Swift & Change Able

There was a similar article in the Christian Science Monitor, and it also stressed the importance of discipline and order.

Combine this with Dean Millot's and others' discussion of think tanks and reform, and we could have a possible compromise.

Plenty of polling data, anecdotal data, and common sense indicates that teachers, parents, and the community agree on the importance of safe and orderly schools. But how often do you find research that confirms it? Look at the ads for consultants promising turnarounds in a quick and easy way. Do they ever mention discipline? If you were a consultant preparing the Power Point presentation that will be the matrix for reform, would you use the word, "discipline"?

There's a reason why everyone talks about discipline but nobody wants to tackle it. It is the most intractable problem in urban education, even though it is also one of the most important. A wide variety of institutional pressures make it the ultimate "third rail" of educational politics. One of our best administrators told me that real improvements are impossible without orderly schools. He had thought seriously on the subject, and concluded that a determined leader could create order in about three years. But he or she would have to understand from the beginning that his career in that district would then be over. That superintenedent would have to make so many painful choices and create so many enemies that he would have to basically tackle the issue as his last sacrifice.

That's why I'm cautiously optimistic about the Turnaround proposals. Consultants come and go, typically bringing silliness like professional development will teach teachers to engage students and discipline problems will disappear.

A turnaround organization that seeks to be accountability must deal with our most painful open secret. We need both, better instruction, as well as the courage and the capacity (alternative slots within and outside schools)to create the order necessary to create an engaging learning culture.

By the way, this also points to a role for accountability. We must simultaneaously create the capacity and require the will for administrators to provide discipinary backing to teachers, We deprioritize test scores until a) the systems are ready for the real world and b) until we create the conditions that allow teachers to teach. We prioritize the much more measurable behavior of teachers which is a) follow agreed-upon procedures for maintaining order, and b) classroom management.

Face it, few administrators (with or without data) are capable of assessing the effectiveness of the multiple instructional strategies that are vailable to teachers. But its easy to tell whether they are letting students run wild. All thing being equal, I'd have very little confidence in a strategy where teachers have to reapply for their jobs based on a principal's judgements regarding instruction, but it just takes a little common sense to determine whether the teacher shows the behavior needed to control the behavior of students.

Finally, we don't have nearly enough teachers with the skill to turnaround or poorest schools. But we have plenty of people with the fortitude to join this struggle. We need more adults in schools who care enough to say "No." We need certified and uncertified adults to take control of our school buildings.