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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
THE BOOK FOR EVERY TEACHER WHO HAS EVER BEEN FRUSTRATED BY THE DECISIONS MADE OUTSIDE THEIR SCHOOL THAT AFFECT THE STUDENTS INSIDE THEIR SCHOOL. How to Be Heard offers every teacher 10 ways to successfully amplify his or her voice, and demonstrates that when teachers' voices are heard, they will be rightfully recognized and supported as change leaders in their schools. Celine Coggins, a renowned teacher advocate, offers nuts-and-bolts strategies that are recognized as the "price of admission" to becoming a credible and welcomed participant in important policy conversations and decisions. The author clearly demonstrates that it is not only possible for teachers to initiate change, but to also effectively participate on the policy playing field. In ten clear chapters, the author demonstrates how teachers can and must advocate for their students and their profession. Throughout this book Coggins proves that "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu." This how-to guide is filled with concrete ideas for engaging in productive decision-making, using real-world examples from teachers who have successfully used these strategies.
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Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER ONE: Storytelling
What Is Your
Why
?
The Story of My Path to Teaching
The Story of My Path into Policy
The Lessons I Learned Transitioning from Teaching to Policy
The Story of My Path to Supporting Teachers
What Should You Expect in the Pages to Come?
Notes
CHAPTER TWO: Expertise
The Blind Men and the Elephant
The Good News for Teachers in the Blind Men Story
The Challenging News for Teachers in the Blind Men Story
Advocacy Is Not for the Faint of Heart
Becoming a Better Learner, Rather Than an Expert
“The Party of No” versus “the Third Way”
Notes
CHAPTER THREE: History
Start with the Same Psychology Test You Apply to Students
Knowing the Fundamentals Is the Price of Admission to the Policy Table
The Data on Students and Schools
Data and Trends in Staffing
Federal Power and States' Rights, or Why the United States Has as Many Policy Wonks as Teachers
The Levels of the System and How Money Moves through It
How Did the Modern Era of Ed Reform Start?
Twenty‐First‐Century Ed Reform
There Are Lots of Ways to Tell the Story of How Good or Bad US Education Is
Notes
CHAPTER FOUR: Language
Knowledge Base
Locus of Control
View of the Education Process
Primary Levers for Change
Key Markers of Personal Success
Major Pressures of the Job
Notes
CHAPTER FIVE: Equity
What's at Stake?
How Are We Doing at Equity Today?
The Chicken and Egg: In‐School versus Out‐of‐School Factors
How Does Teacher Policy Relate to Addressing Equity?
Notes
CHAPTER SIX: Resources
A Beginner's Guide to Understanding Resource Allocation
Notes
CHAPTER SEVEN: Accountability
Accountability Is Going to Exist, and Testing Will Be a Part of It
Testing Is Broken, in Part Because We Didn't Involve Teachers in Its Design
We Need Teachers at the Table to Help Fix Testing
A Tale of Two Teacher Advocacy Efforts
Note
CHAPTER EIGHT: Individuals and Groups
The Myth of the One Best System
The Myth of Monolithic Teacher Voice
The Postscript on the
New York Times
Story
New Voices in a New Era
The Decision Maker View of the One Best System
Analyzing Trade‐Offs, Winners, and Losers
A Case Study in How One Best System for All Teachers Became a Losing Proposition for Most Teachers
Notes
CHAPTER NINE: Power
The Power of Policymakers and the Power of Teachers
Changing the Profession from within the Union
Advocating from a Position of Power: Forging Ahead
Advocating with Limited Political Power: Building the Movement
Finding the Sweet Spot for Effective Advocacy
Notes
CHAPTER TEN: Taking Action
Connecting “the Now” and Your Cause: Entry Points and Galvanizing Moments
Two Tectonic Shifts in Education, and “the Now” That Created Them
Connecting “the Now” and Your Story
Storytellers Are Made, Not Born
Moving into Your Own Advocacy
Notes
INDEX
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
List of Tables
Chapter 4
Table 4.1 Sources of the Gap between Policy and Practice
Table 4.2 Nonoverlapping Disciplines
Chapter 9
Table 9.1 Characteristics of Problems versus Characteristics of Issues
List of Illustrations
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 Conflicting Priorities at Different Levels of Education Policymaking
Figure 3.2 State Spending on Education versus Federal Discretionary Spending, 2015
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 The Playing Field of Teaching Practice
Figure 4.2 The Playing Field of Education Policymaking
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Areas of Agreement and Disagreement across Different Generations of Teachers
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 The Transformative Power of Stories
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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HOW TO BE HEARD
Ten Lessons Teachers Need to Advocate for Their Students and Profession
Celine Coggins
Foreword by John King
Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey‐Bass
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Coggins, Celine, author.
