CAT Tracks for October 20, 2009 TWA

One of the acronyms from our old CHS sweatshirts - TWA - Teachers With Attitude, a tongue-in-cheek response to the popular acronym at the time - KWA - Kids With Attitude.

To survive as a teacher, one MUST adopt a sense of humor...frequently, gallows humor. (Okay, obviously place me in the land of the "Disheartened"...RETIRED!)

WOW, it's amazing how the addition of the "R" word impacts one's attitude! Count my attitude ADJUSTED! I don't start getting a sick feeling on Sunday afternoons. I don't dread Monday morning...I don't "Thank God It's Friday". Nope, I just wake up every morning and say THANK GOD!

Oops...I digressed. I'm sure you active teachers out there will forgive me...my sentiments, at least, if not the rubbing-it-in part!

New research by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates taps into the minds of K-12 teachers as we enter the 2009-2010 school year...

CAT Editor's Note: This article would best be viewed in its original format by clicking the link below. There's bulleted lists and graphs and stuff!

In fact, THAT is always the best way to read the articles. They are reproduced here simply to avoid the "dead links" that often appear after time.

Additional Note: Another article follows the one immediately below.

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From Education Week...

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America's teaching corps is made up of three groups with distinct attitudes about their profession, which has implications for policymakers.

By Andrew L. Yarrow

Two out of five of America’s 4 million K-12 teachers appear disheartened and disappointed about their jobs, while others express a variety of reasons for contentment with teaching and their current school environments, new research by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates shows.

The nationwide study, “Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today,” whose results are being reported here for the first time, offers a comprehensive and nuanced look at how teachers differ in their perspectives on their profession, why they entered teaching, the atmosphere and leadership in their schools, the problems they face, their students and student outcomes, and ideas for reform. Taking a closer look at the nation’s teacher corps based on educators’ attitudes and motivations for teaching could provide some notable implications for how to identify, retain, and support the most effective teachers, according to the researchers.

This portrait of American teachers, completed by the beginning of the 2009-10 school year, presents a new means for appraising the state of the profession at a time when school reform, approaches to teaching, and student achievement remain high on the nation’s agenda. It also comes as billions of economic-stimulus dollars pour into America’s schools, in part to ensure that effective teachers are distributed among all schools, and as Congress prepares to consider reauthorization or modification of the No Child Left Behind Act, the nearly 8-year-old—and latest—version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

The study was based on a nationwide survey, with more than 100 questions, of nearly 900 teachers. It was jointly conducted by Public Agenda, a New York City-based nonprofit, nonpartisan research and public-engagement organization, and Learning Point Associates, a nonprofit education research and consulting organization based in Naperville, Ill., that provides direct professional services at the federal, state, and local levels. The work was underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Joyce Foundation. (Both foundations also provide funding to Editorial Projects in Education, the publisher of Education Week.)

Varying Sensibilities

Researchers at Public Agenda conducted a cluster analysis of the survey results, revealing three distinct groups of teachers. Based on their individual characteristics and attitudes about the profession, teachers naturally fell into three broad categories, which the researchers call the “Disheartened,” “Contented,” and “Idealists.”

The view that teaching is “so demanding, it’s a wonder that more people don’t burn out” is remarkably pervasive, particularly among the Disheartened, who are twice as likely as other teachers to agree strongly with that view. Members of that group, which accounts for 40 percent of K-12 teachers in the United States, tend to have been teaching longer and be older than the Idealists. More than half teach in low-income schools. They are more likely to voice high levels of frustration about the school administration, disorder in the classroom, and an undue focus on testing. Only 14 percent rated their principals as “excellent” at supporting them as teachers, and 61 percent cited lack of support from administrators as a major drawback to teaching. Nearly three-quarters cited “discipline and behavior issues” in the classroom, and seven in 10 cited testing as major drawbacks as well.

By contrast, the vast majority of teachers in the Contented group (37 percent of teachers overall) viewed teaching as a lifelong career. Most said their schools are “orderly, safe, and respectful,” and are satisfied with their administrators. Sixty-three percent strongly agreed that “teaching is exactly what I wanted to do,” and roughly three-fourths feel that they have sufficient time to craft good lesson plans. Those teachers tend to be veterans—94 percent have been in the classroom for more than 10 years, a majority have graduate degrees, and about two-thirds are teaching in middle-income or affluent schools.

