LearnmoreMN Blog

Elementary teachers play key role in STEM education

By Tony Murphy, March guest blogger

In the last entry, I talked about the situation with STEM in our schools and now I want to offer one solution to how we keep up kids’ interest in these fields. Although there are many strategies available, teachers need to play an important role in a solution.

We know that effective teachers and content knowledge in science and mathematics can play key roles in student achievement. At the high school level, STEM teachers have a graduated with a major in their subject area. At the middle school level, teachers have the equivalent of a minor in their subject area. At the elementary level though, teachers are generalists and they typically major in education.

We know from research that the elementary grades are critical in maintaining student interest level in STEM. Yet, if teachers at the elementary level are generalists, are they prepared effectively to teach this way? Do they have the STEM knowledge and the teaching skills to do this? Research shows that many don’t. In fact, elementary teachers often express anxiety teaching the STEM areas.

At St. Catherine University’s National Center for STEM Elementary Education, we have developed a program that helps elementary teachers overcome this anxiety. All of our elementary education majors are required to enroll in a STEM certificate consisting of three courses: biology, chemistry and physics/engineering. The latter course is a unique part of the certificate. All are rigorous courses that meet various sets of state and national standards. They are co-taught by STEM and education faculty who have worked together as a team to create a positive and productive learning environment for the majors.

The certificate gives the elementary majors the content, but they also need an experience teaching science. This comes in the form of a program called Eco-STARS, which occurs prior to student teaching. Teachers in partner schools mentor the elementary majors in an active and engaging way. Our education faculty are also in the schools with the elementary majors when they are teaching science. The St. Kate’s faculty, elementary education majors and school teachers have all undergone training in a specific science program so that all are on the same page in relation to the content being covered.

St. Kate’s elementary majors emerge from this experience more confident and comfortable in teaching science. In fact, many of them are being asked in their student teaching to teach science and engineering — something that is new.

We are now working with local school districts to offer a Graduate STEM certificate for both elementary and Montessori teachers. This is a professional development sequence of courses with implementation and support for the teachers.

The need is clear. If we want to create a strong and wide pipeline for STEM, we need to begin at the elementary level. This is the aim of the programs at the National Center for STEM Elementary Education. What other successful efforts to prepare elementary teachers to effectively teach STEM are you aware of?

Pass or Fail? Referendum on Partnerships as Learning Relationships

By Rebecca Hopkins, November guest blogger

Last election day, 42 of 76 school districts (55%) successfully passed or partially passed referendum items. This seems to be somewhat positive considering the economic reality as well as some individual district dynamics. However, for some districts a “yes” only continued the same level of funding, and for the districts that were not successful, it may mean some very deep cuts that can translate into losing new, young teachers, coordinators of services, even programs. When districts are already lean, yet still striving for excellence and maximized services, inadequate funding can deal a crushing blow to these efforts.

While I would contend that authentic and intentional relationships between higher education programs and K-12 schools are important in any climate, it is especially important for K-12 schools to feel the added support and strength for their professional development initiatives in this situation. In addition, it is an opportunity for higher education programs to learn from positive, collaborative problem solving that contributes to the cultivation of leadership in our schools.

Regardless of funding, higher education and K-12 schools need to be persistent in collaboration in this important work — it can’t wait. One critical example of this is the importance of culturally responsive teaching. Minnesota continues to face racial disparities in student achievement data. Individual teacher experience and district approaches to development in this area vary. Often, there is a sense of awareness and identification of the issue, but a lack of concrete strategies, implementation, and sharing.

Teacher preparation programs are often criticized for being staffed mainly by white professors who teach mostly white teacher candidates who will serve diverse populations of children. In both the higher education and K-12 context, educators need to have the courage to take on the challenge of this work. One class on cultural diversity doesn’t cut it. Having a couple of professors who “get it” falls short of transforming the teaching and learning paradigm. The K-12 teacher needs to feel safe opening up about their practice — both when they are successful and when they are not. The higher education professor needs to feel supported and open to learning from effective teacher leaders in the K-12 classroom...being a part of a broader learning community that is tackling the same systemic change. Both need to be willing to examine their beliefs about all children being able to learn. When we do this together, and bring our worlds together, we can make real progress for the benefit of the children we all serve.

