opportunity to show a talent.  Achieving a state-level performance is an achievement that matters.

It also is a bit of luck.  Fifty-seven years ago, I hit a home run in a high school State Championship game.  We won.  My name is on a State Championship trophy.  I smile when I think of it and thank a pitcher from Council Bluffs for a pitch with my name on it.  A swing and a miss and he would have the memory and his name on the trophy.  Being a statie and a champ, I share the excitement of every student in our school who has her or his own state moment.

Nurture the talent and unload the untalented

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A most heartbreaking moment for a principal rises when a parent asks “Is Mr. Jones a good teacher?  I want to know because my Susie needs a very good teacher”.  With no place to run or hide, a principal knows Mr. Jones is not among the best teachers in the school.  I’ve been there and I plead guilty to prevarication.  Prevarication is a long and uncommon word to describe how we answer such a question and it hurts to use it.  The angst deepens because we know Susie and she really does need our most talented teachers.  So, the principal prevaricates and speaks to Mr. Smith’s middling strengths with enough enthusiasm that Susie’s mom nods her thanks. 

But we know the truth.  Not all teachers are created equally.  A school faculty has all-star, backbone, and assignment filler teachers.  Schools bask in the excellence of the all-stars, work the heck out of the backbones, and carefully use the roles of the fillers. 

I will not go into depth to describe the attributes of each category of teachers.  Instead, please consider a continuum of high to low on three professional traits:  empathy and care for all children, engagement in the art and science of teaching, and enlightened classroom performance. 

Empathy for all childrenHighSometimeLow
Engaged in the art and science of teachingHighSometimeLow
Enlightened classroom performanceHighSometimeLow

Personalize this by considering all the teachers in your personal history – your elementary, middle level, secondary and even post-high school instructors.  How does your memory distribute your teachers on these three traits?  The fact that you remember some more clearly than others, probably the all-stars and sadly the fillers are most memorable, states the case.  All schools have all-star, backbone, and filler teachers.

Principals and personnel directors have work to do

Let the all-stars produce strong learning outcomes.  Principals and all-star teachers collaborate to cause the most talented instruction to interact with the most students.  Unless there is an ego problem, all-stars don’t need direction.   We exploit their talent for enlightened teaching, instructional leadership, and curricular planning.  Incidentally, it is true that some all-stars shun leadership and curricular opportunities; they just want to teach.  So be it and thank you.  We use their luster to add to the reputation of the school.  The bottom line is we do what it takes to sustain an all-star’s happiness and satisfaction and reap the rewards of their exemplary work.  This is not “babying”; it is respectful recognition and appreciation.  We give all-stars as many opportunities to work with our Susies as we can while understanding that children of all abilities want and should be in an all-star’s classroom. 

Grow backbone teachers, the heart of the faculty, in their instructional and curricular skills.  Principals coordinate with and coach their backbone teachers through meaningful professional development.  Respectful relations are essential with backbone teachers, because they do so many things well and deserve constant reinforcing commendations.  They also have large potential for growth and  Improvement of their teacher talents.  We coordinate their pursuit of masters degrees, national board certification, professional workshops, and leadership of district initiatives.  Coordination is required because, backbone teachers fill so many roles in the school, they face potential burn out.  We weave backbone teachers into the decision making and program development of the school so that the strength of our faculty is invested in the school’s ongoing work. 

Our administrative work is to cause all children to be nurtured as learners and to learn from their lessons by gathering the best faculty of teachers we can.  Given annual changes in the faculty, the availability of highly talented and talented teachers makes a huge difference in student success and satisfaction.

Principals play general manager with the fillers – grow or go.  We are careful with fillers’ instructional assignments.   Lackluster teaching can impede the overall teaching enterprise as well as stunt student progress.  We are thankful that many fillers are first to accept necessary ancillary assignments such as taking tickets at athletic events, selling in a concession stand, and supervising field trips.  They do this to demonstrate their value to the faculty.  Principals, however, look more clinically at their empathy and care for all children, the art and science of their teaching, and their achievement of student learning resulting from their teacher performance.  Fillers have demonstrated deficits in these three key traits.

Fillers do not go unnoticed.  The majority of parent and student complaints about school are associated with filler teachers.  Principals observe what critics say about filler teachers.  Too many worksheets.  Too much sit time.  Incomplete lessons that don’t bring student learning to closure.  Impersonal student relationships.  Lectures or non-directed student projects.  Too much lag time in class periods waiting for the bell to ring. 

School is a dynamic organism, and its faculty changes every year.  Teachers go and teachers come.  Ironically, this is the natural sequence that allows principals to upgrade their faculty by hiring an all-star or backbone when a filler leaves.  Another force in the dynamics happens when principals take purposeful action to cause a filler teacher to become a backbone teacher or to leave the faculty.  Principals construct and diligently supervise tactical plans for a filler’s professional improvement.  As a general manager, end their employment to create the opportunity to employ an all-star or backbone teacher. 

We have urgency in our work

Susie and every child in school deserves a talented teacher all the time.  Principals place Susies with as many all-star and backbone teachers as possible.   However, some grade level and course assignments will be with a filler teacher.  Some refer this to an “unluck of the draw”.  But there should not be luck or unluck in Susie’s teacher assignments.  If she isn’t getting quality instruction, she is falling further behind because of her starting points.

A principal’s work with a filler teacher is “pull up your socks” time for both.  For teachers, pulling up the socks means finding ways to improve their empathy and care for all children, increasing and sharpening their teaching skills, and delivering complete lessons that lead to measurable student learning.  For principals, pulling up the socks means either improving a filler’s work to the backbone level or ending the filler’s employment in the school.  In most schools, this is a two-year work effort because of the time and documentation required to terminate a teacher’s employment.

Truth be told, executing a grow or go plan for a filler teacher takes persistence and often the many other issues of schooling allow the filler teacher to slide into yet another contract year.  After a time, a status quo emerges, and the filler reaches 10+ years on the faculty and a grow or go process becomes harder to enact.

The final truth is this for principals:  moving a filler teacher off the faculty roster makes room for an all-star or a backbone teacher to join the roster.  Terminating employment is a business-like process that seems counter to everything else we do in school, but it is necessary work.  Its effects on instruction and schooling for children can be a revelation.  So, pull up your socks to ensure all the Susies in your school a talented teacher who is empathetic and caring, is a skilled instructor using an array of the arts and sciences of teaching, and who moves Susie’s learning needle in a positive direction.