Title: How to be heard : ten lessons teachers need to advocate for their students and profession / Celine Coggins.
Description: San Francisco, CA : Jossey‐Bass, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026365 (print) | LCCN 2017012891 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119374008 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119374046 (epub) | ISBN 9781119373995 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Teacher participation in administration. | Communication in education. | Educational leadership.
Classification: LCC LB2806.45 (print) | LCC LB2806.45 .C64 2017 (ebook) | DDC 371.2/011—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026365
Cover design by Wiley
FIRST EDITION
For my mom and my daughters
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Celine Coggins founded Teach Plus in 2007 to empower excellent, experienced teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students' success. Under Celine's leadership, Teach Plus has introduced groundbreaking programs and built a nationwide network of over twenty‐six thousand teachers.
Celine started her career as a middle school teacher in Worcester, Massachusetts. She went on to become a special assistant to the Massachusetts commissioner of education, working on a set of initiatives to improve teacher quality. Celine completed her PhD at Stanford University and also holds degrees from Boston College and the College of the Holy Cross. A recognized expert on teacher leadership, Celine is a frequent invited speaker on the topic both nationally and internationally, and appears regularly in media outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic. She holds an appointment as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard University. She is the author of more than two dozen reports and journal articles and the editor of three prior books.
FOREWORD
Few professions are more important to our nation's future than teaching. Teachers support students' growth as they develop into well‐rounded, engaged members of our society who are prepared to lead thriving lives and give back to their communities. Teachers spark students' curiosity about learning. And teachers play a vital role in ensuring that our nation lives up to its promise as a land of opportunity where, with a good education, hard work, and determination, all of our people—regardless of race, background, or circumstance—can choose their path to fulfillment and success.
Especially in recent years, a movement in education has been growing around the notion of teacher leadership. This is the simple, yet powerful idea that teachers should be valued both as the foremost authorities in instruction and as leaders who inform the development of policies that can drive improvements in the education system and student outcomes. It is also the idea that teachers should not have to leave the profession they love in order to exercise leadership in strengthening it.
For years, I have been impressed by Teach Plus, an organization that understands educators are the real experts at how policy gets translated in classrooms. Teach Plus has done incredible work to identify and develop teacher leaders who can advocate for school‐level change, advance solutions to policy problems, and advise peers through professional development that they create and lead.
While I served as Secretary of Education under President Barack Obama, the Department of Education, along with ASCD, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and other nongovernmental organizations, furthered a teacher leadership initiative called Teach to Lead, which continues today. I am proud of the projects that thousands of educators have led individually and in cohorts as part of this work—which includes hundreds of action plans for education improvements in schools, districts, states, and across the nation.
Organized efforts such as Teach Plus and Teach to Lead are critical in continuing to build a movement of educator empowerment throughout America. Also important is that individual teachers understand how to take up the mantle of teacher leadership and how to leverage their expertise and voices in ways that can have the greatest impact.
This book is a how‐to guide to do just that, but not only for teachers. It also is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to advocate for the excellent education that all our children deserve.
As Celine Coggins points out in the following pages, all advocacy is personal. Before you can even hope to make the changes you seek, you have to understand your “why”—the thing that drives you.
For me—as a former teacher, principal, education leader at the state and national levels, and now, as an advocate with The Education Trust—the “why” always has been about ensuring that every student has access to the transformational and life‐saving power of great teachers in great schools.