However, it is the Idealists—23 percent of teachers overall—who voiced the strongest sense of mission about teaching. Nearly nine in 10 Idealists believe that “good teachers can lead all students to learn, even those from poor families or who have uninvolved parents.” Idealists overwhelmingly said that helping underprivileged children improve their prospects motivated them to enter the profession. Forty-two percent said it was “one of the most important” factors in their decision, and another 36 percent said it was a “major” factor. In addition, 54 percent strongly agreed that all their students, “given the right support, can go to college,” the highest percentage among any group. More than half are 32 or younger and teach in elementary schools, and 36 percent said that even though they intend to stay in education, they plan to leave classroom teaching for other jobs in the field.

Although the researchers caution that the teachers’ idealism does not necessarily guarantee that they are more effective teachers than their colleagues, half the Idealists believe their students’ test scores have increased significantly as a result of their teaching, a higher percentage than the other teachers in the survey.

Making a Difference

At a time of intensifying pressure on teachers to produce results and meet a widening range of social and economic needs, why do teachers say they go into the profession? According to the “Teaching for a Living” analysis, the differences among the three groups are highly significant. For example, “putting underprivileged kids on the path to success” is one of the most important reasons that led Idealists to enter the profession, but only 16 percent of the Contented cited it.

As a Denver 5th grade teacher interviewed for the project said: “Good teachers don’t join for the money or bonuses. They join because they want to make a difference.”

A considerable degree of bitterness characterized the Disheartened in comparison to the other groups: Twice as many spoke of likely burnout as did the Contented and Idealists. Only two-fifths strongly agreed that “there is nothing I’d rather be doing” than teaching, compared with nearly two-thirds of the Contented and nearly half the Idealists.

According to the survey, student-behavior problems and a lack of a supportive administration are major issues feeding discontent among teachers, alongside the perception of low pay. The groups differ considerably on working conditions and support from principals and other administrators. The Contented were more than twice as likely as the Disheartened (76 percent vs. 28 percent) to say that their schools are orderly and safe, and that teachers, administrators, and students respect each other. Likewise, the Contented and the Idealists were four times as likely as the Disheartened to give their principals “excellent” ratings when it comes to supporting them as teachers.

Perceived lack of administrator support, discipline problems, class size, low pay, and lack of prestige loomed as much larger negatives for the Disheartened. Student-behavior problems were seen as major drawbacks to teaching for nearly three-fourths of the Disheartened compared with one-fourth of the Idealists and two in five of the Contented, although student discipline clearly was an issue that concerned many teachers. Low salaries and “little prestige” were not top issues, but the Disheartened were much more likely to mention both as major drawbacks to teaching. For example, 53 percent cited low pay, compared with 26 percent of the Contented and 31 percent of the Idealists. Beliefs about their students and student potential also differed notably, with conceivably significant implications for efforts to reshape the profession. A 22-percentage-point difference separated the Idealists and the Disheartened (88 percent to 66 percent) in their faith that good teachers can make a difference in student learning. Idealists strongly believe that teachers shape student effort (75 percent), whereas just 50 percent of the Disheartened believe that. Only one-third of the more disillusioned teachers were very confident in their students’ learning abilities, compared with nearly half among the other groups (48 percent of the Contented and 45 percent of the Idealists).

Those feelings about teaching, schools, and students influenced perceptions of what steps would be most helpful in improving teacher effectiveness. The Disheartened were more likely to mention higher pay (56 percent, compared with 47 percent of Idealists and 44 percent of the Contented) and removing students with severe behavior problems from the classroom (76 percent of the Disheartened, compared with 55 percent of Idealists and 67 percent of the Contented). The Disheartened (70 percent) and the Idealists (69 percent) were more likely than the Contented (60 percent) to mention smaller class sizes as a very effective way of improving teaching.

Policy Implications

The characteristics and specific views of each group raise important questions for the field. Are the Idealists the best prospects for high-needs schools and for reinvigorating the profession, and what do school leaders need to do to retain them in the field? Given the Idealists’ passion for improving their students’ lives, how can administrators ensure that they have the skills and support to fulfill that goal? More than a third of Idealists voiced a desire to move eventually into other jobs in education. How does the field respond to those aspirations? The Disheartened pose a different challenge. Some may be ill-fitted to the job and ready to move on, but how should the field encourage and support their transition? Others may be good teachers trapped in dysfunctional schools and, in the right environment, might change their views and become Idealists. While those teachers may be helping their students despite the teachers’ bleak outlook, the researchers point out that it would be hard to believe that those Disheartened teachers are as effective as they could be given their own reports about their situation.

Jean Johnson, the executive vice president of Public Agenda and the director of its Education Insights division, notes that an earlier study with superintendents and principals showed that administrators can fall into two categories: “Copers,” whose main focus is successfully completing the work of each day, and “Transformers,” who aim to change the schools they manage.

