(Vol. 2, No. 2 - Spring 1998)

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High standards for all-
experienced teachers for some

Hailed for its advances in standards-based school reform, Long Beach Unified is well on its way to becoming a national model. But, as a comparison of conditions at two schools reveals, some middle graders are more likely to reap the benefits of the district's carefully crafted improvement program than others-not from a lack of school leadership or financial resources but from a shortage of experienced teachers.

By John Norton


"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many."- Alexander Hamilton

"People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33 percent plausible."- Will Rogers


For students, school has always been a bit like roulette. Spin the wheel, get a teacher, win or lose. The more well-qualified, experienced teachers your school has, the more likely you are to come up a winner. And the more times you win, the more likely you are to pile up the skills and knowledge you need to be a winner in life.

Long Beach Unified's leaders believe a high-standards curriculum and heavy investments in professional development will greatly increase the odds that each teacher in the district will be well-qualified. Outside "investors" like the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and the Annenberg Challenge are betting they're right and giving millions to support the district's achievement goals for all students.

But what about the other piece-- experience? Must a school-- especially an inner-city school -- have a critical mass of experienced teachers before the whole-school change required for standards-based reform can occur? Most educators would say yes. If they're right, then the odds of coming out a winner in Long Beach may have a lot to do with which school you attend.

A tale of two 6th graders

Let's pick two students-two 6th graders who've recently plunged into the exciting and perplexing world of middle school. They're both Long Beach Unified kids; their schools lie in opposite corners of the district, not more than a half-dozen miles apart.

Claudia attends Will Rogers Middle School, an old-fashioned two-story structure tucked away on a side street in the prosperous Naples area of the city. Hugo is a student at Alexander Hamilton Middle School, a collection of flat-roofed, one-story buildings constructed in '50s California style and located on a pleasant palm-lined avenue in a business-and-light-industry area of North Long Beach.

From the street, the compact appearance of Hugo's school is deceptive. A quick walk around the grounds reveals that every available inch of school property is occupied by portable classrooms-"bungalows" that make it possible to seat all of Hamil-ton's nearly 1,500 students. Rogers has some bungalows, too, but with only 750 kids, the space issues aren't quite the same.

Step into either school while Claudia and Hugo are changing classes and you're quickly swept up in a cascade of adolescent energy, as hundreds of students rush to their next assignments, releasing an hour's worth of chatter into the tiny pool of time between periods. Visit either student while classes are underway and you'll experience the peace and quiet of a well-run school.

Such tranquility would be expected at Rogers, but perhaps not at Hamilton-a school disrupted by a student riot just three springs ago. The disturbance was one result of several years of disjointed leadership, which triggered massive teacher flight and lead to Hamilton's somewhat exaggerated reputation as a school in trouble.

"People will say, 'Oh my God, Hamilton, how can you teach there?'" says one Hamilton teacher. "You'd think kids were fighting and running loose every day, and they're not. These kids are no different from kids in some of our other schools. They just need a lot more."

Both schools were lucky enough to acquire talented principals three years ago. At Rogers, Linda Moore-direct from an assignment as coordinator of the LBUSD middle school reform initiative-was the latest in a string of savvy, experienced leaders. Veteran elementary principal Cynthia Terry, who had led schools in both the Naples and North Long Beach areas, was specifically brought to Hamilton "to straighten things out."

Under Moore's leadership, Rogers has continued its upward spiral. Although it faces the typical challenges of a school with a near-equal mix of poverty and affluence, Rogers, with its stable faculty and high level of parent involvement, is well-positioned to take on the challenges of standards-based reform.

The story is different at Hamilton, where a capable administrative team and a small core of experienced teachers expend most of their energy on the fundamentals-struggling to help a largely unseasoned faculty meet the basic needs of a rapidly growing, mostly poor student body. There's talk of high standards, but the time, energy and sophistication needed to transform teaching and learning is in very short supply.

