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Professional development Seen as a model,
by Elizabeth Duffrin |
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TEACHER TRAINING
Professional development takes center stage Test your professional development IQ Doing teacher training right Seen as a model, Manley plan falls short
Chicago audit triggers change Ward teachers get one prep day a week Home-grown solutions to common problems |
In 1999, Manley High School on the West Side launched one of the most ambitious and expensive efforts to improve teaching in this city’s history. Three years and $1.1 million later, the project can be considered, at best, a partial success; at worst, a qualified failure.
Four lead teachers were hired through a partner university to work full time with the Manley faculty on improving instruction. A third of Manley’s teachers, mainly newer ones, leapt on board. Some of the novices clung to the project as a lifeline. But the intensive training was intended foremost to upgrade the skills of veterans, according to project evaluator G. Alfred Hess Jr. of Northwestern University. “And by that definition, the Manley project failed dramatically.” In its design, the project was state-of-the-art staff development. The focus was on teaching specific content at specific grade levels. The help was ongoing and school-based. Trouble came when theory hit the ground. First, Manley and its partner, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), had a hard time finding outstanding teachers with experience leading staff development. “It takes a different set of skills to work with adults as opposed to with kids,” explains Victoria Chou, dean of UIC’s school of education. The dearth of such talent has become a national issue as more districts seek to hire staff developers to work full time at schools. Boston, for example, is trying to pick off talent developed in San Diego and New York City. (See story.) The lead teachers eventually hired for Manley indeed had only limited experience leading staff development. Of the four, two had the skill to pull it off reasonably well. A third lead teacher had little impact, while the fourth wreaked havoc on a once well-functioning department, some observers say. Lead teachers likely played the most crucial role in the project’s successes and failures. Other factors, more difficult to pin down, worked against them. For example, planning was intensive but rushed. Many teachers rejected the project outright. Along the way, the relationship between the principal and UIC’s chief consultant grew strained. Who is responsible for these and other problems—the university, school leadership, the School Board or the faculty—depends on whom you ask. Many of those involved will not provide details for the record, and each knows only a piece of the story. Also, it could be that three years is simply too little time to transform teaching in a chronically under-performing high school. “I think it’s more an indication that there needs to be a long-term investment in the work that was being done,” says Connie Yowell, program officer with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a major project investor. One point on which everyone agrees: Changing teaching requires more than a good model. It takes individuals who know how to build teachers’ trust and negotiate a complex web of relationships.
High-powered team The Steans Family Foundation set the project in motion.
Steans concentrates its giving in the blighted North Lawndale community,
from which Manley, in neighboring East Garfield Park, draws many of its
students. Steans had been investing in Manley for a while; for example,
one grant helped the school subdivide into five “small schools,”
Still, by 1998, the school had made little progress on standardized tests. Only 7 percent of its students scored at or above national averages in reading, which had put Manley on the School Board’s academic probation list, and the principal’s job on the line. That fall, Manley Principal Katherine Flanagan put in a call for help to Steans’ executive director, Greg Darnieder. Darnieder drew on his network of associates, gathering colleague Robin Steans, Peter Martinez of MacArthur, Melissa Roderick of the University of Chicago and Chou and her staff for a series of meetings with Flanagan and Assistant Principal Joan Forte. The group was not new to the pitfalls of teacher training. All had seen well-intentioned efforts fizzle. It had taken Martinez only a year of overseeing grants to notice that “one-shot” workshops didn’t work, and not much longer to see that weekly presentations from a consultant got limited results if teachers lacked follow-up help in the classroom. With their pool of expertise and foundation dollars, the group believed they had a chance to do it right. In the spring of 1999, Flanagan agreed to let Chou and her team shadow students for a day to get a clearer idea of what Manley needed. “There were a lot of worksheets,” recalls Connie Bridge, a nationally known reading expert who would direct the project