By the time I was 12 years old, both of my parents passed away due to illness. It was because of the support, encouragement, inspired teaching, and love of my New York City public school teachers that I made it through that difficult period and do the work I do today.
Teachers saved my life. And, every day, I know there are educators who are doing the same thing for students in classrooms all over our country. They do this even as they deliver instruction, facilitate engaging classroom lessons, master technology, analyze student work and data on student performance, and, increasingly, take on new leadership roles.
To ensure that teacher leadership is an achievable and sustainable endeavor for all teachers, it is essential that schools, districts, and states support teachers with resources and provide educators with the time and opportunities to lead. That might mean the chance to serve as peer mentors and coaches, the creation of career ladders, and the space to sit at the decision‐making table.
But as you will learn in this book, if you strive to be a teacher leader, it is not enough to simply know your “why,” or to create or take advantage of a leadership role. To be influential and impactful, you also need to understand the context, constraints, and opportunities of policy.
Fortunately, our nation's new education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, includes provisions that ensure teachers can meaningfully contribute to decisions that affect the work they do with students each day.
For this reason, and because of conversations that will undoubtedly be started as a result of this book, it is an exciting time for teacher leadership in America.
As you deepen your commitment to teacher leadership or consider this work for the first time, I want to encourage you to do two things: lead on behalf of equity and lead on behalf of democracy.
The first entails focusing your efforts on closing opportunity gaps for low‐income students, English learners, students of color, and students with disabilities that result in academic achievement gaps— which separate these students from their classmates and deny them the chance to achieve their dreams.
Historically underserved students have less access to quality preschool, advanced coursework, great teachers, and safe schools. They also are suspended and expelled at higher rates than their more advantaged peers. These disparities contribute to cycles of underachievement and lost potential for our children. That is why we need teachers to lead on behalf of equity. We need your leadership to right these wrongs and to address the challenges of our most vulnerable students, including homeless and foster youth and those involved in the juvenile justice system. We need your leadership to ensure that all students receive the resources and supports necessary for them to thrive.
Our nation also needs you to lead on behalf of democracy. This work entails preparing students for good citizenship so that they may become the next generation of thinkers and doers who will strengthen our communities and our country.
Leading on behalf of democracy means providing students with knowledge of civics, history, and social studies. It means nurturing students' ability to discern fact from fiction, to read and listen critically, to convey well‐reasoned arguments grounded in evidence, and to understand and appreciate the perspectives and experiences of people who may be different from them. It means encouraging students to exercise their civic duties through service learning. And it means teaching them about the importance of voting and standing up for causes that matter to them.
The choices that teachers make about how to lead and lift their voices, to a large extent, determine the success of our students and our education system. As a nation, we also need to create clearer, stronger paths to capitalize on teachers' energy, expertise, and ideas—and, ultimately, elevate a profession that is central to all children achieving the American Dream.
—John King, president and CEO of The Education Trust; former U.S. Secretary of Education
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The stories of this book are mostly the stories of educators I've had the pleasure of interacting with through Teach Plus. Sharing late nights with teachers studying policy, visiting their classrooms, and talking about their limitlessly unpredictable students are the highlights of my work life. Teachers like Marilyn Rhames, Abby Taylor, and Jacob Pactor have inspired me with their commitment to kids and to breaking down the barriers that stand in the way of their success. I feel privilege and responsibility in sharing their stories.
Writing this book was a team effort at Teach Plus. The entire staff was my writing accountability group. Each Friday, I committed to sending my progress in an all‐staff email. Each week, I got questions, comments, and corrections back in return. The final chapters are infinitely better for this feedback. Special thanks goes to my cofounder, Monique Burns Thompson, as well as Anya Grottel‐Brown, Lindsay Sobel, Paul Toner, and Will Wiggins.
I owe my ability to translate between teacher‐speak and policy‐speak to the best policy mentors in the country. David Driscoll, Paul Reville, Hon. George Miller, Milbrey McLaughlin, Joan Talbert, and Linda Darling‐Hammond have all shaped my worldview on policy and contributed in various ways to this book.