Reciprocally, but only with an authentic commitment to this work, the higher education partner can serve a critical accompaniment role — walking with K-12 schools and teachers, helping to build long term school cultures of achievement for all learners. By structuring credit-based, personalized, teacher-directed learning opportunities, teachers are supported in moving from awareness to implementation. We need to ensure a culturally responsive and equitable classroom together.

With increased pressure to produce high school graduates who go on to college and can perform successfully in comparative contexts to other nations, how K-12 schools and higher education institutions are partnering should matter to everyone. Together we can transform the education experience for our children. This is an investment that is critical to our survival. Whether we pass or fail this "referendum of partnerships as learning relationships," our responsiveness to each other serves as a harbinger for the larger looming referendum on the next generation in our communities.

Urgent

First, I apologize to anyone who has the 1981 Foreigner song running through their head for the rest of the day due to my title or subject matter. For that, I am truly sorry.

With that said, more pressing matters must be addressed. There is this notion out there that teachers unions don’t feel an urgency to meet the needs of students like others do. Most recently this was posed to me by a parent at a rally on the State Capitol lawn. It was a great conversation, yet when the parent said, "It just doesn’t seem like the union feels the urgency that we have," I realized that something has gone horribly wrong.

The perception of our union has been divided from the actual work we do by a successful campaign to love teachers and vilify our union — suggesting that our union is not made up of educators who take their day jobs very seriously.

Systems change is natural, as any science instructor will teach you, and our members recognize that we are a system designed to change as well. This is why we work at creating solutions. We wanted to improve teacher support and evaluation so that it met the needs of all teachers and could withstand the weight of a career’s worth of decisions — so we offered peer assistance and review. Because of this work with our district, the path a 21st century education professional will be able to take once we’re finished, will be truly outstanding.

Our members also grew increasingly alarmed at the inconsistency in the debate over teacher licensure. Instead of merely opposing various ideas, we gathered our best thoughts and have been leading and proposing instead — winning one of the first eight AFT Innovation Fund grants in the country. Now we’re planning CareerTeacher, our comprehensive recruitment and licensure program. Our members help secondary students explore teaching as a career, offer better ideas for recruiting from traditionally under-represented populations, and make hard-to-staff license areas obsolete.

Our members know that the most important work in public education occurs in the classroom between educator and student. Decisions that are most relevant to students arise from classroom experiences and from an educator’s professional practice. That is why we’ve been working hard to establish a path for site-governed schools in our district. A clear process will allow innovation and creativity to flourish, backed by the strength of our teachers’ expertise in the model of a charter school.

Our members have also experienced what it’s like to go through top-down school restructuring. Because of the serious flaws we saw in that process, we immediately set to work to adopt a better, more collaborative model. Rather than just say no, we scoured the country for the best ideas out there. When the American Federation of Teachers sent us the hot-off-the-presses restructuring contract language, we were immediately struck by the school community, building-up transformation possibilities it offered and we brought it to the negotiating table.

All of this (and more) is to say that you won’t find us wringing our hands, shrugging our shoulders or callously turning our backs on improving the very work we do. No one wants to better understand how to meet the needs of our students and families than we do. No one. That’s why we’ve decided to teach.

Ideas like this don’t spontaneously burst forth; they come out of an environment of urgency grounded in dedication to our students. This environment can manifest itself anywhere, starting with the courage to have a conversation where you don’t assign your union an answer before you’ve even asked the question. This environment can start when a union is no longer treated like another vendor, but is recognized as an organized group of experts already on staff; expertise that doesn’t need to be flown in from Washington, DC or New York to offer ideas to improve teaching and learning.

In fact, greater examples of labor/management partnerships exist across this state. Districts like the one in St. Francis that are farther along at getting along, can offer both inspiration and evidence that collaboration leads to greater success. Generally what you will find in these districts is that one side does not question the other side’s urgency or sincerity; they are both too busy working together successfully.

The triple-super-secret way to remove problem teachers

By Mary Cathryn Ricker, October guest blogger

No one wants a highly qualified, effective teacher in every classroom more than me. Not only is teaching the job I’ve dedicated my life to, but I also have two children who have one shot at a successful K-12 education experience. I believe so strongly in good teaching for those reasons that five years ago I staked my reputation on it and ran for president of my teacher’s union. 

