The Center for Public School Renewal
Why We Should Have Teacher-Led Schools
(Part 2 - Continued)
The most difficult challenge facing teacher-led schools will arise from the changed relationships that such schools will force on other individuals and groups. In every case, teachers will gain some power they do not now have. Some non-classroom personnel will change only a little; others somewhat more; some, a lot.
The role of some of these positions is clear-cut. For example, teachers need someone to handle all those matters that have to do with operating the buildings where their classrooms are located. But, when a light is out or a sink won't work they shouldn't have to fill out three forms in triplicate and wait a month for the work to be done. This kind of work should be handled (if the funds are available) at least as quickly as it is in one's home.
Another example has to do with the supply process for teaching materials so that the teacher can order and receive whatever is needed (in a timely manner). Teacher-led schools can either hire people to perform these kinds of duties, or can contract out for such services with private companies.
Some other non-classroom positions are also teaching positions. While they require the same skills that classroom teaching requires, it may be less clear how they fit into a given school's program. Such positions include a variety of "pull-out" programs–special education, bilingual education, English as a Second Language, etc. Others include traveling teachers, e.g., art and music teachers that teach in more than one school. Sometimes they are called "non load-bearing" positions. Generally, the needs of students attending the school will determine the need for these kinds of positions. As one who held such a position, I can tell you that being there because the teachers want you is better than being there because the principal thought it was a good idea.
Other positions are more easily distinguished from classroom teaching. These include counselors, librarians, school nurses, administrators, principals, janitors, secretaries, clerks, etc. Most of these positions would fit in well and be useful in teacher-led schools. However, the classroom teachers in a school should decide which among these support personnel are needed in their school and how much should be paid to get them. If classroom teachers decide on the existence of these support positions then the activities performed by the individuals who hold them will be focused on supporting the work done in classrooms.
The most difficult thing to envision with respect to non-classroom personnel is how to get to this new employment situation from what now exists in many school districts. Having held positions on both sides of this line of demarcation, I don't relish the thought of just throwing people out of work. The swing to teacher-led schools should take place so that natural attrition would play an important role in any downsizing that might occur. Transfers and reorganizations should take care of most of the rest of the staffing disruptions.
The second most difficult aspect of non-classroom personnel in teacher-led schools is what to do with them after you've got them. The non-classroom special teachers are usually experienced teachers that have moved from classroom positions into these special positions. Such teachers should be handled like other journeymen and master teachers. New teachers in this category should go through a special apprentice program beyond the regular apprentice program. All special teachers should have experience teaching in a regular classroom before they move on to any other teaching-related position. These kinds of teachers should be offered contracts similar to classroom teachers' contracts.
Other personnel can be handled differently. While it would be good if counselors, librarians and administrators had some classroom experience, it may not be necessary for their non-teaching position. Also, the terms of their contracts could be different from those of the classroom teachers and special teachers. If teacher-led schools become more numerous, several schools could organize into a consortium for employing special teachers and non-teaching personnel.
Other Groups and Organizations
If one supports the vision of teacher-led schools described here, one is endorsing an extremely strong form of local control. But no public school operates completely independently. Every school has relationships with several other groups and organizations that cannot be ignored and must be managed. These other entities include parents, the local community, state and local education agencies, professional organizations, and higher education institutions to name some prominent ones. Teacher-led schools must negotiate relationships with all these entities, and need to discuss their practices and results openly.
These relationships will be different from the ones that public schools now have. In each case, the teacher-led school will have a stronger position than current schools do.
The most important relationship to negotiate is the one the school has with its funders. In each case a contract will need to be developed that expresses the rights and obligations of the school and its funder. See Reinventing Public Education (by Paul Hill and others, U. Chicago Press, 1997) for more about contracted schools.
Parents must cooperate with a school's reasonable rules, but will be free to remove their children if necessary. Since these schools will be funded by state and local agencies those funds will be dispersed according to the provisions of some kind of contract that authorizes the school to operate. This contract should spell out the kind of public information that the school must make available. This will give parents the information they need to make a decision about the school, and the public will have the information it needs to continue to support it. Complete control of funds goes to the school, but the school's performance must be regularly and publicly assessed.
