FOCUS ON THE TEACHER

As we shift to this “systems of schools” approach, we would be remiss if we did not focus on ensuring that we attract and retain quality educators in these schools. Study after study has shown that the teacher is the most important in school factor in a child’s education.  Teachers form the backbone of school culture, run extracurricular activities and are directly responsible for the delivery of content.  Therefore, as we redesign our system here in Memphis, it’s vital that we design it to encourage quality teachers to come and stay in these new systems to sustain our student’s success over time.

My concern is that nationwide data suggests that teacher turnover in charter schools is significantly higher than traditional schools.  Research suggests that charters on average lose between 20 and 25 percent of their teachers each year, a rate which is 1.5 times higher than traditional schools.  This is concerning given that charters make up the bulk of the alternative options in Memphis (41 out of 66).  However, according to my own research, little research has been done to dig into why we see these outcomes in charters.

Our focus should be on working to ensure that charter schools are seen as a long term career option for educators, both in Memphis and elsewhere.  The last thing we should strive for are schools that constantly burn out teachers after only a few years.

WHAT DO TEACHERS WANT?

With this in mind, I decided to do some qualitative research of my own with the aim to help policy makers and school leaders in Memphis and Shelby County.  I reached out to my colleagues teaching in charters across Memphis and asked them the following two questions.

1. What about your school makes you believe that this could be a long term career option for you and other teachers?
2. What is the top ting that your school would have to change for you or other teachers to see it as a long term career option?

Before I share specific trends and quotes, I want to emphasize that my purpose in conducting this survey is not to slam any schools or organizations.  My intent is only to collect and summarize feedback so that our leaders can work to ensure that we attract and retain quality educators to teach our children.

WHAT’S BEING DONE RIGHT

ACHIEVEMENT GAP IMPACT: Those indicating they can see their school as a long term career option shared their belief that working a charter allows them to make a much more substantial impact on the achievement gap than would a traditional school in specific ways:

“My largest class is 20 students which I believe should be maximum capacity.  There is only one teacher in the room, so beyond classroom management I need to be able to fully engage with each student daily to help them with the material or challenge them to think deeper.  My smallest class of 10 students is ideal,”

HIGH STANDARDS: Several other teachers spoke to the ability of charters to truly hold kids to a higher standard and implement real consequences if that standard is not met:

“Although it is unfortunate that [students who fail to meet the standard] have to leave, it is an example to the other students that there is a reason we expect the best out of them and if they can’t do their part to then this isn’t the place for them.”

WHAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED

HIGH STRESS: I received a much higher volume of responses to the second question, indicating that there are several areas that charters need to improve to truly make these schools long term career options for educators.  The number one reason that every educator cited for not seeing teaching in a charter as a long term career option was the unrealistic hours they are required to work to meet their goals:

 “The hours are too long and too intensive.”

“In charters, the long hours and high stress days set a pace that I imagine would be hard to maintain long-term.”

“Pay is not comparable to other fields requiring this much work.”

 “The reason [the school] is well run and feels good for students and faculty is due to teacher’s investment in the school. Many teachers work 60/70/80 hour weeks to create and implement the systems and procedures to make the school run, which is not sustainable or desirable in the long run.”

OVERWORKED: One respondent went more in detail with what they are required to do every day and its impact on her ability to teach:

“I spend almost 3 extra hours a day just trying to take care of medial tasks such as; attendance, [entering student behavior information], printing, copying, calling parents about missing homework, calling parents about missing paychecks and managing student behavior in the halls. On top of the extended school day and need to keep in close contact with parents my time is spread too thin to plan and stay on top of a great curriculum.”   

MINIMAL EARLY CAREER SUPPORT: Every young educator (under 3 years teaching) that sent me feedback cited lack of support for early career teachers as a reason they couldn’t see teaching in a charter as a long term career option.  While this was not uniform across schools, it came up enough that I thought it important to cite:

“I rarely get observed, receive feedback, or attend useful professional development. I am expected to turn in full lesson plans two weeks in advance, even though I receive no feedback.”

“I feel like the administration just didn’t care about the teachers.  They offered no support for first year teachers and very little behavior management help (this is from an educator who recently left the classroom).” 

