Teaching Teachers

High school graduation rates in the United States are at an all-time high, with more than four out of five high school students receiving a diploma within four years, according to the Washington Post.

Despite this progress, graduation rates still have not met their full potential. The U.S. News & World Report found that 11 states across the country have no high schools with 100 percent graduation rates. And for students of particular racial backgrounds, graduation rates continue to lag behind the national average. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Hispanic students in public high schools graduate at a rate of 79 percent while black students have a graduation rate of only 76 percent. When juxtaposed with the graduation rates of white and Asian students, who have a national average of 88 and 91 percent respectively, these numbers are especially striking.

In order to bridge this gap between graduation rates, the country’s initial focus should not be on getting rid of “unsuccessful” teachers, but rather on finding what makes them unsuccessful at instruction.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) envisioned a solution to resolve this issue and mainly focused on improving the staggering graduation rates of black, Hispanic, and low-income students. The foundation began an initiative in 2009 to observe teachers’ classroom performances and their students’ exam results. Teachers whose students scored exceptionally well would receive bonuses and advance to higher positions. Over a period of five years, the foundation spent over $200 million testing this tactic in seven schools.

Meanwhile, the John Muir Elementary School in San Francisco decided to take a different approach. The math department at the school developed a method in which teachers found topics their students were struggling in by holding classes that focused on faculty coaching and intensive teamwork. The teachers would then create lessons based specifically on topics that students struggled with.

Based on the results of each respective technique, the BMGF initiative proved to be ineffective. The outcome showed that neither test scores nor the dropout rates for the schools where the foundation’s strategy took place in were any better than schools that hadn’t taken part in the experiment. On the other hand, the percentage of the students at John Muir—who are mainly poor African Americans and Latinos, with one-fifth of them being homeless—who passed the math statewide exam more than doubled. In only three years, the number of passing students increased from 15 percent to 35 percent.

Ultimately, the Gates’s attempted initiative demonstrates a huge flaw with the U.S. education system. If the country wants to obtain higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates, and ideal exam scores, then it needs to focus on how to improve the quality of teaching. Throwing money at schools is not enough.

The No Child Left Behind ruling created guidelines that holds schools accountable for students’ scores on state tests. Through this federal legislation, schools can be shut down if they are deemed ineffective. The main issue with the ruling is that teachers are instantly at fault for producing such low test outcomes.

However, the reason for why some teachers aren’t successful in instructing students is because the education system chooses to evaluate them solely based on test scores achieved by their students. By doing this, the real issue of students actually obtaining low exam scores in the first place is ignored. The focus becomes placed on teachers, who are criticized for their poor teaching.

In order to solve this problem, the country needs to work on how to improve these exam scores and not on immediately blame teachers. There needs to be greater emphasis placed on demonstrating methods for teachers to effectively educate their students. That way, both the quality of teachers in schools and test results are improved. The solution to this is stronger professional development.

Professional development should not just be about exposing teachers to a single concept in a one-time workshop or giving them basic knowledge on an ideal technique. Rather, it has to be about truly altering traditional practices and coaching teachers on how to implement new ways of teaching.

Over 90 percent of the country’s teachers take workshop-style training sessions. Though these teachers may be learning valuable tactics, they often have trouble actually incorporating these techniques in their lessons.

According to the Assistant Principal of Social Studies Jennifer Suri, teachers across Stuyvesant have to go to professional development three Wednesdays a month during their free period. On top of these sessions, teachers also have monthly meetings depending on the department they teach. These meetings typically range in topics that are discussed. “For example, last month [during] the Social Studies department meeting, Dr. Polanco presented on how she uses Plickers for formative assessment. […] A lot of times, that’s what [the departments] will do. They’ll share something that they did in the classroom,” Suri said.

However, when asked about whether professional development makes a difference in the way teachers actually execute their lessons, Suri replied, “I think sometimes. Not always.”

Continuous practice is the only way to ensure that new teaching strategies can persevere in learning environments. Merely explaining a skill to teachers makes it so that only 10 percent of them can incorporate what they’ve learned in practice, as reported by the Center for Public Education. However, by instructing teachers step by step on how to implement proper ways of teaching in their daily classes, approximately 85 percent more teachers can actually transfer the skill. In order to do this, studies suggest that successful professional development programs would require anywhere between 50 and 80 hours of coaching.

Though restructuring professional development so that it is beneficial may seem expensive, the largest cost is actually teachers’ time.

Organizing professional development for a positive impact on student development simply requires a restructuring in funds to pay for teachers and coaches. During the 1990s, Manhattan’s District 2 changed the way it provided professional development to great avail. In the end, the district got rid of one-time workshops and did not have to spend millions of dollars in the process. The only problem left was how much time teachers were actually willing to spend on frequently taking workshops on top of their already hectic schedules. In many districts, the time spent would have to be part of the contract and possibly even compensated. Such compensation may include providing a stipend that pays at a different rate than regular school hours and lowering the teaching load of teachers by increasing the number of staff members.

Ultimately, altering the education system so that it focuses more on effective instruction proves to be useful in the long run. Students will become more immersed in what they are being taught and recognize their weaknesses as a result of more in-depth learning. In addition, teachers will in turn be recognized as more adequate instructors, and they will yield better exam results.