Moore: Running schools like a business

Posted: February 26, 2010 – 12:16am

By Michael Moore

My 10th-grade science teacher did not inspire me to become a scientist. But he did inspire others in our class and some did become scientists.

Back then (and not that long ago), the only people in Mr. Sheffield’s classroom were he and his students. Today, Mr. Sheffield’s classroom would be overcrowded – just not from students. His inspiration and influence would be severely impaired.

When Mr. Sheffield taught biology, his administration respected his content knowledge and his job. His superintendent respected his work, as did his board of education, the parents of his students, the public and the state.

I think most were in awe of his ability to transform a classroom. He was a school leader and coached the science club.

Today, Mr. Sheffield would face a teeming classroom. He would be subjected to “walk throughs” by threatened administrators looking only to be sure that the day’s science standard was prominently posted on the board.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (Margaret Spellings in wingtips) would be wandering through Mr. Sheffield’s classroom deciding whether critical federal dollars should be given to Georgia, provided Mr. Sheffield does not have intellectual aspirations beyond his bachelors degree (his experience and status as a leader and role model are not eligible for financial reward).

Mr. Sheffield would need to save extra seats for Gov. Sonny Perdue and the state board of education, who show up to make sure his test scores reflect what’s being taught, even though such tests merely measure socio-economic status and what he didn’t have time to teach because he was forced to teach to the test.

Mr. Sheffield would no longer be able to administer his own qualitative tests that include written responses that would inform him as to his students’ progress and enable him to individualize his instruction.

Today, weeks of instructional time are lost to testing or test preparation. The board of education would be cutting Mr. Sheffield’s supplies. His curriculum would be selected by others, but developed by test makers to narrow his focus toward the all-important test.

The superintendent would be unilaterally adjusting his school day and instructional schedule, so precious dollars can be saved at the end of the year. Lost in all this would be his innovative planning.

Today Mr. Sheffield, like most teachers, would be assailed at all levels. Reductionist political sound bites like “no excuses,” “non negotiables” and “accountability” have eroded the perception of teachers among the public, our political leadership, administration and ultimately – and sadly – students.

A number of years ago, Mr. Sheffield died relatively young in his forties of a heart attack. Were I pressed to explain to him what happened to his beloved profession over the last 10 years, I would have to tell him that while we were all busy with teaching, we thought others who we trusted had our backs.

Unfortunately, no one had our backs. A highly intrusive government at every level descended on schools. When the dust cleared, what was left was just another poorly run business.

Michael Moore is a professor of literacy education at Georgia Southern University. mmoore@georgiasouthern.edu.

This sentence caught my eye because it mentioned the traditional “architecture” of the short story, “the old structure of beginning, middle, end.”   I wrote these very words–beginning, middle, end– on the board during a discussion on narrative writing just three days ago, suggesting to the class that it was a better outline than the more formulaic structures that have come into vogue in recent years, notably the five-paragraph essay.  Compared to those structures, beginning, middle, end seems loose and free.  So I appreciate the irony of it being called the “old structure,” even at a time in the past when a 91-year old man was in the heyday of his writing career.

Salinger didn’t worry about that kind of ordering.  People are just living, people are just feeling, people are just talking–why does there need to be more structure to the story of life than to the living of life.  Since we are noting Salinger’s death, it’s pretty clear that life itself has an end and, conversely, a beginning–with everything else in the middle.  But unless we are writing an entire life, we are left with the things in the middle which, in the telling, don’t always adhere nicely to beginning, middle, and end.  Life can be messy. To achieve greatness, to rise above, to be so noted that even after 50 years of not wanting to be noted or noticed at all, a writer is still heralded and mourned on his death, one had better go beyond structure as delineated by any formula, complicated or simple.

Thank-you Mr. Salinger.

Much has changed since 1994.  Some districts have lost pupils to new programs like Charter Schools or Schools of Choice.  The state has lost citizens due to the poor economy and job losses.  Districts and the state have lost money as homes are foreclosed or lose value, and as people quit spending as incomes are lost or go down.  Less spending means less sales tax.

 Each school district negotiates with school bus drivers, custodians secretaries, administrators, aides, food service workers, and, of course, teachers.  Various ones of these groups negotiate together, but each school board must settle multiple employee contracts.  As the USA and the world slid into the current recession, it became more and more difficult for districts to continue to pay the increasingly higher premiums for employee insurance policies.  Teachers and other groups are not willing to give up the gains they fought so hard for in negotiating for those employer paid insurance policies.  In many districts, teachers had willingly given up raises in order to maintain quality insurance policies, and they are very unwilling to see those policies replaced by ones they consider inferior.  