I am grateful that many of my favorite memories of writing this book will be of working alongside my school‐age daughters as they did their homework. I was never writing about something abstract. My motivation to be a good role model to them was intertwined with my motivation to contribute to improving schools while there is still time to impact their age cohort. They were my celebration committee at the conclusion of each writing stage and my all‐too‐opinionated focus group on cover designs. They are my purpose and my joy.
My decision to take on the risk of writing my first book was made infinitely easier knowing that my husband would support me, succeed or fail. I love you, Randy Wambold. I cannot imagine this process without you tirelessly fixing the printer, relentlessly teasing me about my love of “sets of ideas,” and teaching me the meaning of words I use imprecisely. To be married to the person you admire and respect most in the world is life's greatest gift.
PREFACE
I wrote this book during a time of transition in US society. When I began, President Obama was in office, and the smart money was on Hillary Clinton becoming his successor. I finished the book in the days surrounding President Trump's inauguration. If teachers were concerned that leaders weren't listening in the previous era, that feeling has heightened with the entering administration. This is certainly a moment for teachers to learn to raise their voices.
However, this is not a book about learning to yell louder. Influencing the decisions that affect your classroom involves developing new skills, knowledge, and relationships. This is the playbook for getting started on that advocacy path. It will help you become more savvy about which issues to take on and how to best use your limited time to have an impact that will benefit your students.
We do not know what the future holds for the education agenda in America. In truth, we can never be sure in advance. Yet there are a few certainties that guide this book and make me optimistic about the role of teachers in keeping that future bright.
One of these certainties is that our students, especially our most vulnerable students, need us to act. For undocumented students, the threat of deportation now looms large. Basic agreement on the role of the federal government in supporting special needs students may now be in question. Funding cutbacks have been proposed. Teachers know best what the true costs of such changes would be in our schools, and need to be at the table to defend against them.
Another certainty is that very little education decision making happens in Washington DC. Even though the spotlight always shifts to the federal government with the arrival of a new president, most of the power to set direction in education resides at the state and local levels. The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act pushed much more decision making away from the federal government and closer to schools. A mantra of the Trump administration is that education should be handled at the state and local levels. As states and districts work to design new, locally relevant policies, there will be opportunities for teacher participation.
A final certainty is that the voice of teachers matters. At a moment when many citizens are seeking moral authority figures around whom to mobilize, teachers have natural leadership potential. The public generally has high trust in teachers, and parents see teachers as a valuable source of information. If you take the leap to advocate for an issue you are passionate about, others will follow.
CHAPTER ONEStorytellingLESSONAdvocacy Starts with Your Why
I always wanted to be a teacher. I was the kid who, like so many of us, lined up my dolls and taught them math before I knew how to add. My parents were both teachers (my dad until retirement). My grandma taught kindergarten. In the lax, hippie‐ish 1970s, my mom used to drop preschool‐age me off for Grandma to babysit in her classroom. My grandma had a piano in her class. She'd play it, and I got to sing along with the big kids. Oh, school, you had me at that happy, off‐key hello.
I never contemplated any job but teaching, and I thought my parents knew this heading into our first conversation about my college plans when I was sixteen. My dad had just taken me on my first college tour and sat me down with my mom as soon as we got home. So, they asked, what do you think you'll study in college? Wow, here was my shining moment to make them so proud! (Maybe they'd even let me borrow the car later!) “I want to study education and be a teacher,” I beamed back, fully expecting them to pat me on the back and welcome me into the family business.
The gap between my expectations and reality in that conversation was a big determinant of the course of the rest of my life. My mom started to cry, and my dad started to yell. There was talk about how they must have let me down to have not exposed me to other options. They threatened that they wouldn't pay for college if I went into teaching. Didn't I want a more financially secure life? My loans would be too big to pay back on a teacher's salary. Ultimately, the message they repeated that day and for years after was, “Teaching is not for smart and ambitious people.” It was the most insane, depressing, and surprising thing I'd ever heard. They were my role models, and they were teachers. They were my role models because they were teachers.
