To Innovate, Look to Those Who Educate

In the debate over school improvement, individuals and groups advancing agendas with little or no evidence to back them up have somehow claimed the mantle of education "reformers," while teachers, their unions and others with actual education expertise often are portrayed as obstacles to reform--despite their desire to be involved in an improvement process that frequently shuts them out.

In this upside-down approach to school "reform," teachers are required to implement top-down policies made without their input, often in an austerity environment, with little more than an exhortation to "just do it," and then are blamed when the policies fail. Not surprisingly, these "strategies"--such as mayoral control, school reconstitution, misuse and overuse of standardized tests, vouchers, merit pay, or simply stripping teachers of voice and professionalism--haven't moved the needle.

The American Federation of Teachers has promoted a better way. Shortly after I became president, we established the AFT Innovation Fund, a union-led effort to provide grants and assistance to AFT affiliates who envision and pursue educational innovation. The Innovation Fund, now in its third year, supports both promising ideas and proven programs that can be scaled up.

Most important, when teachers and other school employees work collaboratively with administrators and others on school improvement, students do better. That's why the AFT Innovation Fund encourages this shared responsibility and promotes built-in teacher voice and buy-in--essential components of successful education reforms. It is one more way our members and leaders advocate for reforms to be implemented with us, not done to us.

The Innovation Fund, which is supported by the members of the AFT and by several generous foundation grants, distributes close to $3 million each year to incubate teacher- and union-designed projects. This unique effort in venture philanthropy currently supports the projects of some 20 state and local AFT affiliates, which already are producing impressive results.

Two of our first grants--to the AFT state affiliates in New York and Rhode Island--have been used to do pioneering work on teacher development and evaluation. These grantees' leadership in this area helped the AFT win an early Investing in Education (i3) grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop evaluation systems that support continuous school and teacher improvement.

Innovation Fund grantees also are upending conventional wisdom in the charter sector. The fund has supported the development of a model union-charter contract for a Chicago charter high school as well as efforts to open "in district" charters in Austin and San Antonio, Texas. And it has nurtured the creation of the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools--the first union-affiliated charter school authorizer in the nation, which seeks to put teachers' voice and ideas back into the charter movement just as former AFT president Albert Shanker envisioned.

Several recent investments seek to ensure teachers have a voice and a role in the rollout of the Common Core State Standards, so that these standards don't sit on a shelf, as happened in the last push for common standards in the 1990s. The Chicago Teachers Union is working with classroom teachers to create model lessons aligned to the standards. The district was so impressed that it asked the CTU to demonstrate its lesson-development process and advise on how best to prepare teachers to teach to these new, higher standards.

The Innovation Fund also has made grants to improve early childhood education. In New York City, the United Federation of Teachers has adapted the PBS show "Between the Lions" for very young children and developed a program to teach home-based child care workers best practices in early literacy development. Similarly, AFT-St. Louis has received a grant to create that district's first-ever professional development program for early childhood teachers. Already, more young children are being enrolled in St. Louis because parents are responding to the message that public early childhood programs are of high quality.

In every location, the Innovation Fund and its grantees partner with districts, parents and community groups. Such collaboration is a core value for the AFT, and it is essential to ensure that ideas fostered by the Innovation Fund can be sustained.
Rather than work with teachers and their unions, many self-described reformers accuse them of being resistant to reform and concerned only about adults, not students. The serious, hard work of AFT members and unions to improve teaching and learning proves those accusations false. And unlike many so-called reformers who think that disruption and conflict equal reform, we are about seeding innovations, helping them take root and nurturing their growth, so that all kids can succeed.

 

Follow Randi Weingarten on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rweingarten

Comments

[Bill Jones123]

01:22 PM on 04/21/2012

Expel the violent, gun toting, drug using, dangerous students and send them to privates.

Turn the publics into elite schools.

Let the privates face universal enrollment and the inability to expel anyone.

Now, that would be the defining moment in the debate on which model is better.

[Bill Jones123]

01:12 PM on 04/21/2012

Teachers are hurt by their stupid leadership and by even more ignorant reformers.They need to step forward, charter their own schools, and run them. They would succeed and end this entirely stupid education debate.

Imagine a teacher discipline board, freed from the confines of some moronic ed code, that would get rid of the trouble makers. Imagine turing over to the for profit schools all of the hard core bad kids.

It would work wonderfully. There is an immediate solution that would turn our publics into world class institutions. Allow them to expel students to for profit privates. Let the for profit privates be assigned the role of universal enrollment and complete testing accountability.

Let's turn this equation around. Voucher schools get the WORST, publics keep the best. That would WORK.

[LindaRetiredTeacher]

01:53 PM on 04/15/2012

I'm terribly disappointed that teacher unions have not taken the lead in a true reform movement. Teacher leaders should be helping teachers start their own schools all over the country. These schools would be led by teachers and administered by a head teacher. Teachers now have an unprecedented opportunity to become fully professional in the sense that they would make nearly all decisions at a school site, just as lawyers make them in a law firm, doctors in a clinic and professors in a college.

Also, teachers could keep costs down by eliminating a lot of administration and removing the profit motive of many charter operators.

[nypoet22]

12:31 PM on 04/16/2012

good suggestion. i agree that this approach could be helpful.

