The Power of Teacher Networks [1 ed.] 9781452215419, 9781412967174

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This book is dedicated to Ellen Dempsey and Sibyl Jacobson, two women without whom this work would not have been possible.

Copyright  2009 by Corwin All rights reserved. When forms and sample documents are included, their use is authorized only by educators, local school sites, and/or noncommercial or nonprofit entities that have purchased the book. Except for that usage, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover photos © 2008 by Kristine Larsen, www.kristinelarsen.com. For information: Corwin A SAGE Company 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 (800) 233-9936 Fax: (800) 417-2466 www.corwinpress.com

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Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meyers, Ellen. The power of teacher networks / Ellen Meyers with Peter A. Paul, David E. Kirkland, and Nancy Fichtman Dana; foreword by Stephanie Hirsh. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4129-6716-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4129-6717-4 (pbk.) 1. Teachers—Professional relationships. 2. Teachers—Social networks. I. Paul, Peter A. II. Kirkland, David E. III. Dana, Nancy Fichtman, 1964– IV. Title. LB1775.M54 2009 371.1—dc22

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Contents Foreword Stephanie Hirsh

vii

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

About the Authors

xiii

Introduction

1

1. The Case for Networks What Joining TNLI Did for Our Work Why Form a Network? Concluding Thoughts

7 8 9 14

2. Creating a Vision Naming the Problem Envisioning the Future Speaking With One Voice What You Can Do—The Future Is Now

15 15 17 18 19

3. Finding a Voice The Journey Begins Seeing Teachers as the Solution, Not the Problem Charting the Course Managing a Network

27 27 28 29 30

4. Raising Your Voice The Journey Continues Managing a Growing Network

40 40 41

5. Making a Difference A Menu of Activities Feedback: How Do You Know You Are Making a Difference?

51 52 65

6. Where Do We Go From Here? A Need for Change The Future of Teaching

68 68 70

Appendixes Appendix A

72 Our Vision Statement: Teachers’ Vision of the Future of Education—A Challenge to the Nation

73

Appendix B Appendix C Appendix D Appendix E Appendix F Appendix G Appendix H Appendix I Appendix J

Teachers Network Leadership Institute Application Form and Group Interview Agenda Sample TNLI Grant Proposal Essential Pointers for Listserv Moderators Sample Recruitment Flyer Action Research Workshop Handbook Sample Action Research Study Outline of the What Is Policy? Video Sample Case: Are You In or Are You Out? Making a Difference Reporting Form

77 81 85 86 87 92 104 106 113

TNLI Recommended Reading List

114

References

125

Index

127

Foreword

I

n 1996 I ran for my local school board. While I was committed to ensuring great schools for all children in my community, I was also interested in learning how to leverage this policymaking role to advance that commitment. During my nine-year tenure, I was frequently disappointed that so few of the issues we were asked to address were directly related to what happened between teachers and students in the classroom. After reading The Power of Teacher Networks, I am closer to understanding why this was generally the case. In reviewing the decisions we made that did affect the classroom, I remember two specific examples. Early in my tenure, the school board adopted a goal that all students graduate as proficient writers. While everyone supported the goal, the high school English teachers bore the brunt of this decision—they were the ones required to assign and grade more writing. They spoke up about this impact on their workload. They lobbied the district administration and ultimately the school board to reduce their teaching load so that they would have the time to grade the additional assignments and achieve the new goal. They presented a compelling case; we listened, and we agreed. The school board adopted a new policy limiting high school English teachers to teaching four rather than five classes a day. In a second example, I recall a response to a state-mandated teacher evaluation system based on a list of best practices. Evaluators visited classrooms for the purpose of checking off practices demonstrated by teachers during one observation period. Several schools recognized that the new policy was doing very little to advance good teaching and was in many cases inhibiting it. At the same time, many school leadership teams that included administrators and teachers were implementing forms of peer coaching and believed this tactic was having a more significant impact on helping teachers improve. Representatives from these schools approached the district administration and the school board to request we seek a waiver from the state-mandated teacher evaluation process for experienced teachers. They sought to substitute their coaching alternative for the checklist process. Teachers played a key role in lobbying for the change; again they were compelling, and the school board agreed. As several years passed, this practice spread to all the schools in the system, and each year the school board renewed its request to the state education agency. These experiences combined with the stories in The Power of Teacher Networks reinforce for me the importance and affect of teacher-led reform. We are fortunate to be able to learn from three decades of results from the Teachers Network. Effective networks serve teachers and students by providing collegial support that builds and retains great teachers by improving classroom practice, spreading great practices across school and district boundaries, and offering teachers a vision for demonstrating leadership. In addition, networks such as that described vii

viii The Power of Teacher Networks

in this book achieve an additional moral purpose: they promote the effective participation of teachers in the important policy discussions and decisions that most directly affect student achievement. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush and then Governor Clinton held the first education summit; incredibly, not one teacher was invited. Then in its tenth year of operation, the Teachers Network immediately recognized this huge oversight. From then on, the network’s leaders and affiliates could no longer sit at the sidelines, allowing others to form national policies without including the voice of outstanding teachers. Its communities of practice networks took on new meaning when the network expanded its intention to influence policy at the state and federal levels. If policy were to realize its full potential in promoting better practice in classrooms, it needed to be guided by excellent teachers, and the network’s leaders could lead this charge. Almost twenty years later, the network is still committed to that vision. I have seen what happens when strong organizations combine a compelling vision with a moral purpose—nothing can stop them from achieving their goal. In my view, this is why the Teachers Network continues to grow and thrive. I encourage educators at all levels to revisit their own experiences with networks. Consider the added value they bring to you, the other members, and students. Imagine if all teachers were given the opportunity to serve and be served by a network with all the potential outcomes of successful networks. Through this opportunity, we could ensure that every student experiences great teaching every day, that every teacher receives the support necessary to help students achieve their goals, and that every decision maker is informed by the expertise of the individuals doing the work. I believe this outcome is what Ellen Meyers and her colleagues envision; I hope it is what you will embrace. The authors don’t assume that every reader will be in a position to launch a network similar to theirs. Instead, they hope every reader will find an idea, a gem, to assist them in advancing their own network efforts and in thinking more directly about the relationship between teacher-leader networks and policy. Teacher-leader networks can serve as the bridge between the schoolhouse, the statehouse, and all the various constituencies served along the way. With this practical resource, more of us can join in making it happen. One more note of appreciation for the authors that I must share: Thank you for taking time to reflect on the work while doing the work. Too many great programs and services get lost because the doers rarely take time to reflect and record so that the benefactors can take time to learn and understand. Your record serves as a model for others to follow. Stephanie Hirsh Executive Director National Staff Development Council

Preface

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hen our editor approached me about writing a book on teacher retention I jumped at the chance. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing more important than this: Experience counts. Every child deserves an experienced teacher, someone who is beyond being overwhelmed with classroom management and ready and able to develop relationships with students that will lead to a joy of learning. For many reasons, including the desire to do education on the cheap, we as a nation have faltered in the goal of professionalizing teaching. If we do not invest in teachers, we risk creating school environments in which new teachers will move in and out of the classroom as fast as they can—doing a tremendous disservice to our nation’s youth. While teacher networks are clearly just one piece of the solution, my colleagues and I have come to understand that they are a powerful way to keep good teachers teaching and to provide professional opportunities for growth in a field that can be limiting. Based on this experience, we have a lot to offer in thinking about how best to retain teachers. Our hope is that this will be a well-thumbed book. While we’re proffering our model of a successful teacher network, our purpose is for educators everywhere to be able to take our ideas and go creative in establishing and growing their own networks.

WHO WE ARE As someone who has devoted much of her life to creating and sustaining teacher networks—with the goal of changing the culture of teaching in isolation—I strongly believe in the magic of collaboration and that the whole is stronger than each of its parts. With this in mind, I asked Nancy Fichtman Dana, who recently joined our network as an affiliate director and who has a deep understanding of professional learning communities; David E. Kirkland, our national advisor for the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI); and Peter A. Paul, who began as my intern in the early days of TNLI and now serves as its national coordinator, to join me in this endeavor. They will each introduce themselves within their own chapters.

HOW WE STRUCTURED THIS BOOK When we dove into the writing of this book, our first challenge was to find a way to include the voices of teachers, since the promotion of teachers’ voices is the ix

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purpose of our network. Toward that end, we put out a call via our network listserv and asked our teachers to respond to three questions: 1. Why did you join our network? 2. How have you made a difference as a result of participation in this network? 3. How are you helping to sustain and expand the network? Fifty teachers responded, and while we could not incorporate what everyone had to say, we have included as many of their voices as we were able to pack into this book. Throughout, you will hear directly from teachers as a reminder of what we’re all about—ensuring that classrooms are vibrant learning communities. We have shared our teachers’ comments in two ways: (1) through short quotes in the text and (2) in boxes titled “In Our Own Words.” Then we outlined the book, and from that outline, it became clear who would be the best author of each chapter based on our expertise and experience. Chapter 1, which makes a case for networks, was authored by Nancy. Chapter 2, which is about how to create a vision for a network, and Chapter 5, which reflects on making a difference through networking, were written by Ellen, and Chapters 3 and 4, which offer the nuts and bolts of developing and sustaining a network, were written by Peter. Chapter 6, which takes a look at the implications of networks for educational change, was authored by David. We helped critique each other’s chapters—not easy with four intense, passionate individuals!—and, at our editor’s suggestion, built in connections to one another’s writing. To better engage you, the reader, we have written stories about how we came to this work, what we brought to it, and what it has meant personally to us in our growth and development. We provide here a myriad of worksheets, tools, resources, and readings that we have developed over the course of our more than a decade of experience in this work. Our intent is for you to find these practical, how-to materials easily adaptable for use in the growth of your own network. Most of all, we hope that through this book we will motivate others to join us in this work—literally or figuratively. We have learned so much, and, as teachers, we cannot help but want to give you, the reader, all the benefits of our experience and to encourage you to use the expertise, advice, and tools we offer to help make schools great places for teachers and students to do their best work. —Ellen Meyers

Acknowledgments

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e greatly appreciate the contributions to this book by the following teachers in our network:

Daniel Abramoski (NY), high school

Judy Jones (NC), high school

Elizabeth Flocker Aming (FL), elementary school

Vanessa Jones (NY), elementary school

L. Kelly Escueta Ayers (VA), elementary school Megan Bender (NY), elementary school Kevin Berry (FL), elementary school Maria Breen (FL), elementary school

Amika Kemmler-Ernst (MA), elementary school Marie Leblanc (NY), high school Julie Levin (NY), middle school Holly Link (CA), elementary school

Erin Cassar (NY), high school

James Longwell-Stevens (NY), high school

Julie Cavanagh (NY), elementary school

Anne Looser (NY), high school

Susan Cogdill (WY), middle school

Suzanne Martinez (IL), elementary school

Michelle Crabill (VA), elementary school Robin Emmond (CA), elementary school Johnnie Farrington (FL), elementary school Judi Fenton (NY), early childhood

A. Imani Matthews (NY), high school Kate O’Hagan (NY), middle school Amber Pabon (NY), middle school Lisa Peterson-Grace (NY), middle school

Narineh Gharashor (IL), elementary school

Sara Ridge (NY), elementary school

Elizabeth Gil (NY), elementary school

Margie Rogasner (IL), elementary school

Susan Gold (CA), middle school

Caron Rose (FL), elementary school

Barbara Golub (NY), elementary school

David Rothauser (NY), high school

Peggy Gordon (FL), early childhood

Josey Sadler (CA), elementary school

Shandowlyon Hendricks-Williams (WI), middle school Peter Hippard (CA), elementary school Jayne Jaskolski (WI), early childhood

Carmen Robles (NY), high school

Anokhi Saraiya (NY), elementary school Sabrina Silverstein (IL), new teacher mentor

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Monica Sims (IL), elementary school

Patti Ward (FL), elementary school

Teresa Thomas (FL), elementary school

Heidi Willard (VA), high school

Deborah van Doren (NY), elementary school

Katherine Young (DE), high school

Jason Wagner (NY), high school

Juliana Zapata (NY), elementary school

Many thanks to our affiliate directors, coordinators, and advisors for their help with this book. They are Christine Anderson, Laurel Ballard, Margarita BertaAvila, Anna Beskin, Vivian Chang, Penny Earley, Jill Farrell, Jane Fung, Sheldon Gen, Sue Hansen, Janet Hecsh, Barbara Henderson, Paul Herdman, Roy Hoyle, Kelly Seale Irace, Jeff Issenberg, Linda Lecht, Audrey Noble, Lynette Parkhurst, Petti Pfau, Michael Rasmussen, Kris Reichmann, Gail Ritchie, Mark Rosenkrantz, Sarah Rossi, Allen Trent, Lorna Valle, Linda Waldera, Angela Whipple, Pia Wong, and Diane Yendol-Hoppey.

PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Corwin gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following reviewers: Beverly E. S. Alfeld, MA, MFA, Educational Consultant, Crystal Lake, Illinois Michelle Barnea, Executive Director, Early Learning Innovations, Millburn, New Jersey James Becker, ESL Teacher, Saint Paul, Minnesota Nancy Betler, Instructional Support Specialist, CMS, Charlotte, North Carolina William A. Sommers, Author of Leading Professional Learning Communities: Voices From Research and Practice, Austin, Texas

About the Authors Ellen Meyers was senior vice president of Teachers Network and director of the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) until February 2009; her work with the organization spans nearly three decades. Ellen has had a long, distinguished career in education, with an extensive list of accomplishments, among them the following: editor-in-chief of the by teachers, for teachers series of handbooks, including the New Teachers Handbook and How to Use the Internet in the Classroom; co-editor of Taking Action With Teacher Research (2003); producer of the television series Successful Teaching Practices in Action; innovator of the award-winning website, teachersnetwork.org; and developer of Teachers Network’s online courses. Her passion is bridging the gap between schoolhouses and statehouses by empowering teachers to provide a voice in education policymaking. Ellen has a Masters in Education from Cambridge College and a certificate in English Language Teaching from Long Island University. For five years, she was adjunct professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and has been an instructor of English at Long Island University. Ellen can be reached at [email protected]. Peter A. Paul is vice president of Teachers Network and also serves as national coordinator of the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI). Additionally, he directs Teachers Network’s New Teacher Resource Program, which helps support thousands of new teachers each year across the United States. Peter has a concentration in Educational Policy from Teachers College, Columbia University, where he was inducted as a permanent member into its chapter of Kappa Delta Pi (International Honor Society in Education). He has also received numerous other recognitions, such as citations in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in Asia—First Edition, and Outstanding People of the 20th Century. As a licensed elementary and middle school teacher, he has taught at all levels and in mixed environments—including urban, rural, and suburban classrooms—throughout the United States and Japan. The son of two teachers and education professors, Peter is the founding president of NCA Schools International—a Northern Japan–based chain of English-language schools. Prior to returning to the United States in 1997, Peter did extensive public speaking and educational consulting abroad.

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David E. Kirkland is assistant professor of English Education at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in the Department of Teaching and Learning. His research focuses on urban youth popular culture, language and literacy, teacher research, and urban teacher education. For five years, Dr. Kirkland taught secondary reading and English language arts in Detroit and Lansing, Michigan. He received his Masters in Philosophy from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Language, Literacy, and Urban Education from Michigan State. His professional memberships include American Educational Research Association (AERA), Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP)–Detroit Branch, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and Michigan Council of Teachers of English (MCTE)–NCTE Affiliate Organization. Nancy Fichtman Dana is a professor of education and director of the Center for School Improvement at the University of Florida. Under her direction, the center promotes and supports practitioner inquiry as a core mechanism for school improvement in schools throughout the state. Prior to her appointment at the University of Florida, Nancy served on the faculty of Curriculum and Instruction at Pennsylvania State University, where she developed and directed the State College Area School District–Pennsylvania State University Elementary Professional Development School program, named the 2002 Distinguished Program in Teacher Education by the Association of Teacher Educators and the 2004 Zimpher Best Partnership by the National Holmes Partnership. She holds a PhD in Elementary Education from Florida State University. Nancy began her career in education as an elementary school teacher in Hannibal Central Schools, New York, and has worked closely with elementary school teachers on teacher inquiry and school-university collaborations in Florida and Pennsylvania since 1990. She is the author (with Diane Yendol-Hoppey) of three books: The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Classroom Research, 2nd edition (2009), The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Mentoring (2008), and The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Professional Development (2007); and the author of the forthcoming Leading With Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher as well as of numerous articles in professional journals focused on teacher inquiry, teacher leadership, school-university collaborations, and professional development schools.

Introduction If it weren’t for the network, I would no longer be a teacher.

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e hear these words from our members on an almost daily basis. In a profession that hemorrhages a third of its practitioners every three years, and a half every five years, what keeps these particular teachers in the classroom year after year? What is the Teachers Network (TN) providing for these teachers? How is it meeting their needs? What are those needs? This book is our attempt to answer these questions and to share the expertise developed by TN over decades of experience in forming successful networks. It is our belief that we have a significant contribution to offer the field, especially at this critical moment in the history of our nation’s schools. Teacher attrition rates are skyrocketing—a problem compounded by the exodus of a generation of seasoned teachers. This retiring teacher force is being replaced by a cadre of novice teachers, more and more of whom are entering the profession with minimal preparation. At the same time, increasing pressure is being put on schools and universities to perform within a context of high-stakes testing and accountability. TN was founded over twenty-eight years ago to address two problems endemic to the teaching profession: isolation from colleagues and cultural devaluation. A network of teachers who communicate across and between schools and districts can 1. help teachers break through the isolation so many experience while working within the confines of one classroom and/or one school, and 2. offer teachers recognition in a society in which an ongoing question to them is “Are you still teaching?”

We have helped break through teacher isolation by creating vehicles for teachers to connect with one another and share the work they have generated in their classrooms. We have honored teachers by awarding them grants and fellowships, recognizing them at award ceremonies, and adding their voices to the national conversation on education. All of these activities are offered with the goal of keeping good teachers teaching. As our organization matured, we began adding affiliates—school districts, state education departments, education funds, and others that have adopted our model— and, in response to feedback from the increasing number of members joining our network, added other ways to help teachers grow as professionals. These have included 1

2 The Power of Teacher Networks

support and resources for new teachers in the form of multimedia professional development programs: online courses, videos of successful teaching practices in action on CD-ROMs, extensive website resources, and print materials. Because we have been at the forefront of using technology in education (the TN website was launched in the mid-1990s), providing professional development for teachers in using the Internet in the classroom has also become a priority. It was this addition to our programs that projected TN beyond national borders, and we now have teacher networks in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

AN EDUCATION SUMMIT WITHOUT TEACHERS?! THE ORIGINS OF THE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE Although all of the programs generated by our network have increased our knowledge and expertise about the power of teacher networks, it is our move into the advocacy world that most informs this book. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush and then Governor Clinton held the In 1989, President H. W. Bush and first education summit; incredibly, not one then Governor Clinton held the first teacher was invited. At that point, TN was education summit; incredibly, not one entering its tenth year. We already had an teacher was invited. excellent track record of documenting and disseminating curriculum (as affirmed by a longitudinal study [Mann, 1983]), but now our organization took a giant leap into a vacuum that desperately needed to be filled. Where was the teacher’s voice in the national debate on school reform? Utilizing and building on our expertise and experience about teacher networks—everything we had learned during the past decade—we began what has evolved into the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI). The goal of TNLI is to connect education policy with actual classroom practice to The goal of TNLI is to connect improve student achievement. TNLI MetLife education policy with actual classroom Fellows—teachers with full-time classroom practice to improve student achievement. teaching responsibilities—conduct action research studies in their classrooms and schools, develop policy recommendations based on their findings, write cases to facilitate discussions with policymakers, and document and disseminate their work locally and nationally. This is the best professional development I have ever had. This is the statement we most often hear from TNLI fellows. In this book, we will distill for you how to create this “best professional development.” Our gift to you is what we have learned through growing, nurturing, and expanding this network over the past ten years to currently include fourteen nationwide affiliates.

Introduction 3

JUST WHAT IS A TEACHERS NETWORK? While networks and professional learning communities can vary greatly in context and size, at TN we define a local network as a group of at least ten teachers—although we have had groups as large as fifty—who come together at least once a month locally and serve as affiliates within our larger nationwide network. Teachers join our network through a competitive process that involves a written application, recommendations, and a group interview. Typically, these teachers are those who have come into teaching to make a difference and feel either frustrated or limited by their own classroom and/or school setting. They are eager to develop the knowledge and skills to affect public education. These teachers are the ones we want to keep teaching, and we help them do so by offering them ways in which to grow. The following is a summary of what we know about the characteristics of successful networks from Ann Lieberman, who has worked directly with the TNLI as our first national advisor (Lieberman & Grolnick, 1996), and from our own wealth of practical experience as pioneers in this field. In a successful network, 1. the agendas are challenging, not prescriptive, and are responsive to members and their particular needs; 2. the learning environment is more indirect than direct—a result of new commitments and friendships, exposure to new ideas, and contact with and observation of other educators’ work; 3. the formats are collaborative, not individualistic—members work interdependently; 4. the work is more integrated than fragmented; 5. the leadership is facilitative, not directive; 6. thinking from multiple perspectives is encouraged; 7. shared values are both context specific and generalized; and 8. the organizational structure is more movement-like than organization-like. Overall, networks are exciting, alternative forms of teacher and school development. They provide a dynamic way to help teachers • direct their own learning; • sidestep the limitations of institutional roles, hierarchies, and geographic locations; • work with many different kinds of people; • break through isolation; • connect with others who are passionate about their work; • introduce new ideas, projects, materials, and ways to motivate students; • develop new skills (i.e., presentation skills, grant-writing skills); • feel supported for risk taking; and • become technologically literate.

4 The Power of Teacher Networks

OUR NETWORK First and foremost, a teacher network is managed. We know that teachers, due to the demands of their teaching loads, lesson preparation, paper grading, parent communication, and school responsibilities, are short on time and support. It takes someone other than a teacher in the network to hold the network together— whether to schedule and plan face-to-face meetings or facilitate the use of virtual communications. Each of our networks has a director who is responsible for programming and managing it, supporting the teachers in developing relationships with policymakers, and taking action through advocacy. Our networks also have university advisors who support the teachers in conducting action research studies in their classrooms and schools. Although TN provides teachers with a nationwide network, it is the local networks that recruit, induct, and maintain teacher participation. Local networks come on board through a variety of partnerships and relationships that we actively seek and broker. Over the years, TN has offered this opportunity to education funds, school districts, state departments of education, and universities. In some cases, foundations have also served to catalyze these local networks. The process of affiliates is ongoing and dynamic, with an average of one new affiliate joining each year. To date, TNLI affiliates are located in the following areas: • Chicago (IL)—The Chicago Foundation of Education. One of the network’s founding affiliates, Chicago TNLI is composed of elementary and middle school teachers in this urban district. The advisor is from National Louis University. • Fairfax County (VA)—Fairfax County Public Schools. Also one of TNLI’s founding affiliates, this network brings together suburban teachers in a district committed early on to supporting teacher research in the classroom. • Gainesville (FL)—University of Florida. Brought on board a few years ago as a result of a special grant opportunity forged through the Holmes Partnership, the leadership at this affiliate was seeking a national network to build upon its rich tradition of supporting professional learning communities and teacher research. • Los Angeles (CA)—Teacher-leaders in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Originally under the aegis of the local education fund, this affiliate continues under the direction of area TNLI founding fellows. • Mason (VA)—George Mason University. Also formed with support from the Holmes Partnership, the university seized on this opportunity to strengthen and maintain its work with its professional development schools and to include participation by its education policy department in its network. • Miami (FL)—The Education Fund. Comprising teachers from throughout this urban district, this affiliate works in close partnership with Barry University. • Milwaukee (WI)—Milwaukee Partnership Academy. This network was galvanized by the then incoming president of Holmes, who saw the value of TNLI for this city’s teachers. Primary support comes from the National Education Association.

Introduction 5

• New York City (NY)—Teachers Network. The national office of TN manages a local affiliate for New York City public school teachers in partnership with the New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, as well as the United Federation of Teachers. Approximately forty teachers, from throughout the five boroughs, comprise this network annually. • Sacramento (CA)—California State University. Also developed initially through a Holmes grant opportunity, this network continues to involve teachers from districts in the greater Sacramento area. • Santa Barbara County (CA)—Santa Barbara County Office of Education. Another founding affiliate, this network comprises teachers from twentythree primarily suburban and rural school districts and is in partnership with the University of California, Santa Barbara. • San Francisco (CA)—San Francisco Education Fund. The board of this education fund has made a major commitment to provide ongoing support for this local network of urban teachers. It is in partnership with San Francisco State University. • State of Delaware—The Rodel Charitable Foundation. Originally brokered by the former dean of the School of Education at the University of Delaware and introduced to teachers statewide through an invitation by the governor, this affiliate has major support from a foundation committed to supporting education in the state. • State of Kentucky—University of Kentucky. The newest TNLI affiliate to date, the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development has come on board after being exposed to our work at the International Teacher Research Conference. This affiliate expands on TN’s longtime relationship with the Fayette County Public Schools by bringing network participation to teachers throughout the state. • State of Wyoming—Wyoming Department of Education. A network jumpstarted by endorsement by the governor and maintained through substantial direct state support, this TNLI affiliate connects teachers throughout urban, suburban, and rural districts statewide. It works in partnership with the University of Wyoming.

ACTING LOCALLY AND NATIONALLY What makes TN particularly appealing to a broad cross-section of all education stakeholders is that it engages teachers at the local level while also connecting them at the national level. People are looking for ways to bridge the schoolhouse, statehouse, and all constituencies. The teachers we are attracting are those who want to make a difference, not only for their own students but also in powerful ways that affect students and schools throughout the nation. Nationally, we are building upon the work of policy researchers such as Linda Darling-Hammond (1996) and Milbrey McLaughlin (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993), who have attempted to help policymakers think differently about policy and the implementation of that policy. All agree that we need to improve schools and help

6 The Power of Teacher Networks

teachers, and these policy researchers are focusing on how to do it. Policy researchers maintain that a real understanding of the connection between policy and practice depends on teachers creating professional communities where many of the problems and tensions associated with education policy are addressed and alleviated. Research is showing that, when teachers work together to focus on student learning and when they make public their struggles associated with teaching and learning—and also when they can plan, invent, adapt, and problem solve together as a community (be it within a department, school, district, union, or network)—they start solving many of the problems associated with education policy. This kind of professional community thus mediates between policy, which attempts to make changes, and the practice of teachers. The work of McLaughlin, Darling-Hammond, and others has given us an understanding of how to organize not just for school change but to change the culture of schools and create learning communities for teachers. Teachers need to be involved to help determine what policies will support the practices that improve student learning and create professional communities of teachers. TNLI, with guidance and technical assistance from the national office, provides the vehicle and mechanisms for teachers locally and nationally to improve their classroom practice while simultaneously addressing the myriad frustrations they experience daily as a result of limited input. Participation in the network also provides multiple, ongoing opportunities to use action research generated by these teachers to develop specific recommendations to improve teaching and learning. Finally, I have an opportunity to have my voice heard. We have infused this book with the same philosophy that guides all our work. Ultimately, a network is by teachers, for teachers. In that spirit, we have let the network speak for itself. Complementing each chapter are direct narratives and quotations from teachers, directors, and advisors who comprise our network. We asked the teachers why they joined the network, how they have made a difference as a result of their participation, and how they are helping to sustain and expand it. We also asked our directors and advisors to write about pivotal experiences that made this work come together for them—including hurdles they overcame and some of their successes to date. Each of the following chapters offers how-tos and lessons learned to enable educators to start, manage, sustain, and expand their own networks. The end results of a successful network are those that anyone who cares about education will embrace: • • • •

The retention of dedicated teachers The improvement of classroom practice The development of teacher leadership The effective participation of teachers in policy discussions and decisions

Our goal in writing this book is to provide you with the knowledge, understanding, and tools to create a local network. We would also welcome you into our national network. Join your colleagues and see what a community of teachers can accomplish together!

1 The Case for Networks Imitation is the best form of flattery. —Charles Caleb Colton

How better to begin making the case for networks than by hearing from Nancy, who took our idea and went creative. In this chapter, you will read how Nancy extended her professional learning community by adopting our networking model. She provides both her group’s experience as well as a strong argument for why others might want to join in this work.




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N

ancy, I just came from the best session I’ve been to so far at this conference! These people really know what they are talking about, and we need to connect to them. They are having a breakfast tomorrow morning at 8:00, and I think we should go.” This was the enthusiastic greeting of my good friend and colleague, Fran Vandiver, director of our laboratory school at the University of Florida, when we first saw each other at the 2005 National Holmes Partnership Conference. She had just attended a session by Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) fellows. At this session, Fran had heard these teachers and Ellen Meyers discuss the organization and share the teacher research they had conducted in their classrooms. Immediately, Fran knew we had found kindred spirits for our work in Florida. We arose early the next morning to attend the TNLI breakfast meeting. Here, we learned more about the organization and heard testimonials by teachers who had experienced the power networking had offered to their growth as professionals and their work as classroom teachers. Fran and I gained a renewed energy for similar work we had begun in Florida. For the past two years, in partnership with the North East Florida Educational Consortium, we had been working to network teachers and administrators in sixteen rural school districts in North Central Florida by introducing them to the power of teacher research (Dana & Yendol-Hoppey, 2008, 2009). 7

8 The Power of Teacher Networks

Our work was growing and expanding rapidly, and we viewed TNLI presenters at this national conference as a marvelous resource to help us reflect on the work we had begun and potentially take it to the next level. We introduced ourselves to Ellen at the close of the breakfast, promising we’d be in touch. Fewer than two months later, I was delivering the keynote address at the Fairfax County Public School’s annual teacher research conference in Virginia. My talk focused on the teacher research movement in relationship to No Child Left Behind and the era of high-stakes testing, in which teachers find themselves struggling to survive and thrive. As I neared the end of my talk, I made recommendations for the future of teacher research, one of which included connecting different groups of teacher researchers to one another. Remembering my experience with TNLI at the National Holmes Conference just a few short weeks earlier, I mentioned their work in my talk: Finally, it’s time to connect the different pockets of teacher research that exist across the country. For example, I know in the East, we have at least four (and I’m sure there are more) strong teacher researcher communities—Fairfax County Public Schools and George Mason University; my previous home, State College Area School District and Penn State University; my new home, University of Florida and the North East Florida Educational Consortium; and the Teachers Network Leadership Institute in New York. We need to find a way to systematically connect these communities so we develop a collective teacher researcher voice. I hope you will join me in thinking about ways we can enact this vision, for with a collective teacher researcher voice, I believe we have a better chance to be heard in the era of high-stakes testing and No Child Left Behind and a much better chance to shape this era, rather than be shaped by it. (Dana, 2005) As I spoke at this conference and mentioned the work of TNLI, little did I know that Peter Paul, vice president of Teachers Network (TN), was in the audience listening. He approached me after the talk to thank me for referencing TNLI’s work, and a long, rich conversation ensued about the promise of and possibilities for teacher networks. This serendipitous meeting with Peter spurred me to set up a phone conference with Ellen, Peter, and Fran shortly after my return from Virginia to discuss going national with the local teacher research network Fran and I had started in North Central Florida. Thus was the Gainesville TNLI affiliate born.