The research is irrefutable that an effective teacher can make a world of difference for a student. Yet, despite the plethora of evidence that strong teachers are the single, most important collective element in a school, much more time and attention is spent promoting this notion that a poor-performing teacher cannot be removed from our profession under any circumstances.

I love talking about issues of teacher quality, but since everyone asks me about bad teachers first, no matter what conversation I’ve tried to start, why don’t we just start here.

How to remove a bad teacher from a classroom

Step one: Don’t tenure them.
Some people actually think there is such a thing as “tenure for life” but tenure doesn’t sneak up on anybody. In Minnesota a teacher must work for three years successfully, effectively and productively to earn tenure. During those three years a teacher is an at-will employee. As in: clean-out-your-desk-I-don’t-have-to-give-you-a-reason-you’re-fired. That’s fairly at-will if you ask me.

During the last round of contract negotiations the Saint Paul Federation of Teachers team fought hard to get stronger achievement of tenure steps in our contract, like more than two observations by an administrator a year, but the other side argued that it was too much work.

We did manage to get our peer assistance and review program negotiated, so consulting teachers will observe over a dozen times and assist in recommendations. This fledgling start to what we intend to be an amazing, full-spectrum, continuous, career-long teacher support and evaluation program is in serious jeopardy because of a lack of funding.

Step two: Watch teachers teach
Administrators have full authority to watch us teach. They are trained to observe and evaluate. I used to joke that I considered myself the most observed teacher in the State of Minnesota when I had a classroom because I had administrators and teachers in my room all the time but sadly, since doing this job I’m afraid it may have been true. Some teachers have gone decades without anyone watching their teaching and providing feedback. That’s malpractice and it leads to crisis. As a union president I’ve been told “Mary Cathryn we can’t wait to get this teacher out of the classroom” to which I reply “You waited 20 years to observe them, they deserve six weeks of support to improve.”

Saint Paul has an extensive Standards of Effective Instruction framework that lays out teaching best practices in one, comprehensive format. When an administrator is in a teacher’s classroom and she notices something amiss, it’s not just an opportunity to demonstrate her instructional leadership, it’s her obligation, her duty, to share her concern with the classroom teacher.

Step three: Document the failure to improve
Hands down the most frustrating thing I’ve witnessed as union president is an administrator deliberately cutting a program or position to send a poor-performing teacher to another building rather than having a professional discussion with that teacher about improving and documenting concerns so the teacher knows unequivocally he must improve or he will lose his job. It takes about nine hours to document a teacher who has failed to improve. When a principal’s concerns about a teacher’s performance need documentation, she has to:

• conduct an observation (first hour),
• write up what went well and what needs work from the lesson (second hour) and
• share that evaluation with the teacher, and the teacher’s union representative if the teacher wants representation (third hour).

The principal provides support and advice, maybe demonstrates a lesson technique or two, and allows the teacher some time (six to eight weeks) to improve with the support provided. Then a second observation is conducted and three more hours are used to document and share that evaluation. At this point the teacher could be told that some progress has been made and the intervention will continue until the improvement is complete or the teacher is told that, despite the support and effort, he has failed to improve and if the second intervention doesn’t work he will be recommended for termination after another failed observation (the last three hours).

Our union plays an important role in this process. We provide assistance and training to teachers with an identified instructional deficit and, when necessary, we actively counsel teachers out of the profession.

I look forward to sharing all of our ideas that make teachers and teaching great. A continuous support and evaluation system that is focused on growing, learning from each other and finding support should be at the center of any discussion about great teachers.

Higher ed challenged in teacher prep

By Bill Blazar, August guest blogger

Higher ed institutions deal directly with the shortcomings of K-12 instruction by spending too much attention on remedial instruction. At the same time, higher ed must scrutinize its teacher training if we are to improve the quality of teachers.

All Minnesotans need to rethink how we train and prepare teachers. We must evaluate higher ed curriculum and make the programs more selective. We cannot settle for less as the quality of high school graduates is at the foundation of this state’s economic vitality and all citizens’ well-being.