Why experience matters

In one of the many portable classrooms that crowd Hamilton's campus, Hugo's earnest first-year teacher is leading the sixth graders in a discussion of botanical terms. He stands at the overhead projector, jotting down each term and asking students for definitions. Back and forth, 20 or 30 times, he calls out terms and calls on students to answer. Considering the difficulty of the material, and the fact that it's after lunch on Friday, the kids are reasonably well engaged. But as one difficult expression ('vascular cylinder,' 'gymnosperm,' 'dicot') piles on another, the monotony builds and attention begins to wander in the darkened room. "Yesterday, you guys were bouncing off the wall. What's wrong today?" he asks.

A few miles away at Rogers, Claudia's social studies teacher, a highly skilled 30-year veteran, moves constantly about her brightly lit classroom, managing students as they work individually and in groups. She displays the total control of an experienced teacher-a raised eyebrow or a word of praise for someone's good behavior is enough to quieten the room.

A student's question sparks a lively im-promptu conversation. "Does Cleopatra have a last name? That's a good question. It tells us a lot about history. Last names really didn't appear until the Middle Ages. Even Julius Caesar-Caesar just meant 'the Great.'" She launches into an explanation of how last names slowly developed as civilizations grew more complex. "It's a lesson that nothing stays the same-that life is always evolving," she says.

The 90-minute class seems to fly by. Claudia and a partner present an extra-credit book report on contrasting views about evolution. Students sit in pairs while they take a geography test, then they grade themselves during a class discussion of the answers. "The purpose of school is to learn stuff-not to get a good grade," the teacher says more than once.

The teaching is rich: "Three out of four people in the world have never been to China," she laughs. "The rest live there!" "Why is the Yellow River yellow?" "Why do so many Iranians call themselves Persians?" "Why is Mandarin the dominant dialect in China?" "Why are the Chinese trying to switch to the English alphabet?"

Students guess at the answers, and the teacher uses their guesses to build engaging, anecdotal explanations. "We're going to learn a lot more about people and languages this year," she promises.
Hugo and Claudia's teachers are both intelligent, dedicated professionals who are liked by their students-but they are at the extremes of experience. Hugo's teacher is still learning the fundamentals.
After 30 years, Claudia's teacher has added layer after layer of savvy and expertise to the practice of her craft. There's simply no comparison.

"I'll tell you what a new teacher worries about," says Hamilton's Adrianne Matte, a seven-year veteran regarded across the district as an accomplished social studies teacher.

"You worry about what you're going to teach day-to-day. You're reading the book the night before to come up with things because you're just so overwhelmed. You give them some basics, enough to get you through without dying, and you try to keep those kids under control and get through the year. New teachers are not teaching kids to be higher level thinkers."

First-year teacher Kevin Smith says "You make mistakes early. You give an assignment, 'read two pages, answer the questions.' No one gets the questions or does the reading. So you learn by mistake." Over time, he says, teaching will get easier "as you figure things out."

Schools will always have new teachers, says Carolyn Rydell, a special projects coordinator at Hamilton who is herself a 30-year veteran. "It's part of our responsibility to bring new teachers into the profession. But when we have too many at one time, we start putting our students at greater risk."

The experience gap

Here are the bald facts: 60 percent of Hamilton's faculty have less than four years of teaching experience. The figure is 20 percent at Rogers. First-year teachers make up 25 percent of Hamilton's staff-Rogers had no first-year teachers in 1997-98. About half of Hamilton's teachers are fully credentialed. Two-thirds are on temporary contracts-a situation that generates an edgy, transient feeling among the many faculty who wonder whether they will have a job at the end of each year.

When the experience levels of the entire faculty at each school are compared, the numbers show that Hugo has about one chance in four of getting a teacher with more than five years' experience. Claudia's chances are about three out of four.

Hamilton is not the only LBUSD middle school with significant numbers of inexperienced and uncredentialed teachers. Butler, Franklin, Jefferson, Lindbergh, Washington and other schools with large numbers of students from low-income families have similar statistics.

To some degree, all of these schools find themselves in a Catch-22 -- challenged to teach the most needy students with the least-prepared staffs. Without much stability, progress can be fleeting. A few key teachers leave, or -- as in Hamilton's case last fall -- 250 extra students show up on the first day of school, and your momentum is lost.