Professional organizations and university personnel may have a difficult time with teacher-led schools. In both cases, groups of educators outside the school want to define the way a subject should be taught or a practice followed--and they want everyone to heed their vision. The way this usually works is that a superintendent or a principal latches on to some new idea or reform concept and decides that his district or school will adopt it. This rarely works very well, primarily because the relative isolation of teaching provides teachers considerable de facto independence. Teachers only adopt those ideas and practices they come to believe in for themselves.
This is a dilemma that has never been squarely faced. Reformers gain the ear of a powerful figure in a school or a district, launch their reform, and fiddle around with the implementation for a while. They run into difficulty, and then move on to the next idea or location and start the process all over. It only takes a couple of experiences like this before most teachers start looking askance at any new reform, even ones that are worthwhile.
The university personnel, who are usually behind these reform efforts, can feel a sense of accomplishment and progress for their involvement. However, back in the schools they leave behind, things are pretty much the same as they always were.
A teacher-led school will be mostly immune from this kind of approach to reform. If a reform succeeds at a teacher-led school, it will succeed because the teachers want it, believe in it, and are willing to do what is necessary to bring the change to fruition. There's nothing wrong with universities and professional associations being the sources of great new reform ideas and practices. However, they should have to sell them to other educators, not use the paternalistic, top-down structure of schools to foist them on teachers who don't understand or appreciate them.
Another organization that will need a new relationship with teacher-led schools is the teacher union. If, for example, a teacher-led school is a charter school where a group of independent teachers hold the charter, then a union would probably have few traditional functions to perform, since the employer and the employees would be the same set of people. On the other hand, the union could itself be the group that holds the charter, in which case it would become the employer. Would another union be needed to represent the school's staff?
It seems that teacher-led schools, even if established within current public school systems, would not have the same need for union representation that is currently the case. Paradoxically, teacher-led schools seem to present a threat to normal business-as-usual teacher union activity.
There is another situation that can confront a teacher-led school that is similar to the university/professional organization relationship described above. However, it is important in a different way, because it has to do with things teachers can't do without, or things they are legally required to accomplish.
Consider, for example, the curriculum, texts, materials, equipment, etc.--the teacher's tools. What happens when curricular materials need to be created or revised? Although some teachers may want to participate in this kind of activity, most materials will be created by non-teaching personnel. If the curriculum is optional, the teachers' task is only to find those that are most suitable for the curriculum they choose to offer. This should not be too difficult an undertaking, since teachers routinely look for new materials to use.
But, an important subset of these materials will not be optional. They will be part of a mandated state or local curriculum. Or, if the curricular materials themselves are not prescribed, there will be student assessments that will generate a de facto curriculum.
The production and distribution of curricular materials can present problems for teachers as far as classroom use is concerned. For example, new materials may be developed that a teacher is unprepared to teach. Or, materials can be developed that a teacher feels are of lesser quality than those currently in use. Whenever a mismatch develops between the curriculum a teacher is currently teaching and an alternative curriculum, that alternative needs to be launched in a reasonable manner.
What is reasonable must consider the teachers' needs and ideas. Also, the teachers' needs and ideas must be reasonable. The only sensible way to set up new curriculum is through some process of negotiation between a school's teachers (as a group) and any organization seeking curricular change. Such measures for curricular change should be spelled out in the basic contract under which a teacher-led school operates.
[End of Part 2 Narrative - A Professional Perspective on Teacher-Led Schools]
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Readings Related to Teacher-Led Schools
The lists below are not meant to be either inclusive or exclusive, but merely representative of a variety of views on topics related to teacher-led schools. Please note that we do not claim that any of the materials in these lists specifically endorse the CPSR concept of teacher-led schools. Suggestions for additions and deletions are welcome.
Recommended Readings
Selected Readings from ERIC
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