School improvement is such a courageous endeavor. We insist on using student test scores as our measuring stick for student success/achievement when, for some of our students, actually getting to school each day is a big achievement. How do we measure that? We don’t. We measure our teachers instead.
Current educational reforms, looking towards school improvement, focus on ensuring that students are exposed to quality teaching by qualified teachers. Because it follows, doesn’t it, that public school students would maximize their academic achievement every year that they’re in school and that by 2014 they’ll all have become proficient in every subject they undertake at their grade-level?
Primarily, quality teaching is measured by student test scores… I see a problem here.
What makes a teacher qualified to teach?
A very long conversation would follow if we tried to answer that question now but, a small part of the answer asserts that teachers must be exposed to (continuous) professional development training in researched (and proven) teaching methodologies – whether or not the teacher needs/desires additional training in a specific methodology.
I can’t tell you how many professional development trainings I had to sit through that weren’t in an area (in my professional opinion) I needed further development in or that was relevant to what I needed to teach my students.
You know what; no one ever asked me what I needed – not once.
My professional development training was always dictated by student test scores (from the previous year, no less) and what those test scores told my different principal(s) we teachers needed training in, so that our students would improve.
School improvement efforts need to focus on what teachers say they need: in their classrooms, in their professional development, and in their school-site support systems so that they can focus on their students’ learning.
The Link to Teachers' Success...
Dr. Kathleen Salzano, Ed.D.