WHAT JOINING TNLI DID FOR OUR WORK In the Introduction to this book, Ellen shared that the statement she most often hears from fellows in TNLI is, “This is the best professional development I have ever had.” Fran and I had heard this same statement over and over in our work in Florida. For example, the following excerpt came from one of our teachers after we had organized and held a Teacher Research Showcase one Saturday

The Case for Networks 9

morning in April, organized so that teachers in our network could share their inquiries with one another: Thank you for creating a forum in which teachers can reflect on instructional practices used in the classroom. The teacher inquiry process was one of the most beneficial, thought-stimulating processes I have ever encountered as an educator. I learned so much about myself, and I am inspired to keep on “inquiring” throughout my career as an educator. Saturday’s forum was truly a celebration of why we chose to become teachers in the first place. Thank you for providing the opportunity for me to learn so much and ultimately grow as a teacher . . . and as an individual. I promise to energetically encourage my fellow colleagues to become teacher inquirers. I will make it my mission to introduce more teachers to this wonderful world of teacher research. While statements such as these provided a great deal of inspiration for Fran and me, they troubled us as well. Engagement in teacher research was undoubtedly the best professional development that the teachers with whom we worked had ever experienced, and they were making exciting changes to their practice inside the four walls of their classrooms. But what about the influence these teachers’ work could have outside those four walls? Our local network had helped teachers take charge of their own professional learning and growth in ways they had never imagined, but it had not yet helped these teachers connect that professional learning and growth to larger school reform efforts and initiatives. How could our teachers bring their vital knowledge to those outside the schoolhouse? We saw TNLI’s focus on policymaking as a way to introduce teachers to the potential role they could play not only as researchers but as political activists as well. As we had hoped, joining forces with TNLI helped take our teachers and their work to the next level.

WHY FORM A NETWORK? When we became a part of TNLI, we were reminded of five powerful reasons to form a network in the first place. These reasons, illustrated by the stories and words of four of our TNLI fellows, are described in the remainder of this chapter. These illustrations also serve as a preview to some of the powerful strategies and activities of TNLI to be described in detail later in this book.

Reason 1: Networks Connect Teachers to One Another, Removing Them From the Isolation Inherent in Their Work Because the school day is structured so that teachers spend the majority of their day with students and comparatively little time with other teachers, it is not unusual for teachers to feel isolated in their work. In fact, over the years, numerous educational scholars have discussed teacher isolation, depicting teaching as a lonely profession in which teachers close their classroom doors and have little interaction

10 The Power of Teacher Networks

with other teachers in their buildings (see, for example, Flinder, 1988; Lieberman & Miller, 1992; Lortie, 1975). Given the norms of isolation that have been pervasive in schools throughout the years, teachers often feel alone when advocating for students in their classrooms. By forming or joining a network, teachers are reminded that they are members of an entire teaching force and that others share the same struggles. Gainesville TNLI Teacher Fellow Kevin Berry discussed the ways his experiences attending a TNLI national meeting in Delaware helped him remember he was not alone: In October, I had the privilege of attending my first TNLI meeting and talking to teacher leaders from across the United States. So much was so geographically different among us—one teacher lived in a home on the side of a mountain, while the highest point in my state is barely a lump in the ground. Yet most of our experiences were the same. As teachers, we all felt disenfranchised in some respect. We all needed more time to accomplish what we wanted. We all needed more financial support for our schools. We all were forced to negotiate with a great deal of regulation from an increasing number of sources. We were also all dedicated wholeheartedly to our profession. (Berry, 2008) Kevin reflected that the feeling of connectedness he was able to develop with fellow teacher colleagues from across the nation through networking became a source of strength for him as he confronted the daily dilemmas of teaching. He developed relationships with teaching colleagues outside his school building to whom he could turn for help and advice, learning from both their experiences and their research.

Reason 2: Networks Help Teachers Rediscover the Value of Their Work, Increasing Their Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy At some point in their careers, teachers come across this adage: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Unfortunately, this fairly common saying reflects a society that doesn’t understand, appreciate, or value the work of a teacher. In fact, recall that in the Introduction to this text, Ellen stated that one of the reasons TN was founded over twenty-eight years ago was to “offer teachers recognition in a society in which an ongoing question to them is ‘Are you still teaching?’” Given the many explicit and implicit messages that devalue a teacher’s work in our society, it is not uncommon for even the most enthusiastic and dedicated of teachers to begin questioning the value of their chosen profession. This questioning can lead to a downward spiral of self-doubt in which a teacher’s self-esteem and self-efficacy plummet. By forming or joining a network, teachers are provided with constant reminders of the value of being a teacher that counteract the negative messages teachers receive about their work from the larger society. One example of such a positive message and boost to self-esteem comes from Gainesville TNLI Fellow Greg Cunningham. Shortly after becoming a TNLI fellow, Greg participated in one of the TNLI listserv discussions about an article written by Alfie Kohn regarding the great homework debate. After numerous posts and comments by TNLI fellows on the

The Case for Networks 11

listserv, Alfie Kohn himself provided a response to this online discussion. In his response, Alfie referenced something Greg had contributed in his post. Greg excitedly emailed me asking if I had seen the post and thus noticed that he had been quoted by this prominent educator. Later, Greg reflected, When Alfie Kohn mentioned my post in his response to the TNLI fellows’ discussion of his article, it made me feel like I’d just had a conversation with a movie star! Then I guess the lasting impression would be feeling fulfilled and empowered. My opinion had not only been validated, but I’d been personally complimented on a level that few teachers ever experience. Granted, there are those who win teacher of the year, etc., but this was recognition within a serious, high-level discussion of an issue at the very heart of our professional world. (G. Cunningham, personal communication, October 10, 2008) Forming or joining a network provides opportunities for teachers to be recognized in meaningful ways as professionals. This, in turn, helps teachers replace the adage mentioned at the start of this section with: Those who can, teach. Those who can’t, find some other, less important profession.

Those who can, teach. Those who can’t, find some other, less important profession.

Reason 3: Networks Provide Teachers With the Skills They Need Outside the Classroom to Advocate for What They Need Inside Their Classrooms One aspect of teaching that makes it so complex is the multiple knowledge bases teachers draw upon simultaneously as they plan for instruction and make decisions about teaching. Intrigued with learning more about the complicated thought processes of good teachers, educational researchers have teased apart and named these multiple knowledge bases (see, for example, Good & Brophey, 1994; Levin & Nolan, 2000; Shulman 1987). According to these scholars, the thinking that occurs during the act of teaching draws upon seven interrelated knowledge bases—content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, student learner knowledge, curriculum knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, context knowledge, and classroom management knowledge. Put simply, to provide effective instruction, teachers must negotiate a myriad of factors, including • • • • • •

a deep understanding of the subject they are teaching; instructional strategies they will utilize to teach the subject; their learners’ backgrounds, prior experiences, and knowledge; the ways their current context shapes what is being taught; the need to set appropriate expectations and to adjust curriculum; and the establishment of routines or procedures that make the day run smoothly.

12 The Power of Teacher Networks

Teachers must clearly develop an enormous amount of knowledge to be effective as they interact with students inside the classroom. Consequently, almost all prospective teacher preparation, as well as practicing teacher professional development, focuses on developing the skills teachers need to be effective inside their classrooms, neglecting valuable skills teachers need outside their classroom to advocate for students. Forming or joining a network provides opportunities for teachers to develop these “outside the classroom” skills, such as interacting with policymakers. To exemplify, I return to Gainesville TNLI Fellow Kevin Berry’s experience at the Delaware meeting: The purpose of the meeting was to empower teachers. The most interesting part to me was the practice talk we had with policymakers. The meeting organizers divided the attendees into four groups which met in separate rooms. Three teachers in each room were involved in roundtable discussions with a U.S. senator, state senator, or local policymakers. The remainder of the teachers (about 20 or 30 in each room) observed each discussion. I was lucky enough to have a conversation about policy with two other teachers and Delaware Senator Margaret Rose Henry. We all read a case, primarily about high school dropout rates, and discussed possible pitfalls and solutions. After our conversations concluded, we all came back together and had a whole-group talk about what we said, heard, and experienced. Teachers and policymakers offered feedback, and I took many notes. Before I attended this meeting, I didn’t have the experience or knowledge of how to interact with policymakers, and I accepted the fact that teachers’ voices were limited. Now I know we have the potential to exert true influence on policymakers, if we choose to find our voices and use them. (Berry, 2008)

Reason 4: Networks Help Teachers Deal Productively With the Many Frustrations Inherent in Teaching Given today’s political context, where much of the decision making and discussion regarding teachers occur outside the walls of the classroom (CochranSmith & Lytle, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 1994), it has become commonplace for teachers to feel frustrated by district, state, and federal mandates that complicate the provision of sound teaching practices. By forming or joining a network, teachers are provided with opportunities to deal with these frustrations in productive ways. For example, TNLI supported nineteen teacher fellows in writing cases to illustrate how policy was playing out positively and negatively in classrooms across the nation. Gainesville TNLI Teacher Fellow John Kreinbihl was one of the case writers (Kreinbihl, n.d.). Through engagement in action research, John had observed what happened at his school and in the morale of his teaching colleagues as they discussed the implementation of a new state initiative termed STAR (Special Teachers Are Rewarded). This initiative appropriated $147.5 million for performance pay rewards for teachers. John reflects that, prior to writing this case,

The Case for Networks 13

he did not have a productive outlet to deal with the frustrations of the unintended consequences that result from national, state, and local education policies: When the opportunity to write my case came up, I saw it as an extension of my experience with action research. My participation in the teleconferences, where I was able to listen to other teachers from all parts of the country, showed me that there were serious teachers out there trying to make education better. TNLI and similar organizations are valuable alternatives for the improvement of education without the extraneous politics that have turned off so many of us. Writing my case brought me a sense of participation in something that was connecting a genuine teacher’s experience with possible political impact. (J. Kreinbihl, personal communication, October 9, 2008)

Reason 5: Networks Inspire Teachers to Action One final, and perhaps most important, reason to form or join a teacher network is that participation in such a network rallies teachers to action! The daily work life of a teacher is so incredibly busy that it is difficult to find the time to participate as a political advocate for the profession. In fact, some scholars believe teachers have purposefully been kept incredibly busy to keep them out of larger conversations about teaching and schooling. For example, Joe Kincheloe (1991) makes a comparison between teachers and peasants within a Third World culture characterized by hierarchical power structures, scarce resources, and traditional values: Like their third world counterparts, teachers are preoccupied with daily survival—time for reflection and analysis seems remote and even quite fatuous given the crisis management atmosphere and the immediate attention survival necessitates. In such a climate those who would suggest that more time and resources be delegated to reflective and growth-inducing pursuits are viewed as impractical visionaries devoid of common sense. Thus, the status quo is perpetuated, the endless cycle of underdevelopment rolls on with its peasant culture of low morale and teachers as “reactors” to daily emergencies. (p. 12) By forming or joining a network, you contribute to breaking the cycle described above. To exemplify, Gainesville TNLI Fellow Debbi Hubbell reflects on how our local blogging online community and the TNLI listserv inspired her to action: Blogging has been a new and valuable experience for me these last two years. As an action research facilitator, I interacted with other action research facilitators from sixteen different districts in North Central Florida on University of Florida’s Center for School Improvement blogsite. I enjoyed sharing deep conversations about student and teacher success, seeking professional opinions or information, and reflecting about one’s own path. But most of all, I felt camaraderie among these people that all lived so very far away.

14 The Power of Teacher Networks

I also felt camaraderie last year in a more global way when I was introduced to the TNLI listserv that connected teachers from across the entire country. It was interesting to read the different viewpoints about the topics of discussion, laugh at the occasional joke, and get inspired to be proactive in changing the negative view of education that many noneducators seem to have. (Actually, I never knew that so many people thought so badly of teachers and the educational system until I became involved with these TNLI posts.) With these strangers urging me on, I tried to get others locally to write their representatives who were involved with making educational changes, or to write their own or use TNLI’s pre-made letters to the editor to assist the community in understanding our work and feelings about educating children. In reality, things won’t get better just doing the same ol’ thing everyday, and the TNLI listserv inspired me to go one more mile. (D. Hubbell, personal communication, October 8, 2008) By forming or joining a network, you become inspired to go that extra mile and to influence the ways people outside of the profession view teachers, as well as their attempts to change education from the outside in. Networks, such as TNLI, can more effectively contribute to the reform of education, from the inside out!

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Whether you are contemplating joining an existing network or forming your own network, it is clear that networks are a powerful vehicle to raise teachers’ voices in educational reform. The purpose of this chapter was to illuminate this power by reviewing five important reasons for networking: 1. Networks connect teachers to one another, removing them from the isolation inherent in their work. 2. Networks help teachers rediscover the value of their work, increasing their self-esteem and self-efficacy. 3. Networks provide teachers with the skills they need outside the classroom to advocate for what they need inside their classrooms. 4. Networks help teachers deal productively with the many frustrations inherent in teaching. 5. Networks inspire teachers to action. These reasons form the foundation for your journey through the remainder of this text wherein Ellen Meyers and Peter Paul share their stories of leading and growing one of the most successful teacher networks in the country. Their stories provide insights into the many lessons learned and the valuable tools you can invoke to create your own vision, find your voice, raise your voice, and make a difference through the power of networks!

2 Creating a Vision Persons who do not create their own images of a future world are destined to live out someone else’s. —Warren Ziegler

Every network starts with a vision. In this chapter, Ellen hopes to inspire you to develop your own vision and create your own network to improve the future of education. The vision we generated at Teachers Network many years ago has guided our work ever since.




NAMING THE PROBLEM Inspired by a couple of movies and plays I’ve seen recently, I have been thinking about the four archetypal responses people have to the status quo. First, there are those who accept the situation and, in a state of paralysis, opt not to do anything about it; they become victims. Then there are those who will work the system to make it work for them; these are the survivors. There are also those who embrace the system and, in doing so, perpetrate it; they seek to become the next generation of implementers of the status quo. Finally, there are those who take on the status quo and try to change it; they are the ones envisioning a better world.

Teacher Isolation Having a vision is the first step toward making change. But to take the first step, you need to name the problem. Teachers Network (TN) was founded nearly thirty years ago to address the problem of teachers isolated within the confines of their classrooms, their schools, their districts, and their states. The vision of TN was, and continues to be, to connect teachers so they can learn from one another in improving their practice.

15

16 The Power of Teacher Networks

The need for connection was why we thought the Internet was created for us. We were at that time—by the mid-1980s—a nationwide professional community of teachers sharing best practices in working environments with limited access to telephones and administrative support, functioning in different time zones. After literally knocking on AOL’s door in Fairfax, Virginia, in the early 1990s to become a “keyword” on their network, we had our own website up and running by the mid-1990s, a giant step toward our goal of a global network of teachers working together for the benefit of students around the world.

High Teacher Turnover Another problem we were addressing at the time was how to keep good teachers teaching. A teacher shortage was looming on the horizon, and we were beginning to see recruitment and alternative certification experiments springing up to fill classroom quotas. Our vision was and continues to be having well-prepared, experienced teachers in our nation’s schools. We initially formed our network to help solve the problem of teacher attrition by providing teachers with meaningful professional development activities, recognition, additional compensation, and the opportunity to participate in an intellectually stimulating professional community. We did this by documenting and disseminating curriculum projects by teachers, for teachers—a radical concept at the time—with a slogan of “Take an Idea and Go Creative!” It has always been our philosophy that creativity is central to good teaching and to the perpetuation of democracy.

In Our Own Words I was interested in creating a work environment that would have teachers eager to come to school—a place where they could have fun teaching and that would allow for amazing student learning. My colleague shared with me the research that TNLI does, and it seemed like a perfect way for me to actually do something toward my goal. I remain in TNLI because it gives a professional voice for educators. We teachers must get out and share our experiences to ensure that decisions are made to enhance student learning. I also enjoy the research because it makes a difference for kids. Through my participation in TNLI, I have realized the pivotal role that administrators play in a school. A principal with vision and energy can truly impact the future for students in the way that he or she leads and supports teachers. Because of my TNLI involvement, I was encouraged by my colleagues and superintendent to seek my degree in administration, which I did. I am currently on my staff development team and continue to study what it takes to create a school where both teachers and students believe they make a difference. Susan Cogdill, Middle School Teacher, Wyoming

Reform Without Teacher Input Just as we were encouraging teachers to bring down the classroom and schoolhouse doors separating them from one another, we began to feel pressure to break down the doors between educators and policymakers. This urgency intensified with

Creating a Vision 17

the release of the watershed report A Nation at Risk in 1983 in the early years of the Reagan administration and with the flurry of reports that followed—all calling for major reform in education but all ignoring the central role of teachers in improving schools. And even with the current focus on teacher quality in the aftermath of groundbreaking reports such as What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future (National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996), most people still don’t get it: the teacher must be the prime mover and central actor in school reform.

The Most Depressing Day of My Career As part of our tenth anniversary celebration of TN, we held a competition for City University of New York’s architecture students to create models of the school of the future. We were hoping to grab some press attention. By having exciting visual representations of schools, we would showcase our creativity as an organization and ideally generate photographs of our event in the media. To help the students imagine these schools, we held an afterschool meeting for some of our most stellar New York City teachers to provide input for the students taking part in the competition. This was potentially a very heady moment. I remember taking a frontrow seat, eagerly waiting to be inspired by the conversation. When asked by the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed students to imagine their dream schools, the bedraggled, exhausted teachers responded with “more outlets,” “clean hallways,” and “windows not broken.” I was demoralized; their dream seemed more like a nightmare to me.

Drink the Hemlock or Call Paul? For several days I walked around with a dark cloud over my head, but then I did what I always do when I feel myself imploding. I picked up the phone. I called Paul McIsaac, a good friend who had shown a genuine interest in TN by always asking me about my work. Paul is a teacher, journalist, actor, director, and more. I had a big problem, and I decided I needed a Renaissance man to help solve it. We had lunch, and when I shared what I thought was a very sad story with Paul, he lit up. Where I saw a crisis, he saw an opportunity. He explained that you can’t ask people to envision while in the midst of their everyday lives—especially midweek, at the end of the day! Envisioning was a process that took guidance, skills, and time.

ENVISIONING THE FUTURE Borrowing from the peace movement’s technique of envisioning a world without war, we brought together our first group of teachers from the New York Metropolitan Area to an event we called “Inventing the Future of Teaching.” The group of nineteen ran the gamut: elementary to secondary school teachers from urban, suburban, and rural schools, spanning a wide variety of subject areas and pedagogical expertise. We spent two days at a local television station with broadcast videographers, documenting a process that we hoped would lead us to a new vision of what the school of the future would look like—beyond outlets, cleanliness, and panes of glass. An edited version of the footage, with an introduction by Linda Darling-Hammond, a longtime supporter and advisor to TN, was the first

18 The Power of Teacher Networks

of several documentaries we produced showcasing this work (Inventing the Future of Teaching, Teachers Network, 1989). Having had a taste of how empowering and dynamic the envisioning process could be, Paul and I became excited about the possibility of bringing teachers together not just from the New York area but from across the country. We put together a proposal, but when Ellen Dempsey, my longtime colleague and co-founder of TN, looked at the budget—the first thing a foundation person would do—she laughed. Who was going to underwrite flying teachers across the country and providing their meals and lodging for a week? Then in the fall of 1989, Governor Clinton and the first President Bush held an education summit and did not invite a single classroom teacher. Even Dan Rather, then nightly news broadcaster for CBS, was taken aback. When wrapping up the story, he mused aloud, what if they had a medical summit and did not invite a doctor? It was now public: teachers were not being included in the national dialogue on school reform. If Dan Rather got it, then others, including those at a foundation, would, too. And who better to step into this void than TN? With a ten-year track record of helping break through teacher isolation and keeping good teachers teaching, and with an understanding of what it would take to prepare teachers to become part of the country’s debate on school reform, we seized the opportunity. Thanks to financial support from MetLife Foundation, we were able to launch a major initiative that would evolve into the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI).

SPEAKING WITH ONE VOICE With a new problem identified—the lack of a teacher voice in school reform—we had set the stage for creating a new vision. How could we rectify the absence of teachers’ voices in the national conversation about education? Was it possible for a diverse How could we rectify the absence of group of teachers with strong opinions— teachers’ voices in the national from rural, suburban, and urban school disconversation about education? tricts across the country and teaching in elementary, middle, and secondary schools— to speak with one voice? We were soon to find out. In 1990, we invited fifty teachers nationwide to come together for a week in Snowbird, Utah, to draft a teachers’ vision of education. We knew we needed a common vision to ensure that we had a unified voice. We began by identifying twelve concerns: 1. The increasing numbers of emotionally and physically damaged children suffering from poverty, crime, and drugs 2. “Advantaged” children often lacking curiosity, kindness, compassion, and joy 3. Mass-produced learning, textbook-driven curriculum and testing, resulting in rote learning, not creative thinking

Creating a Vision 19

4. Labeling and tracking of children—creating isolation, shame, and withdrawal 5. Indifference to our public schools, and lack of financial and political support 6. Teachers without support, respect, and empowerment to do their jobs 7. Overexposure to television and fifty-minute school periods—resulting in fragmentation and short attention spans 8. Underfunding of the arts, because they are considered “fluff” and not essential to learning 9. Breakdown of the family and lack of daycare and other family support systems 10. Alienation of new immigrants and minority families from public education 11. General apathy in children and adults about the future of our planet 12. The marginalization of young people in our society What emerged from that weeklong gathering was The Teachers’ Vision of the Future of Education: A Challenge to the Nation, which was published in 1991 (see Appendix A for the full vision statement). Eighteen years later, it still guides our network. Unfortunately, most schools still do not come close to what we envisioned almost two decades ago. They continue to be recipients of the unintended negative consequences of education policymaking, which lacks significant teacher input.

WHAT YOU CAN DO—THE FUTURE IS NOW Creating Your Own Vision The envisioning process is a powerful means of bringing people onboard so they will own their network. We have done the process numerous times over the years as a way to induct new members and keep our eyes on the prize. It helps galvanize and reinvigorate. Although you are, of course, invited to adopt and adapt our vision—our slogan, after all, remains “Take an Idea and Go Creative”— we hope that, by providing you with the process we used, it will make developing your vision that much easier. Just listing your concerns, the jumping-off point for the process, can be a liberating exercise. We also advise you to benefit from our experience and remove people from their daily environment to take part in this exercise. We learned the hard way that envisioning does not happen with a single subway ride uptown after school; the weeklong, mountaintop experience was much more productive. We also recommend finding a skilled facilitator, someone adept at guiding a group process and inspiring people to do their best work.

20 The Power of Teacher Networks

In Our Own Words I loved the poster activity in which we shared our priority concerns and compelling images—then looked for commonalities and created envisioning groups. It was a totally energizing experience, . . . and we needed a lot of energy for the 12+ hours/day spent in collaborative thinking and talking and writing! One thing that amazed me is that we actually came up with a shared vision, despite representing such a broad spectrum of experience and perspectives. Amika Kemmler-Ernst, Elementary School Teacher, Boston

Figure 2.1 is a helpful reproducible for you to use to create a vision that will guide your network. We suggest the following eight-step process: (1) identify concerns, (2) share concerns, (3) create a vision, (4) publish your vision, (5) form collaborative teams, (6) create a shared vision, (7) identify barriers, and (8) design action plans to overcome barriers. After we completed our vision, we published it in a document that was signed by all fifty teachers who participated in formulating it. We have included this vision at the end of this book (see Appendix A) as an example of an end-product from this envisioning process. The Teachers’ Vision of the Future of Education is also available in PDF format at www.teachersnetwork.org. (As an historical footnote, the vision includes comments by the late Ernest L. Boyer, who was president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the late Albert Shanker, who was president of the American Federation of Teachers.)

In Our Own Words It is so easy to slip into the rut of bureaucracy, routine, and history when working in the school environment. The envisioning process at Snowbird freed us to dream and to plan how schools could be if all the usual restraints were loosened. We “created” schools where students were involved in authentic work, collaborating together and working alongside their teachers who were helping to guide them in the learning process. Instead of saying, “We can’t,” we ended up asking, “Why not?” We came from all over and taught a huge variety of ages and subjects, and yet we shared a dream that education could be meaningful to all students and could excite students to embrace learning for the rest of their lives. We carried this energy and focus back into our school systems where we worked to make changes. For some, it was in classes, and for others, it was more systemic. But for all, it was a memory and an anchor that has lasted for years. We learned that there is power in a shared vision. Judy Jones, High School Teacher, North Carolina

Creating a Vision 21 Figure 2.1

Creating a Vision Starts With You IDENTIFYING CONCERNS

• • • •

Purpose: To identify and prioritize your concerns about education. Concerns: A situation that causes you to worry, to be anxious, to be uneasy, or to have a troubled state of mind. Activity: Individual reflection, and partner and group sharing. The essence of this activity is to focus and reflect on concerns about education. Procedure: In a quiet place (shut out distractions of both inner and outer noise), reflect on education, its purpose, and its potential. Identify your concerns about education. Use a worksheet to record your concerns.

Describing Your Concern 1. Be specific and detailed. Consider why you are concerned about education. Was this issue thrust upon you? Do you own it? Who else is concerned about this issue? Who should be concerned but isn’t? 2. List and describe your concerns. 3. After you have listed all your concerns, prioritize them. Primary Concern Your primary concern is the one that most acutely affects you, about which you have passion and energy—the concern that must be handled first, before other concerns can be resolved. 1. Describe your primary concern about education. 2. What is compelling about this concern? 3. Why must this concern be handled first? EXPLAINING YOUR CONCERNS, TO YOURSELF AND TO ANOTHER • • • •

Purpose: To attempt to verbalize our thoughts to another, thus clarifying them for ourselves. Focused listening: Listening without interruption in an accepting and nonjudgmental manner. Focused questioning: Asking clarifying questions in a supportive manner without judging or challenging. Sharing: Verbalizing the ideas you choose to share without expecting advice, criticism, recommendations, or agreement. New ideas or realizations may occur.

As speaker, describe your concerns. Be specific and concrete. Share your primary concern. As listener, clear your mind. Use focused listening. After your partner has shared, ask focused questions to elicit more detail and to clarify. ENVISIONING Vision is the product of creative imagination and foresight. Envisioning involves: • • • • • • •

Introspective thinking: Examining your experience and thought processes around an issue. Imaging: Picturing or representing in the mind, imagining, visualizing your thoughts. Intending: Having something in mind to do, wanting to have something happen. Focused listening: Listening in a noninterruptive, nonexpectational, nonjudgmental way. Focused questioning: Asking questions that clarify and expand. Discerning: Showing good judgment or understanding. Action: Doing something about your vision.

(Continued)

22 The Power of Teacher Networks Figure 2.1 (Continued) Creating Your Vision Introspective Thinking Look within yourself. Examine your experience of the concerns you have about education. What are your feelings/emotions? Thoughts/ideas? Judgments/evaluations? Memories/images from the past? Now, mentally leap into the future and create a detailed picture of how things will look, be, or work when your concerns are resolved and education fully actualizes its potential and purpose. Clear your mind of distractions and see the future in concrete and specific images. As you envision a fully actualized education, write words, phrases, sentences, or draw pictures or symbols that communicate your vision. Use a worksheet to develop your vision. Be your creative, artistic, expressive self! PUBLISHING YOUR VISION Purpose Publishing develops pride of ownership and commitment to actualizing the vision—making the vision reality. It allows your colleagues to determine if and how the components of your vision intersect with theirs. Process 1. Select the most important aspects of your vision. Use a worksheet to help organize your statements and/or drawings. 2. Summarize the significant elements of your vision. Be succinct and evocative, with sufficient detail to provide clarity and meaning for others. 3. Publish your vision by creating a poster. Use large lettering and drawings. Sign your name, and tape your poster to a wall. 4. After all visions are posted, take a tour and view others’ visions. Notice commonalities. Note the names of those who have visions similar enough to yours that you could work together toward a collaborative vision. FORMING TEAMS • • • • •

What are common concerns and elements in the individual visions? Work together to develop a shared vision based on those common elements. Use collective imaging. Resolve conflict creatively by negotiating through dialogue, focused listening, and focused questioning. Value and nurture group members. CREATING A SHARED VISION

Purpose Participants who have common elements of a vision collaborate to create a shared vision of a fully actualized education. Process 1. Affinity groups form according to commonalties in individual visions. 2. Select a recorder to chart the common components of individual visions as they are presented. Note additions and compromises.

Creating a Vision 23

3. Each participant shares his or her vision. 4. After the group has shared and the common components are charted, discuss your own and each others’ visions as to their probability, reasonableness, feasibility, and soundness. Collaborate through dialogue to create a shared vision of a fully actualized education. 5. Create a shared vision statement. On a poster, use the shared vision to complete this statement: “Our vision for education is . . .” 6. Select a team member to present your vision statement to the entire group.

WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS? A barrier is anything that gets in the way. Barriers are • • • • • • • • • •

obstacles to realizing goals; sources of resistance to change; internal and external challenges; problems to be solved; lacking communication about what is not working; little or no ownership of the problems; shallow levels of honesty and connections; surfacing negativity; indicators of future conflicts if unresolved; and fears and anxieties about the future based on what did not work in the past or present. ACTION PLANNING: OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO THE VISION

Purpose To have teams develop an action plan to implement their shared vision. An action plan identifies and prioritizes barriers and describes actions needed to overcome them: • • • •

What will be done? Who will do it? How will it be done (include needed resources and supports)? When will it be done?