Lastly, several teachers cited the deficit of long term career opportunities available to educators working in charters:

“As an ambitious person not interested in school leadership, I really feel that there is a lack of opportunities in the long-term.” 

“[working in a charter] Limits other opportunities for development (shortened summers stop you from doing grad school, fellowships, and teacher coaching opportunities).”

SUMMARY

Clearly we have some work to do in our new system of schools approach to ensure that educators see these new alternatives to traditional public schooling as true career opportunities.  I hope that our leaders can take feedback like this from educators to heart and work to change charter environments in Memphis to ensure that we can both attract and retain the best and the brightest to teach our children as we continue to expand options for school choice.

I wish this sentiment could be shared by parents across the city about their children’s schools.  However, in my experience this is rarely the case.  More often than not, parents face two choices; send their student to the struggling neighborhood school or move. And for many, this second option really isn’t realistic.

Enter charter schools, a publicly funded alternative to the traditional neighborhood school that allows for greater flexibility of discipline systems, curriculum and employment practice.  We are blessed to have many quality options here in Memphis.  However, charters in Tennessee have recently come under attack, notably by Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn in the Washington Post this past week.  They argue, among other things, that the growth measures created by the TVAAS system in Tennessee act to perpetuate the mass expansion poor charters.  They also point out that many have neutral or negative growth (more than show positive effects).  They also note that TVAAS’ focus on growth over proficiency masks the true inequality in our education system.  Their solution is to do away completely with value added measures and charter schools all together.

This would be a serious mistake.  While there are certainly many charters in Tennessee with room for improvement, there are also many charters doing incredible work for students across the state.  And these schools truly do give parents a third option for where to send their kids.  However, data doesn’t lie, and we do have many charters in Tennessee that are not achieving the success we would want to see for a publicly funded alternative school.  Instead of a blanket ban on charters as advocated by Horn and Wilburn, a better solution, as it so often does, lays in a more nuanced solution focusing on identifying quality schools and shutting down those that don’t demonstrate success over time.

Such a proposal is needed more now than ever.  As of May 2011 the cap on charters in Tennessee was lifted.  To ensure the state is not flooded with charters that promise transformational outcomes but wind up with gains similar or worse to traditional public schools, I propose three different policies that would introduce quality and accountability into the system:

Ensure a rigorous, research based application process to ensure only quality charters are opened - not everyone should be allowed to open up a new charter school whenever and wherever they please.  We should have standards for good quality charters and these standards should be used when new considering charter applications. We should prioritize bringing charter authorizers with a track record of success to our state.  Some authorizers have a track record of successful charter school governance and some do not, and we need to draw on this information to be discerning when opening new charters in Tennessee.

Give charters 3 years to demonstrate student growth or face closure - evidence suggests that charters that are successful in their first year continue to be successful.  Likewise, those that struggle in their first year typically continue to struggle as time goes on.  Given that information, we should draw a hard line in the sand in Tennessee; you show that you can grow our kids or you are shut down.  And you have three years to do it.  I work with educators who teach in charters across the city, and we know which ones are good and which ones deserve to be shut down.  However, many of them continue to be approved for god knows what reason.  We need such a hard deadline and criteria for shutdown to ensure that we do in fact eliminate under performing charters from continuing to function.  It’s tough to shut down an under performing charter once it works its way into the planning process for the district and gains the backing of financial advocates.  But if we truly place kids at the center, we will see this as a necessity rather than a nuisance as so many do.

Study and learn from effective charters to apply their successes to our traditional public schools – one of the chief criticisms of charter schools is that they have more freedom to operate than traditional public schools.  Yet we know very little in Tennessee about what our most effective charters do to achieve their results (as Horn and Wilburn note).  We should be studying these charter schools to learn more about what makes them so successful and see if we can apply these lessons to our traditional public schools.  Are there programs we can replicate?  Are there professional structures that exist in these schools that don’t exist elsewhere?  If we can’t do this (as we so often don’t) charters will still serve a purpose in helping some students escape poor performing schools.  But we lose a valuable source of innovation if we fail to take the lessons successful charters demonstrate and apply them to traditional public schools.

