Should Parents Choose Their Kid’s Teacher?
Posted: January 19th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 4 Comments »
Andy Rotherham says yes. He wrote:
So while “school choice” is hotly debated (next week is National School Choice Week, complete with Bill Cosby’s blessing and events galore,) there are few rallies being held for giving parents the right to choose a particular teacher. That’s because the whole system is stacked against empowering families in this way.
Is this a good idea?
Our middle and high schools are too small for this to happen. A single teacher instructs all the kids in a particular grade. If Ms. X teaches English to 3 sections of 25 kids in Grade 6, there’s nobody else teaching that class.
But we just opened an elementary school. There, at least, it would be theoretically possible to have parents choose a teacher.
From a teacher’s or administrator’s point of view, I can think of at least 3 reasons why schools “frown” on parents requesting individual teachers.
On the other hand, as a parent, I can imagine walking into our local elementary school and doing precisely that.
What do you think?
You can read Andy’s whole column here.
I am a former teacher (I now work at an education non-profit), and I have experience teaching predominantly low-income students in both a large, under-performing district school and in a small, high-performing charter. In both of these environments, I had incredibly talented colleagues who pushed everyone’s learning forward, kids and adults alike. I also had ineffective colleagues who counted the days till vacations, proudly declared that they didn’t plan their lessons, and expressed beliefs that not every child could be successful. These teachers were fewer and farther between at the high-performing charter, but they still existed. The point is that Andy and the study seem to me to be right, anecdotally, about the variance in teacher quality at schools.
What Andy gets wrong is what parents should do about it, in my opinion. Everything I’ve read has pointed to parents, at all income levels, being notoriously bad at rating schools’ effectiveness in doing what schools are supposed to do: increase student achievement. And why should they be expected to be able to rate their schools, let alone their teachers? Parents are not trained education professionals, who might look for more sophisticated criteria to rate a school or teacher rather than relying on surface-level things like how orderly the school is, how much homework the kids get, and and whether the school staff is polite and responsive. Andy suggests that parents “ask around” to determine who are the effective teachers at a given school, but this strategy would get them nowhere since other parents are no better informed on the hard evidence that proves whether a teacher is effective or not. Observing teachers is a nice start in getting parents more involved, but, without training, how are parents to understand what kinds of things to look for (clear, standards-aligned objectives, checks for understanding, smooth/quick transitions, student engagement, differentiation techniques, etc.) and what is irrelevant (how quiet or organized the classroom is, for example). Andy says you don’t have to be an expert to figure out which classrooms students are effective and which aren’t, but I disagree. Some things that indicate the classroom is a an effective learning environment are intuitive, like how motivated and happy the kids are, but there are many indicators that are difficult to measure – even for experts.
Instead of asking parents to pick teachers within the confines of the current system, we should change the system and provide parents with access to the information that they would need to make informed decisions along with more good options for schools and teachers. This would mean better evaluation systems, more progressive union leaders, better teacher professional development and preparation, and a culture shift in the world of education from a “circle-the-wagons” mentality to one that embraces public accountability.
Ironically, good teachers already actively involve parents in their classrooms and understand the importance of building relationships with families. Creating a system in which parental involvement is expected and encouraging parents to be more actively involved in the education of their children is step in the right direction, but doing so without putting in place the necessary supports to help parents make the right choices would not be effective. Like everything else in education, there’s no simple solution. Effective parental choice would involve a lot of hard work and culture-shifting on the parts of adults, but it would likely be worth it for kids. Parents and teachers alike should demand these changes that would make it easier for parents to partner with teachers and ensure that their kids enjoy the education they deserve.
If teaching is to be taken seriously (valued by society and paid accordingly) as a profession, like law and medicine, then part of the solution could be to treat teachers more individually and give them more autonomy. Although current education reforms lament the widget effect of most schools and school districts, currently nearly all schools in the middle and elementary level treat teachers the same with locked in pay levels, generally unspecialized content background, and the same class sizes. They reinforce the widget effect in which all teachers are treated equally by the school even if one is greatly better than another or has a certain engaging teaching style or teaches a high value subject. Part of the solution could be what Rotherham suggests, letting parents choose their teachers. Much like parents already choose doctors and if need be lawyers. I do agree that their should be more available information for parents to make their decision, but as far as I know there are know databases or real outside information on law firms or medical practices on statistics that parents can consult. Parents generally make their decision based on reputation of the practicioner’s graduate school, recommendations, convenience and price.
Crazy idea but it would be interesting if we started allowing teachers their own real freedom and allowed them to set up “smaller clinics” within one school. These clinics could take on smaller or larger class size based on the teachers’ desire or needs and use different curriculum and teaching methods that they preferred. Parents would have the freedom to pick which one. They would be different from charters in that they would be more teacher centric, allow more diversity of thought and style within the school, and cut down on the currently difficult process of leaving one school to enroll in another. There would be lots of issues to be worked out, but I think it could be if nothing else a fascinating thought exercise to design or re-design a school around this concept.
I’m fascinated by JConnor’s idea. I was trying to imagine something like this, but could not synthesize it into a coherent thoughts. Bravo. What if parents got credits they could spend on teachers (i.e. salary cap). An individual teacher could take 40 students in a class or 5 students, but only get paid for what they take or the demand. So, a great teacher who doesn’t care about income, could set up a small “clinic”. Or a great teacher could prove they could support 50 students in a class and get effectively paid twice what they would if they took 25. Parents would opt which is the best learning environment for their child. Administrators would sit with parents to review pro’s and con’s of different choices based on holistic data (test scores, parent/student surveys, classroom observations, anecdotes). Less popular teachers would be paid less or not have jobs at all if they couldn’t get parents to sign up.
Not saying it would work, but I’d love to see it tried out.
Hi Kyle,
Yeah, I agree that it’s difficult to tell good teachers (and I also agree “experts” actually may not be that good at it, see Tom Kane’s MET study).
Hi JConnor,
First, thanks for that teacher lead, she sounds great and is visiting soon.
Yep, I’m with you. I wrote about this last year at EdWeek. Here’s the way I put it –
* * *
Option to run one’s own micro-school, getting rid of the b.s. and keeping the stuff teachers love.
Those who want to cut loose administration entirely, and run their own “micro-charter” — which could be as small as two teachers and, say, 40 kids. Let’s make up some numbers. A number of large cities spend $15,000 per student per year, and often allocate charter schools 20% less. So let’s work with a number like 40 kids * $12,000 = $480,000 annual budget.
If two skilled buddy teachers chose to run their own little “log cabin school,” they would: pay an organization to manage the “back office” stuff (everything from insurance to payroll to inspections to compliance); rent two single classrooms from a church; buy supplies and books and computers off Amazon; maybe snag a couple of student teachers from a nearby college; and perhaps pay themselves $100,000 per year.