Process On a poster, teams will 1. brainstorm barriers to the shared vision; 2. prioritize barriers; and 3. determine/design action plans for overcoming barriers. Barrier:

Action Plan: What? ________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Who? ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

(Continued)

24 The Power of Teacher Networks Figure 2.1 (Continued) How? ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ When? __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

Barrier: Action Plan: What? ____________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ Who? __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ How? ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ When? __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________

Barrier: Action Plan: What? ____________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ Who? __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ How? ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ When? _________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ Continue with this process, looping back to your teams to create one large team comprising the whole group. You will end up with the vision that will guide your network. You may want to then have everyone involved sign it. It’s your “declaration of independence.”

Copyright © 2009 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from The Power of Teacher Networks, by Ellen Meyers, with Peter A. Paul, David E. Kirkland, and Nancy Fichtman Dana. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwinpress.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.

Creating a Vision 25

Figure 2.2 is a second reproducible form to be used by the facilitator you choose to guide your envisioning process. Based on our experience with different facilitators over the years, the process outlined in this figure has been successful in multiple contexts and settings.

Bringing Schools Closer to Your Vision Our next challenge was to turn the vision into action. To create our envisioned schools of the future, it was clear to those of us in TN that education policy needed to be formulated with teacher input. In our vision, teachers—and their students—would no longer experience policy as hindering classroom learning but as enhancing and fostering it. We needed to bridge the disconnect between statehouses and schoolhouses to bring teachers’ voices into the national dialogue on school reform. To go from vision to voice, teachers needed to gain the knowledge, skills, and access to influence policymaking. This imperative led directly to the formation of TNLI. Envisioning is an exciting, dynamic process designed to free people’s thinking, unleash creativity, and take you in new directions. It’s no wonder that folks latched onto this concept at the turn of a new century. Now, more than ever, we need new ideas and the leaders to implement these ideas. The possibilities are endless. And, who better to take the lead than our nation’s educators. When we began the process, we had no idea how enormous the ramifications would be— and continue to be. Who knows where your vision will lead you?

26 The Power of Teacher Networks Figure 2.2

Step-by-Step Instructions for Facilitating the Envisioning Process

Before the Envisioning Process A group of people come together • • •

by their own choice; with an adequate amount of time to be thoughtful; and with some real, usable end-product as a goal.

Two Exercises Precede the Envisioning Process 1. Inspirations: Participants take a few moments to remind themselves why they became teachers in the first place and what continues to inspire them. The participants share their inspirations in small groups and/or with the group as a whole. 2. Concerns: Participants take the time to name and explore in writing their deepest concerns related to teaching and learning. They can share their concerns and post them. The Envisioning Process In a quiet room, have participants imagine a vision of the future in which their concerns are addressed, and guide them by conveying the following key concepts: Step 1: Deep Imagining • •

Allow the images to flow freely and uncensored (do not worry about practicality or how to achieve a vision). Listen to your spirit. Make your images concrete and specific; bring them into sharp focus as if you are there; use all your senses.

Step 2: Free Writing the Images on Paper • •

Capture the images on paper in words, phrases, sentences, diagrams, symbols. Keep the images specific and concrete, as if you are there.

Step 3: Deep Listening and Deep Questioning in Pairs • • •

Listen without judgment. Ask questions to enable the other to clarify his or her own vision. Talk about your vision in the present tense as if you are there.

Step 4: Imagining Indicators and Consequences of Your Vision • • • •

See your vision as a reality. Look for indicators that your vision has been realized. Imagine the positive and negative consequences for all people (you, your students, your union representative, your principal) as if your vision were the reality. Record the indicators and consequences on paper.

Step 5: Deep Listening in Groups •

Search for clearer indicators and consequences.

Step 6: Prepare a Poster of Your Compelling Image of the Future • •

Find the center point of your vision. Create a representation of your vision in words, images, pictures, symbols.

Step 7: Posters Are Displayed Gallery-Style for All to Experience, Share, and Examine •

Note posters that portray shared or related visions as well as the envisioners’ names.

Step 8: Vision Teams Are Formed by Those Whose Emerging Visions Share Common or Related Elements •

Develop a comprehensive vision of the future in newly formed vision teams.

Copyright © 2009 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from The Power of Teacher Networks, by Ellen Meyers, with Peter A. Paul, David E. Kirkland, and Nancy Fichtman Dana. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwinpress.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.

3 Finding a Voice Fix the problem, not the blame. —Japanese Proverb

Every network needs an infrastructure. Because networks are facilitated rather than proscribed, the process of beginning and engaging others in a network has its own unique challenges. In this chapter, Peter provides you with a step-by-step, how-to guide to help you realize your vision and create a network. 

THE JOURNEY BEGINS Most great stories—and networks—have their beginnings in a confluence of, first, being in the right place at the right time and, second, a compulsion, perhaps even a calling, to move toward action to realize some greater goal or purpose. For me, the journey began simply. The son of two educators (both of whom were lifelong public elementary school teachers and college professors of education), I grew up well steeped in the education world. It was a world, however, that I had sworn off. It seemed to me that teachers in our society receive, at best, limited professional respect for what is, in all honesty, one of the most demanding and important jobs. Far better, I thought, to enter law, business, or medicine. At least these professions afford widely accepted recognition, compensation, and respect. Still, I decided to enroll in a few courses offered by each of my parents (much to their horror), and I was hooked. There are few more exciting things in life than helping a first grader read words for the first time. But what about the bigger picture? Given my relative youth, I allowed myself the opportunity to teach for a few years—essentially the Peace Corps or Teach for America mentality, I suppose. My firm intention was to proceed immediately afterward to law school. Though I had multiple teaching offers in my home state of Michigan, I ended up accepting an 27

28 The Power of Teacher Networks

invitation through my college to teach English in Northern Japan for three months. Once there, I saw a unique educational and business opportunity, and I co-founded an English as a second language school. I brought over native speakers, all trained and licensed as teachers in the United States. Each designed his own curriculum with my guidance and taught English conversation to students ranging from age four to advanced adults. The school, now one of the largest of its kind in Northern Japan, virtually doubled in size each year, and I ended up staying nearly eight years. While I am the first to admit that the Japanese educational system is far from perfect, the compensation, respect, and recognition teachers receive in Japan seemed to me a model to be admired and aspired to. Teachers are regularly given time during the school day and beyond to network with each other, share best practices, and even do lengthy group or schoolwide lesson studies to examine and perfect curriculum approaches. In many ways, being a teacher in Japan means being on the same par with a medical doctor. In fact, the word “sen-sei” is the term used for both doctors and teachers. It translates literally as “first born.” In short, the critical role teachers play—to educate and prepare all future generations of the nation—is recognized and valued by the society as a whole. My challenge, as I saw it, was to begin to do something beyond my work abroad. I wanted to help galvanize U.S. teachers to cut through their isolation, network with each other as like-minded academics and professionals, and gain control of their own profession. Flavor-of-the-year approaches such as ready-made curriculums, multiple district reorganizations, mayoral control, privatization of education, and charter schools are all responses to a system crying out for help. They are, however, in the end, usually just quick-fix responses that, for the most part, fail to address the fundamental issues.

SEEING TEACHERS AS THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PROBLEM The Japanese have a famous saying: “Fix the problem, not the blame.” Those words have resonated with me for a long time. They speak volumes for and to the teaching profession. We need to stop assigning blame to teachers and schools that are, in the majority of cases, working so exceptionally hard to succeed. This is especially true for disWe need to stop assigning blame to advantaged, lower socioeconomic neighborteachers and schools that are, in the hoods. Rather than saddling such schools majority of cases, working so with ever-higher bars of standardized “expecexceptionally hard to succeed. tations” (rather than student growth models) and subsequent penalties for failure to meet those expectations, we must focus on fixing the real problems: teacher isolationism, lack of meaningful support and intellectual opportunities, and an almost complete absence of teachers’ voices in education policy. The answer, as many of us have suspected for a long time, must lie with teachers themselves—those working daily and directly with students, those who know what students need. Ultimately, then, teachers must be recognized as those best positioned to provide feedback to policymakers and others on what conditions need to be in place and what policies enacted for our children to succeed. In short, teacher input must be at the core of all decision making.

Finding a Voice 29

In Our Own Words Because of this great network, my action research speaks loud and clear—and the most powerful effect is that the community is listening—and changing for the better. I see a new light in my principal’s eyes when I stand before her. She has known me the full length of my career and has always supported my efforts. Now she sees something more, perhaps something greater in me than before; something that had her reach over to me as we sat near each other recently at a meeting, touch my arm and whisper, “I am so proud of you.” A teacher could not ask for a greater gift than this confirmation of admiration and respect. Caron Rose, Elementary School Teacher, Miami

The question is about how to change the cultural infrastructure and familiar system of isolation that has been, for so long, endemic to schools. The challenge is to avoid the temptation to rush to some winner-take-all panaceas that will forever elude us and, very possibly, result in great damage to our children and our nation. Instead, the necessary response is to identify what lies at the very heart of the purpose of education. Next, we need to figure out how best to create and promulgate professional, academic, and, above all, grassroots systems of teacher support, connectivity, skill building, and empowerment. This response will dynamically transform education in ways that will demonstrate what actually works for real students in real classrooms throughout the nation. What is particularly exciting about the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) is that it consistently accomplishes these things and more. While the TNLI model may or may not fit every situation, at the very least, the experiences and road map used by TNLI in helping teachers find their voices is one that can be adopted or adapted by virtually any constituency.

CHARTING THE COURSE When I returned to the United States in 1997, I enrolled in a politics and education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, with a concentration in education policy. For me, an academic life needed to be coupled with the life of an activist. I eagerly sought a place to find that outlet, and it didn’t take long. As part of the requirements to complete an education policy concentration, I needed to choose a graduate internship. Among the choices were the U.S. Department of Education, the United Nations, and, at the bottom of the list, a program that at the time was called the “National Teacher Policy Institute” (now known as the Teachers Network Leadership Institute). Only beginning its second year as a national institute, its tag line read, and still reads, “The teacher’s voice in policymaking.” I knew I was at the right place. What immediately captivated me about both TNLI and its umbrella organization, Teachers Network (TN; formerly known as IMPACT II), was that, for decades, it had been almost the only major nationwide, nonprofit organization in its commitment to recognizing, connecting, and nurturing teachers as professionals in

30 The Power of Teacher Networks

powerful ways. Through a series of major program initiatives and, more recently, a major web presence, the mission of the organization has never wavered:

• Cut through the isolation of teaching • Identify, develop, and spread best practices • Provide platforms that allow teachers to affect the larger educational landscape • Create vehicles for teachers to develop as professionals • Do all this within the context of a community in which each person feels respected, challenged, and valued A network can provide the platform and mechanism to avoid the “blame game,” prevalent for too long within the cultures of many of our schools and our profession—and it is our profession. Since policy and related decisions are often made for teachers, we need to figure out ways that teachers, as they become less isolated and create networks, can take action to develop solutions.

In Our Own Words A network is a team before the big game standing shoulder to shoulder, arms overlapping the backs of others who share your sentiment, breathe your passion, and encourage you on your journey. TNLI has become that team that rallies behind me and recognizes those small gains that are not always translated into test scores. I learned how to collect data in ways that I never knew were possible and share my experiences with people I felt were invested in my success as a teacher, just as I was invested in their accomplishments. Knowing that my small experience in Chicago is shared nationwide rejuvenates and validates the profession of teaching in a profound way. Monica Sims, Elementary School Teacher, Illinois

MANAGING A NETWORK Networks are, by their nature, comprised of very busy people, and, as such, they require regular, consistent management. While the forms of this management may differ greatly from network to network, our experience has shown that many specific measures need to be considered and subsequent actions taken to form the backbone of a successful beginning network. What follows are the nuts and bolts of doing this work.

Identifying Roles and Responsibilities No matter how large or small your group may be, one of the first things you will need to identify are the specific roles, and the responsibilities attached to those roles, that the members and/or managers of your network will assume. Because our original network had grown out of the envisioning process and many

Finding a Voice 31

of our visionaries were still onboard, certain leadership roles within the network structure naturally arose out of the membership. Nevertheless, roles and responsibilities needed to be clearly delineated. The “rub” generally came from the tension between the delicate goal of maintaining the philosophy and practice of distributive leadership while simultaneously ensuring there was overall direction and a consistent form of management.

Central Office Even though TN has always been distributive in design—enabling teacherleaders to step up to the plate and find their own roles and responsibilities—the network is managed both nationally and locally. Because the New York City office originally assembled the teachers who developed the first vision, that office has continued to serve as the national headquarters, supporting local affiliate directors and managing the overall network.

Director and Coordinator Of course, not all networks begin with as many as fifty participants; some of our local affiliates have started with as few as ten teachers. No matter how many teachers you begin with, we strongly recommend identifying a director. Depending upon budgets and available personnel, many affiliates also identify a coordinator to help support this director and the teachers. The role of the director and coordinator is to recruit network members; arrange for meetings, including all logistics; provide motivation and support for teachers in advocating their vision; and create opportunities for teachers to develop their knowledge, skills, and access. TNLI affiliate directors range widely from half-time staff positions to positions of fewer than two hours per week. Directors hail from a variety of organizations including not-for-profits, foundations, school district offices, and universities; there are even some full-time classroom teachers. In addition to filling the roles of director, co-director and/or coordinator, each of our affiliates also identifies and works closely with a university advisor. The role of advisor involves multiple responsibilities: supporting teachers who are conducting action research studies and cases, providing technical assistance, leading the teachers in professional readings and reviewing relevant literature, and working with teachers to edit their research papers for publication on our website and in journals and periodicals. We also set aside time at the initial network meetings to identify individuals (using sign-up sheets) who can serve as the following for each subsequent meeting that year: 1. A facilitator or co-facilitators to help direct meetings (although, in some cases, this might initially be a function of the director). 2. A recorder, to take notes that can be shared with the group, including any pertinent follow-ups. 3. A community builder, especially helpful for larger groups but also helpful in smaller ones. This person is responsible for designing a simple activity at a

32 The Power of Teacher Networks

given meeting, ideally based on some content related to the nature of the network, to deepen and strengthen relationships among members. As a community of learners, teachers also appreciate being able to take back these ideas and activities to their classrooms to use with their students. With so much to accomplish right off the bat, community building and/or varied icebreakers at the beginning of each regular meeting may seem unimportant, perhaps even trivial. Our experience has shown, however, that dedicating time for these activities proves extremely valuable as they help bind the community together and strengthen the work and identity of the network as a whole.

Making a Commitment Regardless of how invested and committed members might initially be, time and other distractions along the way can potentially destroy or severely limit the ability of the network to function successfully, let alone survive. Overall, if We have found it absolutely essential the commitment becomes too onerous, that all our participants continue to teachers do not continue, or their level of play active and, ideally, uniquely involvement and investment gradually wanes. On the other hand, since networks contributory roles. comprise a community of learners with a purpose, we have found it absolutely essential that all our participants continue to play active and, ideally, uniquely contributory roles. Given these propensities, it has been extremely helpful for us to be clear from the get-go about what commitment each person is making. To help do so, we have developed a commitment form. Each network member reads and signs this commitment form prior to beginning each year. Our meeting calendars are also set at the beginning of each year (if possible, even in advance of the year). In short, we never assume anything. It is better to be explicit than deal with unnecessary difficulties down the road. We have also found it helpful to reach out to other individuals with whom our teachers are professionally connected and make them aware of these commitments. This awareness and buy-in are very effective for enabling teachers to sustain their level of active involvement. For New York City TNLI prospective members, we ask principals to submit a letter of recommendation on their teacher’s behalf. This provides de facto investment for our network on the part of every principal. Commitments, required by our affiliates as part of their recruitment process, are checked off and signed by the applicant as part of a more complete guidelines and application form (see Appendix B). These commitments include the following:


I have access to the necessary computer equipment and will participate online.
I will check my email on a regular basis.
I will attend full-day Saturday sessions once every month (September through June). I understand that these sessions provide opportunities to participate in dialogues with policymakers, discuss readings, and develop action research plans.

Finding a Voice 33


I will complete and be prepared to discuss the assigned readings related to education policymaking.
I will participate in conducting TNLI action research and writing documentation.
I will work with Teachers Network to publish an article concerning my fellowship in a local media outlet. At our initial meeting, we stress the importance of these commitments by writing them on large post-it pads and placing them around the room for all to see. We often revisit these commitments at subsequent monthly meetings. Moreover, since one of our expectations is an attendance commitment, we are very clear at our first meeting about exactly how flexible the group is willing to be (e.g., missing no more than one meeting is generally acceptable). Again, we let the group decide and affirm so that the commitment is real and has full ownership. This also helps maximize attendance and participation throughout the year. We have found it incredibly helpful to establish meeting norms for our network, as many teachers do in a classroom situation. Our norms are • • • •

respect all voices; be fully present; assume good intentions; and equity of voice—watch your air time.

These norms are determined by our group at our first meeting and then revisited each meeting thereafter, adding new norms whenever appropriate.

Creating and Sustaining Motivation: The WIFM Factor Many of those participating in our network, including directors, coordinators, and advisors, are often highly and intrinsically motivated. While this is surely a great thing, it is likely not enough by itself to successfully sustain the network over time. As coarse as it may seem to some, many of our directors now keep front and center on their desks and in their minds the acronym WIFM: What’s in It for Me. While the network itself has set clear goals, we realize that our membership is comprised of human beings with real needs and active lives. We pay a $1,000 fellowship to teachers in our network, but we realize that no one is “in it for the money.” It is essential not to take for granted that the network is meeting individual and group needs. For that matter, the same rule applies to others with whom we may want to partner or reach out to as a network. We always consider the motivations—what’s the WIFM? We try to be creative in providing multiple and diverse forms of motivations for our teachers. There are so many ways we can find to “compensate” our members: recognition and skill development or enhancement (such as facilitating meetings), public speaking opportunities, greater technology awareness, getting published, career advancement—the list goes on and on. Addressing professional needs has proven key. Are members feeling that they’re “making a difference” both on a personal level and as part of the larger group? Are they having the opportunity to directly interact and physically

34 The Power of Teacher Networks

network on a regular basis with like-minded professionals? Are they jointly reading academic literature and growing as learners? The opportunity for personal interactions with other network members is critical, and one reason we use community-building activities at the beginning of each meeting. To help bond the group further, we also go out socially after our meetThe opportunity for personal ings at least once or twice per year. We interactions with other network encourage and provide opportunities for members is critical. varied forms of interactions with other members of our larger group through forums such as online discussions, crossaffiliate meetings and joint initiatives, and tele- and videoconferencing (see Chapter 4). Keeping members motivated—the WIFM factor—as a guiding principle in all we do has provided a framework for supporting our members while enhancing relationships within and among the network. It has also helped us respond to important human needs so that our members are able to stay invested, enthusiastic, and committed.

Planning and Carrying Out Meetings When to Meet After our New York City affiliate had identified the varied roles and responsibilities as well as thoughtfully addressed our network commitments—including personal and group motivations—it was able to really get started. Each of our affiliates vary, but this flagship affiliate meets on a monthly basis throughout the school year (i.e., ten months—from September through June). Meeting one Saturday a month from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. is not always easy, especially given that you have to get up early on a weekend morning; teachers are often already exhausted. Nonetheless, what I personally experienced when I served as a TNLI fellow, and what we still hear more than a decade later from virtually all our teachers, is that being a part of the network is one of the most professionally invigorating activities to take part in throughout the school year. When I left at the end of a Saturday meeting, I clearly recalled why I loved my job and felt re-empowered and completely re-energized. Through these meetings, I grew as a professional in so many ways. I was staying abreast of academic readings and was having intelligent conversations with like-minded individuals, I increasingly understood that I had valuable ideas to contribute to the larger education (and policymaking) communities, and I was forging deep connections and friendships that would last a lifetime.

What to Do? The next step for the New York group was to identify the content that would comprise each of our monthly meetings. It was most helpful for us to think about what “chunks” of activities and work needed to be done during the time span we had allotted, remembering that these “chunks” also needed to directly correspond to our mission and vision.

Finding a Voice 35

For example, to meet our goal of proWe agreed early on that it was essential moting the teacher’s voice in policymaking, to break our meetings into three roughly we agreed early on that it was essential to equal sections: (1) policy work/teacher break our meetings into three roughly equal sections: (1) policy work/teacher activism, (2) activism, (2) action research, and action research, and (3) policy guests/ (3) policy guests/professional readings professional readings and conversations. and conversations. With this idea as a backdrop, we were able to design a meeting template (see Figure 3.1) that could be used by any of our local affiliates, even when using different formats and meeting times. Once we identified basic “chunks,” blending both content and time, we were then able to begin setting our agenda. While it is extraordinarily helpful to have group input into this process at the very beginning, it is more feasible for network management to set the stage for what needs to be covered and to provide suggestions on how time might be broken down throughout the meeting. As soon as possible, however, ideally as early as the second meeting, it has proven invaluable to ask teachers to volunteer to attend a planning session (after school, at our office, usually from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.) approximately a week and half before each Saturday meeting to firm up the agenda. While any member may attend, teachers who are expected to join the planning session include that month’s facilitator(s), the recorder, and the teacher responsible for leading the community-building activity. The network director and/or support staff help finalize all agendas and send them out via our local listserv in advance of the meeting, including any “homework.”

Gathering Feedback Almost as critical as setting up and conducting network meetings is collecting ongoing feedback from our teachers on how successfully we’re meeting overall goals, as well as individual and group needs. Feedback can take many forms, ranging from brief oral debriefs through extensive program evaluations. Since we first launched our network, one of the most helpful approaches has been dedicating time at the end of each meeting for teachers to provide written feedback on each major chunk of the meeting (see Figure 3.2 for a sample feedback form). A teacher volunteers to collect and summarize these feedback forms for review at our monthly planning sessions. We address issues, both positive and negative, to improve subsequent meetings. We have found that a great way to begin our monthly meetings is by both acknowledging and summarizing some of the feedback and explaining how we have addressed it. In this way, everyone knows that his or her voice is being heard and considered. At the end of the day, successful networks depend upon investment by members. This is a sure way to build that investment while demonstrably improving meeting design and logistics.

Designing and Timing Activities When planning activities over the course of a lengthy meeting, we have found it key to vary whole group versus small group activities and roles (e.g., while a discussion with a policymaker would clearly be whole group, conversations

36 The Power of Teacher Networks Figure 3.1

Meeting Chunks POLICY WORK/TEACHER ACTIVISM

Policy work is both the creation and dissemination of policy. This work should be based on fellows’ interests and expertise and can take many forms. However, just as action research produces tangible results (i.e., action research papers), so should fellows’ policy work. 15 minutes—Check in. The policy river rushes quickly on the surface but has still waters at its depth. As “hot button” issues arise during the year, fellows can tailor their work to meet these needs. At the same time, our groups can also focus on the broader trends in education policy that need teacher involvement. These whole group discussions can help us have a clear direction in our policy work. 1½ hours—Small Group Policy Work. By breaking into small groups, fellows are better able to get their voices heard, contribute directly, and be productive. Fellows are not necessarily in the same groups for the year but can have the flexibility to pursue areas of interest while still fulfilling their responsibilities to develop policy recommendations and actively disseminate work. 15 minutes—Debrief. ACTION RESEARCH 30 minutes—Action Research “Lesson.” The action research advisor leads fellows in the action research “lesson.” During these thirty minutes, the advisor can share how to proceed with the research and offer insights into one or two fellows’ studies. It is important that everyone know everyone else’s question, but these can be shared briefly in the whole group. 1¼ hours—Small Group Work. In groups of no more than five, the fellows can meet to discuss their action research, develop tools, analyze data, and support each other’s efforts. Ideally, each group would include a few returning fellows who are experienced in action research. The advisor can confer with the groups or with individuals. If the advisor works with at least two groups a month, she can still speak with everyone about their questions during the first three months of TNLI. 15 minutes—Debrief. Fellows can share the results of group meetings to help plan the big issues around action research that need to be addressed at the next meeting. POLICY GUESTS/PROFESSIONAL READINGS AND CONVERSATIONS At virtual every TNLI meeting, regardless of all the things that need to be accomplished (and there are always many!), we carve out time to meet with education policymakers and thought leaders at all levels—from a superintendent to a legislator to a union official. The key here is not merely to inform these policymakers about what is going on in classrooms but, more important, to develop an ongoing relationship so that these decision makers come to us—representative teacher leaders from throughout the United States—when they need help or answers that directly connect to student learning. Fellows and staff collectively brainstorm who the affiliate would like to invite throughout the year, and then the TNLI staff reaches out to these individuals to arrange their visit. Generally speaking, this time is broken down as follows: 15 minutes—Group prep (following up on readings, online conversations, and planning meeting discussions). 45 minutes to 1 hour—Interactive conversation with high-level policymaker. 15 minutes to 30 minutes—Debrief. Of course, as is the case with the other “chunks” described herein, these times vary. In addition to dedicated time to interact directly with policymakers, we usually also try to imbed time into our agenda to hold small group discussions (sometimes reporting main ideas back to the whole group) centered around that month’s professional reading. This reading is chosen by a different affiliate each month and is particularly apropos of the work we are doing and/or is important literature we need to stay abreast of. It is then discussed by each local affiliate, with our comments shared on our national listserv for all to benefit.

Finding a Voice 37 Figure 3.2

Sample Meeting Feedback Form

Please help us plan future TNLI meetings by filling out this feedback form completely and honestly. 1. Did you feel that our community builder was a useful start in forming our new group? Why? Would you use/adapt our community builder in your classroom? 2. Did you get a good sense of TNLI from our welcome and overview? What did you feel was the most helpful part of this presentation? What did you think was confusing? 3. Do you feel as though our preparation for our conversation with the chancellor was helpful? How did your small group work together? 4. Was our introduction to action research a good start? How do you feel about formulating a good action research question? 5. Do you have any questions about doing action research? 6. What did you learn about the connection among policy, research, and advocacy? 7. What did you take away from the What Is Policy? video? 8. What do you think about our education platform? Do you have any ideas for next steps in disseminating it? 9. Did our conversation with the chancellor help you better understand how policy is formulated and how you might affect it? What helped you the most? 10. How do you feel about the day in general? Do you feel that we were inclusive of all members of the group? Do you feel your voice was heard? 11. Do you have any suggestions for future guest speakers? 12. Do you have any suggestions for readings for future listserv discussions? 13. Questions/comments/suggestions?

around professional readings might more easily be done in small groups). When we break into small groups, the first step is for the group to identify a facilitator, a recorder, a reporter, and a timekeeper. This step is really important to ensure that small groups stay focused, use time wisely, ensure equity of voices, and are prepared to report back when the whole group reconvenes. To help design our small and large group sessions, it has proven especially helpful to use protocols. We can recommend an excellent book that provides a host of protocols for a wide array of group meeting formats. It was written by our New York University colleague and partner Joseph McDonald and others and is titled The Power of Protocols (2003). To best negotiate time for ourselves and our members, we think of ways to build in some face-to-face, more intimate time (e.g., arranging fifteen-minute slots for action research consultations with our university advisor in another room while the whole group continues). Depending upon whether all teachers are participating in any given activity and/or as time allows in our schedule, teachers also greatly appreciate some time to devote to writing their action research studies or cases. And, of course, we focus on how best to negotiate time throughout the entire year as well. As part of our initial discussions around commitments, we make a

38 The Power of Teacher Networks

concerted effort to be very clear about what is reasonable and expected to get the work done. Our goal is to offer as much support as possible to our network members without making anyone’s job on the management team untenable. Just as in the classroom, the last thing anyone wants to do is spend valuable time chasing members down to collect “assignments.” Since meeting time is limited, our teachers are always required to spend some time working between meetings. Whenever possible, we provide them with comfortable meeting space and refreshments. Also, because the major medium for communication today is online, we employ listservs (both local and national) and other similar forums to help make exchanges easier and more immediate. The commitment to “check email on a regular basis” thus becomes the backbone of most work between meetings.

Ensuring Funding and Other Support Whether networks are large or small, interschool or intraschool, districtwide or even more expansive in scope, one thing is certain: networks need funding or support of some form to keep going, or even just to get started. This often involves identifying possible funding sources and then writing a grant proposal. Even if a beginning network is fortunate enough to have direct support from a local school district or perhaps be based out of a local foundation, it will still need to make an articulate case for the following: • Why you exist—the need • Why your members are the persons best suited for doing this work—your history, track record, or positioning • What your program entails—the specifics of your (proposed) program and activities, including a timeline • How you are making a difference—your impact and accomplishments • And, always—what your budget is Also, if appropriate with a particular funding source, it’s important to address how activities would benefit a given sponsor (remember the WIFM!). Since those interested in starting a network may have to write a grant proposal at one point or another, we thought it might be helpful to provide a sample TNLI grant proposal at the back of this book (see Appendix C), one that we periodically update and share with our affiliates around the nation who are procuring their own funding, often from a mixture of sources. This example could either be used for establishing a new network or be modified for continued funding of an existing one.

Creating Allies and Partnerships From the very beginning of our network, we recognized how critical it is to create partnerships. Forging partnerships and making allies as soon as possible enables our network to realize our vision and accomplish our work—in a much more

Finding a Voice 39

meaningful and effective way than we could In the end, relationship building—not have engineered on our own. (See Ellen’s just within our network but, even section on this topic in Chapter 5, titled more important, with those outside Developing Partnerships and Relationships.) Always keeping the WIFM factor in the network—has proven to be at the mind, we are constantly thinking about very heart of what makes our what groups and organizations might help network so successful. us further our goals. Then we begin to identify individuals hailing from those organizations with whom we might be able to meet and develop relationships. When appropriate, we invite them to one of our meetings for a conversation, during which time we collectively brainstorm how best to partner. In the end, relationship building—not just within our network but, even more important, with those outside the network—has proven to be at the very heart of what makes our network so successful. Ideally, we want to foster an environment in which others will recognize and approach us as a resource to further their goals. Indeed, some of our affiliates have actually joined our network in partnerships. For example, when it was initially launched, TNLI Milwaukee began as an initiative hailing from the Milwaukee Partnership Academy, which brought together union, school district, and business alliances.