Not surprisingly, the combination of challenging kids and inexperienced teachers shows up in the test scores of these schools. The middle schools with the most poor kids and the most inexperienced faculties also have the fewest "proficient" students in English and math.

Rookie teachers, of course, are now a way of life in California schools. An already-strained teacher supply went into spasm last school year during the massive state effort to reduce elementary teacher-pupil ratios. Responding to the influx of first-year and under-credentialed teachers, LBUSD has developed a well-designed "induction" program for newcomers-a combination of special seminars, on-campus directors, and veteran teacher-coaches who monitor and mentor the rookies.

The district has also been aggressive in strengthening its ties with local universities where many LBUSD teachers are trained. "We're doing a much better job telling them where we're going with our reforms and what we need," says assistant superintendent Chris Dominguez.

While these efforts are vital pieces of LBUSD reform, educators in hard-pressed schools say they address only a small part of the problem in places like Hamilton where experience is in such short supply that some first-year teachers are being mentored by teachers with only three or four years of ex-perience themselves.

The price of inexperience

When a school has too many inexperienced teachers, educators say:

==Most of the school leadership team's energy is directed at helping young teachers survive and learn the fundamentals; there is less time available to help all teachers sharpen their skills.

==This lack of focus on improving the practice of all teachers is also reflected in department and team meetings, where "young teacher" issues tend to dominate.

==The school is more dependent on district-level specialists because fewer experienced role models are available on the faculty, and they're often over-assigned to jobs like year-book, club advising, and committee work.

==Weary veterans burn out more quickly and are more likely to leave the school.

==Experienced teachers are less likely to find colleagues at their own level of experience with whom they can brainstorm about teaching. Having seasoned colleagues "would be a treat for me," says 5th-year teacher Carolynn King, Hamilton's history department chair. "Then you can draw on the knowledge and experiences of real veterans. It would be a joy to turn to someone else and say, 'I have a problem. I have a question.'"

==With so many teachers on temporary contracts or considering other jobs, the faculty and staff can become demoralized. A feeling of victimization or helplessness can develop.

==As a result of all these factors, the likelihood that a school faculty will find the time, energy and commitment to pursue the district's agenda for standards-based reform is much less.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON MIDDLE SCHOOL
Number of students: 1,465
% students on free or reduced-price lunch: 85%
% white enrollment: 6%
Number of teachers: 58
Number of first-year teachers: 14
% teachers with 3 years of experience or less: 60%
% students meeting district math standards (1997)*: 20-39%
% students meeting district English standards (1997)*: 20-39%

WILL ROGERS MIDDLE SCHOOL
Number of students: 780
% students on free or reduced-price lunch: 46%
% white enrollment: 38%
Number of teachers: 29
Number of first-year teachers: 0
% teachers with 3 years of experience or less: 20%
% students meeting district math standards (1997)*: 50-74%
% students meeting district English standards (1997)*: 50-74%

Second-class citizenship?

Behind the scenes at Hamilton -- and other district middle schools with similar problems -- there are teachers and staff members who see their high percentages of inexperienced teachers as just the most visible evidence of second-class citizenship. Some suspect that the high levels of poverty in their schools mean their kids have a lower priority in the district.

"Some of us would say that we shouldn't publicize our problems because it adds to our poor image," says one Hamilton staff member who has enough seniority to leave the school but chooses to stay. "But the truth is if we don't talk about it, nobody is going to do anything about it. We need help."

Area A Superintendent Dorothy Harper says the district has worked to help Hamilton solve its problems. Harper points to the selection of Cynthia Terry to lead the school, as well as actions by Harper's office to give Hamilton a high priority for curriculum and other special assistance.

The Hamilton faculty agree that Terry has been a major force for positive change in the school. "When she leaves, I leave," is a frequent comment among top faculty and staff. But many say that Terry will never be able to lead the school out of the doldrums without some extraordinary intervention by the district-something that addresses both the school's lack of experienced faculty and its large population of the most needy students.

The problem is not money, they say. Hamilton receives its share and more of local, state, and federal funds. But they believe Hamilton and other similarly situated schools need "intensive care," as one staffer puts it.