Another group the state has made promises to is retired teachers–1000′s of individuals who receive a defined pension from the Michigan Teacher Retirement System along with an insurance policy.  State legislatures see these pensions and insurance policies as money drainers and want to find less expensive alternatives.  If nothing can be done about the current pensions, they will, at least, consider altering the terms of future pensions.  And, until these things are worked out, the state legislators are unlikely to reverse their decision to cut the per pupil allowances to schools.  The greatest expense of running schools is paying employees: approximately 80% of a school budget is taken up with the costs associated with paying salaries, social security, insurance, retirement, workers’ compensation, unemployment taxes, and other expenditures required of employers. 

Schools settle their budgets on July 1.   School starts after Labor Day and employees are given contracts by then.  When the state doesn’t settle its budget until October, there is a problem.  And when the state takes away money it promised, money the school budgets are based upon, money that is already committed, there is a bigger problem.  When, in addition, the state takes away another big chunk of money, schools have no choice but to eliminate employees.  There is no other way to operate.  Schools must operate on a balanced budget–it’s a state law.  Schools keep a fund balance and it is not considered healthy for that fund balance to fall below 10% of the budget: the amount it would take to literally shut down if all other money disappeared. Any business has to have that kind of reserve to be considered fiscally responsible.  Right now, school districts across Michigan are making very tough decisions.  Should they lower their fund balances to dangerous levels?  Should they lay off teachers and other workers at the change of semesters?  The decisions will be difficult, and many people will be affected by the results. 

The first question we need to ask is why such a bill would be needed.   One answer to that question is that this legislation will allow the state of Michigan to tap into stimulus money offered by the Obama administration to meet a critical shortage of teachers. 

The second question we need to ask is why such a bill is needed in Michigan, where hundreds of recent graduates with teacher certification cannot find teaching jobs in the state.  An answer to that question is that there are specific areas of teaching and specific areas of Michigan where teachers are in short supply.  Often cited are the areas of math, science, special education, and ESL.    Also cited are the problems faced by many urban districts as they try to find qualified, certified teachers to fill all of their classrooms. 

This answer leads to the third question: Will the new programs being developed for alternative certification be offered only to those candidates willing to prepare themselves in the disciplines where there  are shortages or to teach in the districts where there are unfilled positions? Past practices suggest this may not be the case.

Alternative certification programs already exist in Michigan.  In fact, many if not most of the 32 institutions of higher education in the state that offer teacher certification programs among their bachelor’s degree programs also have graduate teacher certification (GTC) programs open to candidates who already hold bachelor’s degrees but who graduated without the endorsements needed to teach.  At the university where I teach in the English Department, there is a GTC program in the College of Education that provides teacher certification in as little as 15 months if the candidate has a bachelor’s degree with a teachable major (also a teachable minor if the candidate is seeking secondary school certification).  These students are able to by-pass some of the courses that students going through the traditional programs are required to take, but the program is still rigorous and the graduates are fully prepared through requirements that include student teaching, methods courses in their fields, and general pedagogy courses.   These programs were encouraged by state and national governments to meet teacher shortages just as the new programs are being promoted.  However, based on the program at my university, there does not seem to be any attempt made to screen candidates based on needs in the schools.  Instead, graduates from this program enter the job market with certification to teach in areas like general elementary education or secondary education in English or history–three examples of areas where there is an over-supply of  job seekers in the state and has been for years.  The fact is that  many GTC programs prepare teachers who compete with the many teachers graduating at the same universities with bachelor’s degrees and teacher certification.  If these alternative certification programs were needed to fill shortages when they were created, there was no stipulation that candidates be limited to the areas where actual shortages existed.  No wonder it is so troubling that there is a bill now being proposed to the Michigan legislature to sanction another, even faster alternative certification program that does not require even the coursework present in the current GTC program I’ve described (vital components for preparation like methods courses).  Additionally, the programs described in the bill do not require Student Teaching.  Instead, candidates are to go through a program “equivalent to” 12 college credits in which everything from field work to child psychology is covered.  There is no description for this field work, but given that it is only one component of the work equivalent to 12 credits, student teaching is not implied.  There isn’t a suggestion that secondary candidates in this program must have teachable minors.  There is no requirement that someone with a bachelor’s degree in English, for example, would have to take methods courses aimed at the teaching of reading, writing, language, or literature.  The training that current traditional graduates receive during student teaching will take place ON THE JOB in paid positions with mentoring from other faculty members.  All of us in teacher education know that finding qualified practicing teachers who are willing to take our student teachers into their classrooms is not easy.  Teachers have plenty to do and the mentoring of a future teacher is a wonderful but time-consuming addition to their days.  We appreciate each one who takes on this task.  But the mentoring being described in the alternative certification bill does not happen in a practicing teacher’s classroom because the mentee has his/her own classroom.  This makes the task of mentoring infinitely more complicated and time-consuming; nonetheless, without this intense mentoring, a very important component of teacher preparation will be missing.