Taking Teachers’ Work Public One last major item that we always keep high on our list of priorities (outlined as a step-by-step process in Ellen’s section on Documentation and Dissemination in Chapter 5) is to figure out how best to share our work with others. For example, we ask ourselves, Is one of our goals to create a specific “product” or “deliverable” by the end of our meeting term? If so, we are clear about a timeline and stick to it, no matter how busy we become throughout the year. Along these lines, we continually check in with each other to make sure everyone is staying on track and supporting each other on the journey. We consider achieving this goal to be one of the defining characteristics of a successful network. In all, we understand the value of “getting the word out” about what we’re doing from the onset. We make this an integral focus of all our efforts. We present, publish, invite others to join us at our meetings, and even casually inform others about the work we are doing. Sharing what we are accomplishing as a network with the larger community has proven critical to keeping our network alive, successfully positioning it to keep growing, and enabling us not just to find our voice but to raise it as well.

4 Raising Your Voice Live each day as if it’s your last; learn as if you live forever. —Mahatma Gandhi

As a network matures and expands, new challenges emerge. In this chapter, Peter takes on how to deal with growing pains. To make your experience smoother, he shares what has worked successfully for our network for over a decade. Peter also provides more tools and practical strategies to help you grow your network.




THE JOURNEY CONTINUES Successful networks are never stagnant but are living, breathing entities that need to be dynamic. You must learn how to change, adapt, and evolve to survive. By the second year of our existence, we realized it was time to expand our network beyond our original group of fifty teacher-leaders in New York City and shortly grew to having five affiliates; now, after more than a decade, we comprise more than 250 teachers annually at fourteen Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) affiliates nationwide. This growth has provided us with the necessary impetus, leverage, and capacity to more fully realize our vision. At the same time, the challenges our growing organization was facing needed to be addressed and embraced. The old adage of “change or die” is all too true. Further, we recognized that it is implicit in the very nature of a network, perhaps even more so than for most organizations, to change and expand since we are, by definition, a learning community. Learning is always characterized by expanding horizons. 40

Raising Your Voice 41

MANAGING A GROWING NETWORK Another truism, however, is that change is nearly always painful, and it may be actively resisted by some members of your group. To help readers understand what it took to sustain and expand our burgeoning network, we are sharing here what we have found to be consistent issues that need to be addressed, along with some specific suggestions for ensuring that these changes are negotiated successfully.

Recognizing and Embracing Tensions Tensions are an important part of a network’s growth. We view the tensions that our network experiences as valuable leverages that enable us to move toward positive change. Just as nervous energy provides the extra boost of adrenaline needed prior to a sports or public speaking event, the tensions in an organization are important to its success and can be harnessed for positive change. Growing pains are called “pains” for a reason; it’s not easy to grow. But we have found that a willingness to step back and accept—even welcome—this often messy process has been critical in sustaining our purpose and goals. First, it’s important to be aware of the tensions as they arise. When the first iteration of what was eventually to become TNLI began in 1995, the teachers came together presumably with a similar vision and eagerness to embrace this work. After several months, however, it became clear that there were palpable internal differences limiting the capability of the network to move ahead. We unburied these tensions by asking the teachers to explain what was going on. We found that the group was split three different ways: one third was thoroughly engaged, invested, and eager to move ahead; one third wasn’t at all sure if we really knew what we were doing; and one third suspected there was a hidden agenda. This revelation is precisely why we realized we needed to start embedding regular and ongoing feedback into our meetings. After we scratched the surface and these different camps were disclosed, it became easier for all of us to discuss where we were going and why, to work more cohesively as one group, and to experience a greater sense of ownership by all members. Now, at the beginning of every year, we retell this story and make it a point to “check the temperature” of all members right from the start. Ever since that first experience with buried concerns, we have made it a point to reveal tensions and then leverage them to our advantage. For example, in approximately our fourth year, we noticed that several teachers seemed to be having regular, almost clandestine meetings during one of our weeklong summer conferences. It turned out that these teacher-leaders felt they should play a more active role in designing and leading group meetings; after all, our work centers on furthering the teacher’s voice. Some members also felt that certain teachers were being given more opportunities than others. Rather than dwell on feelings of underappreciation or frustration, we seized the moment to take the network to its next natural level of evolution: more direct participation by members. Together, we came up with our model for planning

42 The Power of Teacher Networks

local meetings. Teachers now come together at planning sessions (explained in Chapter 3) to develop the content and discuss logistics for their next monthly meeting. Since attendance at planning sessions is voluntary, teachers know that the degree to which they can affect change, become involved in more network activities, and hone their own voice and leadership skills is directly contingent upon their own levels of investment, participation, and follow-through. Our approach has always been to embrace challenges and tensions as opportunities for growth; they are the catalysts for necessary, meaningful, and healthy change.

Formalizing Roles As our network grew, we found we needed to formalize roles and responsibilities. The job descriptions we developed for affiliate directors and academic advisors are included here (Figure 4.1) since they may be helpful in expanding a network. When our teachers began doing action research about a decade ago as a component of network participation, we had one university advisor who provided support for all of our members nationwide. As our numbers grew, however, it became clear that each affiliate needed to identify a local university advisor in addition to our national university advisor. Local advisors support teachers throughout the year in conducting action research and vet their written work before submitting it for publication. To regroup in this way presented, and still presents, logistical difficulties. We had an ever-greater number of teachers, advisors, and directors doing different things in different ways. This diversity necessitated codifying our network activities, while still leaving room for flexibility and creativity at the local level. We have also needed to increase communication among our members. We have recognized that ongoing communication has resulted in our affiliates’ openness to adapt ideas based on what is working better elsewhere. It is helpful to be aware that approaches that work with certain constituencies (e.g., in It is helpful to be aware that approaches a school or district) might not work as well in that work with certain constituencies other environments (e.g., in a county or state, (e.g., in a school or district) might not or nationally). For instance, we have two statework as well in other environments (e.g., wide initiatives (in Delaware and Wyoming). in a county or state, or nationally). Compared to an affiliate with a districtwide focus, these statewide affiliates must do considerably more up-front planning to ensure that all teachers are able to meet face to face in addition to working in smaller, more intimate groups closer to home.

Promote Better Communication As our network evolved, we discovered three major reasons for promoting the use of broader and more diverse vehicles of communication: 1. To find multiple ways of efficiently and effectively carrying out an expanding workload 2. To share the work among the various members of the network 3. To help instill consistent practices to ensure we are all working toward the same vision

Raising Your Voice 43 Figure 4.1

Network Staffing: Role Descriptions

Affiliate Director Each affiliate director is responsible for overall program management, including identifying and collaborating with a local university advisor who is responsible for the action research and case components of TNLI, supporting the fellows in all their work, and partnering with Teachers Network to ensure successful program implementation. Affiliate directors: • •

•

•

• • •

Oversee application, interview, and fellow selection process. Coordinate monthly meetings—to include action research support for fellows, conversations with policymakers, and developing and implementing activities focused on informing and influencing policy. Participate in Teachers Network’s national network—including, for example, periodic affiliate director conference calls, national fall meeting, and annual (spring) Teachers Network affiliate directors meeting. Ensure that fellows participate in national network opportunities—including, for example, monthly readings and related national listserv discussions, national meeting, annual Teachers Network affiliate directors meeting, and publishing of work on www.teachersnetwork.org and in periodic booklets. Obtain ongoing financial program support to sustain local affiliate. Seek publicity—including placing articles in local papers announcing fellowships. Submit to national office periodic affiliate reports, fellows’ action research studies (executive summaries and full-length reports), fellows’ cases, as well as all local logistical information.

University Advisor • •

• • •

Collaborates with affiliate director to provide support for fellows conducting action research studies and subsequent policy recommendations, as well as support for writing cases. Participates in monthly meetings by helping fellows refine their action research questions, learn how to use a variety of tools, conduct literature reviews, collect and analyze data, develop findings, and hone policy recommendations—based on our TNLI text, Taking Action With Teacher Research. Works closely with the fellows to edit these studies and cases for publication on our website. Supports fellows in developing and implementing action, dissemination, and publication plans to reach the widest possible audience by getting their work into trade journals and publications. Participates in Teachers Network’s national network—including, for example, periodic conference calls, national fall meeting, and annual (spring) Teachers Network affiliate directors meeting.

When networks grow, the possibilities of expanding the content and its impact grow exponentially. It’s therefore important to manage this growth in a way that is focused, distributive, and consistent. Enhancing communication not only necessitates increasing the opportunities for members to “get together”—face to face and/or virtually—but augmenting each member’s responsibilities, as well as checking in on a regular basis to make sure all are on the same page. Some examples of broader-ranging, consistent means of communication that we have used, within and among our network, include the following: • Monthly local meetings: These are held at local sites to provide a regularly scheduled time and venue for network members to work together. • National gatherings: We hold an annual face-to-face meeting with representatives from all local affiliates, as well as partners in this work, to plan national activities and to ensure consistency in carrying out the vision.

44 The Power of Teacher Networks

• The web: Our site includes centralized/shared content areas with useful tools, materials, and resources to conduct our work and to publish and disseminate it, as well as provides dedicated areas for local affiliates. • Listservs: We have found it useful to establish local listservs, which our members use for logistics related to their monthly meetings, and a national listserv to develop a common body of knowledge and ensure consistent practices. • Teleconferencing: We use this technology periodically, minimally three times a year, to check in with local network directors and advisors for support, feedback, and planning. • Multi-site videoconferencing: This method enables us to “meet” nationally, in addition to our face-to-face annual meeting. Although it takes significant planning (but without the cost of hotel and airfare!), it provides the opportunity for all network members to see and connect with each other for an action-packed two hours on a Saturday, typically mid-school year. • Podcasts: This technology has proved useful, for example, when we want to model exemplary action research presentations and other practices. For some tips on how to get started podcasting, visit www.teachersnetwork .org/ntol/howto/incorptech/podcast_scragg.htm. Although the ways in which these forms of communication are used may vary greatly according to content, structure, and user needs, we have found that all these vehicles accomplish our goals of doing and sharing the work at all levels, as well as providing greater consistency in a network that is ever expanding.

Share Content: Readings and Online Discussions Although the communication vehicles described above are important, they are not the critical factor in the success of our network; rather, the key has been the planning and network member buy-in for using these vehicles. A great example of this is how we have used a listserv. Listservs are a great way to share information quickly with a whole group but, if not managed properly, can become onerous and overwhelming, sometimes even scary—like the time one teacher asked another for a date, not realizing that any We have found listservs to be one of reply sent by a teacher is received by all oththe most successful, efficient, and costers who are subscribed! We have negotiated effective means of communication. this challenge by setting and periodically reminding the group of general protocols for using listservs. Most important, we provide a format that encourages teachers to engage in a professional conversation around structured, shared readings. Though helping members feel confident when responding to a listserv may take some doing, even in this day of widespread technology use, we have found listservs to be one of the most successful, efficient, and cost-effective means of communication. When used properly, regardless of group size, it can serve as an exceptional way to engage participants, build community, and promote network identity across the membership.

Raising Your Voice 45

Although your group may decide to use listservs for different purposes, or on a different schedule, it may be useful to explain in more detail how this communication forum evolved at Teachers Network (TN). One of the first things we do when we start a new year is to collect email addresses from all members. We immediately subscribe each teacher to the listserv, used primarily in two ways: (1) to share information, such as national meeting and videoconference agendas and (2) to provide a forum for hosting monthly listserv conversations centered around a piece of professional literature that all members read in advance of the discussion. We reach out to affiliate directors and jointly set a reading and listserv moderator schedule for the coming year. We run these readings and conversations from November through May to avoid year startup and year-end business. Affiliates agree to “host” a particular month. Their responsibilities include (1) selecting an article of reasonable length (we generally suggest approximately ten to twenty pages) that is of professional interest to all and available digitally for easy access, and (2) identifying one fellow from the hosting affiliate to serve as the moderator for that month. After the reading and moderator list is set, we send listserv reminders in advance of every monthly conversation, introducing the moderator and sharing the digital link to the article. While the content of any given article is certainly key, whether or not a given reading translates into a successful online conversation really depends on how ardent and provocative the moderator is. To help guide moderators, our staff sends “pointers” to them in advance of their conversations (see Appendix D). At the end of the month, when we have completed a conversation, we send a printout to the author of the article we have read. We do so because we think it is important for those working in the academy to hear directly from teacher-leaders. Upon request, we also send archived conversations to journalists seeking a teacher point of view for a particular article. For a listing of some of the readings, subsequent conversations, and author responses that we have had to date, see www.teachersnetwork.org/tnli/tnli_fellows_conversations.htm.

Expand Meeting Venues and Opportunities To meet the needs of a growing network, we have found it valuable to expand meeting forums, in addition to providing greater opportunities within these forums for members to interact in multiple ways. Doing so provides the foundation Broadening opportunities for face-tofor staying connected at all levels—individual, face meetings, as well as virtual local, and national. meetings, greatly expands capacity to Broadening opportunities for face-tosuccessfully support and sustain face meetings, as well as virtual meetings, network growth. greatly expands capacity to successfully support and sustain network growth. As obvious as it may seem, we have also found it essential to schedule our larger group meetings as soon as possible to ensure that the event makes it on everyone’s calendar, ideally the year prior to the actual meetings. Following are some suggestions that may help expand your network.

46 The Power of Teacher Networks

At Local Meetings, Connect to the Vision of the Network We stress with directors the value of making sure each local meeting reconnects with the vision of the larger network. While each of our affiliates has identities and purposes that make them unique, it has been critical for everyone to recall why they are part of a larger or national picture, to see themselves directly connected to this broader work, and to realize the power they have when they leverage their connection to the larger group. This, in turn, helps our members be more effective at making a difference; we are able to think and act both locally and globally by capitalizing upon the investment and access points we have at all levels of the network. One quick example is in setting aside time at local meetings for face-to-face conversations about national listserv readings. These local conversations spur teachers to become more active participants in the national online discussion of the reading, further strengthening our expanded geographical reach.

Plan Larger Face-to-Face Meetings Although money is almost always an issue, it is important within budget limitations to bring as many members from as many sites as possible together in one physical location—ideally, near the beginning of the school year. For a large national network, we have found that a weekend-long meeting works particularly well. Most teachers arrive late Friday night, then meet together all day on Saturday, followed by a half day on Sunday. While it is sometimes impractical for all our members to meet in one place at one time, we make a point to provide the venue and opportunity for as many teachers, affiliate directors, and advisors as possible to gather. Participants can then bring back what they experience and can share what they have learned with their local colleagues. (Note: Our expectation is that affiliates will include time at their next local meeting for participants to debrief their colleagues on the national meeting.) In addition to a national face-toface meeting, we encourage local affiliates to consider other options for interaction beyond their local membership; there are often opportunities for district, county, or state networks to work together on a more regional basis.

Check In With Local Network Directors For any teacher network, support of the members within an expanding network is only as good as the ongoing communication among its members and leadership. Regular conference calls with affiliate directors and advisors, using a structured agenda, allow for sharing and feedback and for opportunities to provide support for leadership teams. As a network expands, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage; maintaining a high level of interaction among the network leadership will be critical to overall success.

Figure Out How Best to Use Available and Emergent Technologies It’s important to stay abreast of newer emergent technologies and to share ideas with local network leaders to see if any of these mechanisms might enhance your work. For example, while it may prove logistically difficult with multiple

Raising Your Voice 47

affiliates, annual videoconferences are a great way to bind the network. At TN, we host a two-hour nationwide videoconference on a Saturday mid-school year at a time convenient for all time zones (for example, 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time) for content sharing and relationship building. We set clear goals and expectations, begin gathering input early to ensure maximum participation and to limit technical difficulties, and structure time to hear from as many teachers as possible. We also record videoconferences, making them available as a DVD that can be shared easily with others. The time and energy to pull this together can be daunting, but we have found the effort well rewarded in that it greatly strengthens the network. Teachers love participating. Ask around; you’ll probably find that few teachers have ever taken part in a videoconference.

Expand Recruitment Gradually, a network starts to experience the attrition of its original members, emphasizing the need to expand recruitment efforts. Components of recruitment include outreach, application forms, and interviews. Expanding recruitment necessitates identifying ways that veteran and new members, despite gaps in network experience, can work together and best support each other throughout the year. When we first began our network, most members came from our envisioning process and were personally connected to the work and other members. As the network matured, we were cautious not to stymie our growth or candidate pool by relying purely on personal contacts. While recruitment efforts may include some personal outreach to colleagues by current members, we suggest broadly disseminating membership opportunities. We do this via the web, e-blasts, fax-blasts, and district and union media (see Appendix E for a sample recruitment flyer). The actual process of applying begins with the submission of a formal application, made available primarily online but also in printed form. The application form includes general guidelines and information about the network, a template to be completed, member commitments (discussed in Chapter 3), a required essay, and two required letters of recommendation (see Appendix B for the full TN application form). Once applications are received, we recommend scheduling group interviews. People on paper can be very different than people in person! Ideally, you will want your network members to be good writers, spokespersons, and team players. We interview up to eight applicants at a time. The interview lasts approximately one hour and is monitored and evaluated by current teacher-leaders and staff. Here is the basic agenda for the group interview we conduct at TN: 1. Introductions: Briefly introduce yourself by telling us (a) your name, (b) your school, (c) what you teach, and (d) how you learned about the fellowship and why you are applying. (2–3 minutes) 2. Group planning: If you were to design a professional development program for a school, what would it look like? (15 minutes) 3. Discussion issue: How does teacher involvement in policymaking improve student achievement? (15 minutes) 4. Question and answer period. (5–10 minutes)

48 The Power of Teacher Networks

While the group interview process involves considerable effort, it has proven time and time again to be an incredibly valuable part of the recruiting process. One can see firsthand in an interview how candidates interact in a group situation to accomplish an overall goal. Moreover, given the commitment required to participate in a network, the interview affords the opportunity to emphasize with potential candidates the importance of becoming a member of the network.

Build Partnerships After a network has been formally established, it becomes important to continue to think about—and actively reach out to—more and more like-minded organizations (or at least those that espouse similar overall goals). TN has reached out to groups concerned with improving public education or empowering teachers to help each other advance mutual goals. As more and more partnerships are formed, taking into account the WIFM factor (“What’s in it for me?”) of the diverse parties involved is critical to longterm success. Generally speaking, if we can bring something unique or special to the table (i.e., full-time classroom teachers who can speak with authority, buttressed by their research findings and data), we know our potential partners will need us at least as much as we need them. Once these relationships are brokered, partners provide opportunities that would normally be unavailable to teachers. They open doors and help break through the isolation too often prevalent in the teaching profession. Indeed, it is through our partnerships that our teachers serve as members of local, state, and national advisory boards and task forces.

Create Diverse Incentives A veteran network must continue to find additional and varied incentives to encourage members’ sustained involvement and motivation. At TN, in alignment with our recruiting efforts, we look at multiple ways to reach out that will connect with the work we are doing. For example, through our university partnership, the WIFM we offer members is the opportunity to have a student teacher in their classroom, which also meets a need of the university. Moreover, the university provides graduate credit to teachers for their participation in our network and Providing multiple and alternative library cards for them to access the univerincentives clearly demonstrates that a sity’s collection as they conduct their action network values its members both as research. individuals and professionals. Since few teachers would join a network solely for a token stipend, providing multiple and alternative incentives clearly demonstrates that a network values its members both as individuals and professionals and that the network takes their work and time commitment seriously.

Raising Your Voice 49

Keep Original Members Involved: Grow a Brain Trust As a burgeoning network continues to expand and evolve, it becomes increasingly difficult for the original members to keep participating regularly in group meetings. There are ways, however, to keep these teachers engaged that continue to benefit the network. The trick is to maximize their desire to retain ownership while keeping them productively involved. We acknowledge original members’ contributions in whatever ways possible, including providing them with a title (i.e., founding fellow), inviting them to meetings, encouraging them to “lurk” on our listservs, and tapping them as needed for special purposes. For example, one of our founding fellows who is now directing policy for the New York City Department of Education helps advise current fellows on how best to craft policy recommendations. We find that we are able to keep great people who are familiar with our work involved and invested. Through our active encouragement of their participation, we provide the network with a brain trust of alumni who have become leaders in their schools, districts, and unions. They help spread the word and further maximize the network’s effectiveness.

Create a Technical Assistance Kit Just as members are documenting their individual work throughout the year, we as network managers are doing the same for the network as a whole by saving and organizing examples of the methods and tools that have proven successful. Since the work is well documented, it can easily be shared with others when opportunities arise. This is particularly valuable when attempting to expand a network beyond the confines of an original site or location. We help new affiliates quickly get up to speed, not just by communicating overall mission and content but also by supporting them in practical, logistical ways. For our network, we created a technical assistance kit with concrete examples of proven techniques and documents. It is available to our affiliates in two forms: (1) a hard-copy version, placed in a three-ring binder, and (2) a digital version, set up as a CD-ROM, from which content can be easily downloaded and tailored to suit a given affiliate’s needs. You may want to set up a similar archive of documents and strategies for your group; not only is it a valuable shared resource, but it makes planning and problem solving more efficient if your members can avoid reinventing the wheel. And, of course, if you decide to join TN, our kit would be available to you.

Remember Supporters To build and grow a network, it is vital to find as many ways as possible to share the network’s accomplishments directly with supporters on a regular basis. For TNLI and similar networks, this typically means submitting proposals as well as subsequent narrative or financial reports to funders. It is also helpful to actively

50 The Power of Teacher Networks

look for opportunities to keep network supporters among the front row of fans. Consider options such as • inviting supporters to attend special meetings, • putting your funders’ names on items associated with your work, such as presentation and conference agendas, and • crediting supporters in printed documents and on the web. Recognizing supporters furthers the work of the network and helps renew the commitment of these contributors, who are key to its survival. Such recognition not only helps when it comes time to be considered for another round of funding but also helps position a network to receive increased support from new sources. Most supporters like to see a diverse funding base and that their funding is being leveraged as much as possible.

Get the Word Out! In everything we do, we never forget that the success of our network would be greatly curtailed if that success and our experiences were done in a vacuum. Our mantra is dissemination, dissemination, dissemination. This key aspect of any network has been touched upon in Chapter 3 and is discussed at more length in Ellen’s Chapter 5; but, in brief, dissemination can take on numerous forms, including getting the word out to personal contacts and connections, documenting your work so that other networks can benefit from what has already been done, and publishing in print and online in as many publication formats as possible.

Stay True to Your Vision to Make a Difference Once a network has matured, it is time to think about coming around full circle—providing a many-pronged feedback loop to recognize your own successes and challenges, expand in future directions, manage expectations, and ensure that your vision remains alive and vibrant. As any person or organization on the forefront of cutting initiatives can attest to, you may find yourself questioning whether or not you are successfully meeting the goals of your original vision. It is helpful to revisit those goals to see if they are still in alignment with your work. It may also be true, as has been the case with TNLI, that you are having significant impact in ways other than those originally conceived (see Ellen’s Chapter 5, Making a Difference). Throughout, we have found it important to build upon the feedback loops first introduced upon launching the network. We thus developed multiple forms of feedback, both from within and outside the network. Reflecting on all your feedback on a regular basis will enable you to refine all your processes. Documenting your work and successes in many forms helps ensure that your network not only continues going and growing but is also making a real difference in as many ways as possible. We look forward to reading your version of a technical assistance kit!

5 Making a Difference Those who dare to teach must never cease to learn. —Socrates

A network is the process; the activities generated by the network are the content. In this chapter, Ellen offers a menu of activities—a network curriculum—and shows how it can advance you toward achieving your own goals. We hope our ideas inspire you to take action!




I

t is through the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) that I try to make a difference to life on this planet. For me, it’s the most important work I do. It is the venue in which I have tried to bring to bear the skills, talents, expertise, and experience I have amassed over the last few decades. Growing TNLI has become nothing short of a quest, through which I continue to learn and develop. As teachers, we know that to be the best teachers, we have to create environments in which we are learners, too. At the very outset of launching TNLI in New York City, I was unexpectedly presented with an opportunity to effect a change in education policy. When we brought our very first network cohort together, I approached the Department of Education (DOE) about providing in-service credit for participating teachers (remember Peter’s WIFM!). I was told that it couldn’t be done because DOE policy prohibited teachers from receiving credit if they were being provided with a stipend for their participation, which they were. I asked for a copy of the policy and, to make a long story short (and it was long, about thirty phone calls over several weeks long), the policy didn’t seem to exist in writing anywhere. At any rate, no one could find it. So our fellows ended up with both credit and stipends. Our first victory! 51

52 The Power of Teacher Networks

The goal of establishing a network is to effect change. The vision could be to improve delivery of instruction, to build a collaborative school community, or, in the case of TNLI, to keep good teachers teaching and grow teacher-leaders. Whatever the focus, a network’s purpose is about making a difference to business as usual. But, how do you know that you have structured the network in such a way that it will be effective over time? The strength of a network lies in its members, their relationships to one another, and their commitment to the network’s goals and activities. Carmen Fariña, who was in our second class of grantees and went on to become deputy chancellor of the New York City Department of Education (and is now one of our board members), The strength of a network lies in its offered her opinion on why Teachers members, their relationships to one Network (TN) is so successful: we offer another, and their commitment to the teachers both an intellectual community, for network’s goals and activities. which they are hungry, and a social community that bonds them. However, maintaining a network is fraught with all kinds of challenges because people’s lives are complex and often difficult, with a myriad of competing demands and distractions. There are people who will stick with a cause for the long haul, but many will move on by choice or because of extenuating circumstances. The challenge is to provide an experience for participants that gives meaning to their lives, whether they are in the network for an indefinite or finite length of time. It’s thus important to develop activities that not only move toward your shared vision but enable veteran members to continue to contribute and new members to build on the work of others.

A MENU OF ACTIVITIES A network is an opportunistic organism. It capitalizes on the different skill sets, talents, and contacts that its members bring to it. Ideally, it’s sticky—keeping people involved—and porous—open to newcomers. And, because of its nonhierarchical, informal structure, it can take advantage when opportunity knocks. But a network is a process; the activities generated by network members are the content. The quality of the content will be important for the ability of your network to make a difference. For TNLI, we developed a menu of activities that continues to be a work in progress. Because our mission is to inform policy, our menu revolves around that goal. Even if your network does not have a policy focus, this menu can still be shaped and adapted to meet your needs. The items on our menu include the following: • • • • •

Action research Advocacy Documentation and dissemination Cases Partnerships and relationships

Making a Difference 53 Action-Research: A Seven-Stage Process

Action Research

We use action research to inform policy; however, if your network has a solely 1. Framing a Question instructional focus, your network’s menu 2. Conducting a Literature Review might include conducting action research with the immediate goal of improving class3. Selecting Tools room instruction. 4. Collecting Data When I first heard the term action research, my ears perked up. I liked the idea 5. Analyzing Data of research because it generates data, pro6. Making Conclusions and viding the researcher with something to say Recommendations about his or her work. And as an activist, I was smitten with the idea of combining 7. Publishing and Presenting research with action. At the inception of our network, the teachers conducted traditional research on existing policies so that they could become more knowledgeable about the larger educational picture. This work was done under the aegis of our first advisor, Ann Lieberman, who was then at Teachers College, Columbia University. When I asked Ann about introducing action research to our network, she told me that action research is the most powerful form of professional development a teacher can experience. She connected me with Frances Rust, who until recently was a professor at New York University. For nearly ten years, Frances served as our action research advisor, supporting hundreds of teachers in conducting studies. As part of our collaboration, Frances and I co-edited a book, Taking Action With Teacher Research (Meyers & Rust, 2003). In 2007, Frances passed that torch on to David E. Kirkland, who now serves as our action research advisor and is a contributor to this book. Recently, David put together a terrific Action Research Workshop Handbook, with a sample timetable (see Appendix F). Action research is a way to assess what we do as teachers and guides the actions we take to improve educational opportunities for students. By conducting research on their own practice, teachers continue to grow and learn by making use of their own experiences. They also learn from each other’s research.