The good news is that the higher ed system has a partner in this effort. The Bush Foundation is in the midst of a $40 million, 10-year initiative, in partnership with 14 higher ed institutions — 11 in Minnesota — to dramatically change the way teachers are recruited, prepared, placed and supported.

Why is solid preparation of teachers so vital? Look at what the research tells us, as cited by the Bush Foundation. Students placed with high-performing teachers progress three times faster that those placed with low-performing teachers. Approximately 15% of teachers in Minnesota leave the profession after one year and 30% after five years. Despite the training they receive before being hired, new teachers require significant up-front cost that includes additional training. Perhaps most important, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota will need 30,000 teachers during the next decade.

As a parallel measure, Minnesota should review how the state buys continuing education for teachers. The dollars currently go to districts to use at their discretion. There’s minimal, if any, accountability for showing that the training produces more effective, up-to-date teachers that will translate into better classroom results. As an alternative, why not have the state bid the training programs — with the expectation that the higher ed institutions would be among the vendors? Generate a report on the results, and require teachers to select among the most effective programs as a requisite of keeping their licenses.

We’ll only produce more effective teachers by focusing on results vs. inputs. There is no clear evidence, for example, in the U.S. public education system of how many weeks of student teaching make a good teacher, or what classes taken in a prep program will produce strong classroom performance. We need to do a thorough scrutiny of and meaningful recommendations for improving teacher training. Linking teacher preparation to student performance is essential to producing K-12 graduates who are better prepared for higher ed and the workforce in a global economy.

K-12 system fails in college-ready grads

By Bill Blazar, August guest blogger

Minnesota’s higher ed system is spending too much time and money on remedial instruction for Minnesota’s high school graduates. The dismal state of K-12 outcomes is a drain on taxpayer-funded resources and a disservice to the students themselves.

Statistics for the 2005 Minnesota public high school graduates — the most recent year available — highlight the disturbing state of affairs. Within two years of high school graduation, 49% of the class enrolled in a Minnesota public higher education institution. Of these students, 38% took one or more developmental courses during that period. Mathematics is the most common developmental course taken, followed by writing. These students must pay for high school-level classes while not earning credit because the classes are not college-level.

What’s the recourse? The short answer: Colleges should refuse to accept any student who isn’t college-ready. Even if that were done, however, there’s no guarantee that many schools could return a “new and improved” graduate. Witness the fact that Minnesota overall still has one of the worst achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students of any state. The gap persisted in the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) reading and math tests conducted this spring for students in grades 3-8 and 11.

We’ll not make any serious headway into producing college-ready — or, for that matter, work-ready — graduates until the K-12 system takes decisive action to put the proper tools in place. So why not require schools to employ “highly qualified” teachers to effect substantive change in the student “product.” Research underscores that second to parents, the quality of teachers remains the biggest predictor of student academic success. Alternative teacher licensure is one proven avenue to transforming student outcomes. That’s why the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, as part of a broad-based coalition, has fought so hard the past two legislative sessions to give alternative teacher license permanent status in Minnesota.

Our schools — and thus our students, our future workforce — are missing key opportunities to reap the benefits of some of the best and brightest teaching candidates in the classrooms. At present, graduates of the highest-performing teaching programs for underserved students — programs like Teach for America that have shown remarkable success in other parts of the country — must apply for a teaching waiver on a year-by-year basis.

Contrary to the claims of those who oppose alternative pathways for teacher education — chiefly, Education Minnesota, the state’s largest teachers union — alternative licensure neither takes away jobs from current teachers nor shortchanges teacher training. The additional options simply enhance the pool of quality candidates and will bolster the collective efforts of the rank-and-file teaching corps.

Higher ed plays a vital role in this initiative as well. Institutions must become active supporters of alternative licensure and other strategies to solve the problem. That requires more than simply communicating with legislators. Institutions ought to be developing curriculum that’s specifically designed for these unconventional teachers. As an example, Hamline University does so for programs such as Teach for America. Others should follow suit. Institutions also could adjust admission requirements: Accept students only if their respective high schools provide the remedial work so students are ready for college.

The stakes are too high to let this issue die. The effort requires a full-court press. The Minnesota Chamber is determined to ensure that every Minnesota student has a chance to succeed. Minnesotans deserve no less.