Just like the mother of my student, all parents want a quality school for their kids, and they should have more than one realistic option. Charter schools do provide the option of choice.  However, not all charters are good and it’s time we stop pretending. Parents and educators everywhere should make a push for a sensible charter policy in Memphis and Tennessee that ensure that our school choice options set the tone for quality public alternatives in this state and across the country.

In opening her piece she states “Memphis is poised to become the next national center for New Orleans-style school governance.”  And this isn’t just her saying it, it also comes out of the mouths of district officials.  The stated goal of this system, to quote Brad Leon, is to create “a system of schools” similar to what New Orleans has done.” Those words will make you cheer or shudder depending on which side of the education reform debate you come down on.

I won’t quote the whole article here because it is extensive, but my favorite graphic from the whole article shows the speed and extent to which these new “systems of schools” are already forming:

As a teacher in our city I’m both encouraged and worried by what I read here. I’m encouraged because, unlike many urban cities with struggling education systems, we are truly taking action to address the tremendous inequalities that exist in our system.  I work in a high performing charter (Soulsville) and see the tremendous impact it can make on kids, especially those that would otherwise attend the neighborhood school where I used to work (right down the road at Hamilton High).  I’m also encouraged because I sincerely believe that these people truly want to see quality educational outcomes for all children.  Personally, I’ve never bought into the corporate reform mindset that believes all school reformers are out to destroy public education in our state.

At the same time, I’m worried that creating these new systems will only solidify tiered inequality in our city.  I can easily foresee a system where the lucky few attend high performing charters, those zoned for the ASD attend those schools and the district pours its time and money into iZone while neglecting those schools and students that don’t fall under the umbrella of the iZone, most likely due to lack of resources.  Furthermore, out in the municipalities, which will not fall under the jurisdiction of SCS and these reform efforts, there may be NOTHING done to combat the inequalities that exist there. Outcomes in these areas are still woefully low by any standard and should be a part of any reform efforts in Shelby County.

I’m also worried about the impact this approach will have on teachers in these new systems.  In my experience and in that of my colleagues, those that work in charters, ASD schools and iZone schools work incredibly hard and burnout is common due to the numerous stressors that come with trying to turn around long time failing schools.  I know many teachers who have left their charter schools in the past year because of the high stress environment.  This is true whether I talk to teachers in ASD charters, non-ASD charters or iZone schools across the city.

As these “systems of schools” expand, it is imperative that charter operators and system superintendents work to ensure that this pattern doesn’t continue.  Educators want schools where they can work for an extended period of time.  They need to see these new schools as long-term career options where they can work for five, ten, even fifteen years while continuing to be successful. I firmly believe that for this to happen, there needs to be some sort of teacher voice heard in this process to ensure that these type of work conditions exist.  Unions and charters have not traditionally worked well together, so that’s probably not the answer, but there needs to be some sort of unified teacher voice ensuring we make this vision a reality. Because at the end of the day, education is about the quality of the people we put in the building with the children.  All the reforms in the world won’t do us any good if we can’t get good people to come to and continue teaching in whatever school systems we put into place.

Are you a Memphis or Shelby County educator?  What do you think about this “systems of schools” approach?  Email us your thoughts at [email protected], then sign up for our email list and follow us @bluffcityed on twitter!

Jane Roberts at the Commercial Appeal does a great piece on how charters that operate outside the ASD in Memphis are disadvantaged because they need to build or lease their own space, which results in less funding that can be spent on students.  David Reaves has brought this issue up before, she reports, and it may be time for action:

Shelby County Schools board member David Reaves believes it’s time for a change in policy. He brought the issue up in June, but no action was taken and the board has not addressed it since.

“If charters are all public schools, they should be allowed to use the buildings for the cost of the deferred maintenance,” he said. “If we have a building we are not using or are going to shut down, I think any public school should be able to use the facility for free, plus maintenance. Taxpayers have already paid for them once.”

Governor Haslam announced this past Thursday that he is going to make raising teacher pay a priority in his administration:

“We’re asking our students to be the fastest improving in the nation in education achievement, and the data is showing that we’re making real progress,” Haslam said. “Teachers are the single most important factor in student achievement, and higher accountability for teachers and proven results should be met with better rewards.”