for UIC. “There was very little interaction amongst students in the classroom. Teachers were doing a lot of lecture. ... The level of challenge was low.” “I thought it’s not just a reading problem,” she says. Content instruction needed work, too. That spring was a whirlwind of meetings for Bridge and Chou—with the School Board, foundation staff and Manley’s teachers—to lock in funding and hammer out the details of the project. UIC would hire four lead teachers. In biweekly workshops with all staff, they would introduce reading and writing strategies to help teach any subject—even career classes in construction and culinary arts. Inside their respective departments—English, social studies, math, and science—they would help map a challenging curriculum and design lesson plans. They would observe teachers in the classroom. And each would teach a course to model good instruction. The in-house demonstration was critical, says Forte, because urban teachers often dismiss what outsiders bring as impractical. “If I’m doing it next door with children from the same community, what can you say?” The project would run three years, with the option to renew for a fourth. Each year, Manley would put up $100,000 from discretionary funds; Steans and MacArthur, $100,000 apiece; and the School Board, $75,000. At $375,000 a year, the initiative “without a doubt” would be the most expensive effort ever made to improve instruction at a single Chicago school, says Philip Hansen, the board’s chief accountability officer. If the model worked, the board might adapt it on a smaller, less expensive scale for other high schools, Hansen thought. The funders felt hopeful, says Steans. Bridge says she was excited; Chou, optimistic. “For something to have a prayer of a chance of success, all the pieces seemed to be in place,” says Chou. Tensions set in
Researchers also observed that faculty who cooperated with the lead teachers progressed on a range of criteria, including attending to vocabulary and asking appropriate questions. “Their instruction changed,” Steans remarks. “And it didn’t change just a little.” But most of the faculty remained resistant. UIC had sought teacher input but lacked the time to build teams and a common vision for the school. Had those elements been in place, the project might have won more staff buy-in, says Roderick of the University of Chicago. “There was a feeling that [the school was] under deep threat and needed really quick, substantial help. So the pressure was to throw something together, and that, in retrospect, was a huge mistake.” As UIC wrapped up the planning in the spring of 1999, threat nearly became reality: The School Board sought to oust Flanagan. The principal fought her dismissal during the summer and the following school year. After consulting with foundation staff, Hansen agreed that dismissing her could destabilize the project, so she was allowed to stay. “When those sort of things happen, initiatives lose energy, and they lose focus,” says Darnieder. “You have to be willing to fight through that stuff and deal with it as best you can. And I think we did that.” UIC staff rallied around Flanagan in her time of trouble, according to Chou, but at other times, they were at odds. Preparing students for standardized tests was one point of contention noted in the first-year report. Manley administrators felt that lessons in test taking were a necessary evil. UIC staff considered them a waste of valuable instruction time. “I think if you want kids to read, you have to teach them to read, not continue to test them,” one lead teacher argued. It was an argument UIC ultimately would lose. Some tensions would escalate in years two and three. In particular, the relationship between Bridge and Flanagan grew strained. According to Chou, the issues included, “If things get better, who should be credited? How should it be presented? Who delivers the good news? If there’s a disagreement, how is it mediated?” Hess says tensions often crop up between principals in probation schools and the universities and non-profits contracted to help them. He believes it’s up to the consultants to ensure that school leaders value them. “If that doesn’t happen, that’s a fundamental shortcoming on the part of the outside group.” Darnieder thinks partners need to spend extensive time up front getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and agreeing on goals. He thinks Bridge and Flanagan did that, but he would devote more time to that in the future. “The key ingredient is this match of personalities and relationships.” The second year of the Manley project ended in disappointment, as test scores dipped to 12 percent. Scores were down citywide, and some believe the nature of that year’s test may have played a role. By the middle of the following school year, it looked like the project was coming to an end. Two of UIC’s lead teachers had departed, and one had been dismissed, leaving only one in place. As CATALYST went to press, test results for 2002 had not been released. |
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