I didn't believe that message then, and I don't believe it now. The work of my life has been showing it to be wrong. But I've met hundreds of second‐ and third‐generation teachers whose teacher parents gave them the same message. Every time I work with a new group of teachers, I ask if any have educator parents who discouraged them from teaching. Every group has at least one. They are not unique. In a recent study of fifty‐three thousand teachers, 70 percent said they were unlikely or very unlikely to recommend teaching as a career. Only 2.7 percent said they'd encourage it.1 The 2015 winner of a $1 million worldwide prize for teaching excellence used her platform to discourage others from entering teaching.2
I wrote this book because of my belief in the power of teachers and teaching. My day job, running a nonprofit focused on teacher leadership, is amazing because I get to meet hundreds of incredible teachers from all over the country every year. I am humbled by their work ethic and inspired by the stories of how they solve problems with their colleagues and for their kids. Many of those stories appear in this book. These teachers see how our schools and the teaching profession need to change to meet the challenges kids face in the twenty‐first century, and they are making change happen in an outdated system that often works against them. I want to spread these stories and help other teachers become leaders in improving how schools work for students.
The core belief that drives both this book and my professional life is, If we're going to change the teaching profession to better serve kids, especially the poor students and students of color whom our system has let down in the past, teachers need to be the leaders of that change.
The vision that animates this work is of a true profession where teachers are the indispensible leaders of problem solving in the field, where smart and ambitious are the first words used to describe teachers. It is a vision in which great teachers stay for more than the now‐typical three‐year stint through a dynamic career that marries teaching with leadership. This vision has student growth and teacher growth at its center. This vision of our education system is achievable. Only teachers can get us there.
What Is Your Why?
We all have an instinct to seek our own vision of a better world—for our students, for our own children, for ourselves. Advocacy is personal. Finding your voice on any issue starts with tapping into why you care. Communicating why you care matters. The why is an expression of your values and an invitation for others to connect to them. The why is what motivates you to persevere through challenges.
Here's the why that motivated me to write the book.
Teachers across America are a diverse group, yet they are unified by a common and palpable frustration. They have lost their voice in the decisions that affect their students. This book is for every teacher who wants to reverse this damaging trend.
Most teachers would say that nobody is listening to them. There is plenty of evidence suggesting they're right.
Evidence of this professional frustration is all around us. In a 2014 survey of twenty thousand teachers, a mere 2 percent felt that the opinions of “teachers like me” were heard and valued in national education decision making.3 In the ten‐year period from 2003 to 2012, teachers' feelings of autonomy in six key areas of decision making, such as curriculum and teaching techniques, decreased precipitously in every demographic group and every type of school.4 Most teachers would say that nobody is listening to them. There is plenty of evidence suggesting they're right.
It does not need to be this way, and there are important exceptions to this narrative. I founded Teach Plus in 2007 and began offering a policy fellowship to excellent teachers to give them the skills and knowledge to play an influential role in education decision making. The view for teachers in our network looks different from the norm. Consider the events of just the past year or so:
In late 2015, student testing had become a national flashpoint. President Obama was planning to speak on the issue, but first wanted to discuss it with two current teachers. I got the call to send well‐informed teachers to meet with him.
A few months later, fifty teachers gathered to celebrate their recognition as state teachers of the year for their respective home states. Two of them had been trained in our program. Every year for the past seven, at least one of our fellows has been selected for this honor.
Only twenty‐five “negotiators” in all of the United States were selected to help establish the rules for states on the new Every Student Succeeds Act to replace No Child Left Behind. Two were teachers. One was trained in our program.
In seven locations around the country, teachers whom our team has trained are taking equally important seats at decision‐making tables in their states and districts. They are running for leadership roles in their unions, helping forge changes in their contracts and state laws, and launching innovative programs that improve student achievement in struggling schools. They are changing the lives of their students and, at the same time, using their daily experiences in the classroom to change the world.