Jane Roberts also gets a great quote from Allyson Chick, the 2012-13 Tennessee Teacher of the Year about this announcement:

“The stakes are so high and the accountability standards are so high that teachers are working harder than ever before and it’s time teachers get paid for the work they’re doing. Teachers want to be part of the American Dream too, to be able to support their families.”

Andy Spears at Tennessee Education Report posts a summary of a Valerie Strauss article in the washington post arguing that 20 years of the TVAAS system has actually told us very little about student achievement and good teaching.  The article contains a breakdown of proficiency rates at all charters in Tennessee, making it worth a scan even if you don’t have time to read the whole thing.  Their basic argument is that the focus on growth rates helps to mask the continuing inequality inherent in the achievement gap. Expect a post on this sometime in the next few days!

Commercial Appeal: The shelby county board of commissioners today appointed Shante Avant to the unified school board district 6 seat, vacated by Reginald Porter:

Avant, 40, is deputy director of the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis. She is a graduate of Immaculate Conception High School and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Memphis Daily news: YES Prep (a charter school network based in Houston, TX, founded by current ASD superintendent Chris Barbic), approved a plan to expand its operations into Memphis, opening six schools with 5,400 students by 2020 in our city.   The organization runs 13 schools in Houston with over 8,400 students.  From the article:

Memphis was one of 180 cities YES considered for expansion in the latest phase of its development. Some of that has to do with the Tennessee Legislature’s 2011 decision to lift any cap on the number of charter schools in the state, with other charter school measures proposed beyond that.

TN Education Report: Craig Fitzhugh (House Democratic Leader) welcomes back teachers in his own video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiFqzpJzJEc

TN Education Report: Similar to my post from yesterday, Tennessee Education Report advocates for increased education funding as a better way to grow our economy than lower taxes, offering some pretty damning evidence regarding a state’s tax rate and economic outcomes:

Now, there’s some pretty clear evidence that having a well-educated workforce is more important than low taxes when it comes to improving a state’s economic outlook. In fact, according to the Economic Policy Institute, there is NO correlation between a state’s tax rate and it’s relative prosperity.

Nashville Charters: protests against charter schools runs into a backlash from supporters of high-performing charters.  The crux of the debate:

She [Rebecca Lieberman, vice president of external affairs for the Tennessee Charter School Center] pointed to a recent Metro school board meeting where three members opposed a charter school for a poor neighborhood where the existing public school is failing because they are worried about the financial impact of charter schools. “Are these children worth the investment?” Lieberman asked. “Student achievement should be the first item in our budget, and everything else comes after that.”

I’ve reached out to reporters in Nashville and it appears this is confined to that city specifically.  it will be interesting to see if there is any backlash similar to this in Memphis over charter schools in the coming months.

On a related note, the metro attorney in Nashville came up with three legal challenges that could be made to a state charter school authorizer. You can find the entire opinion here. Personally, I find the most compelling rational to be their second one (page 3):

Like the Tennessee Charter Schools Act of 2002, the Bill Would Seem to Impose additional Costs Arguably with No Off-Setting Subsidy in Violation of Article II, § 24 of the Tennessee Constitution

Given the expansion of charter schools in Memphis, this could have some relevance to the way our schools function down the line.

Virtual Schools: Tennessee’s virtual academy finishes dead last among middle and elementary schools in state testing results last year (in year 2 of its existence):

The most recent data shows that last year the school scored a -26.74 on its composite growth index, a measurement that factors together all of its students’ past test scores and their progress in 2012-13. A growth index below -2 is considered a failure.

Memphis Sales Tax Campaign: a Memphis grass roots coalition is working to promote a referendum for a half cent increase in the sales tax to fund pre-k education for 5,000 students in Shelby County

Herenton’s struggles speak to one of the most crucial but often overlooked components necessary to improve our schools and our education system, that being how to inform the public about both existing opportunities AND the quality of those opportunities.

What Choices Exist?

