Believing in Ourselves: Urban Middle School Reform

Believing in Ourselves

Part I - Chapter 2

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONALS

Urban districts, benignly or directly, tend to rely more on their own policies and resources for staff development, less on higher education institutions or, as in rural districts, on intermediate educational units. They drop into this folder everything from staff development days with no guidance or resources to courses required of all teachers. The instructors for professional development may be teachers themselves, outside consultants, or university faculty.

Few districts have revised their staff development activities to be less like a mishmash and more like purposeful professionalism guided by a coherent vision of what students should know and be able to do. Some examples of the latter occurred in the Clark districts, where the most successful schools learned to shape on their own what was best for them and for their teachers.

Professional development that makes a difference in the classroom is consistent,ongoing, stretching, and inclusive. Teachers plan and conduct this professional development as essential to their goals for academic performance in their school.

Like in most schools, professional development at San Diego's Mann Middle School usually consisted of a one-shot deal, led by a visiting expert (who never showed up again) invited in by the administration. Teachers later might try what the expert had recommended, but they had no feedback and no support.

That was before Beverly Bimes-Michalak.

A consultant for the Clark initiative, she had developed the program Writing to Learn under the auspices of the Council for Basic Education. It essentially is a professional development process that integrates writing into all aspects of the curriculum. It is more than a single project, however, because Bimes-Michalak makes teachers take charge of the process and inspires them to be continuous learners. They learn to analyze and evaluate, modify, retry, and help each other. At the beginning of the process, she is on campus frequently and available for personal feedback through phone, fax and E-mail. Gradually, teachers learn to teach their colleagues to use Writing to Learn.

Part of the success of Writing to Learn undoubtedly is due to the environment of at-ease sociability it creates, one in which teachers can be openly reflective with each other. At Mann, the professional development process did not stop there, however.

Writing across the curriculum had been a concern at the school for some time, and teachers had experimented with using writing in subjects other than language arts as a preparation for the state's standardized tests. Still, the effort had been initiated by the principal and was seen by teachers as an add-on, not as integral to the curriculum.

Writing to Learn began to change this view. As described by the principal, Julie Elliott, it is a professional practices approach, not a "sage-on-the-stage" model. Teachers found it exciting, learned how to share their frustrations and questions, and accepted Bimes-Michalak as a critical friend.

Elliott also saw an evolution take place. "Teachers came to see that this was the beginning of a change process that would affect everything they did in the classroom," she explains.

Out of this professional development came a desire to begin school-wide portfolios, and a group of teachers began working with feeder elementary schools to create a portfolio culture among the schools in their cluster. Math teachers asked for professional help on writing techniques for their classes; the science department now works with journals and logs to incorporate writing into its curriculum.

Elliott explains that the school's Staff Development Committee now plans all activities with continuity and long-range changes in mind, a result of the Writing to Learn experience. And Mann is working on a three-year plan for continuing professional development of all kinds, not just Writing to Learn.

Moreover, some of the major elements of Writing to Learn-reflection, peer collaboration, portfolios, and writing-are part of the learning process for staff as well as students. They are applied in the school's teacher evaluation process and its governance plan. In other words, says Elliott, Writing to Learn changed how teachers design and use professional development and how teachers' development ties into the school's goals.

IROQUOIS TEACHERS CREATE
'HIGHER EDUCATION' FOR
LOW-PERFORMING STUDENTS

Blazer University is a brainchild of teachers at Iroquois Middle School in Louisville. They designed it to be exclusive (by invitation only), offer a broad range of "liberal arts" courses, and to "sneak up" on the enrolled students, promoting the idea that learning can be fun. Blazer U., named after the school's mascot, also is how the teachers at Iroquois responded to the state's concern that the Kentucky reform plan for an extended school day at low-performing schools was becoming too remedial across the state. Iroquois also needed a way of reaching students in academic trouble; its 1993 state assessment results warranted designation as a school requiring intervention (its scores improved the next year, and it came off the list).

The enrollees at Blazer U. meet after school two days a week, usually taking two courses at a time. These could be electives like the literary magazine, laser disc science, math in art, Writing for Hollywood (combining drama and writing), Cartoon Capers, or the Chess and Checker Club. All students rotate through four other courses during the Blazer U. school year -- A Taste of Technology, Career Opportunities, Your Best Image, and Team Building. The 150 students, sent special invitations to their homes to apply, stand in line to register; courses sometimes are closed, as in college.

"The kids don't even know it is ESS anymore," says Cheryl DeMarsh, former Iroquois principal, referring to the state's program of extended school services meant to be targeted at the most at-risk students. And teachers are proud that "we really did this on our own," according to math teacher Cheryl Rigsby. DeMarsh basically credits the professional development fostered by the Clark initiative for Blazer U.'s unique approach -- "allowing teachers to learn from each other, to dream, to take the initiative and go with it."

Adult perceptions were singled out as the most critical component leading to student success at Iroquois, DeMarsh recalls of the staff's initial attempts to provide a focus for professional development. This understanding led the teachers to step back from activities and spend time learning about adolescent development and learning traits. They tried out strategies especially successful with adolescents, such as cooperative learning and cooperative discipline, Socratic seminars, and experiential learning.

Complementing this expansion of teacher knowledge were instructional and curriculum-based programs, such as Writing to Learn, Foxfire, and Integrated Language Arts (a curriculum prepared for the Louisville schools by Bimes-Michalak). Not only did these experiences prepare teachers for the Kentucky reforms and assessments, but they also fostered the growth of leadership. According to DeMarsh, the number of teacher-leaders expanded from just a few to a group large enough to cover a new team structure, departments, a strong instructional focus, and involvement with extra-curricular/co-curricular activities. The benefits of such professional development, says DeMarsh, "have been rich."