Making Teaching a Better Career

By Joe Graba, July guest blogger

Our country has been involved in a 30-year struggle to improve our public school system. This effort has included numerous initiatives with various aspects of the system. In the early years there was much attention given to the curriculum. We have also had major efforts to get better superintendents and principals into the system. Over the last three to five years there has been a major focus on our teachers.

Not surprisingly, there is good research-based evidence that the quality of the teachers has a huge impact on the learning that occurs. This has led to a variety of initiatives around the country aimed at addressing the teacher preparation programs. In Minnesota, the Bush Foundation has a major effort underway. Other efforts going on nationally are designed to recruit better college and university students into the teaching field. Numerous districts have developed induction and mentoring programs designed to help teachers become better in their first years of teaching.

All of these efforts should be supported and applauded. However, the other part of the task is to find ways to keep good teachers in our schools. While the percentage varies by state, nationally we lose between 40 and 50 percent of our teachers in the first five years of their career. Recent research suggests that many of those leaving are among the better teachers. So while recruiting and preparing better teachers is desirable, it probably is not enough. The other half of the task is to find ways to make teaching a better job and a better career. 

Dr. Richard Ingersoll from the University of Pennsylvania has done extensive research on teachers and the job of teaching. He compared several aspects of schools where teachers had significant involvement in the decisions about school governance to those where teachers had little or no involvement in those decisions. He found that where teacher involvement was high, teacher turnover tended to be low and where teacher involvement was low, turnover was high. Other aspects of the schools also improved (less tardiness-less vandalism) when teachers had significant involvement in school decision-making.

It is interesting to think about how other professions are organized in our society. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. have always had the option of developing their own professional practice, but teachers have been assumed to be employees of some entity — districts in most cases but some by the private/parochial sector. Does this really need to be the case? Might teachers be able to create their own professional practice and then contract with the district or chartered school to provide professional services? The answer turns out to be yes.

Minnesota now has several schools that are run by teacher professional practices (TPPs). These TPPs manage all aspects of the schools — budget, teacher selection, teacher evaluation and compensation as well as the school’s learning program and schedule. The first such TPP, at Minnesota New Country School in Henderson, started in 1994. There are now between 50 and 60 TPPs operating across the country, mostly in chartered schools but some in district schools. The Minneapolis School Board recently approved a new school for start up in 2011 that will have a TPP. Both Denver and Boston started schools with TPPs last fall.

There are many points along a continuum for teacher involvement that could help to make teaching a more attractive career. Some principals believe in shared decision-making and move on their own to create teacher involvement in their schools. In other cases the district leadership creates this expectation for all of its schools. However, the TPP is probably the ultimate in teacher empowerment. In our country’s struggle to improve public education we need to recognize that the teachers along with the students are the key players in our schools. Finding ways to attract the best people into teaching and retain them as career teachers should be among our top priorities in our efforts to improve public education.

Moving Towards an Equitable Educational System

By Gerald Timian, November guest blogger

Educators and those of us who are working to increase college access and career success for low-income and working-class students need to develop strategies that help these students gain the social skills and institutional savvy to be successful.

In my November post, “When Prometheus’ Fire Isn’t Enough,” I talked about my brother and his struggle to make the cultural shifts necessary to make the most of his college education.

Continuing on that theme, let’s probe deeper to understand what advantages middle-class students bring to their college and university experience that are part of their unconscious social patterns and help them have success in school.

First, let me say that I know that many of my statements to follow are generalizations and there are low-income and working-class students who beat the odds and are successful in college. My use of these generalizations is to illustrate that too many of these students start down the path of higher education and never reach the finish line.

Many middle-class children begin performing for adults outside of their families at very young ages — dance and piano recitals, sports teams, and so on. Participating in these activities teaches youth that what they do is important to adults and that they are entitled to adult time, talent, and understanding.

Low-income and working-class youth often have fewer expectations from adults. They have been raised to listen to adults and not to question their authority.

What impact do these two very different expectations have on a youth’s college education? My children were raised in a middle-class neighborhood with neighbors who were academics. They saw these neighbors mowing their lawns; they played with their children, heard them tell bad jokes and called them by their first names. In other words, they saw them as people and caring adults. When my children went off to college they were not intimidated by their professors because they saw them as caring adults, not unlike their own parents.