Efforts should first targeted towards informing parents on the options that exist for their children.  Because currently the only option for school choice outside the option programs are charter schools, I’ve chosen to focus on those few for which we have data. Individual schools have taken different approaches to doing this in Memphis.  Some schools, like KIPP and Soulsville, can rely on the power of their name and their association with national or local icons (the KIPP network and Stax respectively) to spread the word.

However, if as a city we truly want to give parents the information they need to become aware of the choices that exist, we need to provide much more collective data to our parents to enable them to easily access information on these choices.  A quick google search turns up several websites offering incomplete lists, but none that address quality or provide any more in depth information.  As it stands, parents are left to wade through the excess of information that exists without any guide to assist them to existing opportunities.

Quality of Choice Also Matters

Second, efforts need to focus on the quality of choices.  This is where most of the work needs to be done because the information .  Its out there, but it can be difficult to find and subject to interpretation.  The two charts below show one way parents might compare these different school choice options side by side using school growth data (middle school followed by high school) obtained from the TCAP and TVAAS 2012 Report Card:

This information is not complete or perfect.  It leaves out data from newer charter schools like Grizzlies Prep, Veritas Prep and Omni Prep (because none exists on the 2012 report card).  Some of the high school data is left out as well because of how long they’ve been around.  Here’s how to read these: the middle school letter grade is the grade assigned by the state to the growth data for each subject area.  I averaged the 2011 and 2012 letter grades together.  For example, KIPP Diamond’s math B represents an average between an A and a C.  If the grade would ball between two contiguous grades, I just wrote them both as a slash.  Green indicates the school outperformed the district in that specific area, red indicates growth lower than the district, and yellow indicates growth on par with the district.

For high school, the number represents the amount of growth above or below the school’s predicted score (same color codes).

What do we see with this information?  Even a cursory glance shows considerable variation not just among schools but across subjects.  For example, MBA beats the city average in reading and social studies but falls below in science and math.  Some schools very clearly come out on the bottom (City University and, surprisingly, Freedom Preparatory Academy).  At the high school level, Memphis Business Academy and Soulsville clearly come out ahead, mostly due to a lack of data from other schools.  Making information like this available to parents would greatly enable them to make a much more informed decision.

Why Isn’t This Information Easy To Access?

It mystifies me as to why information like this is not in a readily accessible format like I have it here.  If advocates for free choice truly want this system to work, it first requires that parents are informed about the quality of choices facing them.  From this information, we can clearly see that all school choice options are not created equal, and parents need to be made aware of this information so they can make the best choice for their students.

Of course, there are many other components to a quality school beyond test scores such as discipline systems, supplemental services such as SPED services, extracurricular activities and athletics.  This information should also be available to parents, again, to enable them to make a much more informed decision for their students and their needs.

A Final Word on Data

One final word on the data.  I realize that this data is not complete and it’s from 2012.  I recognize that some might argue for using other data to evaluate school choices in Memphis.  Regardless of your feelings on what should be used, all I’ve done here is use the data available to the public.

If you’re a parent looking to inform yourself, THIS is likely what you would find.  If you believe that there is other data that is more relevant or that this data is incorrect, you need to address THIS data and ensure that parents have access to data that provides an accurate representation of the school choices available to them if you believe that there is some other piece of information that should be taken into account.

For example, anecdotally I’ve heard nothing but positives from Freedom Prep, so I was fairly surprised by the data showing them to be ineffective in 2011 and 2012 in areas other than math.  I’m sure that parents would also want any additional data, as do I.

School choice only works with informed parents. Without that information in one central location, all the choices in the world won’t truly create the type of choice and competition among schools that advocates of charter schools and school choice seek to create.

The American Prospect: Teach for America, current and alumni corps members, organize for a conference in Chicago to push back on the organization’s goals.

The Hechinger Report: do charter schools actually increase school segregation?  Evidence from Minnesota suggests this may be an unintended side effect of the charter movement.

Tennessean OpEd: Tennessee teachers need to be (and should be in my opinion) in on the conversation around teacher pay reforms advocated by the state

Eduwonk: Memphis Teacher Joy Singleton-Stevens advocates for the continuation of Memphis’s teacher evaluation system, with over 60 percent of teachers saying it’s improved both teaching and student learning.