Next message: Joyce Gleason: "Re: [Teacher-Talkmissinglink] teachers as coaches"
I thought people would be interested in the following article from today's
NY Times about teachers as coaches, which includes discussion from Wheeling,
IL€ the home district for The Missing Link's Master Teacher Jan Robinson.
For anyone interested in learning more about this kind of approach to
professional development, I'm sure Jan would be happy to share what she
knows. Best, Adam Kernan-Schloss (Project Director)
NY Times, November 22, 2000
LESSONS
For Teaching's Real Pros, Coaches on the Sidelines
TEACHERS sometimes complain that they are not "treated like
professionals," pointing to things like lack of personal office space
or access to telephones. But the most unprofessional aspect of their
job is excessive autonomy. Behind classroom doors, teachers are mostly
on their own.
Other professionals get more supervision. Young law firm associates
have senior partners for mentoring, supervision and modeling. Partner-
to-associate ratios are typically one to one. Business executives
rarely have more than five subordinates reporting to them. At
newspapers, editors often supervise no more than 10 reporters. But in
public schools, it is common for one principal to oversee 25 teachers.
It is also unprofessional.
This is now changing, with many districts adding full-time teacher
"coaches" to their rosters. These quasi supervisors are not merely
volunteer mentors who offer advice to beginners during lunch or after
school, although this is also a growing trend. Rather, coaches are
specialists with no classroom assignments of their own, who observe
other teachers, guide teachers' own learning and teach demonstration
lessons.
Anthony Alvarado began such a program when he was District 2
superintendent in New York City. Now he is in charge of instruction in
San Diego, where each school has a full- time specialist spending four
days a week in the school and a fifth day in training with other
coaches.
Diana Lam assigned a full-time "instructional guide" to each school
when she was superintendent in San Antonio, and now has a similar
program as superintendent in Providence, R.I. Suburban districts like
Wheeling, Ill., outside Chicago, also now have full-time specialists
at each school.
In Montgomery County, Md., in the Washington suburbs, Superintendent
Jerry Weast requires each principal to identify academic areas needing
student improvement. Then the school's own staff developer works with
each teacher to prepare an individual plan to mesh with the common
goal. If the coach recommends further training from which a teacher
could benefit, coach and teacher may attend together so that they can
later model for each other the methods learned.
The need for coaches has become acute, because schools are enrolling
more diverse populations and because demands that all students achieve
at higher levels require more attention to individual learning styles.
Bill Bailey, a 37-year-old specialist in San Diego, has worked this
year with a fourth-grade teacher many years his senior. Although
already effective, she needed help learning to guide a small group in
reading while relinquishing her fears that other pupils might not
fulfill independent assignments without her constant attention.
Many districts are making these changes despite the cost of
specialists, who nearly double school leadership budgets (although
most districts report this as an instructional cost, not
administrative). San Diego, Montgomery County and Wheeling principals,
usually in consultation with teachers and even parents, select coaches
for their schools. Dr. Lam used such a system in San Antonio, but in
Providence she has taken a more direct hand in selection, because she
wants every school to focus on reading.
To make the approach work, districts have raised a fire wall between
coaching and evaluation. Coaches remain union members and do not
recommend discipline for teachers who don't improve. Principals keep
sole responsibility for evaluation, without help from coaches.
In practice, this line can blur, but not much. While coaches and
principals sometimes informally consult about evaluation, their doing
so is rare, as it must be to gain teachers' cooperation. Teachers have
had autonomy for so long that it is a radical step to place
specialists in veterans' classrooms for observation and modeling. If
teachers believed that poor performance would be reported, they would
resist being observed, and unions would resist the reform.
This line between mentoring and evaluation does not exist in other
professions, but it may be a better way: in education, specialists
seek to improve performance of well-established teachers, not only
novices.
Some districts have instituted coaching gradually but have won rapid
acceptance for it. In San Diego, specialists enter classrooms only
when invited by the teacher. In Wheeling, they started the same way
last year, but veteran teachers have now been convinced that
specialists can help; they invite coaches in more frequently.
It is no accident that many superintendents have come to the same
conclusion: that standards-based reform cannot succeed without better
teaching and that it is unrealistic to expect teachers to improve
without coaches' help. Quality could not be maintained in other
professions without intensive mentoring, supervision and
collaboration. Education is no different.
--
NOTE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS
Adam Kernan-Schloss
adam@ksaplus.com
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