Posted by roliver on Saturday, April 28th, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Effective Practices for Success in Schools – Part 1: A Challenge
Part 1: A Challenge
Two hours after the close of yesterday’s School That Can 2012 National Forum: Boston, one of our STC Boston school leaders gave me a call. He was doing his best to be polite, but I could tell he was a bit upset. “Ryan,” he said, “I first want to say how well I think the Forum went overall.” At this point I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But that last session,” he continued. “Rick Hess seems to contradict everything we stand for as an organization. I just don’t get it. Why would you have people who don’t believe in sharing effective practices close out our Forum?”
My short response was to say that we didn’t just choose presenters and topics based on whether they agreed with us, but hoped to expose the STC community to a variety of ideas and points of view that might inspire conversation and thought. Rick Hess and Paul Peterson are both accomplished and intelligent thinkers whose ideas are influencing conversations about school reform, educational policy and school choice in particular, so it is worthwhile for us to be aware of them, even if we don’t agree with all their positions. Since he now realized that we weren’t in any way endorsing the ideas presented, our STC Boston member accepted my response and appeared comforted.
I was not. In fact, in reflecting on how significantly dissonant the ideas presented must have appeared, and in hearing and reading similar comments from Forum participants, I became less and less comfortable with this fundamental challenge to our core methodology as an organization and a national community of educators. Rather than ignore this contradiction or dismiss our presenters as ideologues I suggest we take their position seriously and rise to the challenge they pose.
Rick Hess in particular has argued that best practice sharing will never lead to the improvement of educational systems because 1) there is no “one best way,” and 2) even if there was, implementation is always imperfect or applied in the wrong context. He argues that children would be better served by removing barriers to innovation and allowing talented entrepreneurs to develop systems and strategies that best serve the needs of the students in front of them at the local level. Hess does accept the importance of accountability, but he argues that our system should be much less rigid and focus on a narrower band of regulations that would be less stifling of creative problem-solving.
Hess offers as evidence the fact that effective practice sharing has not yet transformed the educational landscape nor provided an excellent education for all. Clearly, most of us have seen, heard and been participants in many experiments in “best practice” sharing that prove him right.
My questions to all of you who take the work of Schools That Can, its mission and the methods we are developing seriously:
What do we have that proves him wrong? How will Schools That Can use effective practice sharing across sectors to transform the educational landscape in a way that no other organization has done to date?
Looking to STC Milwaukee, I don’t just believe, I know, we have a response to give, and I plan to offer one. What evidence and ideas can you offer to the conversation? Or, to paraphrase Clayton Christensen: in the absence of evidence, what theory inspires you to continue on?
Tags: AEI, culture, education, Education Week, Effective Practices, Frederick M. Hess, Paul Peterson, Rick Hess, sharing, STC Boston, STC Forum, STC Milwaukee, STC National Forum
Thank you so much for this, Ryan. I was one of the folks feeling frustrated after the Hess-Peterson session, but more due to Hess’s assertion that we haven’t figured out how to replicate (which a number of our member networks have) and Peterson’s assertion that “it’s easier to find a good teacher than to train one” (which the teacher residency model and other clinically-based teacher prep programs disprove every day). At AUSL, as in many STC schools and networks, our success is built upon common practices with a common language and well-trained new teachers working in collaboration with their excellent experienced peers. Maybe they need to come see our work in action to learn that the bleak picture they painted is far from the reality in our growing national network of STC member and partner schools.
Ryan — I appreciated the forum and your response to Rick Hess. Jenn is right on. I balked a little at the comment “it’s easier to find a good teacher than train one.” While it may be easier it isn’t always the way to go. There is significant reform resistance to the effectiveness of “turnaround” efforts. But there is so much evidence that those efforts are working all over the country and for us personally in Milwaukee.
Still I think that when you state “Rick Hess in particular has argued that best practice sharing will never lead to the improvement of educational systems because…” Rick is partially right. Just sharing the ideas doesn’t do anything, but acting on them does — especially those at the core of effective turnaround. That is the difference in the STC network. Action is the baseline.
Thanks to you both for expanding the conversation and bringing in the additional element of teacher development vs. teacher discovery. Hess made a strong argument that there simply aren’t enough high performing folks available in the workforce to fill all the teacher positions we would need under the current structure of schools. This means either a radical rethinking of how we staff schools, or a radical rethinking of how we train and develop those who have a desire to teach, but may not be ready to go right out of college, or are coming to the profession from other fields. The residency model is one I agree has great potential and is showing results. Part of that model also assumes high levels of selectivity, so I think it’s a both/and. Edward Brooke and Roxbury Prep each presented great models for continuing that development once teachers are on the job. Now that both are expanding rapidly and they can’t be as selective with hiring, their models will be put to the test. Love to hear more thoughts and ideas about what STC has to offer in particular and how we are/can move from sharing to action, as Shaun suggests.
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Seems I’m of a different mind than most, but I didn’t feel that Hess’ comments were so contradictory to what we are doing. For example, people who become great teachers through residency programs are likely people with the right attitude and some level of aptitude – not just anyone. So these programs have to some degree “found the right people” and then supported their development into great teachers.
Also, as for sharing of best practices – or coaching, as STC Milwaukee showed, schools weren’t chosen randomly with success occurring based solely on the implementation of best practices – rather, STC Milwaukee works hard to find schools with the right leader, schools that are ready for real change. In that sense, such best practice sharing would not work across the board as Hess asserts. Replication/best practice sharing only does work with the right people and the right culture in place.