I believe that if more teachers knew what these teachers knew, we could spark a revolution in teacher empowerment.
Their sense of empowerment stands in stark contrast to most teachers—but so does their understanding of how the system works. I believe that if more teachers knew what these teachers knew, we could spark a revolution in teacher empowerment.
When education decisions are made without teachers at the table, students suffer the consequences. Since my time as a classroom teacher, I have spent the past two decades trying to figure out what teachers need to know and be able to do to influence the decisions that affect their classrooms. This book is a summary of what I have learned. It is for every teacher who wants to be a voice for students and for the teaching profession.
The Story of My Path to Teaching
So how did I get from where I was when I heard my parents' message to here? I'll use this chapter to share more of my own story as modeling for connecting a personal why to being a catalyst for change on a specific issue.
Instead of trying drugs or dating the wrong guys, my act of youthful rebellion was taking education courses and eventually student teaching as an undergrad. I probably got away with it only because my dad was too distracted to notice, given how dramatically all of our lives changed before the start of my sophomore year of college. My mom lost her six‐year battle with cancer that summer, adding pressure to my career choice. If I went into teaching, I would be doing the one thing she had hoped I wouldn't.
Of course, I did. I became a teacher of sixth‐grade earth science and eighth‐grade geography. I loved the magic that surrounded us when I could close my classroom door to the rest of the world and focus on just my students. But, after a few years, I came to understand the message my parents were trying to communicate. There were few opportunities for career growth or recognition of success in teaching, few chances to connect with colleagues, and few ways to have a larger voice in addressing what my students needed.
My role today is as a teacher of policy, helping current teachers understand and influence the larger system. Although my K–12 teaching experience was a formative element of the worldview I bring to this book, I am writing as a current policy wonk and leader of a big fan club for teachers (Teach Plus). I am not a K–12 teacher today and haven't been for the better part of two decades. After leaving the classroom, I spent my first ten years in the policy world observing the gap between teachers and the people making decisions about their classrooms. I did everything I could to understand how policy worked and why teachers were so rarely at the table. Then I founded Teach Plus. For the past ten years, with a team of awesome world‐changers, I've lived in that breach that separates teachers from policymakers. This book is a view from the gap between the two worlds.
The Story of My Path into Policy
August 14, 1998, was a day that changed the direction of my life. Since March of that year, I had been diligently sending applications to every middle school in the Boston Public Schools, hoping to make a move from my current position in Worcester, Massachusetts. I met David Driscoll, the commissioner of education in Massachusetts, at a low moment, and spouted off at him about my great frustration that hiring timelines were so late—it was August 14!!—and I didn't have a job yet for the fall. He invited me to come work with him on a new set of teacher quality initiatives. Once I said yes, the teaching interviews started coming in, but I had already sealed my fate.
I rationalized taking the job, thinking that I would have the chance to impact the lives of many more students by working in policy. That thought excited me. What I didn't realize was that taking on a role in influencing the lives of many would mean losing the deep relationships with individual students that were the best part of my teaching life. That trade‐off is huge, and I think many teachers exiting for policy are surprised by the contrast in work environments and the depersonalized nature of policy. That's why I've made it my mission to create paths that allow teachers to stay in the classroom and also have a voice in policy. Decision makers need to hear more from actual practitioners. Teachers should not need to leave the classroom to have a larger voice.
The Lessons I Learned Transitioning from Teaching to Policy
My transition from teaching to policy was a culture shock. I learned three fundamental lessons that year that shape my work as a translator between teachers and policymakers to this day.
Lesson 1: Teachers Are Rarely Invited to the Policymaking Table
You might have suspected this, but not had any evidence. It's true.
When I was special assistant to the commissioner, my desk was very close to his office. I had the privilege of joining him in many meetings and rarely met a current, or even former, teacher in these rooms. Our relationship developed around one question that he asked me often:
“Celine, you were a teacher. What do teachers think about _____?” You could fill in that blank with any education initiative du jour, from charter schools, to the new state tests, to the changes to teacher certification and teacher leadership on which my work was focused.
