Baking Bread Without The Yeast

Among my son's favorite books are the ones in Richard Scarry's Busytown series. In What Do People Do All Day?, Able Baker Charlie puts too much yeast in the dough, resulting in a gigantic, explosive loaf of bread that the bakers (and Lowly Worm) need to eat their way out of.

The opposite problem -- a lack of yeast -- is present in Michelle Rhee's recent op-ed in Education Week. In it, she limits her call to "rethink" teaching policy to "how we assign, retain, evaluate, and pay educators" and to "teacher-layoff and teacher-tenure policies." (And she casts the issue of retention purely as one about so-called "last-in, first-out" employment policies rather than about school leadership, collaboration or working conditions.)

The utter absence of any focus or mention of teacher development either in this op-ed or in her organization's (StudentsFirst) expansive policy agenda leaves me wondering if Rhee believes that teachers are capable of learning and improving. If Rhee indeed does believe that new teacher induction and career-long professional development have value, then why does she consistently ignore it in her public statements and in her organization's strategic priorities? The alternative, of course, is a view that teachers are static beings, incapable of improvement. They are either born effective or ineffective. "Mr. Anderson's value-added score is an 18, thus he is an ineffective teacher and should be fired because his inability to teach cannot be ameliorated." We, of course, know this not to be the case. This alternative view also involves a strategy of simply trying to hire and fire our way to success. From research and international exemplars, I think most of us understand such a narrow approach to be ineffectual, albeit politically attractive in some quarters, especially among the Republican governors that Rhee is assisting exclusively.

High-quality development opportunities for teachers are like the yeast that helps the bread to rise. Comprehensive teacher induction has been shown to accelerate new teacher effectiveness and increase their students' learning. Likewise, personalized and purposeful professional development also can strengthen teaching skills and classroom impact.

It seems to me that a stated policy goal should be to ensure that as many as teachers as possible successfully pass educator evaluations being developed across the nation. Too many advocates such as Rhee appear to be eager to fire more teachers rather than make investments and restructure schools to maximize their effectiveness. A critical role for policy then would be to re-define teacher development in a way that raises the quality bar and invests public dollars in programs and approaches shown to have the desired impact on teaching and learning. Isn't that something we all can agree with?

Teachers are tremendously influential -- and we should do everything we can to unleash their full power. On teacher effectiveness, I'm unwilling to settle for half a loaf.

Making Our Investments Count

In a few weeks my research team will release findings from our ongoing study of need-based financial aid, as we host a conference on Affordability and Attainment in Wisconsin Public Higher Education. Preparing for this event has given me the chance to think more about the things colleges and universities might do to maximize the substantial investments federal and state governments--and taxpayers--make in college students.

In particular, I propose that institutions begin to leverage their existing resources-- namely, their faculty-- to support the neediest students, those who enter with a low probability of success. While some might argue those students simply shouldn't be admitted, I take a different stance: given the labor market returns to college degrees and the widespread ambitions for college, it's incumbent upon higher education institutions to get "student-ready" -- rather than simply demanding that students get "college-ready."

I hope to begin writing about this concept of "student-ready" colleges from time to time over the coming months, but let's start with two ideas for how it could work.

(1) The Chronicle of Higher Education today highlights a program that assigned retired faculty to mentor first-generation students. Love this-- it's a win-win for all involved. Students without college-educated parents gain the benefits of having a college-educated "grandparent" of sorts who has not only attended but succeeded in college and worked at one!

(2) Here's an idea of my own. Policymakers should experiment with a new program to provide colleges and universities with incentives to place Pell Grant recipients in contact with faculty. Student-faculty interactions have been shown to enhance retention rates, and they are less common among low-income, first-generation students. A work-study type program could be a starting approach, but typical work-study jobs are located in cafeterias and libraries where students cannot form new connections with their educators. This approach should enhance the effectiveness of financial aid by supplementing it with increased faculty interaction. The federal government could begin with a trial effort using funds from the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. The effort should be rigorously evaluated and used to inform future revisions of financial aid programs.

For sure, many faculty are overworked as it is. These kinds of things won't work everywhere and under all conditions. But let's say we tried them at four-year universities first. I'm willing to bet that even with uneven quality of mentoring, the effects on some students would be large enough as to raise persistence rates. The mentors will also benefit, and perhaps become advocates for these students and the programs that serve them. Student contact reminds us why we got into this biz in the first place, energizes us, and grounds us. We should be urged and rewarded for focusing that contact where it's most needed.