From Alex’s Desk    

alex.johnston@conncan.org

The Schools Our Teachers Deserve

Great schools start with great teachers. This idea has been repeated so many times in recent years, it’s easy to overlook how central it is to the effort to raise student achievement. Decades of research have pointed to teacher quality as the single greatest driver of student achievement. Yet as much as great schools start with great teachers, the reverse is also true: attracting and retaining great teachers starts with an effort to build great schools. 

If Connecticut is to provide all of its students with the education they deserve in the coming decades, we will have to find ways to create the kinds of school environments that will become magnets for and nurture the next generation of great teachers.

This edition of the Compass includes interviews with the Education Sector’s Elena Silva, who is a co-author of a new survey of public school teachers, and The New Teacher Project’s Ariela Rozman. Drawing on their insights and ConnCAN’s work with teachers across Connecticut, here are three steps we can take to ensure our schools have the talented teachers they need to get results for our kids. 

Listen to Teachers. In the 1990s Connecticut emerged as a leader in the area of student assessments with two high-quality tests of students’ skills, knowledge, and abilities, the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT). Even today in the No Child Left Behind era, Connecticut remains one of the few states that goes above and beyond to test students’ writing skills. Yet we have fallen behind other states in assessing how well schools are engaging teachers.

According to the Education Sector survey, 80 percent of teachers believe that “teachers are rarely consulted about what happens in their schools.” One way Connecticut can put teachers’ voices front and center is for our State Department of Education to follow New York City’s lead in implementing an annual survey of all public school teachers that measures teacher morale, engagement, and overall satisfaction. Not only could principals and teachers use these results to help craft their improvement plans, but the results also could be included in the State Department of Education’s Strategic School Profiles, giving parents and other members of the public a valuable window into this critical element of school success.

Provide Greater Flexibility and More Choices. Just as the “one size fits all” notion no longer works for public school students, it is increasingly at odds with teachers’ interests. More than two thirds of teachers (68 percent) in the Education Sector survey preferred a more autonomous school environment where principals and teachers had more control and flexibility over work rules.

One way to provide teachers with greater flexibility is to continue to invest in Connecticut’s magnet school and public charter school programs—and to ensure that the new autonomous CommPACT schools program gets off to a strong start in the coming school year. To reach all teachers, however, we will have to work at both the state and district level to give traditional public schools—where more than 90 percent of all Connecticut public schools teachers teach—greater flexibility to organize themselves to meet their students’ needs.

Build Partnerships for Reform. Improving the teaching environment can only happen when all the adults—teachers, principals, union leaders, and state and district officials—work together to secure meaningful changes. Whether it’s improving the teacher evaluation process, enhancing mentoring opportunities, strengthening professional development, or developing a fair system for removing poor performers, success is grounded in shared interests and mutual trust. 

Yet, according to the Education Sector survey, less than one half of teachers describe the relationship between their teachers union and the school district as one of cooperation and trust. Bridging this divide is critical to securing the changes teachers need and students deserve.

As Ariela Rozman told us, “You could change everything in a school. If you do not have excellent teachers in there, you are not going to be able to make the needle move.” As we reorganize our schools to get better results, it is critical to keep the focus on changes that will serve as magnets for talent and move us closer to the schools our teachers deserve.