Washington, D.C. has the right idea tonight.
If you want to turn around a school system you can not only focus on the worst - you must seek out, recognize and retain the best teachers. Tonight the DC Public Education fund will recognize some of the best teachers in the city. Seven teachers will each receive an award of $10,000 during a reception at the Kennedy Center. Further, to their credit the front page of the DC Public Schools website publicizes the event (to which every teacher rated "Highly Effective" by the IMPACT system is invited as a guest of honor).
This is just the latest in a series of right steps DC is taking.
Over the last two years with a new collective bargaining agreement taking effect DC's best teachers have seen substantial pay bumps - some collecting bonuses over $10,000. As a side note, teachers opt-in to this system. Otherwise educators follow the routine raises that come with years of service and tenure like most cities current contracts.
Do I point to DC as a perfect model? No. But they have the right idea here: recognize the best teachers. Pay them more.
There have been other small steps forward recently - the Fishman Prize from the New Teacher Project awards $25,000 for some of the best teachers nationally. The Fund for Teachers gives recognition through competitive grants for teachers seeking out professional development. Here in Illinois the Golden Apple seeks to recognize great teaching. The White House's Champions of Change - Educators event was as good a use of the bully pulpit as I have seen. But it is not enough.
Other professions have lists like, "Top 100 Super Lawyers of Pennsylvania", or "best doctors in Chicago", or "best dentists in Chicago" or "best lawyers of Chicago" and on and on.
Nationally we are losing great urban teachers at alarming rates. Locally, here in Chicago we are losing all teachers at staggering rates as well (fewer than 50% of teachers remain at their current school more than 4 years).
This, regrettably is not a new topic of discussion; here is Nick Kristof in March 2011:
Moreover, part of compensation is public esteem. When governors mock teachers as lazy, avaricious incompetents, they demean the profession and make it harder to attract the best and brightest. We should be elevating teachers, not throwing darts at them. (link)That advice was evidently not taken by most.
Take a cursory glance at the web sites for a few major urban school districts - Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City. Not only is it difficult to find information about or announcements of celebrations of the best teachers - it is difficult to find information about any teachers. How does that make sense?
CPS central office, further, is not the only culprit in this failure to recognize the best teachers. The Chicago Teacher's Union website is similarly lacking information about the organization's finest teachers. Large and leading charter management organizations in Chicago are in the same boat - the only information about teachers are on bio pages or in the context of recruiting teachers to apply. This doesn't have to be so.
Every district in America should have regular, genuine and very public efforts to recognize the best teachers in their system. Events like DC's Standing Ovation for Teachers tonight need to be institutionalized and widespread. I hope that Chicago can take a page from DC before this school year is out.
We can, and will, and should haggle over how best to determine which teachers are the finest. But, perfect should not be the enemy of good here.
There are many things in education and ed reform that are contentious to discuss and difficult to do. This is not one of them - that the best teachers deserve our recognition.
I have been disheartened lately that the entirety of the ed reform conversation in Chicago seems centered around the worst schools, the worst teachers, the worst districts. I can't help but think that if we continue to seek the worst, we will find the worst. Chicago Public Schools needs to start looking for its best.
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A Post Script - DC's policies and climate seem to be not only aimed at retaining the current excellent teachers but also attracting some of the best from around the country:
- Katie Lyons won the Fishman Prize this year. At a recent Teach+ event she announced she was moving to DC.
- Julia King was a national Sue Lehman Award winner (recognizing the best teaching nationally for Teach For America corps members) when she taught in Gary, IN. She has since moved to DC and was named the DC Teacher of the Year.
I don't know either personally well enough to say that DC IMPACT or the sort of recognition above led directly to their decisions to move there, but I can't imagine it hurt.
I would love more anecdotal evidence about teacher experiences with the new DC contract, or moving to DC as a result of the contract.
Links:
- DC Teaching Excellence Award winners - http://www.standingovationfordcteachers.org/about-standing-ovation/2012-excellence-award-winners/
- DC teaching contract - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/education/big-pay-days-in-washington-dc-schools-merit-system.html?pagewanted=all
- 2012 Fishman Prize - http://tntp.org/fishman-prize
- Kristof: Pay teachers more - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html
- McKinsey study: http://www.mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/Closing_the_talent_gap.pdf
- Whitehouse Champions of Change - http://www.whitehouse.gov/champions/educators