Oftentimes, the only interaction low-income youth have with middle-class people is in some type of formal role; this group is usually limited to teachers, police officers, social workers and ministers. The youths interact with this group of people in a formal manner and see them as authority figures.

When these students enter college they see professors and instructors not as caring adults but as authority figures with a great deal of power over their lives. My children wouldn’t give it a second thought to go to a professor’s office and expect to have all their questions answered until they had an understanding of the material. However, low-income students may be too intimidated to ask for personal help and if they do ask for help they listen with respect and do not ask follow-up questions to get the clarity they need to master the material.

How do colleges and universities have to change their approach so low-income students can begin to see their professors and instructors as older colleagues and guides who are involved in similar educational and intellectual pursuits?

Multiple studies show that low-income and working-class students are more confident and comfortable in the company of peers. I know in my own situation that my mentor treated me like a younger colleague, challenging me to take on difficult ideas.

Another advantage middle-class youth have is that their parents are more likely to spend time with them problem solving. A middle-class youth can go to his or her parents with questions and in most cases the parent will answer the question with another question, which helps their child go deeper into the issue. This in turn puts the child in a position to explore the issues from many angles. Eventually children in these situations come to their own solution to the question.

Because middle-class kids have greater odds of participating in performance activities from such an early age they have an understanding of doing and redoing until they have the skills perfected under the scrutiny of caring adults. When they go off to college they have the patience and persistence to work and rework their writing. They understand the concept of the first draft.

One of my biggest frustrations when visiting a museum or art gallery is that the artist’s finished work is on display and you never see the multiple drafts and failed pieces. I wish I could take students to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It is a fascinating, multilevel gallery designed to show the works of Van Gogh from his earliest sketches to his later masterpieces. For me, the most interesting pieces in the museum were his early works, which were mediocre, and you cannot imagine that from that body of work a master artist would develop.

To be able to help students understand that their first attempt does not have to be the finished one is one of the great insights of their educational journey.

Given that most professors and instructors come from the upper and middle classes, it is important that we continue to educate them about the needs and perspectives of students from low-income and working-class backgrounds. These are the students they increasingly will be seeing in their classrooms.

I have asked a researcher from the University of Minnesota to begin a series of interviews with low-income and working-class students to get a better understanding of how these students see themselves becoming successful in college and in their careers.

My hope is that this information will give us new insights into how to create a democratic and equitable educational system for the 21st century.

The Missing Partner

By Frank Hernandez, October guest blogger

Several weeks ago, thousands of students walked onto our college campuses to start new journeys in education. Among them was a young man who a few years ago was involved in local gangs and destined to drop out of high school. How did he, and many others like him, end up at a top-notch private college?

The answer to that question is as complex as each student. Yet, there are some common threads. First and foremost, each student needs to make a conscious effort to change some things about how they want to live. Many also find support from local community-based organizations.

For example, Centro is a local Latino community organization, which is located in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. It offers a continuum of youth programs for Latino youth. Educational success is a priority across all Centro youth programs. Community-based organizations like Centro have many assets, such as bilingual, bicultural staff; strong relationships with families; and effective communications with the schools, health providers and other anchor institutions.

For the past two years, Centro’s youth coordinator, Mitch Roldán, has been working with gang-involved youth in the Minneapolis schools. With Mitch’s help, one such participant chose to move away from the gangs. He also found a deep connection to his cultural roots, took on a leadership role with his peers, and decided to apply and start at one of Minnesota’s private colleges this fall.

If community-based organizations like Centro are so successful, why aren’t more P-12 schools working closely and systemically with community-based organizations? What can teacher preparation programs learn from community-based organizations to better reach families and students who might otherwise not enroll in post-secondary education?

These are precisely the questions that a collaborative team of faculty from Augsburg, Bethel, Concordia (St Paul), Hamline, St. Catherine and St. Thomas began asking themselves as they worked on developing a new teacher preparation program through a special grant program at the Bush Foundation this past summer.

Later this month, I’ll share some highlights from the plan, which is still in development. But a key element in the plan is the commitment from our teacher preparation institutions to partner with community-based organizations.

Do you agree? Please share your thoughts and examples about what worked in effective higher education and P-12 educational partnerships with community-based organizations.