In Our Own Words One of my favorite parts of belonging to TNLI was hearing about my colleagues’ action research. Their research opened my eyes to issues that I had not noticed before, and it helped me to think more deeply about what was happening in my own classroom. Lisa Peterson-Grace, Middle School Teacher, New York City

To help you understand what an action research study is, we have included one full study in this book (see Appendix G). We selected a study by Dan Abramoski, a high school teacher in the South Bronx, who addresses this question: How can we better prepare our students for college and support them during

54 The Power of Teacher Networks

• • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • •

• •

• • •

college? His study documents that, although his school, which serves a minority, disadvantaged population, has been successful in getting their graduates into college, too few survive the first year. Action research is our way of communicating to policymakers and the public just how complex teaching is. Just because you went to school yourself, your attendance doesn’t mean you’re an educational expert. We use action research to make powerful connections among practice, policy, and student achievement. However, most teachers, like most people, do not fully understand what policy is, how it is formulated, and where change can be leveraged. To help our teachers become more knowledgeable about policy, we produced a video that features Ann Lieberman answering the question: What Is Policy? Why Teachers Like We have provided an outline of the video to Do Action Research here (see Appendix H) because it is such a great overview of the world of educaInvigorates my teaching tion policy. If you would like a DVD verFocuses my practice sion of this video, please contact us. Gives me hard data Every member of our network conHelps me assess my practice ducts an action research study with the Creates new knowledge and skills for goal of influencing policy. For example, me as well as my students Dan was able to use his study to argue Provides an opportunity to affect successfully that his school hire an school-level and systemwide policy alumni liaison, one of his policy recomthrough classroom exploration mendations. The role of the liaison is to Enables me to disseminate support his school’s graduates during internationally via the web their college years. Peter Dillon, one of our network’s founding fellows who now Gets my research cited does policy work at the New York City Allows me to cite research done by my Department of Education (and serves on fellow teachers our board of trustees), helps our teachers Is useful for obtaining grants for my understand and craft their policy recomschool mendations. Figure 5.1 is an outline of the Helps me become a better teacher presentation he made for our teachers. Gets the attention of administrators For many of our affiliates—especially Gives other teachers ideas those who come onboard with an existing Informs the practice of others group of action researchers—connecting Reinvigorates me research to policy is a hard leap to make. Offers a systematic way to examine Although their teachers have conducted my teaching practices and the effect of research to improve their practice, they those practices on students find it daunting to go public with their Provides ongoing, job-embedded data. This is ironic to those of us who professional learning have tried to tackle the policy piece prior Helps me realize that my classroom to taking on the action research compoand school-based findings have policy nent of this work. In our experience in implications New York City, teachers joined our netContributes practical, theoretically work eager to change policy and were based knowledge to the field frustrated by first having to examine Empowers teachers their own practice to think about policy Develops teacher-leaders change. We all know that it’s far easier to

Making a Difference 55 Figure 5.1

Policy Presentation Notes and Chart Teaching + Action Research = Changes and Growth in Practices and Outcomes (particularly student achievement)

Good Policy Supports Growth Policy characteristics: 1. Concrete and well written 2. Supported ideologically (commitment) 3. Supported by resources (staff and funds) 4. Measurable (student growth) 5. Has opportunities for adjustments (feedback loop) Digging Deeper Resources: How will it be supported? • New funds • Reallocation of other funds • Shifts in practice Measures: • How will you measure the policy’s successes? • How will you collect additional feedback? To whom is your policy directed? It could be many: • • • •

Federal government State City Union

• • • •

District School Grade level team or department Classroom

Action Plan Then finally, how do you implement it? • Two-page papers detailing above • Informal conversations before formal ones • Possibility to pilot or expand

• •

Strength in groups Persistence

Organizing Parts of Your Policy

Feedback

Well Written

Measurable Policy

Resources

Ideology

56 The Power of Teacher Networks

offer criticism than solutions. But as Peter noted earlier, we need to “fix the problem, not the blame.” As part of the process of conducting action research, our teacher-researchers read literature on their chosen topic to contextualize their studies. Although, like most teachers, our members are not in the habit of keeping up with current research, when they actually begin to delve into the literature they find it a rewarding pursuit. As one of our teachers, Jayne Jaskolski of Milwaukee, explains, “Action research renewed my desire and excitement to dig into professional literature for the latest research on best practices and research-based methods. Now I love using my professional journals as a key piece of my ongoing professional development.” Through their research, teachers are producing knowledge that contributes to the field. Each study concludes with policy recommendations that are—ideally— specific, actionable, and measurable. The studies are published on our website at www.teachersnetwork.org/tnli/research/ and are presented to the group for feedback and written comments. A selection of the studies is submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and presented to educators and policymakers. If you check out the research on our website—and we hope you will—you will see that we have attempted to present each study in a personalized, inviting manner. We include a photograph of the teacher-author as well as an email address to encourage page viewers to make contact with our teachers. The goal is to bring the research to life and have it cited by others, as well as to solidify and grow our network. Teachers tell us how rewarding it is when they are sought out by others who wish to use or build upon their research. Action research has become the tie that binds teachers to our network. Here is a short piece by Sarah Rossi, director of TNLI Chicago, as an example of how the leap can be made between research and policy. I really appreciated reading about Sarah’s “aha” moment.

My “Aha” Moment Action research has changed our teachers in Chicago. We are told year after year, “This was the best professional development I have done.” Action research has given our teachers the tools to also make powerful changes to their schools. Our teachers lead professional development and districtwide study groups; present at local, state, and national conferences; and are being published in highly regarded journals. Two examples come to mind. Marjorie Rogasner’s research on parent workshops for her Mexican immigrant parents has led to schoolwide changes that accommodate the school’s student body. Conferences and parent activities now take place right after school, when evidence shows parents are more likely to attend; teachers send letters home rather than the principal so parents know the teachers’ importance; and a supportive community has developed among parents. George Gutierrez, whose research on math assessment led to a breakthrough in his teaching, has been asked to use his findings to lead the professional development of math teachers across his entire instructional area, impacting thirty-three urban elementary schools. As a result, he and other math educators have created a new learning community. There are many other examples of ways in which action research is empowering Chicago teachers to be agents of change in their schools and communities.

Making a Difference 57

This makes me wonder, do all networks need something like action research to bind them together? Can something as personal and passionate as action research be duplicated, and is it feasible for everyone? Maybe it is more about finding a common vision or purpose. At the International Conference on Teacher Research that took place in Chicago in March 2007, as I heard one TNLI teacher after another stand up and share his or her thoughts, it became evident to me and to others how being involved in this network has propelled our teachers to become leaders. That was the moment when it clicked for me that what we are doing is really important. Sure, we have a long way to go, but I have no doubt that this small group of teachers is making mountainous changes.

Several years ago, we had a great “aha” moment with a policymaker. We had the opportunity to meet the then chair of the New York State Assembly’s education committee. The fellows were very interested in getting the assemblyman to understand the importance of teacher collaboration. While this is an extremely important concept to teachers, it was new to the assemblyman. He kept thinking the teachers were talking about mentoring, which was something he understood. One of the teachers presented her action research in which she and a fellow teacher spent the year working together during joint preparation periods on reading strategies that would increase their students’ reading levels. At the end of her presentation, when she was able to show how their collaboration translated into student learning, he got it! It was a great celebratory moment for all. While it is rarely an easy leap to go from research to policy, once fellows turn their findings into policy recommendations, they begin to see the importance of their work beyond the classroom. They then see how they can contribute practical, theoretically based knowledge to the field of education, inform the practice of other educators, and change policy. For example, one of our teachers, Gail Ritchie of Fairfax County (VA), conducted four action research studies—one on teacher leadership, two on new teacher induction, and one on professional learning communities. The presentation of the findings to her school district leadership led to district-level and school-level policy changes related to inducting new teachers, providing on-site professional development, and developing teacher-leaders. Action research has provided the grist for the advocacy work that is central to our network.

In Our Own Words I am beginning to see that policy impacts everything I do, and I am certainly not shy about letting my colleagues know that it impacts them, too. It is my belief that speaking with teachers, parents, administrators, and students openly is the most important work that we, as fellows, can do to expand the network. Shaping education policy is a task that should be made available to everyone, particularly those who are affected by it each and every day. Barbara Golub, Elementary School Teacher, New York

58 The Power of Teacher Networks

Advocacy To create change, network members, just like politicians and advertisers, have to craft a message. Two years into the development of TNLI, we were struggling with how to communicate with policymakers. What was our message? We had a vision, and we had a mechanism to promote the teacher’s voice. But what did our teachers want to say?

Setting the Stage During those two years, we had some really dicey moments. Two in particular stand out because they were painful for the participants. In one, teachers had the opportunity to meet with a U.S. representative on the congressional education committee, and in the other, a group of our teachers, after much difficulty, were able to secure a meeting with the top brass of their school district. Both meetings bombed. The teachers were not prepared with solutions to the problems they were addressing. It is not enough to state the problem. That’s not a message. In those days, it was “Where’s the beef?” Today, it’s “What are the metrics?” Until that point, action research had been used in a more limited way by teachers to improve practice in their individual classrooms. Now, our teachers’ policy recommendations, aggregated across schools, districts, and the nation, have become their message. Implementation of these collective recommendations provides the levers of change to bring schools into alignment with teachers’ vision. Drafting policy recommendations has proven to be difficult work for teachers. First, teachers must become familiar with the origins of a particular policy. Does it emanate from the school? the district? the union? the state?—or is it a federal policy? Once teachers are clear about who owns a specific policy, they need to develop a case for “selling” their recommendations to the appropriate policymakers. Teachers also need to do their homework to be prepared for questions such as, What are the costs involved in implementing this policy change? While teachers will not be expected to have all the answers, they will need to give serious thought to what they are recommending and to the receptivity of their target audience.

The Elevator Pitch To help our fellows move beyond informing to influencing policy, we help them prepare an “elevator pitch” (this gets a big laugh from our Wyoming folks): a two-minute sound bite encapsulating their data, findings, and recommendations. One of our New York City teachers had an opportunity to use her pitch when she literally found herself in an elevator with the chancellor! Our teachers also prepare two-page summaries of their action research studies because we know it is unrealistic to expect most people to read a full paper. We have had teachers advocate successfully at the school level for changes in staffing, curriculum, student grouping, scheduling, funding, and parent engagement. Teachers have also been responsible for changes at the district and state level. At the school level, one of my all-time favorite results was from a study conducted by a teacher in New York City’s Chinatown. Her challenge—to help her students meet performance standards in speaking and listening skills—directly conflicted with the cultural norms of their Asian American community of recent

Making a Difference 59

immigrants. She knew she had to engage the parents in her efforts. She was successful in getting the district to extend the time and availability of parent-teacher conferences and to provide translators for those conferences. At the district level, Virginia’s Fairfax County modeled its new teacher induction program on a study conducted by one of our teachers. At the state level, our Wyoming teachers were able to convince their legislators not to cut funding for professional development schools.

In Our Own Words I joined TNLI feeling burned out and not knowing how to develop myself. Should I follow the traditional trajectory into a principal position? I almost did just that, but instead found rejuvenation through classroom action research and advocating education policy. I conducted action research on my school’s science rotation, focusing on the effects of teacher collaboration in particular. I probed for student attitudes toward learning science, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of our curriculum. I shared the results of my study with the school staff, and together we improved our program. I was also able to share the results and advocate for improvements in science policy with our local school board and with state officials at the capitol in Sacramento. The experience of bringing the results of classroom action research to policymakers was very powerful. I do not consider myself just a teacher anymore, but an active member of the education policy improvement community. Peter Hippard, Elementary School Teacher, California

In our network, teachers often do advocacy work focused on information sharing with their colleagues, nationally and locally. For example, to focus attention on federal policy in 2007, specifically the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, our teachers developed a survey, posted it online, and got over 5,600 teachers—from all fifty states!—to respond. Their goal was to raise the awareness among teachers of how federal policy affects classrooms as well as to provide feedback to policymakers and the public on the impact of federal policy on teaching and learning. The idea for the survey arose when one of our teachers presented her action research on NCLB at our national meeting. Teachers adapted the survey she developed to make it applicable to all teachers, K–12, in urban, rural, and suburban schools throughout the nation. At the local level, for example, our Miami teachers present annual workshops at a citywide conference with the twin goals of educating their colleagues about how certain policies are playing out in their schools and sharing their expertise and experience on how to advocate for students and the profession. Several years ago, when New York State was in the throes of a lawsuit regarding equity of funding, our New York City teachers developed a curriculum composed of a series of lesson plans on teaching equity issues in the classroom. Their goal was to inform teachers throughout the city of the lawsuit and to use it as a teachable moment in the classroom. To complement this effort, one of our teachers, a documentary filmmaker, worked with her class of high school students to produce a film in which

60 The Power of Teacher Networks

they contrasted two schools—one in the city and one in the suburbs. You can check out Short Changed in the City at www.teachersnetwork.org/tnli/nyc/cfe/ movieQ.htm. The lesson plans comprising the Fair Share Curriculum are available at www.teachersnetwork.org/tnli/nyc/cfe/. In the end, attempts to advocate are only as good as your ability to convince others of the merits of your cause. While the message is of utmost importance, whether it will be a catalyst for change hinges on its backup, delivery, and dissemination. A teacher new to our network from a fledgling affiliate who participated in our national meeting took away the following advice from policymakers (from a U.S. senator, a state senator, and a school board member): • Be sure to have a clear understanding of the law process. • Come prepared with concrete ideas. • Look at what other districts are doing. Where is your district going? What is missing? • Find out what your policymakers’ initiatives are. • Identify what is working and replicate it. For every problem, someone else somewhere else has solved it. • Remember that leadership is important in everything and that businesses have a huge stake in what we do. • Discuss what is working and what we can do to make it better. Whining doesn’t work. • State your case very well. Remember that if we don’t educate our students, the prison system will. • Don’t underestimate how much power you have.

In Our Own Words I spent a year developing and working on a policy advocacy plan stemming from the policy implications of my action research. My recommendation was that the school district form a network of Spanish immersion teachers that would meet regularly to study issues related to meeting the needs of English learners in our immersion programs across the district. With the support of a contact at the department, a co-fellow and I submitted a proposal for a Spanish immersion teacher network that would be led and run by teacher leaders. The stars aligned, and our plan was formally accepted. La red bilingüe, the Spanish teachers’ immersion network, is now a group of fifteen teachers representing all the immersion elementary schools in the district. Teachers receive a stipend from the district for participating, and teacher leaders are paid for planning and facilitating the monthly meetings. We have a budget for resource materials and catered meals. Participating teachers are enthusiastic about sharing best practices, bringing in teaching artifacts, and learning about each school’s program as we meet at a different campus each month. In addition, the multilingual department has written our network into their long-term academic plan. La red bilingüe will be a model for a series of new teacher networks planned for the upcoming school year. This

Making a Difference 61

network has opened a forum for collaboration and growth among immersion teachers across San Francisco. We have gained agency as teachers through our collective voice and common goals, agency that will move us forward in our national agenda of professionalizing the career of teaching and impacting education policy. Holly Link, Elementary School Teacher, California

Documentation and Dissemination Many years ago, I gave TN a middle name—dissemination. I decided that we were the queens and kings of documentation. Because networks are opportunistic organizations, we want to be at the ready when someone shows an interest in coming onboard. Toward that end, we continually create templates, worksheets, and guidelines to help build the capabilities of those who want to join our network. Peter has provided you with quite a few of these in the preceding chapters. Another example is “Five Steps to Getting Published” (see box below). We are strong believers in building capacity by providing technical assistance, getting feedback to improve upon it, using our semi-annual meetings to check in with our network on the use and value of the tools we supply, and getting as much mileage as we can from everything we produce so no one has to re-invent, re-type, reproduce what’s already available. That way the focus of those who join us can be on creatively adapting, refining, and advancing our work together.

Five Steps to Getting Published Step 1 Know your audience and look for a journal that reaches that audience. Step 2 Once you find a journal that seems like a good match for your paper, check out an issue to make sure it’s a good fit. You want your submittal to fit the context, style, and standard of the journal. When submitting material to any publication, you want to consider the following aspects of the journal: • • • •

Philosophical/political leaning Editorial procedures Manuscript acceptance policy Editorial policy

Step 3 Contact the editor to see how lengthy their review process is. Some journals can take as long as a year. If you’re eager to get your paper published, you may want (Continued)

62 The Power of Teacher Networks

(Continued) to focus on journals with a faster turnaround time. Know that it is unethical to submit to more than one journal at a time. After you have submitted a paper, you have to wait until you receive a rejection notice before submitting it elsewhere. Step 4 Once you have honed in on an appropriate journal, double check its specifications and submission guidelines. Journals usually request multiple copies, a cover sheet, an abstract, endnotes, and a biography. Step 5 After you have met all the journal guidelines, send off the appropriate documents along with a cover letter.

Because networks are inclusive, not exclusive, outreach is a key factor in their successful operation. Putting your efforts out there to get the attention of others is important for growth as well as impact. All our network members are encouraged, with as many supports as we are able to offer, to publish and present their action research and policy recommendations. In addition to publishing our teachers’ research on our website and providing time for teachers to present at meetings, we actively seek out other publishing and presentation opportunities. Our teachers have been published in journals such as Phi Delta Kappan and Educational Leadership and have presented at American Educational Research Association conferences as well as at other national and many regional and local conventions. To spread a message, we have found it valuable to reach out to media beyond the education trade journals and websites to daily newspapers and community weeklies and monthlies. We provide boilerplate press releases for our members to individualize and distribute to their local media. Periodically, teachers draft letters to the editor and op-ed pieces that are then made available on our website for any teacher to download. I also look for opportunities to get our message out by writing commentaries for Education Week and letters to the editor of the New York Times. The last time I was successful getting a letter published in our town’s newspaper of record, a fellow student in an online class (toward earning a certificate in teaching English to adult learners) was so impressed with seeing my name in print that he asked me to marry him! Many of our teachers have never had their writing published. According to a San Francisco teacher who taught writing for over fifteen years, she had never had anything published—“not even a letter to the editor.” The satisfaction she felt from having her research receive public recognition spurred her to require all her students to submit a piece for publication. Of the thirty students who sent in poems to an organization that publishes student work, twenty-one were accepted. Of course, they were as thrilled to be published as she was. To build capability among network members, our teachers have produced a primer on education policy and public relations and guidelines on how to publicize

Making a Difference 63

a fellowship award, how to promote a special event, and how to take a stand on a major issue, with specifics on drafting and placing letters to the editor and op-eds in the mainstream media—all available to affiliates who join our network.

Cases The process of building relationships is never ending, as is the need for figuring out new tools for capturing attention in a crowded, noisy world. During our constant quest to communicate how the unintended consequences of policymaking play out in real classrooms and real schools, the idea of using cases caught my imagination. Although cases (not to be confused with case studies) have been a mainstay at the Harvard Business School for decades, they have more recently been introduced in undergraduate and graduate education schools. Cases present a dilemma seen from multiple perspectives. There is not a single, simple solution to the dilemma—reasonable people may disagree—but there are appropriate responses that can lead to rich conversations with the potential for consciousnessraising and creative problem solving. I asked Katherine K. Merseth, director of teacher education at Harvard who has developed cases to teach math education, to serve as our case advisor. Under her direction, we now have a series of cases, each offering a real-life snapshot of how policy is playing out in schools. We have included one of those cases, Are You In or Are You Out? in Appendix I. This case, developed by Erica Litke, a teacher in New York City, was inspired by an action research study, Been There, Done That: Student Inquiry of High School Dropouts, conducted by Erik Shager, a teacher in Madison, Wisconsin. The case follows the lives of three very different urban high school students, their teachers, and their principal. Other cases have examined the following topics: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Teacher collaboration Impact of federal mandates on schools and classrooms English language learners/recent immigrants Special education Parent engagement School choice Changes in neighborhood demographics Scripted curriculum Cuts in arts education Cultural diversity Merit pay Student promotion Teacher retention

The cases developed to date are available at www.teachersnetwork.org/ tnli/cases. We will continue to add to this collection to jump-start conversations about how specific policy requirements such as federal legislation and districtand state-level mandates are influencing teaching and learning. All of the cases include discussion questions.

64 The Power of Teacher Networks

In addition to using these cases to show what policy looks like when implemented, these cases are excellent tools for education policy classes, especially critical for those students who have not actually taught in public schools. We invite you to use these cases; we are eager for feedback as we continue to explore how to maximize this newest addition to our network’s curriculum.

In Our Own Words District professional development, no matter how relevant, focuses on selling a product. Teachers are exposed to and expected to incorporate a newly adopted program, methodology, or even paradigm. But how often are we asked to discuss, debate, and weigh in on our professional practice? When are we asked to coconstruct meaning? That aspect of professional development—developing our critical thinking skills—is missing from almost all experiences I have had within my district. As a sixth-grade teacher required by the state to impart the art of persuasive essay writing to my students, I was being asked to do just what I ask of my students. This is the kind of reflective professional development that keeps our teaching fresh. Having had that experience enables me to use personal narratives to highlight concepts I need to teach. I told my students, “I know it’s hard to anticipate counterarguments. Even the teachers I worked with had trouble coming up with ideas, but we did it, so you can, too.” Susan Gold, Elementary School Teacher, California

Partnerships and Relationships A major outcome of successful documentation and dissemination is the formation of partnerships, essential ingredients for network impact as well as growth and sustainability, as Peter has pointed out in Chapters 3 and 4. There is too much to do and too little time for networks to work in a vacuum. Creating alliances with like-minded organizations and developing relationships with decision makers, thought leaders, and representatives of constituencies your network seeks to affect will strengthen and help expand your network and its influence. In TNLI, we seek partnerships with organizations we hope to influence by providing them with a teacher voice. These organizations lack a teacher “at the table.” For example, for many years, we ensured that there was a teacher on the governor’s advisory committee for the Education Commission of the States (ECS). When former Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer was chair of the advisory committee, he became familiar with our network because one of our teachers was a member of his committee. With his focus on teacher quality, he was interested in meeting with a group of teachers who could inform him of their challenges and recommendations. We were ready, and so was he. The governor came to our national meeting having read (and highlighted in yellow!), in his hotel room the night before, all of the two-page summaries of the studies our teachers had completed that year. He was so impressed with the group and the work they had generated that he got his state legislature to include a budget line to establish TNLI Wyoming, which continues to this day.

Making a Difference 65

In Our Own Words I represented TNLI on the Education Commission of the States’ Early Learning Panel, headed by Governor Shaheen. As the only teacher on the panel, I worked with governors, heads of state education departments, union and university leaders, early childhood education experts, and business leaders to illuminate the importance and potential of early learning. As crucial as the message was, it was equally important for these policymakers to see a teacher in their midst. TNLI has reminded many policymaking organizations to include teachers in discussions about education issues. Judi Fenton, Early Childhood Teacher, New York

Each year, our teachers generate a list of speakers to invite to monthly meetings. We ask speakers to come prepared to talk for about twenty minutes on how to incorporate the teacher’s voice into policymaking, which then leads to a fortyminute conversation between the speaker and the group. The teachers do homework on the speaker and design a conversation to get the most out of the visit. Their goal is to develop ongoing relationships with the speakers and the organizations they represent so that a receptive audience is then willing to listen to and support the work of the members of the network. For a recent citywide conference, our teachers developed and distributed a list of like-minded advocacy organizations for teachers to join and support. I am proud to report that we are now being approached by individuals and organizations interested in meeting our network and/or having a member included as the teacher’s voice at meetings organized by others. They know that our teachers are well prepared to provide input and to represent the profession. We have also been successful in growing our own educational leaders, who are now in key positions in schools, districts, and unions. Our goal is to develop partnerships with entities interested in buying into our vision, adapting our curriculum, and becoming affiliated with our nationwide network. These partners can be school districts, state education departments, county offices of education, universities, or education funds that have the enthusiasm, capability, and capacity to support a local TNLI network. We will then provide technical assistance to help the local network get up and running and bring it into our nationwide network.

FEEDBACK: HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE? Because our network is about listening to the voices of teachers, we believe it is important to honor and model listening. We collect feedback regularly, as Peter has noted, to make sure our members are enthusiastic, engaged, and feeling valued. Our network checks in periodically at the different levels in which we operate. We collect extensive written feedback at our monthly meetings. One of our members collates and summarizes the feedback. We then begin each of our planning meetings with a review of the feedback. Fortunately, our members regularly inject

66 The Power of Teacher Networks

humor, so this task is painless. (I looked for examples but, sorry, you had to have been there.) We take the feedback into account when planning the next monthly agenda, and we open each monthly meeting with our facilitator summarizing the “feedback on feedback.” We follow the same process with our national meetings. Whatever process you adopt, we recommend assessing whether you are making inroads toward your goal. Twice a year, we ask our affiliates to provide written updates that enable us to track our successes at making a difference in various venues. Their reporting provides us with detailed information about local activities and with ongoing documentation of our successes. Additionally, we schedule conference calls several times a year to hear informally how it’s going at our affiliate locations. We synthesize this information for funders, supporters, and potential network members who want to know about our accomplishments. And, most important, based on this input, we refine our work as we strive for a continuous cycle of improvement. Finally, of course, we invite teachers to speak for themselves. When we decided to write this book, nearly fifty teachers took the time to write essays focused on how TNLI has changed them. You have heard many of their individual voices represented in the text boxes throughout this book. It was not possible to include all the essays sent to us, but here is a list culled from our members’ responses of the ways in which they feel we are making a difference. Their collective feedback is that our network accomplishes the following: • Makes our teaching more deliberate and engaging • Convinces administrators to listen to teachers’ voices • Uses data to prove that certain programs are worthy of being funded or reinstated • Provides support and guidance • Improves individual schools’ scope and sequence • Reinvigorates teaching • Increases student and parent motivation • Grows professionalism • Impacts school policy • Shares research and curriculum • Creates teacher collaboration • Involves parents in the curriculum • Gives each teacher a voice • Impacts individual schools, professional development, instruction, and students • Publishes research • Does professional readings and has discussions to contextualize research and teacher experiences • Cites research that gives teachers more powerful and visible voices in policymaking • Discusses education policy issues with teachers, nonteachers, future policymakers, and principals • Motivates teachers to become more involved in their school • Encourages teachers to conduct research based on their interests

Making a Difference 67

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Uses the arts to teach reading comprehension Presents at school staff meetings Connects K–12 schools and universities Increases professional satisfaction Presents policy positions to state government Makes changes in individual schools Encourages students to publish their work Demonstrates action research to other teachers and presents how to influence policy Increases open-mindedness, passion, and interest Involves student teachers Recruits new members Meets with state legislators

It is, of course, really helpful and strategic to do more formal assessments when time and resources permit. Several years ago, 74 out of 100 teachers completed a survey; we conducted interviews with 22 teachers taking part in our summer institute that year; another 36 participants completed a questionnaire; and we interviewed 15 of the founding fellows in our network—all part of a self-study of our network conducted by Frances Rust and myself. From this study, we were able to extrapolate data on the impact we were having on our members’ teaching, on their students, on their schools and districts, and on their knowledge of policymaking. This information was extremely useful in understanding not just that we were making a difference in general but to learn more about how we were doing so. For example, over a third of the teachers reported that they implemented new strategies and improved student achievement as a result of their network involvement; over 80 percent increased their knowledge and enhanced their skills related to education policy. So, while we still have some distance to go in fully realizing the teacher’s vision, we clearly have had success at all levels in making a difference in teachers’ professional lives and their students’ learning, in informing and changing policy, and in doing our part for changing the future of education. We hope that our experience excites your imagination and inspires you to begin networking!

6 Where Do We Go From Here? Liberation is a praxis; the action and reflection of men upon their world in order to transform it. —Paulo Freire

Now that Ellen and Peter have shared with you all they have learned in envisioning, creating, and growing a network, we are bringing you full circle. In this chapter, David brings us back to where Nancy started us off. David provides you with both his perspective and a strong rationale for embarking on your journey so that you can take this work and build upon it.




A NEED FOR CHANGE Throughout this book, we have catapulted ourselves, via the topic of teacher networks, into a wider discussion about teaching and teacher development. We have moved backward and forward and, through detailed explanation, sometimes stood still to make a singular point: teacher networks present a proven model for structuring teacher development. This point reveals itself as a micro-revolution as in the case of Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI). The revolution appears providential. It is an outgrowth of a society that has been permanently transformed due to new technologies and systems of integration that allow for constant connectivity and social interaction. We need to look more closely at electronic networks and their capability to connect teachers across multiple lines of the profession. In my own work, I observe teachers connecting, using 68

Where Do We Go From Here? 69

digital technology to mediate communication and foster participation in very sophisticated social networks not always valued in schools. I have encouraged teachers to think critically about how such resources might be used to enhance teaching and learning. These resources carry the potential of promoting intellectual engagement with critical issues of education, helping teachers become more discerning of the world around them and, in the process, become transformative teachers within that world. Though computers, cell phones, and other digital devices have played their parts, this revolution is not about the technology; rather, it is about forging deeper ways of connecting. In other words, this moment in teaching dramatically illuminates some of the most enduring of human traits—our desire to work together, our mutual need to work with one another, and our need to feel that we are not alone. These traits suggest something important about us. We are at our best when we set aside our differences and work together. Not only that, we sense a deep social truth: that our potential for growth increases in the collective communities that house us. We are better, feel better, and are more capable of uncommon successes and extraordinary triumphs when we are connected to others. The connection—the most fundamental aspect of a network—further reveals the humanity in us, in our profession. By understanding this fundamental aspect of teaching, we come to understand more fully what is missing in most schools. As much as this book has been a how-to for networks, it also presents a framework for teaching capable of revolutionizing teacher development in the twenty-first century. This philosophy moves in a radically different direction from what we have practiced—competition and coercion as ways to “fix” schools. Instead, we believe that teaching improves when teachers collaborate. We have witnessed over the course of almost three decades teachers grow professionally when they work together. This book offers an explicit critique of policies such as No Child Left Behind that embrace narrow notions of teaching that neglect teachers’ collective professional practice. Accountability and standardization, the basis of such policies, assume that all teachers are the same, learn in the same ways, and should learn the same things. Advocates of these policies obfuscate the key issue—that of power. They assume that access to isolated workshops disguised as “professional development” and a barrage of tests disguised as assessments will even the educational playing field. So they assault classrooms with scripts and difficult-tounderstand metrics. They insult teachers with tricks and gimmicks. They think they are helping to improve education. They are mistaken.

Teaching Teaching is about struggle. Schools factor into this struggle significantly because questions about teaching, learning, and assessment are subject to debate. The participation of teachers in networks such as TNLI gives us reason to be hopeful that teachers will gain room to struggle together. At TNLI, we have witnessed teachers struggling to find solutions to tough educational questions. For these teachers, social justice concerns are part of the definition of teaching. Based on their testimonials—some of which you have read—notions of the teacher and teacher development present a new picture of teaching. These testimonies

70 The Power of Teacher Networks

exemplify the social nature of teaching where teachers indeed share a group identity, produce a shared understanding of what teaching is, and render visible a wider social world in which they exist. Networks, then, not only improve teaching by manufacturing sites for collective conversation but also help teachers produce deep social and cultural commitments that are tied to their collective work and struggles.

Schooling A network also has a role in transforming schooling. TNLI teachers, for example, have used their network as a way to resist predominant social and cultural school traditions. This form of “resistance” is evidenced for us in the way that TNLI teachers utilize the network to critique—through their research and conversations—elements of schooling they deem inequitable. I would like to say that all TNLI teachers take what they have learned and experienced through their network back to their schools. This is probably not the case. However, many of the teachers do, and as a result, their schools begin to see change.

Rethinking Student Achievement Finally, I would like to comment on student achievement, especially with regard to the often-ignored bonds between students and teachers. The personal nature of networks is as much about finding one’s self and having the power to write one’s story as it is about transforming teaching and schooling. It is within this personal aspect of networks that teachers come to better understand their students. This better understanding gives teachers some say over what should constitute student achievement. As teachers evolve within networks, they redefine what their students are capable of achieving in ways that render the students visible and, most important, human. This is perhaps the greatest transformation of all—the transformation of perspective, both of self and of others.