They point to developments like last fall's sudden influx of 250 unexpected students as evidence that the district commitment is suspect.

Hamilton administrators were told by district forecasters to expect about 60 new students, and principal Terry hired teachers accordingly. As is often the case for Hamilton and other inner-city schools, no senior teachers had requested transfers into the school, and Terry found herself picking from a teacher pool made up mostly of first-year, inexperienced, and under-credentialed candidates.

When 300 new students showed up on opening day, chaos ensued. Students were spread among existing teachers, overloading their classrooms, and Terry moved quickly to hire another seven or eight teachers to fill the gap. With the school year already underway, the district's teacher pool was largely depleted. The employment paperwork took many weeks to complete. Meanwhile, a union clause went into effect, and students had to be moved out of the overstocked classrooms and into the library, the choral room, and any other suitable space. (Terry was also scrambling to find bungalows to house her new wards.)

While Terry waited for the teachers to arrive, the extra students spent their time with short-term substitutes, "bonding negatively," says first-year teacher Kevin Smith, who arrived in October and was assigned to the overflow group.

"I didn't get my elective class until late October, so they'd had six weeks without a regular teacher," Smith remembers. "And they were just wild. The principal and assistant principals were totally cooperative in breaking up that group of kids, helping me establish parent contacts, and giving me general advice. I got a lot of support. But it's still a brutal situation."

The ripple effects of Hamilton's enrollment surprise are hard to exaggerate. More first-year teachers were added to an already out-of-balance faculty. Class schedules were disrupted; teachers with both permanent and temporary students were required to rethink all their lesson plans. Construction of new bungalows, painting, hammering -- it all had its effects on student achievement and morale.

Ever optimistic, Terry will only say that "it was our most difficult start-up since I've been here." But others say the rough opening erased most of the gains of the previous year under Terry's leadership.
"It's like you're underwater, and you swim up and you take a breath of air, and you sink back down," says one Hamilton teacher. "Up and down. Up and down. Just when you get that fresh breath of air, someone knocks it out of you."

Although district leaders say they can't explain Hamilton's attendance surge, many of the school's staff believe they should have known and should have acted to prevent it.

"If you know how a school is, if you know they have the kinds of problems we're having, why would you continue dumping on us?" asks one Hamilton teacher.

Harper says the district is constantly re-examining attendance patterns, trying to come up with creative solutions to overcrowding. "Nobody wants to dump those kids on Hamilton, but they have to be in school somewhere and there weren't any other short-term solutions."

Perhaps, says one of the school's small cadre of veteran teachers, but "the bottom line is our kids are not getting a fair shake here at Hamilton. They are not getting the proper education they deserve. And it's no reflection on new teachers or whatever. But if anyone needs the extra help that veteran teachers can bring, it has to be Hamilton. If we're going to bring our test scores up, that's going to have to happen."

Searching for solutions

Hamilton principal Cynthia Terry is proud of the progress her school has made in the last several years. Behavior is under control. Despite the many distractions, her faculty is talking more about curriculum and instruction. She feels she's made some headway in parent involvement-always a challenge in an inner-city school.

Her teachers agree. "Since Ms. Terry's been here, it's been great," says Carolynn King. "It's a safer environment. She's also very supportive in getting new academic programs and giving us time to develop new lessons and units. That's huge."

Terry is not critical of the district's efforts to help Hamilton. She and area superintendent Harper have a close working relationship, and she says Harper has gone the extra mile for her school. Still, she would welcome any solutions the district might devise to strengthen and stabilize her faculty.

"Every school needs a critical mass of positive, assertive, aggressive 'we-can-do-this spirit' people, so when someone is having a bad day and talking in a disheartened way about their work, you don't just hear the same thing echoed back to you," Terry says.

"I do not have enough strong, experienced teachers who can bring enough to the table. I don't have a critical mass," Terry says. "I'm trying to inspire, bribe, beg, cajole, plead, and it's been very difficult."