[zenwarrior13]

03:47 PM on 04/14/2012

As a former public school teacher and parent in NYC, my ex and I struggled for 9 years to afford a excellent private school education for our child. Our child is now in a "specialized", "prestigious" public school that still falls far short of the academic rigor of private school. If you want to figure out exactly how to develop academic excellence then learning from the top private schools would be a great start. We understand the demographics are different but the system is what should be modeled. First, the hiring process is rigorous with only the best teachers with excellent credentials even being considered. Virtually anyone who barely graduated from any college could become a teacher in NYC. Second, the teacher training and support is far superior to what the DOE offers. Third, the teachers/administration are usually given year-to-year contracts. It is virtually impossible to fire a mediocre public school teacher who is just collecting a paycheck. There are many excellent public school teachers but the broken system assures that the bad and mediocre teachers still remain employed even during layoffs. Accountability is the foundation of any successful business. Lastly, the principals in private schools are usually far more responsive, professional, educated and experienced than their public school counterparts. School choice naturally ensures accountability. Public school principals are more concerned with protecting than demanding excellence from their teachers. Ms. Weingarten is simply trying to save a sinking ship by throwing a napkin in a gapping hole.

[perlin]

08:51 PM on 04/14/2012

Did you value the private school more because you paid top dollars to educate your child? What proof do you have that the private school provided "superior" education to your child? Is your child close to invent the cure for cancer, getting a perfect SAT score without studying or revolutionizing the scientific field? I do not think so.
While I agree that the private schools have a better teacher to student ratio, 15:1 on the average, and more individual attention is paid to the child I disagree they provide "superior" education. Sure , the private school may provide the opportunity for your child to socialize with kids of the rich and powerful but the private schools do not provide a better education.

[perlin]

09:26 PM on 04/14/2012

Some people value private schools because they have to pay a lot of money for education. They think more money they pay the better school they get. What proof do you have that the private schools provide "superior" education? I agree that the private schools have a better teacher to student ratio, 15:1 on the average. It allows more individual attention and more care. I disagree the private schools provide "superior" education. Sure , the private school may provide the opportunity for the child to socialize with kids of the rich and powerful but the private schools do not provide a better education in my opinion.

[PFTPRES]

08:16 PM on 04/16/2012

You have a point perlin. There is not a shred of evidence that private school children, when matched for SES, outperform public school children academically. Zenwarrior needs to do her homework. Checking with the National Center for Educational Statistics (part of USDE)might help.So much of the public debate on education issues is just a rehash of media narratives, "conventional wisdom," and urban myth.

A quick check of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) website will find a study: "How Teachers Compare," that refutes more urban myths about public school teachers being academically deficient. Teachers rank with all other college educated professions: their literacy skills are a little better on evaerage than lawyers; and, their math skills on average a little below that of engineers. And all (nearly) public school teachers are "credentialed" while that is not a requirement for private schools.

[watcherback]

12:08 PM on 04/14/2012

Government should be reformed before education can be reformed effectively and truthfully. This is one of the worse congresses ever, thanks to the obstructionist tactics employed by the GOP. They have been ineffective and shown absolutely no progress or hopes for improvement. By comparison, schools are doing extraordinarily well given the unfair circumstances they are forced to work within and the corrupt siphoning of educational funds into the coffers of test makers and for profit schools.

[perlin]

10:02 AM on 04/14/2012

I wish the unions launch the counterattack in media and defend the teachers in meaningful way. The message Davis Guggenheim has sent in his propaganda film WFS should be reversed to the honest way of showing the hard work of urban teachers and the everyday challenges they face. Teachers deserve nothing less than justice. The vicious, unfair attacks on teachers should prevent the unions from endorsing Obama since his administration continues the privatization of public education straight from ALEC script. The unions should recognize that the public education is under attack and has to be defended before is too late.

[luapmi2]

07:36 AM on 04/14/2012

"In the third year"....so you took a year to get the program started, requested ideas, placed grants and they have been "running" for, at most, one year.

So, you are able to draw conclusions on a single data point. WOW, you're good (or full of BS).

[eceresa]

07:25 AM on 04/14/2012

Pretty much everything the current crop of "reformers" says is false. But it doesn't matter. They've got the backing of the media and their bad ideas are repeated so often that people accept them without question. They're hoodwinked, and if they read this article, their response will be a conditioned cry of "Unions BAAAAAD!"

[luapmi2]

07:37 AM on 04/14/2012

We're still waiting for you too prove otherwise.

America's educational ranking and expenditures are proof that unions aren't helping.

[watcherback]

11:40 AM on 04/14/2012

No. America's expenditures for education are mostly going to the test making companies. Our rankings are pretty decent considering we're comparing all of American children with the other countries' elite who have the privilege to go to school. Do other countries expect all of their educationally challenged (special ed or language learners if they have them) students to reach a pre-conceived competency by a deadline for all or else declare their school districts failures? I think not!

[LindaRetiredTeacher]

01:15 AM on 04/15/2012

America's children not in poverty have the highest international test scores in the world.

[nypoet22]

01:51 PM on 04/16/2012

or more appropriate to the orwellian imagery, "four legs good, two legs bad."