Rather than risk showing
what they don't know in classes,
many teachers resort to what they know best
--teaching as they always have done it.

These principals and teachers are among the first to say the transformation of their schools and staffs has only begun. Their successes do not imply all is perfect in classroom instruction, although much more excellent teaching is taking place than a few years earlier. Indeed, in a report based on classroom observations in Louisville, evaluators for the Clark Foundation noted that "it is neither easy nor intuitive for most teachers" to carry out exemplary practices. Typically, teachers face challenges they do not know how to address, such as greater content depth, the convergence of new assessments with their traditional way of doing things, or attempts at new pedagogy with which they are not familiar. Rather than risk showing what they don't know in classes, many of them resort to what they know best -- teaching as they always have done it.

As touted as Writing to Learn is, even it depends on teachers' willingness and skill at pressing deeper into content issues and the ability to use student work as the measure of their own (the teachers') success.

Working in one of the most demoralized schools in the Clark network, Frick Junior High in Oakland, Assistant Dean Rachel Bartlett Preston says something more powerful than a money incentive, as in Kentucky, is needed to induce teachers to change practice and beliefs. "When they commit to something, they must have an outcome," she says, "some powerful outcome that would make those sitting on the fence get off of it and those who want to effect change get something immediate to hold on to."

Older city school systems also face twin problems that require more and better professional development, not the paltry efforts seen in most of them. For one, their teaching staff is aging. In Baltimore, for example, two-thirds of the teachers have 20 or more years of experience; early retirement can be taken after 25 years. Nearing retirement, teachers may not be enthusiastic about making the effort to learn new skills.

Secondly, new teachers in urban areas leave at higher rates than the national average. Again in Baltimore, half of the 31 percent of the staff who were first-year teachers, according to one study, did not return the next year. Urban districts draw from alternative routes to teaching, but as the Teach for America experience shows, the districts do little to help such teachers make a transition into classrooms. Recruiting new college graduates without education degrees, Teach for America had counted on district professional development support to help the program's eager but pedagogically deficient teachers adjust to the classroom. This didn't happen; Teach for America finally trained a cadre of professional developers itself.

In San Diego and Louisville, at least, a combination of factors such as principal and teacher leadership and the development of district skills at shaping professional development (and school accountability) gave teachers more support for change. These are move livable communities than the older cities in the network, and higher teacher morale is a factor in the professionalism shown. Yet most of the schools chosen to participate struggled with problems as severe as those in the other districts.

The quality of leadership and professional development in San Diego and Louisville evolved. Some Louisville teachers observed, for example, that in the beginning, staff development was fractured and not anchored; it became more cohesive as it was seen to support the changes under KERA. San Diego's research office shared data results with the schools, which gradually contributed to a greater focus for professional development on student achievement at both Clark schools. Staff development, in the past often willy-nilly and focused on individual teachers' interests, became a function of the schools' vision and of teachers who decided together what they needed to do.

On paper, the other sites also selected staff development as a priority. In Oakland, for example, summer institutes were developed to prepare teachers in the middle grades, and especially those in the Clark schools, to implement higher content, interdisciplinary teaching, and new pedagogies. That few teachers from the three Clark schools participated should have been a warning sign about the lack of preparatory groundwork for change in those schools.

That few teachers from the three Clark schools participated should have been a warning sign
about the lack of preparatory groundwork
for change in those schools.

The learning coordinator at Kosciuszko Middle School in Milwaukee, Alan Hunley, watched the influence of staff development grow at his school during the Clark years. Looking back at the five years of the grant during which the school had three principals, he notes that many of the things the teachers tried are now part of the school, not add-ons, and include advisories, peer mediation, and Writing to Learn. However, now that the foundation dollars are gone, Hunley adds, staff development is not as extensive. Also, the benefit he saw at the school did not translate into improvement on student assessments. It was more of a change process for teachers, he says.

The same effect occurred at Calverton Middle School in Baltimore, where staff development led to teachers' initiating projects such as advisories, tutorials, peer mediation, cooperative learning. Yet, when Earl Lee took over as principal during the last year of the Clark initiative, he found little evidence of the effects of staff development or teachers' connection to the initiative. "There was no structure in place to make sure teachers used new strategies and broke old habits," he says. The school was in such a slide that it was selected for "reconstitution," a state program to help the worst-performing schools.

The lack of coordination of professional development at Calverton and the other Clark school, West Baltimore, despite the added resources they received from the foundation's grants, did not escape the attention of other teachers in the district. "The central office," says a union official, "did nothing to help those schools use the resources right."

At most of the low-performing schools, there is little evidence that staff development changed attitudes or motivated teachers to stretch themselves. Principal turnover contributed to the lack of focus -- 19 principals over five years at schools in the three systems where systemic staff development did not occur. So did the districts' lack of leadership and support.

In Baltimore, for example, staff development has been endlessly studied by experts inside and outside of the school district, with mostly negative conclusions. It is high on every superintendent's list of priorities. The current superintendent, Walter Amprey, established a new group-the Department of Professional Development, Organizational Development and Attitudinal Reform-to create a staff development plan for teachers. However, this effort, as traced in a study conducted by the advocacy group Students First, has started, stopped, faltered, seen its funding largely shifted to other priorities, and is still fragmented and incohesive. Calverton, thus, mirrors the lack of focus in its own district.

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from Believing in Ourselves: Progress and Struggle in Middle School Reform. By Anne C. Lewis. Published in 1995 by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.