“One key question from this study is the degree to which the most idealistic teachers could be Transformers, effectively helping struggling students become eager and accomplished learners,” Ms. Johnson said. “Then there are questions about the Disheartened teachers, who generally fall into the coping category. Could good school leadership and better support re-energize them,” she said, “or would it be better for some portion of them and their students if they found another line of work?”

Andrew Yarrow is a vice president of Public Agenda and the director of its Washington office.

A companion commentary from Education Week that goes a long way toward explaining why teachers are unhappy...

Commentary
Stress, Control, and the Deprofessionalizing of Teaching

By Thomas Newkirk

Until fairly recently, psychologists accepted the common-sense view that job stress was directly related to the significance of the decisions being made. The top executive jobs, by this logic, were the most stressful because so much was riding on decisions. And the lower-level positions—the clerks, custodial workers, and receptionists—were less stressful because decisions had less impact. There was less to worry about. All this made a kind of sense.

But it was exactly wrong.

A longitudinal study of male civil servants in Great Britain, now referred to as the Whitehall Study, began to change this thinking 40 years ago. Researchers were surprised to find that mortality rates, as well as a range of stress-related illnesses, were inversely related to job status. Top managers were less likely than lower-status employees to suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease—and they lived longer. The result was puzzling to the researchers, since none of the employees was desperately poor, all were by definition employed, all had access to health care. One possible explanation was that lower-status employees were more likely to smoke, or to have less-healthy diets, but the results held even when these factors were taken into account.

So what explained the result? The researchers concluded that, contrary to popular wisdom, the lower-status workers experienced more stress precisely because they had less control over their work. In other words, those who could make significant decisions probably had a sense of their own agency and control, and this prerogative to act actually made their jobs less stressful than those of workers who largely followed the direction of others.

The Whitehall results are consistent with animal studies that deal with stress and control. Animals suffer when they are in stressful environments and have no way to affect those environments. This powerlessness affects their autoimmune systems and leads to a range of health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart trouble, and ulcers, to name only a few. There is even some evidence that in animals that sense they can affect their environment, the body may release a Valium-like chemical that helps increase resilience, much like the sense of well-being we all get when we decide to really tackle a problem.

In the current rush to make educational decisions based on science, this evidence is significant. I realize that to speak of the psychological health of teachers—their happiness, their sense of being creative and in control of their work—might seem self-indulgent (or irrelevant) to many top-down reformers. The focus should be on student learning, they would say. But realistically, don’t we all hope to be taught and cared for by professionals who are happy in their work? Do any of us want the frustrated, hurried doctor who is on the HMO stopwatch, or worse, the angry dentist?

The closer you are to ground level in U.S. schools, the more you become aware of the deprofessionalizing power of complex educational systems and programs. Often, especially in more-affluent districts, these systems pile up on one another, creating an indigestible, incompatible mess: Christmas-tree schools, with lots of ornaments. Programs for the responsive classroom, comprehension strategies, guided reading, direct instruction, leveled book, differentiated instruction, focused correction, and writing workshop jostle for teachers’ attention, all claiming to be aligned with state systems of evaluation (and all, of course, “research-based”).

A key word in the advertising copy for these systems is “easy.” Check it out. There is the regular promise that by minutely directing instruction, these systems will relieve the teacher of the stress of planning and decisionmaking and create great results. Worried about how to introduce a particular lesson? Here’s a script for you. As one area teacher complained: “Sometimes I think a monkey could do my work.” But, as we have seen, even monkeys become depressed when they lose the belief that they can affect their environment.

It is a Faustian bargain. When teachers lose control of decisionmaking—when they prepare students for tests they have no role in designing (and often no belief in), when they must abandon units they love because there is no longer time, when they must follow the plans designed by others, when they are locked in systems of instruction and evaluation they don’t create or even choose—they will not be relieved of stress. Their jobs are not made easier, they are made harder and more stressful. While some find a way to resist, others acquiesce, though they feel, as one teacher put it, that “the joy is being drained out of teaching.”

It will surely be argued that I am too optimistic here, that only a small percentage of teachers can or will take on this more creative work. That there is not time in a school day. Not enough support. It is too haphazard and unsystematic. Too slow. That it is only realistic to rely on ready-made materials, rubrics, lesson plans, and scripts that will bring focus and consistency to instruction. That teachers appreciate the way various programs lift the burden of decisionmaking. That instruction in subjects like reading and math is just too complex, the frameworks of assessment too elaborate, for teachers to master.

I will only point out the incredible irony of this position—that some reformers insist on high standards for students, while they have such a low estimation of teachers.

Thomas Newkirk is a professor of English at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H. His most recent book is Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For (Heinemann, 2009).