THE FUTURE OF TEACHING To summarize my points, teaching in today’s world must be informed by three things: (1) new collaborative teaching models, (2) the human need for space to make known teachers’ personal struggles and stories, and (3) an acknowledgment that teachers work more effectively together. By viewing teaching as a collaborative practice, we give ear to new articulations of teaching. When practiced by teachers, these new articulations of teaching evade the fretful hands of the keepers of education—who would use classrooms for perpetuating the status quo rather than for positive social and cultural transformation. You might think we are making too much of this change theme. After all, all change is not desirable. However, the accounts in this book demonstrate that the real feelings of teachers—feelings of longing for greater connection—must be honored. One teacher told me that the most exciting part of her job was working with

Where Do We Go From Here? 71

other teachers. I sensed a beauty in her words often echoed in the words of other teachers with whom I have worked. The unfortunate and ironic part of this confession was that she also admitted to rarely having the opportunity to work with other teachers. Regardless of this fact, teachers today, more so than at any other time in history, are hungry for connections. They are hungry to connect to the information that defines them as teachers. Teachers are actively seeking out knowledge and increasingly asking for greater opportunities and spaces in which to learn, grow, and shape the teaching profession. They want more education and greater freedom to articulate how public education is defined. Many of the teachers with whom we work also want to connect with other people—other teachers and educational activists who believe that educational change is indeed possible. They believe that their combined voices can speak new educational communities into existence and drive educational dilemmas into oblivion. While many of these beliefs feel idealistic, I think it is important to point out that, when we are most in need of hope, it is not uncommon for us to look to our ideals. It is not, however, ideals that teachers lack but, rather, the personal and social connections with people that stimulate those ideals. It is this lack of connection—to people and to the power to define their profession—that is perhaps the greatest educational challenge for teachers in the twenty-first century. Professional networks such as TNLI are doing their part, making provisions and offering space for greater teacher collaboration. Through networks like TNLI, teachers are increasingly seeing their roles in education shift beyond classrooms and into other contexts. Many teachers now see themselves and their colleagues as agents for change and as educational policymakers. Together, they are beginning to disrupt the silence endemic to their profession. They are demanding collaboration to break through the stale and remarkably stable feeling of loneliness that has defined teaching practice. The challenges of this revolution are reaching new depths, remaking our perception of teaching itself. Teaching today is being defined less by teachers being alone than by teachers coming together to change the world. The greatest unintended consequence of teachers being alone in the classroom, therefore, is the outdated culture of isolation it perpetuates. At a structural level, this culture has undermined education. At a political level, it has left teachers without a collective voice, especially in educational policies and decisionmaking procedures that govern schools. In addressing this issue, I think this book joins the chorus of voices committed to establishing teacher networks throughout the United States. If we are to nurture a crop of teachers who can transform failing schools and lead our children boldly into the twenty-first century, then we must rethink the social organization of teaching so that no teacher is left isolated. The network idea my coauthors have outlined presents a model of teacher support and collective knowledge building worth thinking about and adopting. As a teacher who has worked for more than a decade manufacturing and agitating for educational change, advocating and advancing teacher voices in education policy, I understand the power of teacher networks to change teaching. Such a system, I believe, has the potential to also change society.

Appendixes Note: These appendixes include helpful information, tools, and templates created by Teachers Network that can be reproduced or adapted for personal use.

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Appendix A

Our Vision Statement: Teachers’ Vision of the Future of Education—A Challenge to the Nation

Appendix B

Teachers Network Leadership Institute Application Form and Group Interview Agenda

Appendix C

Sample TNLI Grant Proposal

Appendix D

Essential Pointers for Listserv Moderators

Appendix E

Sample Recruitment Flyer

Appendix F

Action Research Workshop Handbook

Appendix G

Sample Action Research Study

Appendix H

Outline of the What Is Policy? Video

Appendix I

Sample Case: Are You In or Are You Out?

Appendix J

Making a Difference Reporting Form

Appendix A Our Vision Statement: Teachers’ Vision of the Future of Education—A Challenge to the Nation

E

nvision with us the future: It is now sometime in the future—more than 20 but less than 100 years from now. The “schools” we see are no longer the isolated schools of the 1990s but rather campus-style community learning centers with walls that protect but do not confine. There are parks, sports centers, playing fields, a public library, and medical and social support services. This complex includes multimedia technology centers for research, global collaboration, and interest exploration. There are well-equipped laboratories for inquiry-based research, language labs, planning rooms, performance areas, animal habitats, student-run supply stores, and gardens and greenhouses that provide produce for the food plaza.

For Children The younger child thrives in a learning environment that is safe, nurturing, and supportive of every variety of intelligence, learning style, and culture. All children are gifted. We no longer focus on a child’s weakness or limitations, but our respect and admiration for the individual results in our supporting his or her unique developmental progress. Early learning experiences involve the “whole child.” Curriculum is developed with an awareness of a child’s emotional, physical, creative, intellectual, and environmental needs. Student and teachers begin with a study of their immediate community as they develop courses relevant to their lives and interests.

Not Just for Children In our vision, learning is no longer just for children, and teaching is no longer done only by teachers. These learning centers are for the whole community. Children, teenagers, working adults, and seniors come together to learn and teach. The focus of education for our young people is to help them learn the techniques of gathering information; acquire the skills of reading, writing, communication, and working cooperatively; and discover the great joy of learning. 73

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All classrooms are arranged for collaborative, cooperative work. Desks and tables are clustered; computers, books, and maps are readily available. Adults explore new career options while they help teach the young. Older people share their wisdom as they continue to learn. Groups of all ages discuss ideas, problems, and community issues. The goal is to learn to be “lifelong” learners and teachers in a community that honors education.

Students Become Lifelong Learners At higher levels of cognitive and emotional development, we envision a student’s own intellectual project(s) as the primary focus for generating meaningful work. Students are able to define, develop, and value their own abilities and talents, continually moving toward increasingly sophisticated experiences and projects that confirm, challenge, and deepen those aptitudes, interests, and insights. Students initiate learning activities, interacting with peer groups as well as instructors and other professionals in collaborative settings. Community mentors play a vital role in supporting student learning activities. Local artists, music critics, social workers, college professors, writers, electricians, accountants, symphony conductors, city planners, medical professionals, computer specialists, business people, senior citizen retirees, architects, engineers, homemakers, and other regional teachers help facilitate students’ learning. With the help of these community mentors, students carry on significant investigative work, making decisions to solve problems and answer meaningful questions that impact themselves, their peers, and their communities. Most important, students integrate learning experiences that cut across formally discrete and often isolated disciplines in a learning center that is truly interdisciplinary. Flexible scheduling and individual student programming allow students to move among teachers and community sites and resources to complete learning projects. These projects spring from complex decisions about how literacy-based and interpersonal skills combine to create significant work in a number of modalities that support all intellectual work. Critical literacy skills (reading, writing, analytic thinking) are integral to all student endeavors. In addition to individual learning projects, students elect from seminars, required reading and writing workshops, or “studios” and laboratories. They engage with a wide variety of challenging texts from all disciplines and also create their own texts, always in the service of students’ own intellectual and emotional development and meaningful purpose.

The Role of the Teacher in the Future In our community learning center, educators are teacher administrators who serve as the choreographers, facilitators, and encouragers of the learning process. Educators are the professional teachers of the community—the specialists who have specifically learned how people learn, how to motivate people, how to organize instruction, and how individuals grow and develop. They guide the learners’ relationship with the larger community. Education schools are no longer at colleges but are located within the public school setting. This new alignment allows

Appendix A 75

for collaboration and learning among the new teachers, experienced educators, and the school-based, research-oriented professors. Teachers design and implement large-group instruction. They also spend a considerable part of any day advising students’ learning projects, conferencing with individual students and small groups, and collaborating with other professionals in support of student completion of a meaningful learning goal, mutually agreed upon. Also, in the context of the school day, teachers foster their own professional and intellectual development in a variety of learning— and networking—activities.

Beyond Testing Assessment of student work is carried out by the community of learners, based on the student’s mastery of specific skills necessary to taking one’s place in the world. Both student and teacher evaluate the work the student has generated. The peer group plays a key role as well in offering feedback to other students whose work they have shared and critiqued in its various stages. Since students are primarily engaged in open-ended inquiries rather than closed systems and are producing new knowledge and insights, evaluation is the springboard for motivating students to a greater level of shared expectation. In our future, dropping out does not exist since the concept of learners has been expanded. Going from school to the work force is merely a change of focus for learning. Formal schooling can and does take place within the community. Students are not the assembly-line products of the nineteenth and twentieth century but the inspired and inspiring seekers of the meaningful work and worth of the twenty-first century. Learners are the creators who ensure a future for us all.

What This Vision Means for Teachers The challenge to educators is to shift responsibility from teacher to student, from passive learner to active agent of and collaborator in his or her own intellectual development. We envision a model in which teachers let go of the primary and authority of the body of knowledge they were formally trained to transmit in traditional disciplines. The paradigm is the de-centered classroom where teachers and learners have the authority over learning, privileging the student voice and empowering the individual learner.

The Future of the Family and Education If our vision of the future of education is to work, the family must be returned to its age-old place as the central institution of individual significance. At the same time, we know that the concept of “family” must also encompass all the people who support and nurture the individual. The family is a unit of support. For a child, this might be a mother, a father, and a retiree at the local senior center. For another child, this might be foster parents and a college student. For an immigrant, this might be the community member who welcomes and enculturates him or her. Children find that adults are caring, supportive, nurturing, safe

76 The Power of Teacher Networks

people. Adults have similar connections that prevent a sense of hopelessness or isolation. No person is isolated, homeless, hungry, or abused. Every individual in the community belongs to a family. These relationships go beyond blood ties and legal boundaries. Members of a child’s “family” are vital to his or her learning. In the future, violence is not used as a vehicle of securing material items or solving problems; drugs are not sought to numb the pain of living or of memory; people do not reproduce to fill voids. Abuse—physical, emotional, and social—is replaced by an accepting, loving, and nurturing environment.

The Role of Business and the Larger Community in Education of the Future In our vision, businesses (commerce, industry, and agencies), including all economic resources and foundations of a specific community, are integrally entwined with the learning centers of that community. All employees take time to work with people in the community. Businesses are tightly woven into the fabric of learning. They offer classes in financial and career planning, accept student interns and apprentices, lead students on “great adventures,” endow classroom labs, volunteer teachers, pay for “chairs” for educators, allow time for parentemployees to work with their children in school and conference with teachers, and provide daycare for the children in their community. Technology has increased global learning and teaching, helped foster independence in learning, and provided learners with simulated “real world” experiences. It is used by learners to effect communication and access information through readily available computer networks to make informed, valid learning choices. In other areas of the community, we find museums, theater groups, art centers, music groups, recreational and sports centers, libraries, town councils, animal shelters, recycling centers, fire and emergency facilities, waste treatment plants, and retirement centers. These organizations serve as learning labs and interact with the learning centers. Members of the community act as contributors to, as well as consumers of, these services and support groups. Central to our vision of the future is our belief that learning is the heart and soul of both human existence and the health of the human community. Learning is lifelong and occurs in every aspect of an individual’s life; it is the conduit for self-sufficiency; it creates responsible, secure, creative, and involved individuals. Learning celebrates individual uniqueness and strengthens the gold threads of cultural diversity. Learned people take pride in their products; they are empowered; they are protectors and caretakers of the earth; their spirits nourish and are nourished by the arts; their minds are kept alive and vital through creative, analytical, and critical thinking.

Appendix B Teachers Network Leadership Institute Application Form and Group Interview Agenda

2008–09 Guidelines and Application Teachers Network invites you to become a MetLife Fellow in the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) for the 2008–09 school year. Teachers from the New York City public schools with full-time classroom responsibilities will be selected to join a nationwide teacher network along with current New York City MetLife Fellows in TNLI. We are seeking teachers who would like to take an active role in influencing policy in the following areas: Teacher Leadership in School Change—the ways in which teachers develop as leaders Teacher Preparation and New Teacher Induction—the ways in which teachers are educated, recruited, oriented, evaluated, supported, and retained Ongoing Professional Growth—the means by which teachers engage in professional growth, learning opportunities, and reflection Teacher Networks—the ways in which teachers connect to other teachers or organizations for the purpose of expanding their learning community We provide teachers with opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills to influence policy locally, statewide, and nationally. Fellows’ work includes framing practical policy positions that relate to improved student achievement; conducting action research in their classrooms and schools; engaging the public and elected officials in community conversations about education; participating on advisory boards, panels, and task forces; developing policy recommendations based on research conducted; and publishing and disseminating findings and recommendations nationwide. Teachers selected to become MetLife Fellows in TNLI will: • Increase knowledge of major challenges facing the teaching profession through readings and discussions with leading policy experts • Improve leadership skills • Be recognized by the public and media • Represent teachers nationwide as spokespersons 77

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• Participate in conducting TNLI Action Research and using it in influencing policy • Be awarded a $1,000 stipend • Become members of an online community We are seeking a diverse group of teacher-leaders who are active in their school communities and have track records in working to improve schools. Fellows will conduct much of their work online as well as participate in online discussions. TNLI works in partnership with New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development as well as the United Federation of Teachers. Funding for TNLI is provided by MetLife Foundation, with additional support from The New York Community Trust. The application is due by ___________. If you have any questions or would like additional information, please call Peter A. Paul at (212) 966-5582. Please email, fax, or mail completed application to: Teachers Network, Attn: Peter A. Paul, 285 West Broadway—Suite 200, New York, NY 10013; fax: (212) 941–1787. All portions of the application must be sent or the application will be considered incomplete: (1) application; (2) commitments; (3) essay; and (4) two letters of recommendation (one of which must be written by your school principal). Please note: All applicants are required to attend an hour-long group interview in July to be considered for a fellowship. If you would like to find out more about Teachers Network and/or the Teachers Network Leadership Institute, please access our website at www.teachersnetwork.org, or email Peter A. Paul at [email protected].

APPLICATION FOR THE TEACHERS NETWORK LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE (Please type or print legibly.) Name __________________________________________________________________________ School Name and Address __________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Zip Code ________________ School Phone ______________________________________________________________ Home Address ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Zip Code ________________ Cell Phone ___________________________________________________________________ Home Phone __________________________________________________________________________ Email Address ______________________________________________________________

Appendix B 79

Experience What subjects do you teach? _________________________________________________ How many years have you been teaching? _________________________________ What was your preparation for becoming a teacher? _________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ How have you continued your professional development? _____________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ Please list any professional organizations of which you are a member: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ Please list your areas of interest in education and education policy: ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________

Commitments Please check off all the commitments in the boxes provided:
I have access to the necessary computer equipment and will participate online.
I will check my email on a regular basis.
I will attend full-day Saturday sessions once every month (September through June). I understand that these sessions provide opportunities to participate in dialogues with policymakers, discuss readings, and develop action research plans.
I will complete and be prepared to discuss the assigned readings related to education policymaking.
I will participate in conducting action research and other documentation.
I will work with Teachers Network to publish an article concerning my fellowship in a local paper. Only if applicable, please check one or both of the boxes below:
I am a teacher-leader who is interested in becoming a school administrator.
I am a New York University Cooperating Teacher and am interested in receiving graduate credit for my participation in TNLI.

80 The Power of Teacher Networks

Essay Please write a short essay (approximately two typed, double-spaced pages) describing an initiative in which you were an active participant that was designed to produce positive classroom or school change. Be specific about your role.

Recommendations Please attach two letters of support—one from your principal and one from a colleague, student, parent, or other individual of your choice who can speak to your leadership abilities and school improvement efforts. Applicant’s signature ____________________________________________________ Date ____________________________________________________________________

GROUP INTERVIEW AGENDA 1. Introductions: Briefly introduce yourself by telling us (1) your name, (2) your school, (3) what you teach, and (4) how you learned about the fellowship and why you are applying. (2–3 minutes) 2. Group planning: If you were to design a professional development program for a school, what would it look like? (15 minutes) 3. Discussion issue: How does teacher involvement in policymaking improve student achievement? (15 minutes) 4. Question and answer period. (5–10 minutes)

Appendix C Sample TNLI Grant Proposal

Establishing a ________________________ Affiliate of the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI)

OVERVIEW We are requesting a $_______ grant to establish an affiliate branch of the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) in _____________. Specifically, ______________ would work in conjunction with Teachers Network to develop a TNLI affiliate—comprised of local teachers who serve as TNLI fellows—to build teacher capacity, performance, expertise, and leadership in area public schools.

NEED Within many public schools, isolation among teachers and lack of retention are serious problems. To improve student achievement within these schools, there is a significant need to eliminate barriers that prevent professional contact and exchange by connecting teachers with one another in meaningful ways. Specifically, these educators need professional growth opportunities and support that can only be realized through networking with other teachers. It is critical that teachers participate in successful programs enabling them to become part of learning communities that effect positive change—focused on improved student achievement—at all levels: classroom, school, and district. In addition, for teachers to improve daily classroom performance, it is crucial that they acquire the necessary skills and training to examine their own teaching practice and its effect on students through conducting action research in their classrooms and schools. There is also a pressing need to identify and groom a larger, more diverse pool of teacher-leaders representing not only teachers who can function successfully as members of school teams but also from which future school and district leaders could ultimately be drawn. Finally, there is a critical need to articulate the teacher’s voice to multiple audiences. As the TNLI fellows, who are full-time classroom teachers, meet and share their knowledge with policymakers at all levels, becoming leaders in their profession and assuming high-profile positions, they will serve on local, state, and national advisory boards and directly influence the course of education policy. Indeed, more 81

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and more, the need for the fellows’ voice to inform policymakers in improving student achievement has been recognized at the highest levels. For example, after meeting with the TNLI fellows in 1999, Governor Jim Geringer of Wyoming stated that “every state needs to have a branch of the Teachers Network Leadership Institute.”

TRACK RECORD TNLI—through its rich networking opportunities, classroom-based action research focus, and teacher’s voice initiative—offers a proven vehicle by which the multiple needs of public school teachers can be systematically and powerfully addressed. Established in 1996, TNLI now includes fourteen nationwide affiliates: Chicago (IL), Fairfax County (VA), Gainesville (FL), Los Angeles (CA), Mason (VA), Miami/The Ed Fund (FL), Milwaukee (WI), New York City (NY), Sacramento (CA), Santa Barbara County (CA), San Francisco (CA), State of Delaware, State of Kentucky, and State of Wyoming. TNLI has had a particularly successful track record supporting and nurturing public school teachers. TNLI was established to provide teachers—those closest to students and having the greatest influence on student learning—with the skills, knowledge, and access necessary to influence education policy. TNLI involves teachers in policymaking so that mandates are informed by the realities of daily classroom life, improving the condition of public schools and producing real results in student learning. TNLI bridges the gap between political decision making and what actually works in the classroom. TNLI fellows are prepared to succeed in their classrooms and schools through actively researching school-based policy issues, developing specific recommendations for improving student achievement, and becoming spokespersons for their work. To this end, fellows systematically participate in full-day monthly meetings, conduct action research in their classrooms and schools, meet with high-profile guest speakers and education policymakers, read and discuss relevant literature, receive training and support for becoming instruction-based leaders in their schools and districts, give presentations, serve on influential boards and tasks forces; network with other fellows on local and national listservs, participate in local and national video- and teleconferences, and publish their work on the TNLI area of the award-winning education website, www.teachersnetwork.org, and in numerous articles and publications. Over the past several years, TNLI fellows have broadly disseminated their work—both locally and nationally. In January 2003, Taking Action With Teacher Research was published, and, after only three weeks in publication, the book went into its second printing. This groundbreaking document, edited by TNLI director Ellen Meyers and TNLI advisor Frances Rust, contains six chapters focusing on action research studies conducted by six MetLife Fellows (Jane Fung, Lara Goldstone, Janet Price, Carol Tureski, Natasha Warikoo, and Matt Wayne). Now in its sixth printing, this powerful book also has chapters on the TNLI action research process and how to connect action research to practice and policy. More information about TNLI publications, teacher research, and TNLI major accomplishments is available on the TNLI area of Teachers Network’s website at www.teachersnetwork.org/tnli.

Appendix C 83

TNLI not only delivers a powerful network that supports teachers as professionals but also enables fellows to influence policymaking and assume a variety of leadership roles. TNLI action research studies, unique to the organization, directly address the link between education policy and student achievement. TNLI action research findings provide the fellows with impressive authority in speaking—as teacher-leaders—about what actually works for students. The action research process, in turn, provides TNLI fellows with unparalleled knowledge and skills to examine and continually improve their own classroom practice. TNLI is a major initiative of Teachers Network. Teachers Network is a nonprofit organization—by teachers, for teachers—with a twenty-eight-year track record of success, dedicated to improving student learning in public schools nationally and internationally. Teachers Network is unique in its focus on professional development as the key to improving student achievement. Using the power of an award-winning website, videos, and print resources, Teachers Network leverages the creativity and expertise of a national and international community of outstanding educators. Through its leadership, Teachers Network empowers teachers to transform public schools into creative learning communities. For more information about Teachers Network, see www.teachers network.org.

THE PROPOSED PROJECT We propose to identify, recruit, and select ____ teachers to participate as fellows in TNLI during the 20__–20__ school year. Funding for this project would enable _______________ to bring together a diverse group of teachers to network and learn from each other and to inform the teacher’s voice to more accurately reflect the needs and realities of all local public schools. Through participation in TNLI activities, and by becoming an active part of both the local and national TNLI network, the fellows would be able to break through their professional isolation. Importantly, the fellows would bring their new knowledge of effective practices and policies back into their own schools, as well as share their action research findings and subsequent recommendations with local, state, and national policymakers to directly improve student achievement. The proposed ______________ affiliate would have monthly meetings to discuss fellows’ research projects and assigned readings, plan group presentations, and engage prominent education policymakers and influencers in conversations. Technology also serves as a major vehicle for TNLI affiliate work. The TNLI area of Teachers Network’s award-winning website, www.teachersnetwork.org/TNLI, is dedicated to the fellows’ work in education policy reform. TNLI fellows would also use local and national listservs, teleconferences, and videoconferences to discuss fellows’ work, receive feedback, and promote cross-affiliate networking. Once established, the _______ affiliate would be responsible for guiding its fellows through examining policy: how it is made, who makes it, and how it is implemented and evaluated. TNLI action research—studies focusing on real issues and the impact of policy within teachers’ own classrooms and schools—allows fellows to make policy recommendations supported by collective data on student learning

84 The Power of Teacher Networks

from other fellows’ classrooms. Fellows would publish findings and recommendations, publicize the outcomes of this work, and become personally involved in the policy process by presenting findings to organizations and serving on task forces. Further, as the dearth of leadership within public schools becomes increasingly severe, the extraordinary leadership opportunities, voice, and experience acquired through participation in TNLI would provide for a local pool of accomplished teacher leaders. Participation in TNLI would also deliver needed support and professional growth for teachers and, in the process, would help to identify and document a dynamic model of networking and professional development that could be adopted throughout area public schools and, indeed, school systems across the nation. In all, the proposed project would provide participating teachers with the necessary skills, means, and support to demonstrably improve student achievement in public schools throughout ________________. At the same time, this project would serve to extend the effectiveness of TNLI as a whole, reaching a considerably broader demographic of teachers and students and ensuring that the teacher’s voice is an important part of the policymaking arena to improve classroom learning for all students. .

BENEFITS TO SPONSOR TNLI provides a major venue for _______________ to communicate its commitment to improving education. Through support of the teacher’s voice in policymaking, _______________ is helping to ensure that policy connects to the realities of classroom practice and results in improved student achievement. Also, through TNLI’s growing emphasis on grooming and supporting teacher-leaders, ______________ ’s name will be directly associated with a major movement working to improve the quality of schools and classrooms across the state and the nation. Of course, we would actively seek publicity for TNLI and to ensure ___________ credit. As part of this effort, we would provide personalized press releases to all TNLI fellows and actively support the fellows in publishing their work. We would also directly credit ________________ on the TNLI area of Teachers Network’s premier education website, www.teachersnetwork.org. Still further exposure would be assured to _______________ as the fellows assume high-profile positions serving on local, state, and national education advisory boards and task forces.

OTHER ITEMS TO INCLUDE • Timeline • Budget (e.g., director/coordinator/advisor time, teacher fellowships, meeting costs—including refreshments, materials, travel costs)

Appendix D Essential Pointers for Listserv Moderators

• Please start your first comment/question/introduction promptly (e.g., on January 1) and continue for the duration of the month (e.g., until January 31). • Without question, the most important thing for you to do is to check the listserv regularly—every day—and respond in some way (each day, if possible) to any comments made by other fellows. • Lead, prod, and cajole the conversation to make sure people continue to chime in. In this case, “provocative” is definitely good as it spurs people to action. • Remember that, even when people are at their busiest, when some conversation thread/idea/question sparks interest (though it’s sometimes hard to know in advance what that will be), it often generates a number of responses from fellows all over the nation. In essence, you’ll want to continue to jump-start the conversation and do your best to keep it going throughout the month. • Encourage people to always respond to the same subject heading, using it as a thread for that conversation throughout the month (remember that there may be other unrelated content shared on the listserv during the same month, so it keeps things easier for all if the subject heading remains the same). • Consider privately encouraging other fellows at your affiliate and/or those who might plant comments over the course of the month as well—the more people engaged, the more engaging the discussion will surely be.

85

Appendix E Sample Recruitment Flyer

FELLOWSHIPS AVAILABLE FOR TEACHERS! We invite New York City public school teachers to apply for a MetLife Fellowship in the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI). Deadline for applications is June 27. MetLife Fellowships of $1,000 are available to New York City public school teachers who are interested in taking an active role in influencing local, state, and national education policy by becoming a MetLife Fellow in TNLI for the upcoming school year. Fellows focus their efforts in the areas of teacher preparation and new teacher induction, ongoing professional growth, teacher networks, and teacher leadership. Teachers selected to become MetLife Fellows will: • Increase their knowledge of major challenges facing the teaching profession through readings and discussions with leading policy experts • Improve their leadership skills • Be recognized by the public and media • Represent teacher leaders nationwide as spokespersons • Participate in conducting action research • Become members of an influential and supportive network of educators **TO RECEIVE AN APPLICATION, CONTACT: Peter A. Paul at (212) 9665582 or via email at [email protected]. Applications are also available online at www.teachersnetwork.org/tnli/nyc/nyctnli.htm. To learn more about this initiative, interested teachers are encouraged to visit www.teachersnetwork .org/TNLI. TNLI is a major initiative of Teachers Network. Teachers Network is a nationwide, education nonprofit organization—linked with twenty-five affiliates—that supports, identifies, and connects innovative teachers through grants and networking opportunities in the areas of curriculum, leadership, policy, and new media. Visit Teachers Network’s award-winning education website at www.teachers network.org.

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Appendix F Action Research Workshop Handbook by David Kirkland, TNLI National Advisor

AN OVERVIEW We, at TNLI, define action research as research undertaken for the purpose of advancing education policy in order to challenge and change existing practices of educational inequity, discrimination, or endangerment. One of our goals for conducting action research will be to develop a deep understanding of issues and problems plaguing education and to amass data to support our efforts toward education reform.

OBJECTIVES Our action research workshop sessions will be guided by three questions imperative to teaching and learning in the twenty-first century: (1) What is (and should be) the purpose of public education? (2) Who benefits from public education? and (3) Who gets marginalized? By the end of the year, you will develop (or begin to develop) 1. a critical awareness of social tensions in education related to language, culture, and power; 2. an appreciation of multiple varieties of inquiry that can help us interrogate educational structures; 3. critical approaches to research for investigating, understanding, and shaping policies that can benefit all students in ways that respect, value, and affirm their lives, interests, and social locations; and 4. an awareness of issues of equity and justice in education. In addition to these specific objectives, there are two broad philosophical aspects of inquiry that will frame our workshop session. These are aspects of praxis, which owe much to Paulo Freire’s (1970) “problem-posing” approach to inquiry. They include the following: Reflection: Who are you as a teacher-researcher (as all things can be considered political, we must continually question as teacher-researchers how we are 87

88 The Power of Teacher Networks

situated politically in our research)? What is the (political) theory/philosophy informing your questions? How can you understand them both in terms of your own educational and personal experiences and in terms of your students’ experiences and needs? Action: How do you fashion a research agenda that simultaneously meets rigorous standards and reflects the multiplicity of voices expressed in your research context(s)? How do you ask questions that have relevance and a potential to improve students’ lives and understanding of the human experience as captured in such contexts? How can your research influence policy in ways that strengthen democracy, spread justice, and support and sustain our national progress?

EXPECTATIONS 1. Reading Research You will be expected to read research related to your topic or focus of inquiry. As you read and reflect upon this literature, you should keep note of the central premises by summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing the readings.

Strategies for Active Reading To help you study and think about various readings, please keep in mind that there are various ways to read a text. You can apply certain analytic frames to illuminate issues and themes within texts. For example, you can read a text from a feminist perspective, making sense of it with respect to how the relationship between gender and power permeates the text’s meaning. There are other orientations to reading that you can also apply. However, I suggest that you adopt at least three “ways of reading” that I refer to as reading with prepositions. These include the following: • Reading within the text: Read all texts for meaning and comprehension first, attempting to understand the author’s argument and the ways in which she attempts to achieve it. • Reading around the text: Read all texts sensitive to the context in which they were written. • Reading against the text: Only after you have made sense of a text and situated it within its context can you be critical of it. Keep in mind that individuals, who are not very different from you, have written the texts you will encounter in your lifetime. As such, disagreeing with texts is not necessarily intellectually presumptuous. No text carries absolute authority.

Framing Questions for Critical Reading and Analytical Writing Whenever you set out to do a critical reading of a particular text, you can use the following questions as a framework to guide you as you read. Whenever you set out to do analytical writing, you can use the following questions as a framework

Appendix F 89

to guide you as you write. An analytical text is effective if it is written in a manner that allows the reader to answer all four of these questions satisfactorily: • What’s the point? This is the analysis/interpretation issue, which examines the author’s angle. • Who says? This is the validity issue, which examines on what (data, literature, hearsay, etc.) are the claims based. • What’s new? This is the value-added issue, which explores the author’s contribution to existing knowledge. • Who cares? This is the significance issue (the most important issue of all— the one that subsumes all others), which asks (a) Is this work worth doing? (b) Is this text worth reading? (c) Does it contribute something important?

2. Ground Rules for Action Research Workshop Sessions • Acknowledge that oppression (e.g., racism, classism, sexism) exists. • Acknowledge that one of the mechanisms of oppression (racism, classism, sexism) is that we have been systematically taught misinformation about our own group and especially about members of devalued/subordinate groups (this is true for both dominant and subordinate group members). • Agree not to blame ourselves or others for the misinformation we have learned in the past but to accept responsibility for not repeating misinformation after we have learned otherwise. • Agree not to blame victims for their oppression. • Assume that people (both the groups we study and the members of the class) are always doing the best they can. • Actively pursue information about our own groups and that of others. • Share information about our groups with other members of the group, and agree to never demean, devalue, or in any way “put down” people for their experiences. • Agree to actively combat the myths and stereotypes about our own groups and other groups so that we can break down the walls that prohibit group cooperation and group gain. • Create a safe atmosphere for open discussion. If members of the group wish to make comments that they do not want repeated outside of the network, they can preface their remarks with a request, and the group will agree not to repeat the remarks.

