• Banner

      Banner

Spartan News

It's All About the Teacher

I recently attended the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) conference in Orlando. A comment made by new NAIS President John Chubb really struck me. Chubb observed that a student in the bottom quartile only had an 8% chance of moving from the bottom 25 percent to the top 25 percent. Pretty grime odds, I thought to myself. Yet, pointing to the power of great teaching, a student with a teacher in the top quartile three years in a row has a very high probability of moving into the top quartile. The odds just got a lot better.
Previously, I blogged about the importance of resiliency in the MCDS Portrait of a Graduate. I have been saying for some time now that we will see more and more discussions about the importance of teaching young people to be resilient. This past fall, Educational Leadership, a popular educational journal, devoted an entire issue to the theme of resiliency and learning. One article cited the acclaimed 30-year, longitudinal study of over 500 students conducted by Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith in 1992. A third of the students in the study experienced four or more risk factors, which suggested they would struggle with success in life (e.g., poverty, family substance abuse issues). The findings on the high-risk students proved noteworthy. A third of these students had become competent confident adults by age 18. By the time these students had entered their early 30s, five-sixths of these high-risk children demonstrated that they had overcome the adversity of multiple stressors and trauma from their childhood.

Why?

Seeking an answer to this question the researchers conducted interviews with these at-risk students in an effort to understand how they managed to develop resiliency and become successful adults. The common denominator proved to be a teacher who developed a caring relationship with the students. One of the researchers of this groundbreaking study later wrote, “In a testimony to the power of educators as resilience builders, when many of these children reached adulthood they mourned the loss of one or two educators who had made the difference for them, more than they mourned the loss of their own family members.” The research of Bard education professor, Michael Sadowski, with immigrant and LGBT teenagers echoes the same message regarding teachers.

So, how do you find the kind of teachers that evidence best practices in the classroom and have the desire, time, and energy to develop meaningful relationships with students?

When I became head of school in 2000, the statistics were pretty dire. The National Commission on Teaching predicted that more than 2,000,000 teachers would be needed between 2000 and 2010. However, the data suggested a shortage of 100,000 teachers per year during the same time period. It was the perfect storm for a teacher shortage, i.e., the retirement of the baby boomer generation winding down their classroom careers, a lack of qualified prospective candidates willing to explore teaching, and the telling number of young teachers who left the profession in the first five years.

This data combined with Miami Country Day’s experience with hiring in the previous decade, prompted the Board of Trustees to create and empower a committee that would position the school to be able to compete for the “best and brightest” teachers in what was projected as the largest teacher shortage in American history. The school embarked on a very courageous path that relatively few independent schools, to date, have travelled. We looked at progressive models for teacher professional growth and compensation from around the country. The school hired Independent School Management (ISM) to conduct a teacher survey and a comprehensive analysis of Country Day’s compensation and professional growth. In creating a new and innovative compensation and professional growth program the committee developed two significant documents: a career ladder with an overlapping, banded compensation system and a process to guide teachers in developing professional growth plans that included a rigorous evaluation system. Today, I can write without exaggeration that Miami Country Day has one of the most innovative, comprehensive, cutting-edge teacher professional growth and compensation programs of any independent school in the country.

The program initiated nearly a decade ago has undergone a number of changes to reflect the needs of students, teachers, and the school. Two aspects that have not changed are a rigorous, comprehensive evaluation system and a compensation program that rewards teachers for their commitment to their students by growing their practice. Unlike traditional teacher compensation systems that use a pay scale based upon years of experience and provide the same raise annually to everyone, Country Day teachers have greater control over their compensation in the short term and their overall career long-term. As a result the school has been able to retain great teachers and attract new teachers, who understand that they can significantly impact their own career development.

As the head of school, I believe Country Day’s commitment to its students is reflected in its commitment to its teachers. Sadly, education as a profession is not accorded the status that it once held. The need for outstanding teachers has never been greater. Time and again the research reminds us that talented committed teachers can change the lives of our children. The power of great teaching can trump poverty, poor test scores, even a paucity of resources, but there is a big disconnect. When Salary.com did an analysis of the worst degrees for return on investment, education made the list. Nationally, teacher salaries have lost ground over the last decade.

In creating its own unique compensation and professional growth program, Country Day has chosen to go in the opposite direction.

The power of great teaching can be summed up in the Japanese proverb, “Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.” At Country Day, we have a commitment to our students to let them experience great teachers every day.
Back
    • Take Action

Join Our Community