Both Harper and district superintendent Carl Cohn say they have begun exploring solutions to the staffing problems experienced by Hamilton and other middle schools who work with the city's most challenging students -- including first-year Long Beach Preparatory Academy, where an inexperienced faculty (nearly 75 percent are first-year teachers) has made hoped-for rapid academic progress more difficult.

Among the suggestions Cohn is considering are cash incentives that might attract and hold more experienced teachers in these schools. The teachers might be given a special designation that would allow them to combine teaching and coaching.

Other suggestions Cohn has heard include overstaffing the schools to lower the teacher-student ratios; using retired teachers part-time; or offering salary supplements to teachers nearing retirement who might be willing to teach three to five years in inner-city schools as a way to increase their pension packages.

Some observers think the district should revise its teacher transfer policy, which currently forbids transfers against a teacher's will. But Cohn says such a step, which the city teachers union would be sure to resist, "is not even on the table." He and others question whether any teacher forced to work in an inner-city school would be likely to contribute positively.

Marilyn Bittle, executive director of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, says the union is willing to work with the district to find ways to place more experienced teachers at Hamilton and similar schools. "I think if you give an extra incentive to teach at the Hamiltons in our system, people will transfer," she says. "It can be done."

Teachers at Hamilton say they would welcome experienced teachers who are attracted by incentives-provided that the experienced teachers already working in the school are not overlooked for extra compensation.

But many share a concern that any teachers selected be committed to the goals of the school and to the students who attend.

"You have to be ready for these kids," says math intern Phil Solis, who grew up in south central Los Angeles. "If they do something for you, it is because they want to do it. You can yell at them until the cows come home, put them in detention, be a big nasty, but what works is to dump a lot of energy into caring about them."

"Teachers in other schools hear these horror stories about Hamilton, which are not true, but you need to know that when you come over here, you're going to be busting your tail," says history and English teacher Adrianne Matte. "You're going to be in a different world here. And it takes a lot of strength, and a lot of motivation."

A Hamilton teacher contemplates a change

If the district requires further evidence of the urgent need for action at Hamilton, Matte can provide it.

A former secretary, she became a teacher seven years ago and has taught at Hamilton since then. She arrived at a time when leadership was changing and many teachers were leaving. She stuck it out and has become one of the school's most admired teachers, by both students and faculty.

"Adrianne is just awesome, for lack of a better word," says third-year teacher and humanities chair Jennifer Rubin.

But Adrianne Matte has informed her principal that she's looking for another position. Her first choice: Rogers Middle School. "I won't leave for just any school," she says, "but there are two or three I'm thinking of."

"I can feel myself being drained," says Matte, who has served as a department head, a member of the SBDM council, a club and yearbook advisor, and a coach and mentor to many younger teachers.

"Those of us that have been here awhile have more than the usual share of things to do, because when you have so many rookies each year, who else can do it? And we have so few experienced people here, it's hard to keep your teaching alive, because you don't have the experienced people that you can bounce ideas off of. When you only have two or three, it's very draining."

"Every year it just gets harder and harder," she says. "I feel like I always have my hands in the fire. Maybe I just take things more personally and more passionately than the average joe. I don't just go home and say, that's it, and just forget about. I'm thinking of this school and my kids 24 hours a day."

Hamilton's kids "are tougher kids to teach," she says. "They're not mean kids-but they are so very, very needy. If they could take little pieces of you, they would. And I don't mind. But the little pieces add up."

Despite her decision to look for a new job, Matte doubts that she'll ever find quite the same personal satisfaction in teaching that she's found at Hamilton. "You can't believe how some of these kids can grow," she says.

"I had this class last year. I called it my little crazy class. I loved them, but they were so funny. When I first had them, they were afraid to do anything. They were afraid to take chances. All the time, they were clinging-'Mrs. Matte, Mrs. Matte'-asking me questions about every little thing.

"And my message all year was 'stop it; think on your own!' And by the end of the year they were doing their own thing. They didn't have to ask me what to do. They were so proud of themselves. That was my only class where no one failed. That class just grew so much. I've had them come back this year and say 'We were really good. We learned how to think.'

"Just to see that growth makes your job all worth it."

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