Important questions that need to be asked about this bill are who will provide the “equivalent of 12 credits” of preparation that is required and where that training will take place.  Some history of this movement on a national level suggests that programs like Teach For America may move into a state, set up shop as any business would in a storefront down the street from the campus, and train the candidates.  Another example is that for-profit companies can provide this training in workshop settings or in on-line courses. 

Are we meeting critical needs with the proposed Alternative Certification or adding to the already over-production of teachers in Michigan?  Will teachers be trained well in this program or will it replicate the present Teach for America program that puts highly educated but often woefully under-prepared teachers in classrooms with some of our neediest students, only to have these teachers in which so much has been invested move on after a year or two?  The final and perhaps most important questions are these: What are the 32 teacher-training institutions in Michigan doing to meet the needs that the Obama administration is trying to meet with this program?   Are we focusing on the gaps, meeting the needs of the neediest, and preparing teachers to enter classrooms with a commitment that lasts beyond a few years?  These questions call on all of us to do some very serious introspection.

Scripted lessons–often called teacher-proof lessons–are multiplying in classrooms K-12.  Why are they so popular?   There are as many reasons as lessons.   Two, however, seem to stand out.

One reason given by the adminstrators who purchase the programs is the pressure of high stakes tests.  The hope is that if everyone uses these lesson as they are designed, all of the children will have their best shot at succeeding, and nothing will be missed in their education by a teacher who might be using less-than-effective methods.  In many ways, this seems to be an unsupportive move–thinking that the teachers you have hired cannot do the job without a programmed curriculum.

Another reason given for using these programs is consistency.  By using prescribed curricula, a school system knows exactly what lessons are being taught to each and every child, knows that all standards are being met, and knows that the curriculum is perfectly aligned from grade to grade.

But at what expense is this conformity and consistency achieved.  Teachers often report an inability to teach programmed material with enthusiasm.  Even when the words, the steps, and the explanations all become familiar and somewhat natural, teachers still may find themselves teaching rotely, without investment.  Some teachers, however, report becoming comfortable with these programed scripts, breaking them in like a new pair of shoes until they fit like a familiar pair of loafers.  Some even report gaining the ability to inject their own personalities into their teaching and finding ways to engage the students and enhance the material.

Some studies show good results with programmed curricula, especially on the standardized tests for which they are created.  But other studies show little effect with the programs.  Learning is at best static, and at worst results in a loss of creative energy and the ability to problem solve and think individually.

The opposite of the teacher-centered scripted programs is child-centered learning that is social, constructivist, and problem based.  Criticism of child-centered learning of this type is that it is too slow.  We no longer have the time for teaching to be a leisurely process undertaken to assist children in gaining skills that are well established and firmly learned.  Instead, school is often a daily rush towards whatever assessment is next on the docket, a drive to drill rote processes and memorized content in pursuit of high scores and avoidance of labels like “failing school.”  Ironically, that kind of learning may fail children even when the test scores say otherwise.

My dichotomy may seem too severe.  Critics abound on both ends of this spectrum, and it truly is a spectrum with much middle ground.  But if teachers are given the opportunity to develop quality curricula that employ methods that both engage and instruct, and lessons that provide the skills identified as 21st century skills taught in a child-centered program that emphasizes collaborative inquiry, perhaps the result would be success on the same high-stakes test, but, more importantly, an educational process in which everyone, teachers and students, can engage and benefit.

In November I will travel to Philadelphia to attend the annual conference of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).  While I was always a member and received their journal, the only NCTE conferences I attended while a high school teacher were the two that were held in Detroit.  Traveling to conferences in other parts of the US may be hard for a classroom teacher, yet I see hundreds of classroom teachers at NCTE every year no matter where it is held.  There is a cost, but I know now that it is well worth it.  I encourage every teacher to try to attend the meetings of a professional organization like MCTE and NCTE as often as possible.   A good start for a Michigan teacher will be the 2011 Conference in Chicago, marking the 100th anniversary of the starting of NCTE in Chicago. 

Look at the MCTE and NCTE websites to find out what they do. 

Two other organizations that promote literacy are the International Reading Association (IRA) and the Michigan Reading Association (MRA).  While the memberships of these two groups is heavily K-8 teachers, high school teachers are also active members.  After all, we all teach reading.  The MRA has a large membership.  Its annual conference alternates between Detroit and Grand Rapids, and it is a fine conference with many excellent speakers from all over the nation.  It is well worth the cost and the time to check it out when it comes to GR.