3. Calendar The calendar below provides a tentative schedule of topics and activities that will be covered over the course of the year. Please keep in mind that this calendar is subject to change. Each session will loosely follow Donald Graves’s workshop model and will feature three components: (1) a brief mini-lesson or explanation, (2) small group work or individual writing time, and (3) a platform for sharing your progress and your work with the larger group.

90 The Power of Teacher Networks Sample Action Research Workshop Schedule Date

Topics and Activities

Checkpoint

September 20

What is action research, and why should I use it?

* Begin thinking about a research question. Begin with an issue that you are passionate about, or a policy in your school that you feel needs to be changed.

1. Presentations 2. Fishbowl conversation 3. Overview of the year

October 11

Problems, questions, and topics: What should I ask, and how should I ask it? 1. Mini-presentation on proposing research 2. Individual writing time: Writing a research question 3. Small group sharing 4. Large group recitation and discussion of research questions 5. Next steps: Please bring research literature on your topic to our next meeting

November 15

Explore: What do I know about my topic, and how can I learn more? 1. Mini-presentation on reviewing literature 2. Individual writing time: Plan for your lit review 3. Small group sharing: Did you plan everything out well? 4. Next steps: Please bring research literature on your topic to our next meeting

December 13

Collecting data: What kinds of information will I need to answer my question, and how will I get it? 1. Mini-presentation on collecting data 2. Individual writing time: Write out a plan to collect data (What will be the data you collect? How will you collect it? Whom will you collect it from? Where will you collect it?) or synthesize readings using a matrix or narrative vignette 3. Next steps: Please bring data to our next meeting

January 24

Making sense of data to answer your research question: What is my data saying? 1. Mini-presentation on data analysis 2. Individual writing time: Write out a plan to analyze your data (What does your data mean? How do you know? Are there other explanations?) or synthesize readings using a matrix or narrative vignette 3. Next steps: Please bring data to our next meeting

* Begin to refine your research question. Your first attempt should not be your last attempt at writing it, and don’t feel dismayed if your question just doesn’t seem right. This is a process. Developing a good research question will take time. * As you learn more about your topic, begin to revise your research question. What else would you like to know about your topic that does not exist in the literature? Research questions due * Begin collecting data. So that you do not become saturated, make a plan. Start off by collecting small amounts of data to see if you are collecting the right data. As you become more confident that you are collecting the right kinds of data, start collecting more. * While I know that it is still early in the game, begin making sense of your data. Try organizing it based on themes or patterns that you see. Are there themes and patterns within themes? What might these themes be

Appendix F 91

Date

Topics and Activities

Checkpoint saying to help you answer your question? How do you know? Is there enough evidence? Could the themes be saying something else? Last, how do these themes relate to the research literature you have been reading?

February 28

Full writing session 1 1. Individual writing time: Begin writing about your data (What is it telling you? How do you know? Are there other explanations?) 2. Next steps: Please bring data to our next meeting

* I will be holding individual meetings. If you need extra support or someone to bounce ideas off, please sign up to see me.

March 28

Full writing session 2 1. Individual writing time: Begin writing about your data (What is it telling you? How do you know? Are there other explanations?) 2. Next steps: Please bring data to our next meeting

* I will be holding individual meetings. If you need extra support or someone to bounce ideas off, please sign up to see me.

April 25

Presenting it and writing it up: How do I share my findings with others? 1. Mini-presentation on presenting and writing about research 2. Individual writing time: Begin writing about your data (What is it telling you? How do you know? Are there other explanations?) 3. Early round presentations

* I will be holding individual meetings. If you need extra support or someone to bounce ideas off, please sign up to see me.

Presentations and action planning: Day 1

* I will be holding individual meetings. If you need extra support or someone to bounce ideas off, please sign up to see me.

May 19

Brief, small group conversation about where can we go from here with our research

June 13

Presentations and action planning: Day 2 Brief, small group conversation about where can we go from here with our research

Appendix G Sample Action Research Study By Dan Abramoski, MetLife Fellow

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? MOTT HAVEN VILLAGE PREPARATORY HIGH SCHOOL’S CLASS OF 2006 IN THEIR FIRST YEAR AFTER HIGH SCHOOL Dan Abramoski graduated from Brown University in 2001 with a BA in international relations, and from Teachers College–Columbia University in 2005 with an MA in social studies. He is in his fourth year of teaching at Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School, where he teaches twelfth-grade government and economics. His classes focus on project-based and experiential learning, while helping students understand the current political and economic climate of our country and world. In addition, he is the UFT Chapter Leader, a member of the Leadership Team, and a senior class advisor. In 2008, he presented his action research at the American Education Research Association and International Conference on Teacher Research. This research was also published in The Missing Link, a Teachers Network publication funded by the Spencer Foundation.

Question How can we better prepare our students for college and support them during college?

Rationale Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School (MHVP) is a small public high school located on the South Bronx High School Campus. MHVP opened in the fall of 2002 as a partnership among the school, East Side House Settlement, and New Visions. The three main goals of MHVP are to prepare students for success in college, to form close personal relationships with the students, and to help students become active participants in their communities. Last year, we graduated our first class of seniors. Of the sixty-one graduates, fifty-eight (95 percent) were admitted to college. While this represents a tremendous success, what truly matters is how many of our former students finish college. Many studies show that students have 92

Appendix G 93

a high dropout rate during their first two years of college (Swail, 2003). As a senior teacher and advisor, I assisted students in the college preparation process and wanted to know if we were successful. With this in mind, I set out to discover what we could do to better prepare future students for the transition from high school to college, and what kind of support our students need to successfully complete their first year of college.

Context The student body at MHVP is typical of a public school in the South Bronx. Out of a total school population of approximately 325 students, 65 percent of our students are Latino, 33 percent are African American, and 2 percent are Asian. The majority of the students come from the surrounding neighborhood, but students also come from neighborhoods throughout the Bronx, Harlem, and Washington Heights. Ninety-five percent of our students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Eighty-two percent of our students test at level one or level two on the eighth-grade English Language Arts test when they enter our school, equivalent to a third- through sixth-grade reading level. In addition, 35 percent of the students who responded to my survey acquired a language before they learned English, and 26 percent were the first in their immediate family to graduate from high school.

Academic Statistics Last year, MHVP graduated its first class of seniors. In this class, fifty-eight out of sixty-five students graduated in June, with another three students graduating in August. Of the sixty-one graduates, fifty-eight were admitted to postsecondary institutions. These schools range from two-year colleges, such as Bronx Community College and Kingsborough Community College, to four-year public schools such as Hunter College and SUNY Binghamton, and include some fouryear private colleges such as Marist College and Farleigh Dickinson University as well as proprietary schools such as Monroe College and Berkeley College. In the class of 2006, the average grade point average (GPA) was 76.2. The top twenty students had GPAs from 93 to 79, while the middle twenty students had GPAs from 78 to 74, and the bottom twenty-one students had GPAs from 73 to 63 (see Table 1). The average SAT score (Critical Reading/Math Combined) was 695. The top fourteen students had SAT scores from 1000 to 800, while the middle twenty students had SAT scores from 790 to 670 and the bottom twenty-one students had SAT scores from 660 to 400 (see Table 2). The average student score on the five Regents exams that are graduation requirements was 62.7. The top twenty students had averages between 81.8 and 71, while the middle twenty students had average scores between 70.8 and 63 and the bottom twenty-one students had average scores between 62.8 and 34.2 (see Table 3). However, these numbers do not paint a full picture of Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School. To truly understand the school, you need to look beyond the numbers and see the personalized learning environment, the traditions, and the focus on college preparation that make MHVP a unique school. At Mott Haven, teachers, staff, and administrators are dedicated to understanding the students as individuals. Through advisories, afterschool programs, extracurricular activities,

94 The Power of Teacher Networks Table 1

Class of 2006 GPAs GPA

Top twenty GPAs

93–79

Middle twenty GPAs

78–74

Bottom twenty-one GPAs

73–63

Class average Table 2

76.2

Class of 2006 SAT Scores SAT (Reading and Math)

Top fourteen scores

1000–800

Middle twenty scores

790–670

Bottom twenty-one scores

660–400

Class average

695

Table 3 Class of 2006 Regent Exam Scores

and a genuine desire to understand the students, teachers and staff develop deep and meaningful relationships with them. In addition, MHVP is a school trying to change the history of low graduation rates that has long been associated with urban public education. MHVP builds community by having many traditions and events that set it apart. Students and staff look forward to eating and socializing at our annual cultural feast, competing in the student versus staff basketball game, and dressing up for our annual spirit week. These events, and others, create school spirit and build a sense of community at MHVP. Finally, the college focus of MHVP is unique. At Mott Haven, the ninth graders go on college trips, advisors and college counselors stay late to work on college applications, the staff stresses college from the day students enter the school, the senior class has a college advisor, and our community partner awards over $50,000 in scholarships to our students.

College Preparation Process

To achieve the goal of college preparation, MHVP emphasizes college readiness throughout the curriculum. Thanks to college trips, SAT prep classes, and the Top twenty averages 81.8–71 College Preparation and Leadership Program (CPLP), the vast majority of the Middle twenty averages 70.8–63 students think of college as the obvious Bottom twenty-one 62.8–34.2 step after high school. During the students’ averages senior year, college preparation is done through the advisory program, CPLP, and Class average 69.5 in English class. In addition, MHVP has a guidance counselor who helps with all aspects of the college application process. One of the major components of our college preparation program is advisory. Last year, advisory took place once a week for an hour. During this time, seniors met in groups of about twelve to fifteen students with their advisor. The advisors were subject area teachers, the guidance counselor, and the social worker. During advisory, students went through the college application process step by step. Advisors helped students begin the college application process by searching for schools they would be interested in. Next, students developed a list of reach, target, and safety schools. Finally, advisors helped students fill out and submit college applications. Once the applications Average of Five Regents

Appendix G 95

were in, advisors assisted students and their families with the financial aid application process. CPLP plays an equally important role in the college application process. CPLP took students on college tours and to college fairs, organized a college fair in our building, and provided support throughout the college application process. In addition, CPLP provided money for the application fees when fee waivers could not be obtained and gave out $50,000 in scholarships. As part of the CPLP, twenty to twenty-five students per class attended educational counseling class once a week for an hour. In educational counseling, students worked on SAT preparation and received help completing the college application and financial aid process. In addition, students could participate in optional events planned by CPLP such as college trips and additional SAT tutoring. The final pieces of the college preparation program involved English class and the guidance department. During the fall semester English class, the seniors wrote and revised their personal statements. Our school also has one full-time guidance counselor who is responsible for all 325 students in ninth through twelfth grades. The guidance counselor provided help to the students throughout the college preparation process. In addition to acting as an advisor, she helped students with college searches, facilitated the financial aid process, provided recommendations and fee waivers, and worked with students on finding scholarships.

Literature Review Horace Mann popularized the idea that public education could function as the great equalizer and help prevent and end poverty (Mann, 1848). Needless to say, this dream has not been realized. There is still a large achievement gap among students of different races and income levels. Whether measured by graduation rates, test scores, or the number of students below grade level, the “factory model” of education has failed large numbers of low-income students of color (Kozol, 1991). Urban schools have been plagued by insufficient funding, inadequate facilities, under-qualified teachers, and high levels of teacher turnover (Kozol, 1991). In addition, schools in urban areas are affected by conditions beyond their control, for example, access to health care, a living wage, and affordable housing, all of which have a disproportionate effect on low-income communities. These issues must be addressed if urban schools are to close the achievement gap (Noguera, 2003). The achievement gap exists not only in high schools but in postsecondary education as well. Conditions that contribute to unequal education at the high school level continue to affect students long after they graduate. Recently, the racial gap in college enrollment rates appears to have declined. As of 1999, 86 percent of Asians enrolled in college, 76 percent of whites, 71 percent of African Americans, and 71 percent of Latinos (Adelman, 1999). However, when the enrollment rates are compared by income level, the numbers are not as encouraging. While 85 percent of high school graduates from the highest-income quartile have enrolled in college, only 58 percent from the lowest-income quartile have (Mortenson, 2001). Furthermore, the achievement gap widens when college persistence and completion rates are examined. African American and Latino students leave college at alarming rates. One in six African American and Latino low-income college students leave during their first year, and a total of one in three leave by the end of their second year (Swail, 2003). Additionally, 77 percent of high-income students

96 The Power of Teacher Networks

graduate college within six years compared to only 54 percent of low-income students. Finally, 67 percent of white students graduate in six years, while only 47 percent of Latino students and 46 percent of African American students do so (Berkner, He, & Cataldi, 2002). In New York City, the small schools movement grew in response to the failure of large comprehensive high schools. Small schools were created to offer lowincome students of color the same educational opportunities that students in high-income schools and districts were receiving (Anyon, 1980). Small schools set out to try to close the high school achievement gap as well as gaps in college enrollment, persistence, and completion. Many small schools, including Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School, adopted the college-for-all model. This model involves giving all students access to college counseling resources and de-tracking classes so that all students have access to a high level, college preparatory curriculum. In addition to these policy changes, the college-for-all model requires a change in the attitudes and expectations of all staff and students. The school must create a culture in which all students believe they can succeed in college. With this research in mind, I set out to discover if MHVP had succeeded in establishing a college-for-all model.

Data Collection Beyond the academic statistics and other contextual data already presented, my data falls into two broad categories—data from students who are in college and from students not in college. The data was collected through student surveys/phone interviews and in-depth interviews with fifteen students. Initially, all of the students from the class of 2006 were contacted to inform them about the research and to update their contact information. After making these phone calls, a survey was sent to each of the sixty-one graduates. As the surveys began to trickle in, I realized that one mailing would not produce the response I was looking for. At this point, I began to call students and complete the surveys with them over the phone. Through the mail and the phone calls, surveys were completed for forty-three of the sixty-one graduates. I was able to speak with a relative or close friend of the remaining eighteen graduates to determine whether they were in school, but I did not get detailed information on these students. Students were asked to provide basic demographic information such as their race, first language, and country of birth. This was followed by questions about their high school preparation, their transition to college, and their first semester in college. In addition, there were questions about their family’s educational background. Finally, the survey included a section for students who were not in college, asking them for reasons why they were not enrolled. After compiling the surveys and identifying themes and trends, I began a series of informal conversations with former students. These conversations took place in school when students returned to visit. In all, I talked with fifteen students. These conversations provided valuable background information and personal stories that complement the surveys. I contacted the students again in March to get updated information on their enrollment status for the second

Appendix G 97

semester. During this round of data collection, I was able to speak with fifty students over the phone and with close friends or relatives of the other eleven students. Though more brief than the initial round of interviews, these conversations helped me identify changes that had occurred during the students’ first semester in college.

Data In September 2006, forty-six out of sixty-one graduates (76 percent) enrolled in some form of postsecondary education (see Table 4). This is six percentage points higher than the average for African American and Latino students and nineteen points higher than the average for low-income students. Enrollment data also indicate that many of our students enrolled in CUNY schools (47 percent). In addition, a significant number of students attended proprietary or for-profit colleges (21 percent). Table 4 MHVP Class of 2006, September 2006 (sixty-one graduates) Did Not Enroll in College

Proprietary College

2-Year CUNY

2-Year NonCUNY

4-Year CUNY

4-Year SUNY

4-Year Private

Tech/Voc. School

15

10

8

1

14

1

10

2

Those Who Did Not Enroll in College Of the fifteen students who did not enroll in college, I received a survey from or spoke with eight. All of the graduates not in college whom I contacted stated that they planned to enroll within the next year. Furthermore, as of the end of the fall 2006 semester, only three students out of the forty-six attending school had dropped out of school before completing the semester. However, all three students planned on re-enrolling within the next year. Of these eleven students (eight not enrolled, three who dropped out), eight mentioned financial aid as a reason they were not in college, three said that they were not ready for college and wanted a break, and one student graduated high school in August and did not have time to enroll. Three out of the seven foreign-born graduates did not start college in September. Students who did not finish their first semester mentioned two additional themes in our conversations: (1) they wished they had spent more time exploring the colleges that accepted them, and (2) they felt they should have visited college campuses and looked more closely at financial aid packages before making their decision. In addition, students who did not enroll in college felt they should not have taken a break. Some students felt like they were falling behind their peers, and others mentioned that being out of school was boring. Overall, they recommended students go directly to college without taking a break.

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Those Who Did Enroll in College Thirty-five out of the forty-six students who did enroll in September 2006 participated in the study. Of these students, fourteen (40 percent) were the first in their immediate family to attend college. When asked about the transition to college, eleven (55 percent) mentioned that the easiest thing about being in college was writing essays. This idea was supported when fifteen (42 percent) mentioned essay writing as the most valuable thing they learned in high school. In addition, seven (20 percent) mentioned having difficulty with the freedom and/or responsibility they encountered in college, and five students (14 percent) said making friends was difficult. Few students found cost to be an issue. One exception was mentioned by two students who attend CUNY schools and said paying for Metrocards was difficult. This suggests that these students were prepared for the cost of tuition but were not aware of some of the hidden costs of college such as transportation and books. Regarding what was difficult in college, twelve (34 percent) mentioned the workload, eight (22 percent) said the freedom and/or responsibility, and five (14 percent) said math. To get a better sense of what subjects might be difficult for them, I asked students if they were taking remedial classes and, if yes, which ones. Fifteen (42 percent) were not taking remedial classes, eight were taking only remedial math, two students were taking only remedial English, and seven were taking remedial math and English. In March 2007, I gathered enrollment information on all sixty-one students from the class of 2006. At this time, forty-three were enrolled in college, while eighteen were not enrolled. Six out of the fifteen who did not enroll in college for the first semester began school in January; nine who started school in September were no longer in school (see Table 5).

Analysis According to Anyon (1980), small schools were created to provide students in urban areas with a high-quality education that would include college preparation. MHVP succeeded in making college a goal for all students and is well on its way to providing access to college for all students. But more has to be done after the acceptance letters are received to help ensure perseverance and success in college. The data from this study suggests that persevering through two and/or four years of college will be difficult for MHVP graduates. Although the rate of college entrance from MHVP is higher than the national averages for both low-income students and African American and Latino students (Adelman, 1999; Mortenson, 2001), more work must be done to ensure that students have the skills, knowledge, and support necessary to succeed in college. Table 5

MHVP Class of 2006, January 2007 (sixty-one graduates)

Total Students Enrolled in College

Students Who Started College in January

Students Who Have Not Enroll in College

Students Who Started College in September but Did Not Return for Second Semester

Total Students Not Enrolled in College

43

6

9

9

18

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My data suggests that securing financial aid was one of the major reasons students did not enroll in college or did not complete the first semester. This result is in keeping with the research of Berkner, He, and Cataldi (2002) that shows that college enrollment rates for low-income students are much lower than they are for high-income students. We need to make students more aware of both the obvious and hidden costs of college and help them compare the costs of public and private colleges. Students need guidance about ways to pay for college. As my data shows, this is particularly important for students who were born outside the United States. The fact that 58 percent of the students who responded to the survey reported taking remedial classes is particularly troubling in light of 2004 data from the National Council of Education Statistics (Conley, 2007), which shows that only 17 percent of students taking remedial reading earn a bachelor’s degree. MHVP must do a better job of preparing students for college-level work by, beginning in the ninth grade, making them more aware of the type and amount of work that will be expected of them in college. My data suggests that our students may have become accustomed to high levels of teacher support, leading them to struggle to adapt to a culture that values individual responsibility. Many students mentioned that it was hard for them to hand in assignments on time without teachers constantly reminding them of due dates and encouraging them to do the work. While extra support and attention is one of the strengths of small schools, students must also be taught individual responsibility and the ability to advocate for themselves. Thus, we need to become more adept at nurturing independence. Finally, these students also stressed the need to spend more time picking the right school. Students said they wished they had visited schools before making their decisions. Several students mentioned that they picked their school based on what major was available and that they wished they had based their decision on other factors.

Conclusion The data from the first graduating class of MHVP provides a glimpse into the lives of students after they left high school and shows that Mott Haven has had tremendous success in some areas but highlights other areas in need of attention and improvement. Mott Haven has succeeded in making college a reality for students, and it has successfully prepared many students for the college application and enrollment process. In addition, many of the students who enrolled in college had the skills and dedication to complete their first semester. However, it appears that students will continue to face hurdles as they proceed through their college careers. This research has helped answer some questions, but it has also raised questions that should be addressed through further study. In particular, it will be important to look at what factors help students succeed in college by following the class of 2006’s progress through college. Similar studies of each graduating class should be done to determine whether we are making progress in improving our college preparation. Finally, this study shows that a large percentage of our students are attending for-profit, proprietary colleges. More research is needed to determine if our students are successful in these schools and if these schools provide our students with a solid education and prepare them for life after college.

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Policy Recommendations Students are affected by policy decisions made by the local, state, and national government. To transform urban education, a full-scale attempt to end persistent and systematic poverty must be made through dealing with issues such as affordable housing, access to and affordability of health care, un- and under-employment, immigration reform, criminal justice reform, and so on. Policy commendations in all of these areas, however, are beyond the scope of this paper. Nonetheless, there are specific recommendations for education policy that can help:

At the National Level 1. Expand public education to include a free public college education and thus ensure access to the middle class for all students. For many years, the government has provided a free high school education, and for most of this time, a high school education was sufficient preparation for a middle-class salary. However, high school graduation no longer provides easy access to the middle class. 2. Change financial aid formulas for needy students. One of the biggest obstacles our students face when enrolling in college is obtaining sufficient financial aid. The cost of a college education continues to rise, whereas state and federal grants remain stagnant or have decreased (Gladieux, 2004). Furthermore, a greater percentage of financial aid is being tied to merit rather than need. Both of these trends place a college education out of reach for many students from Mott Haven. Particularly worrisome is the high percentage of students born outside the United States who cannot afford college. These students, in many cases, did not choose to come to the United States but have worked hard to succeed in a new country. Cutting these students off from obtaining a college education will serve no positive goals and will only create a permanent underclass of undocumented students who are unable to fulfill their desire for a postsecondary education. There are many steps to be taken to make college more affordable for all low-income students.

At the State Level 1. Change funding formulas to provide equity of resources for low-income schools. There is a tremendous gap in college enrollment and perseverance between students who come from families with low incomes and students who come from families with high incomes. Another tremendous gap exists between the funding for schools in low-income neighborhoods and high-income neighborhoods. Lower funding hinders schools in lowincome neighborhoods. This fundamental inequality must be addressed so all students have the opportunity to receive a college preparatory high school education. The state government can begin to address this gap by providing all the funding mandated by the decision in the lawsuit brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. 2. Adjust financial aid opportunities.
The State of New York should seek to decrease, or maintain, the cost of tuition at SUNY and CUNY schools.

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More money should be provided in the form of need-based grants, or money that is currently used for merit-based grants should be redirected to needs-based grants.
Federal Pell grants and New York State TAP grants should be increased.
Funding for Education Opportunity Programs (SEEK, HEOP, and EOP) that focus on helping low-income students succeed in college should be increased.
Financial aid must be made available to all students, regardless of immigration status.

At the College and University Level Colleges and universities need to take more responsibility for supporting the students they admit and enroll. High schools are consistently criticized for high dropout rates, while postsecondary institutions receive little blame for having low retention rates. Rather than blaming students for not successfully completing college, we must begin to hold colleges more accountable for the students they admit and enroll. Overall, colleges and universities should devote more time, energy, and resources to graduating their students. The following recommendations would increase the graduation rate of college students: 1. All students should receive more frequent mentoring through advisors and older peers. 2. Financial aid counselors should be readily available to all students. 3. Orientation programs should be expanded so all students receive a thorough introduction to college life regardless of whether they are resident or commuter students. 4. Education Opportunity Programs (EOP) have been successful in helping students graduate. The strategies that these programs employ, including intensive summer preparation, frequent mentoring, small group advisement, and team building, should be expanded to include more students (Swail, Redd, & Perna, 2003). 5. Colleges and universities should make retention and graduation rates readily available to the public. Furthermore, this information should be disaggregated based on race and income level. This material should also be highlighted in college search materials so that students and counselors can avoid schools with low retention and graduation rates.

At Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School While the national and state governments and postsecondary institutions play a role in increasing the college persistence rate of MHVP graduates, the school itself has the greatest ability to affect its students and is the institution most capable of quick and fundamental change. MHVP has quickly built a successful college preparation program. However, as this study shows, it is our responsibility to do more to better prepare our students for success in college. Our responsibility as a high school does not end when the students graduate. We need to make sure that we are not only preparing students to graduate from high school but also ensure that they are prepared for higher education.

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1. MHVP should do more to prepare students for college-level work. Each content area should look at what is expected of a college student in that area. Once these expectations are clarified, a ninth- to twelfth-grade curriculum can be developed and implemented that focuses on scaffolding for the skills and knowledge students will need in college (Chajet, 2006). It is important that this work begin in the ninth grade and continue through the twelfth grade so students are prepared for the scope of work they will be doing in college and have access to a rigorous high school curriculum. 2. Prepare students to advocate for themselves and live independently. Students mentioned that they struggled with the freedom and responsibility they encountered at college. One of the strengths of MHVP is the constant attention and support we provide for our students. While we should not remove the support we give to the students, we need to begin to shift the support as students progress through high school so that they are prepared for the independence and responsibility they will find in college (Chajet, 2006). 3. Spend more time teaching the students about the true cost of a college education and comparing the cost of various programs, including SUNY, CUNY, and HEOP programs. Students need to be aware of the price of tuition and room and board, but they should also be prepared for other hidden costs such as transportation and books. While we do not want to give the impression that college is overly expensive, we cannot sugarcoat its cost. 4. Help students identify and apply for scholarships and grants. 5. Help students develop personal financial skills so they are fully prepared to navigate the financial world. Students need banking and money management skills before they go to college. 6. More time needs to be spent on post-acceptance counseling so that students pick the right school. MHVP should help students visit the schools they have been admitted to. Many of our students apply to the same schools, and MHVP could organize trips to some campuses after students have been admitted. Furthermore, many of our students attend schools in New York City, so it would not be expensive or difficult to visit these schools. Also, money should be made available to students who are admitted to schools that are further away so they can visit the campuses before deciding where they will go to school. Finally, parents should be invited to the campus visits and college trips so they can help students make the decision about where to go to college. 7. Identify schools where our students succeed as well as those where they are less inclined to succeed. In the future, we can establish relationships with schools where students are successful and encourage students to apply to them. So far, Marist College seems to be a school where our students have been successful. Furthermore, schools where our students are not successful need to be identified. Identifying “pipeline” schools where our students succeed and schools where our students are not successful will help us

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advise future graduating students (Cookson & Persell, 1985). This process will take many years but can begin with the class of 2006. 8. Do more to support students so that they can stay in college. Other schools have created a position that focuses solely on alumni support. This position involves staying in contact with students through visits to their college campuses, phone conversations, and email. Through this contact, the alumni support person is able to support students during challenging periods so that they are able to remain in school. This type of support has helped to increase college enrollment rates at other schools and should be duplicated at Mott Haven.

Epilogue Based on the data of this study, MHVP hired a college counselor/ alumni support person whose sole responsibility is to stay engaged with the school’s graduates, study their progress, and provide support to them and feedback to the MHVP faculty.

References Adelman, C. (1999, June). Answers in the tool box: Academic intensity, attendance, patterns and bachelor’s degree attainment. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research. Quoted in Chajet, 2006. Anyon, J. (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Education, 162(1), 67–92. Berkner, L., He, S., & Cataldi, E. F. (2002). Descriptive summary of 1995–96 beginning postsecondary students: Six years later. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Quoted in Carey, 2004. Carey, K. (2004, May). A matter of degrees: Improving graduation rates in four year colleges and universities. Washington, DC: Education Trust. Quoted in Chajet, 2006. Chajet, L. (2006). But is what we give them enough? Exploring urban small school graduates’ journeys through college. PhD dissertation, City University of New York. Conley, D. T. (2007). Toward a comprehensive conception of college readiness. Eugene, OR: Education Policy Improvement Center. Cookson, P., & Persell, C. (1985). Preparing for power: America’s elite boarding schools. New York: Basic Books. Quoted in Chajet, 2006. Gladieux, L. (2004). Low-income students and the affordability of higher education. In R. Kahlenberg (Ed.), America’s untapped resource: Low-income students in higher education (pp. 17–58). New York: The Century Foundation. Quoted in Chajet, 2006. Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities. New York: Harper Perennial. Mann, H. (1848). Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board. Available at http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/16.htm Mortenson, T. (2001). Family income and higher education opportunity, 1970–2001. Postsecondary Opportunity. Quoted in Chajet, 2006. Noguera, P. (2003). City schools and the American dream: Reclaiming the promise of public education. New York: Teachers College Press. Swail, W. (2003, September). Student retention and the bully pulpit. Washington, DC: Education Policy Institute. Quoted in Chajet, 2006. Swail, S., Redd, K., & Perna, L. (2003). Retaining minority students in higher education: A framework for success. Washington, DC: Educational Policy Institute.

Appendix H Outline of the What Is Policy? Video Narrated by Ann Lieberman

I. What is policy? What role does education policymaking play in school systems? A. Policy is something aimed at correcting a problem. B. Policy questions to consider: What’s the problem? Who’s the target? What are the hoped for outcomes? C. Policies can be schoolwide, districtwide, statewide, or national. II. Different kinds of policies make different assumptions about schools, leadership, etc. Different policies will be appropriate in different situations. A. Mandates 1. They say: You will do this . . . 2. They’re the most popular and familiar. 3. They are very restrictive. 4. But they can be very powerful and positive (e.g., mandates were effective during the Civil Rights Movement to coerce change). B. Inducements 1. State or district gives funds and other rewards to induce change. 2. They’re less restrictive than mandates. C. Capacity building policies 1. They are aimed at helping people do what they need to do better. 2. They offer nonjudgmental help to teachers (e.g., teacher centers). 3. They encourage people to take risks and to be innovative. 4. They are very supportive but may be challenging for tracking accountability. D. Systemic change policies 1. These policies are political. 2. These are changes of power, control, and decision making in schools and districts. 3. Vouchers and school choice policies are examples. III. Tensions exist around who makes policy—between creating policy from above and the practical realities in a school. While there are potential opportunities for teachers to shape policy, there is also the potential for teachers to be victimized by policy. Policy succeeds to the extent that it gets the problem right. A. Tension between policymakers at the top and the work of teachers. 104

Appendix H 105

1. Most policies aim at universality when in reality local areas are full of variability. 2. All schools are incredibly different: subject focus, community, principal, culture of the school, culture of the community that the school is in, and so on. 3. Therefore, it’s very important to think about what one would need to put policy into practice in a local context. B. Tension between knowledge that teachers produce from inside classrooms versus outside knowledge from research and policymakers. 1. There is often a lack of connection and understanding between these two types of knowledge. 2. Outside policymakers need to value teachers’ inside knowledge. C. Tension between policymakers’ understanding of teaching as a set of technical skills versus policymaking as building schools’ and teachers’ capacities to do different things with students (e.g., to think differently about curriculum). If you think about teaching as technical, policy won’t deal with the complexity of a school. D. Tension between how policymakers understand motivation. 1. One view of human nature and organizations is that you have to reward or punish people to make things happen. 2. Another view is that you have to support and help people get better. IV. How do we address these tensions and remedy these education policy problems? Policy researchers such as Stanford’s Linda Darling-Hammond and Milbrey McLaughlin have done groundbreaking work that attempts to help policymakers think differently about policy and the implementation of policy. A. We all agree that we need to improve schools and help teachers, and these policy researchers focus on how this can be done. B. Their research ideas, dealing with teachers’ connection to policymaking, are very powerful. C. At Stanford, under the leadership of Milbrey McLaughlin, policy researchers maintain that a real understanding of the connection between policy and practice depends on teachers creating professional communities where many of the problems and tensions associated with education policy are addressed and alleviated. D. Research is showing that when teachers work together to focus on student learning, when teachers make public their struggles associated with teaching and learning, and when teachers can plan, invent, adapt, and problem solve together as a community (be it a department, school, district, union, or reform network), then they start solving many of the problems associated with education policy. E. This kind of professional community should be the mediator between policy that attempts to make changes and the practice of teachers. F. The research of McLaughlin, Darling-Hammond, and others has given us an understanding of how to organize not just for school change but also for changing the culture of schools and creating learning communities for adults as well as teachers. G. That’s why teachers need to be involved: to help determine what policies could support practices that improve student learning and that improve and create professional communities of teachers.

Appendix I Sample Case: Are You In or Are You Out? By Erica Litke, MetLife Fellow

Erica Litke is in her sixth year at East Side Community High School where she teaches twelfth-grade math. She is also a Math for America Newton Master and an adjunct instructor at Pace University. For three years, Erica was a MetLife Fellow in TNLI and represented TNLI on the Institute for Educational Leadership’s national MetLife Task Force on Teacher Leadership in High Schools. Erica holds a BA in both Mathematics and English from Oberlin College and an EdM in Administration, Planning, and Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Main Entrance, 3:02 p.m. Jayson and Tariq walked past the metal detector on their way out of the building. As they put on their belts and du-rags and took out their cell phones to text message friends, they nodded toward Jess Jones and Rosanna Sullivan, who were standing by the door on dismissal duty.1 The teachers overheard Tariq as he laughingly said to Jayson, “Yo man, Ms. Mariano marked me absent again today. It’s not even worth showing up anymore if she’s just gonna mark me absent—she doesn’t even know who I am. I don’t know why I bother going to that class.” Jayson high-fived the security guard at the door, turned to Tariq, and said, “Yeah, plus that stuff she makes us do is so boring. We’re never going to use it anyway. I’m not even going to go tomorrow. I mean, I’m sure she’ll fail me anyway.” “Yeah,” Tariq replied. “Shoot, I don’t wanna go to that class anymore either.” “C’mon man, you gotta just get through it and be out. At least you gonna graduate in June.” Tariq rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Graduation ain’t no big thing. No one in my family graduated, and they’re all fine. Look at my uncle—he got his own business and everything. I made it further than he did in school. I don’t even give a crap anymore. I’m never using this stuff in life anyway—gotta get me outta here and working already.” 1 Inspiration for this case was taken from Been There, Done That: Student Inquiry of High School Dropouts, an action research study conducted by Erik J. Shager, MetLife Fellow, Teachers Network Leadership Institute, June 2004. Additional research includes work done by Richard Murname and colleagues at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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Appendix I 107

Jess and Rosanna exchanged looks as the boys passed out the front door. Jess felt like there was a rock in the pit of her stomach. She taught both boys math last year and prepared them for the state graduation exam. “Rosanna, Jayson needs that credit to graduate. We need to figure something out. He’s a good kid, but he’s got a lot of stuff going on at home. He’s already nineteen. It takes him so long to learn material, if he starts skipping class he’s going to spiral downhill quickly.” Jess continued, “And Tariq—he hates school so much. I always worked really hard to engage him in class, but when he’s not engaged, he just checks out.” Rosanna knew. She had Jayson in physics this year and taught Tariq two years ago. She knew both boys and understood their level of engagement (or disengagement) well. She sighed heavily, frustrated with the idea that it was once again her job as a teacher to convince kids to care about school. Rosanna knew Jess was right, but how much more could she do for these kids? It’s not as if the real world is going to cut them any slack. “Hang on,” Jess interrupted, “there’s Eva! I haven’t seen her in ages. She’s missed my first period class every day for a month and hasn’t been to basketball practice in a couple of weeks. Maybe the baby is sick, or she’s had some childcare issues.” Rosanna walked away shaking her head. She didn’t want to get involved. She had enough to deal with. Couldn’t Jess just worry about teaching math and getting more kids to pass the test? As Eva approached, Jess greeted her enthusiastically, but with a toughness that the students had come to expect. “Eva, can we talk about your attendance— what is going on? Where have you been? Is everything okay with the baby?” “I just came from Mr. Seidman’s office.” Jess was not surprised that the principal was getting involved with Eva’s attendance. She was one of the brightest kids in the school with the highest test scores. Eva’s eyes welled up and she explained, bursting into tears, “He told me he doesn’t want me coming to school anymore. He told me to drop out and get a GED.”

General Instruction High School General Instruction High School (GIHS) was a medium-sized comprehensive high school enrolling approximately 850 students. It was located in a hip neighborhood populated by artists and young professionals. The student body, however, came largely from the housing projects on the far side of the highway that divides the city. Due to the city’s open choice system for high school, the school was open to students from throughout the city, but many students chose to attend a school near home. The student body was 54.6 percent African American, 40.8 percent Hispanic, 2.8 percent white, and 1.8 percent Asian and other. The teaching staff was largely white. Only 3.3 percent of students were recent immigrants (as opposed to 13.6 percent citywide). GIHS was considered a relatively safe school, with ten criminal incidents last year (mostly against property) and forty noncriminal incidents. The school had a suspension percentage that was roughly the same as that of the entire city. Despite this, a new city policy required students to pass through metal detectors and swipe computerized ID cards upon entry. Recent changes in school safety policies meant that the city police department supplied and trained some of the security staff in the building.

108 The Power of Teacher Networks

The school’s motto was “Excellence at Every Step,” and according to its mission statement, it was committed to “producing responsible citizens who will become life-long learners committed to success in a democratic society.” The school had roughly 380 freshmen, but only 46 seniors. Approximately 15 percent of its students were classified as “ungraded,” taking classes that they needed to graduate but not having accumulated sufficient credits to be classified as seniors. In a city where officially 58.2 percent of the class of 2005 graduated on time, GIHS graduated 48.1 percent of its students after four years. The dropout rate was 16.9 percent, and 35.1 percent were still enrolled after four years. To graduate from GIHS, students had to pass the mandated state assessments. Approximately 60 percent of GIHS students passed the English Language Arts (ELA) assessment with a 65 percent or higher and just under 50 percent passed the math assessment.22However, these figures have been rising steadily over the past five years. GIHS was in its second year of restructuring, having not met state and federal benchmarks for improvement. In a city plagued by high rates of principal and administrative turnover, General Instruction benefited from consistent leadership. The principal of GIHS was a teacher in the building for ten years and an assistant principal for five years before becoming principal four years ago.

Principal’s Office, 3:57 p.m. Sam Seidman shook his head and ran his hand through his gray hair. He sighed as his guidance counselor Rachel Rosenfeld was gathering together the transcripts and attendance reports she had pulled on Eva for the meeting. Rachel braced herself for one of Sam’s now-famous “what does she expect” rants. “What does she expect? This is crazy! Eva’s had 27 absences so far this semester and has been late 73 times. Failing all of her classes isn’t doing her any good. She needs to be done with high school so she can support her child. It kills me— she’s so damn smart. She can run circles around most of the other kids in this school. She just can’t pull it together.” Rachel stared down at Eva’s transcript, which contained mostly Bs and a few Cs and As until she had left to have the baby in April the year before. She quietly replied, “You know, she just finally secured daycare. She thought she could do it, but her boyfriend wasn’t able to help out, and her mom is frustrated with her. The thing is, the daycare required a three-week transition period—so she’s got to be there with the baby for three more weeks. But I’m sure after that . . .” “Come on Rachel, we cut her a deal last spring and gave her all those incompletes. But she didn’t hold up her end of the bargain. She didn’t even show up to take the ELA test, and she would have been one of our highest scorers! If she’d wanted to finish high school, she’d have figured it out. Think about it; she’s so smart 2

In New York State, students must pass exams in five subject areas in order to graduate: math, ELA, science, U.S. history, and global history. The math and ELA scores are more publicized as they are used for the purposes of No Child Left Behind. GIHS has a passing rate of 69 percent on the science exam, 66 percent on the global history exam, and 54 percent on the U.S. history exam. Passing for these exams is a 55 or higher. It is interesting to note that only 37, 31, and 16 percent pass with a 65 or higher on the three exams, respectively.

Appendix I 109

that she’ll pass the test. She could be in college by the fall and get on with her life. She should drop out, take the GED.” Rachel thought back to the study she had read about recently in her graduate program that reported that only 30 percent of students who take the GED exam the first time actually pass. Didn’t they also talk about how students with a GED have a lower earning potential? Conversations like these with Sam made Rachel really uncomfortable. She had a couple of friends from high school who had taken the GED, but they came from well-off families. She remembered high school pretty vividly—it was only five years ago, after all. Her large suburban high school had been rough social terrain for some of her friends. It had never been a question of academic ability. They left early, got a GED, and went on to good colleges. “Getting her into a GED program is not the problem. It’s how she’s perceived afterward,” Rachel replied quietly. “We just looked at this study in my graduate class that showed how students with GEDs earn significantly less than high school graduates. There is still a stigma associated with the GED versus a GIHS diploma.” “Well, how is she perceived if she fails all her classes and doesn’t get that diploma? How are we perceived? If she goes to a GED program, she’ll get into college and get on with her life. Even better, she’s not counted as a dropout by the city. You know they’re on my case about the dwindling numbers of students. They think we’re only at 75 percent capacity! If we’re not careful with the numbers, who knows how many freshmen we’ll have next year.” Sam put Eva’s papers into her file folder and looked at the clock. “Look, meet with her tomorrow and counsel her out. Okay, it’s already after 4:00. I’m supposed to meet with the district rep about our January test scores and where we are with our Adequate Yearly Progress. We need to move on to the next kid. Whose case is next?”

Guidance Office, 5:17 p.m. Putting away her files after her meeting with Sam, Rachel was frustrated. She couldn’t help but wonder if she could have done more to advocate for Eva and some of the other students. After all, hadn’t GIHS cut deals with Eva in the past? There were the incompletes; there was the agreement to move her up to the twelfth grade even though she didn’t have the credits from eleventh grade. Sam was the one who always talked about how brilliant she was, how, if they didn’t cut her a deal, she would drop out. And now he’s pushing her out! They had talked about so many students that afternoon, but Eva’s case ate at Rachel the most. She had mentioned the part of the study that stated that only 11 percent of students who get their GED complete at least one year of college, never mind finish. She brought up Eva’s boyfriend who had dropped out the year before. He had started a GED course but didn’t pass the test. He had hoped to enroll in a community college. But now he was working a string of part-time jobs to make money to support Eva and the baby. Then again, Eva’s life outside of school wouldn’t be getting any easier anytime soon. Maybe Sam was right; maybe a GED was at least better than no diploma at all.

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Rachel was surprised by a knock at her door so late, but she was less surprised to see Jess Jones in the doorway. Jess was one of those young, ambitious teachers who had come through the city’s alternative certification program. Rachel liked her and was impressed by how much time she put in with students. She knew that not everyone in the building felt that way, but Rachel appreciated how Jess seemed to care about the students. Jess stayed after school to tutor her students almost every day—despite not getting paid to do so. She also coached basketball and was always doing some crazy math project with her classes. It was so like Jess to still be in the building at almost 5:30. “Sorry to bother you, Rachel. I know you probably want to get out of here, but I wanted to talk to you about a couple of kids.” Rachel groaned inwardly, sure that this conversation meant it would be a while before she could go home and would probably add to her already overscheduled load for tomorrow. “Do you know Tariq Moore and Jayson Dominguez? Rosanna and I overheard them both talking on the way out of the building today. They’re worried they’re failing English and are both talking about dropping out. I was hoping maybe you could talk to them tomorrow?” Jess knew that Rachel was her best hope. The guidance counselor had a reputation for advocating for students even if it put her at odds with the administration. Despite the fact that she was supposed to be concerned about whether or not kids understood geometry, Jess found herself coming more and more often to Rachel to help students deal with their lives outside of school. Without that help, so many of them didn’t even stay in school. Rachel turned to her computer to look up the two boys’ records in the school’s computer system. Ignoring the fifty-two emails waiting for her, she called up Tariq’s record. She knew Tariq. He had worked since middle school in his uncle’s funeral home. A few years earlier, a highly publicized child abuse case had ended with the death of a toddler. Tariq’s uncle’s funeral home handled the burial, and Tariq was a minor celebrity at school from working on the case. His transcript showed him to be a solid D student. Rachel knew him as a street-smart kid who had never particularly cared for school. He came by to say hello almost daily but never sought out counseling. Although he lived with his mother, she wasn’t much of a factor in his life. But he idolized his uncle and was planning on working in the funeral home after graduation. If he could just put in the seat time in English and squeak by, she thought he’d be fine. She typed a few commands and soon was looking at Jayson’s record. She looked his transcript over for a minute. Wow, she thought, he is a long way from graduation. He repeated the seventh grade and has been at GIHS for five years already. He still hasn’t passed the ELA exam despite three tries. He barely passed the other exams with a 55. He’ll be twenty years old in July. “It looks like, if he passes all his classes this semester and next and does a couple of summer school classes, plus one more math in the fall, he can graduate by January. I guess that’s not so bad. What’s the problem?” “I don’t think things are going so well in Ms. Mariano’s English class for either him or Tariq. I worked really hard to keep both boys engaged in math class, but it doesn’t seem like Mariano is keeping them interested in the class.” Rachel sometimes worried about teachers like Jess—she didn’t mind jumping through hoops for her students, but then the kids started to expect all teachers to

Appendix I 111

do that. Was it Ms. Mariano’s fault that she wasn’t interested in doing the same? “Isn’t it the students’ responsibility to do the work? The boys need to do what they need to do to pass,” Rachel commented. “But what will happen to them if they drop out? I don’t know if either one could pass the GED. Jayson’s skills are really low—I don’t think he ever got services when he moved here from the Dominican Republic in elementary school. I think he might have a learning disability. And Tariq just doesn’t seem to care enough to pass. We can’t let them drop out!” Rachel reacted to Jess’s plea with a sigh. Another discussion about “saving kids” from dropping out. Tariq will be fine, she thought. High school diploma or not, he’ll work for his uncle. But did Jess have a point about Jayson? If his skills were as low as Jess says, he won’t pass Mariano’s class and probably won’t graduate. Is a GED program the answer? Could he even pass the GED? And then what? She made a mental note to find that study from her graduate class. It said something about students with low cognitive skills who drop out of high school— that they earn two-thirds less than students who leave school with higher skills. If he did have some sort of learning disability, Rachel knew it would be next to impossible to get him evaluated this late in his high school career. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 5:30 p.m. “I guess I’m not going to yoga at 6:00 p.m.,” she thought to herself. “Look Jess, I appreciate your concern, I do. I’ll try to grab both boys tomorrow and talk to them. But if they’re determined to drop out, it’ll be hard to stop them. You should try to get out of here soon—it’s already so late.” Jess smiled and thanked Rachel. As she watched Jess walk down the hallway, Rachel added Tariq and Jayson to her long list of students to check in with tomorrow. She glanced up at the clock and the huge piles of files that still needed to be put away. Turning her gaze to her computer, she saw that there were now fifty-nine emails waiting for her to read and reply. Tomorrow was looking like a rough day. She had a number of attendance cases to track down, three new transfer students’ schedules to work out, and Eva’s conference. She didn’t look forward to giving Sam Seidman Jess’s news about Tariq and Jayson. “Just what he wants,” she thought dejectedly, “more students dropping out. What’s wrong with GIHS anyway? Why can’t this school get kids to graduate?”

Discussion Questions 1. How should Rachel advise her students? What should she say to Sam about Tariq and Jayson? 2. Should Eva be prevented from dropping out? What about Tariq? Jayson? 3. Do schools have a duty to prevent students from dropping out? 4. Is a GED the same as a high school diploma? Should the GED be an option to some or to everyone? 5. To what degree does requiring students to graduate in four years limit students?

112 The Power of Teacher Networks

6. When is it acceptable for a principal to counsel students out of a school? 7. Should students be prevented from dropping out if, when they don’t, they lower pass rates by which schools are evaluated?

References Fine, M. (1991). Framing dropouts: Notes on the politics of an urban public high school. Albany: SUNY Press. Murname, R., Willet, J., & Tyler, J. (1999). Who benefits from obtaining a GED? Evidence from high school and beyond. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper. Murname, R., Willet, J., & Tyler, J. (2000, June). Estimating the labor market signaling value of the GED. Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Appendix J Making a Difference Reporting Form

Leaders or influencers involved: Ways in which affiliate has reached out to local and/or state legislators or other policymakers: Local partnerships/relationships formed: Publication and dissemination of action research—including “visibility” of fellows: • Articles published or interviews that mention the fellows, with full citations (please attach original press clippings, along with masthead/first page): • Conferences at which fellows have presented: • Visibility of fellows in their own community: • Workshops or events, including who attended and what resulted: • Number of local meetings held (and numbers in attendance): • Local documents/publications/brochures:

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TNLI Recommended Reading List

T

he following is a comprehensive list of readings that our teachers have read and discussed to date, primarily as part of our monthly listserv discussions. We have included this list because it a treasure-trove of resources that you could use for building knowledge in your network. Whenever possible, links to digital versions of these articles are provided and to fellows’ conversations about these articles. This list is also available on our website at http://teachersnetwork .org/tnli/tnli_readings_resources.htm, for easy access to many of the articles.

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Ambach, Gordon. “Standards for Teachers: Potential for Improving Practice.” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996. Discusses the need for a widely recognized set of standards of performance for teaching professionals to ensure consistency and compatibility of practice. Ancess, Jacqueline. An Inquiry High School: Learner-Centered Accountability at the Urban Academy. New York: National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching, 1995. Discusses successful, innovative pedagogy and assessment in a New York City alternative high school. Anderson, Jeff. “Helping Writers Find Power.” Educational Leadership (February 2006): 70–73. Discusses the strategies Anderson has gleaned from his fifteen years of teaching that help students become more effective and less fearful writers. Ayers, William. To Become a Teacher: Making a Difference in Children’s Lives. New York: Teachers College Press, 1995. Brings together essays about teaching as a profession, the state of our schools, and visions of the future of education. Balfanz, Robert, Losen, Daniel, and Orfield, Gary. “Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis in Texas.” The Civil Rights Project—Harvard University, October 7, 2006. Go to http:// teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/losen.htm to read what TNLI fellows say about this article. Barnett, W. S., Brown, K., and Shore, R. “The Universal vs. Targeted Debate: Should the United States Have Preschool for All?” NIEER Policy Brief 6 (April 2004). Available at http://nieer.org/resources/policybriefs/6.pdf Bascia, Nina. Union in Teachers’ Professional Lives: Social, Intellectual, and Practical Concerns. New York: Teachers College Press, 1994. Analyzes the relationships and allegiances to the union among teachers from three schools, examining the differences that local conditions and varying conceptions of the union’s relationship to their profession make to individuals’ commitments. Bennett, Christene K. “Teacher-Researchers: All Dressed Up and No Place to Go?” Educational Leadership 51 (October 1993): 69–70. Visit http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/ bennviad.htm to see what TNLI fellows say about this article. Berliner, David C. “Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform.” Teachers College Record, August 2, 2005. This analysis is about the role of poverty in school reform. Go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/berliner.htm to see what TNLI fellows say about this article.

TNLI Recommended Reading List 115 Berliner, David C., and Biddle, Bruce J. The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Schools. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995. Identifies and discusses twelve myths invented by public school critics. Berube, Maurice R. Teacher Politics: The Influence of Unions. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Posits that teacher unions have become the most powerful political constituency in education and examines the extent to which unions have been reactive to school reform. Black, Paul, and Wiliam, Dylan. “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment.” Phi Delta Kappan, October 1998. Available at http://www.pdkintl.org/ kappan/kbla9810.htm Buday, Mary Catherine, and Kelly, James A. “National Board Certification and the Teaching Profession’s Commitment to Quality Assurance.” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996. Explains how teachers who have completed the process of National Board Certification can position themselves as policymakers while remaining in teaching. Callaghan, Peter. “Higher Pay for Some Teachers? The Math Works.” The News Tribute, December 30, 2007. Canada, Geoffrey. Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Dissects “the science of violence” and examines how fear, jealousy, and disenfranchisement build upon each other and create a culture of chaos. Clandinin, D. Jean, Davies, Annie, Hogan, Pat, and Kennard, Barbara, eds. Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn: Stories of Collaboration in Teacher Education. New York: Teachers College Press, 1993. Centers around participants in a yearlong alternative teacher certification program who question the larger construction of teacher pedagogy, forging connections between their education and personal experience to live out a new story of teacher education. Cochran-Smith, Marilyn, and Lytle, Susan L. “Research on Teaching and Teacher Research: The Issues That Divide.” Educational Researcher 19 (March 1990): 2–11. Proposes a shift from research on teaching to teacher research; a systematic, intentional inquiry by teachers, rendering them as subjects rather than the objects of study. Cohen, David, Mclaughlin, Milbrey, and Talbert, Joan E., eds. Teaching for Understanding: Challenges for Policy and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. Draws on the authors’ diverse experiences as teachers, educational researchers, and policy analysts to suggest what teaching for understanding looks like in the classroom and how people learn to do it; frames issues for further research and appropriate policymaking. Cortes, Ernesto, Jr. “Engaging the Community in Education Reform.” Community Education Journal 23 (Fall 1995/Winter 1996): 26–32. Examines the Industrial Areas Foundation Alliance Schools that engage communities in Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico in extended conversation about the fundamental issues of educational reform. Crawford, James. “Bilingual Education.” Issues in U.S. Language Policy, 1998. Available at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/biling.htm Cromey, Allison. “Using Student Assessment Data: What Can We Learn From Schools?” Policy Issues 6 (November 2000). This article is on the NCREL website and can be accessed directly by going to http://www.ncrel.org/policy/pubs/pdfs/pivol6.pdf Cushman, Kathleen. “Networks and Essential Schools: How Trust Advances Learning.” Horace 13 (September 1996). Providence, RI: The Coalition of Essential Schools. Focuses on the idea that building mutual relationships that encourage an examination of teacher practice and student work can profoundly shift the culture of schooling. Both inside schools and among them, networks of teachers can create new ways to share and question their work, learn from each other, and hold themselves to higher standards. Dale, Jack. “A Teacher-Compensation System for the ‘No Child’ Era.” EdWeek.org, May 2005. Go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/dale.htm to read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article. Dana, N. F., and Yendol-Silva, D. The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Classroom Research: Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn Through Practitioner Inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2003. Darling-Hammond, Linda. “The Flat Earth and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future.” Third Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research, Educational Researcher (August/September 2007).

116 The Power of Teacher Networks Darling-Hammond, Linda. “What Matters Most: A Competent Teacher for Every Child.” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996. Reviews the report of the National Commission of Teaching and America’s Future as a blueprint for recruiting, preparing, supporting, and rewarding excellent educators in the nation’s schools. Darling-Hammond, Linda, Griffin, Gary A., and Wise, Arthur E. Excellence in Teacher Education: Helping Teachers Develop Learner-Centered Schools. Washington, DC: NEA Professional Library, 1990. Investigates current reforms that are moving away from highly bureaucratic systems to those governed by teachers’ professional knowledge and judgment. Darling-Hammond, Linda, Lieberman, Ann, and McLaughlin, Milbrey W. Practices and Policies to Support Teacher Development in an Era of Reform. NCREST Reprint Series. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, July 1995. Proposes that professional development today must provide occasions for teachers to reflect critically on their practice and to fashion new knowledge and beliefs about content, pedagogy, and learning. Endorses a vision of professional development as a lifelong, inquiry-based, and collegial activity that requires a corresponding shift from policies that seek to control or direct the work of teachers to strategies intended to develop schools’ and teachers’ capacities to be responsible for student learning. Darling-Hammond, Linda, and McLaughlin, Milbrey. “Policies That Support Professional Development in an Era of Reform.” Phi Delta Kappan, April 1995. Proposes that professional development today must provide occasions for teachers to reflect critically on their practice and to fashion new knowledge and beliefs about content, pedagogy, and learners. Delpit, Lisa. Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: The New Press, 1995. Explores how even the most well-meaning teachers, with the seemingly most open minds, come upon stumbling blocks when it comes to issues of cultural diversity. De Vise, Daniel. “A Concentrated Approach to Exams: Rockville School’s Efforts Raise Questions of Test-Prep Ethics.” Washingtonpost.com, March 2007. Visit http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/ devise.htm to read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article. DeVitis, Joseph L., and Sola, Peter A., eds. Building Bridges for Educational Reform: New Approaches to Teacher Education. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989. Provides in-depth detail of the history of teacher education and examines different models and programs of teacher education being implemented across the country. DuFour, Richard. “Schools as Learning Communities.” Educational Leadership 61 (May 2004). Available at http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/readings/Professional%20Learning%20Commuities.pdf Education Commission of the States. State Policymakers’ Guide to Networks. Denver: Author, 1997. Assists policymakers in understanding networks and devising ways states can support the effective use of networks by schools, districts, and educators. Elmore, Richard F. “Building a New Structure for School Leadership.” American Educator 23 (1999–2000): 6–13. Available online at www.educ.state.mn.us/staffdevelopment/ article3.html. Offers a new model of distributive leadership with two main tasks: describing ground rules for leaders and sharing responsibilities. Elmore uses Community School District Two in New York City as reinforcement. Elmore, Richard F. “Getting to Scale With Good Educational Practice.” Harvard Educational Review 66 (Spring 1996): 1–26. Examines the issue of how educational reform efforts can be expanded from pockets of excellence to wide-scale models of good practice. Elmore, Richard F. “The Logic of Standards-Based Reform and the Institution of Public Education.” The Albert Shanker Institute. Available at http://www.shankerinstitute.org/Downloads/ building.pdf Elmore, Richard F., and McLaughlin, Milbrey. Steady Work: Policy, Practice, and the Reform of American Education. Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 1988. Analyzes the relationship between educational policymaking and educational practice in schools and classrooms, drawing lessons from recent attempts to reform schools through policy prescriptions. Emery, Kathy. “High-Stakes Testing and the New Tracking System.” Speech, December 2004. Go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/emery.htm to see what TNLI fellows wrote about this article.

TNLI Recommended Reading List 117 Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder, 1970. Expands upon Freire’s educational theory that all humans are capable of looking critically at the world. Fullan, Michael G. The New Meaning of Educational Change. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. Analyzes the educational change process within schools and the many reasons that reform efforts have failed and offers an agenda for the future. Fullan, Michael, and Hargreaves, Andy. What’s Worth Fighting For? Working Together for Your School. New York: Teachers College Press, 1995. Encourages teachers and principals to think more deeply about reform, individual responsibility, and collaborative culture and to act as moral change agents in fighting for positive reform. Gideonse, Hendrik D., ed. Teacher Education Policy: Narratives, Stories, and Cases. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. Investigates teacher education policy, concluding that even “experts” know little about the variety of different teacher education programs. Ginsburg, Mark B., ed. The Politics of Educators’ Work and Lives. New York: Garland Publishing, 1995. Examines the lives and political work of teachers through a set of readings on the historical, political, and transformational nature of teachers’ work. Giroux, Henry A. Teachers as Intellectuals: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Learning. Granby, MA: Bergin and Garvey, 1988. Incorporates the valuable insights of critical pedagogy into a more comprehensive, practical, and democratic theory of schooling. Glasser, William. Control Theory in the Classroom. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Glasser, William. The Quality of School: Managing Students Without Coercion. New York: HarperPerennial, 1992. Glasser, William. The Quality School Teacher. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993. Glasser encourages teachers to help their students produce quality work through taking responsibility for their actions and utilizing intrinsic motivation. Goodlad, John I. “Why We Need a Complete Redesign of Teacher Education.” Educational Leadership 49 (November 1991): 4–6, 8–10. Details the need to bring schools and teacher training institutions together to ground educators in the knowledge and skills required to bring about meaningful change. Goswani, Dixie, and Stillman, Peter, eds. Reclaiming the Classroom: Teacher Research as an Agency for Change. New York: Boynton/Cook, 1987. Investigates how we can turn our classrooms into areas of shared inquiry through disciplined observation of events and collaboration with other observers. Greenwell, Megan. “Usual Efforts to Raise Scores Have Weak Effect, Study Says.” Washington Post, December 6, 2007. Hargreaves, Andy. “Transforming Knowledge: Blurring the Boundaries Between Research, Policy, and Practice.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 18 (Summer 1996). Explores the false boundaries that exist among the three educational communities— policy, research, and practice—and how they can be blended. Examines several bordercrossing collaborations and suggests a “new paradigm” policy that supports organizational frameworks such as professional learning communities and school/university partnerships. Healy, Jane. Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1990. Examines how parents and teachers can help students become good learners in an era when children are bombarded by a fast-paced media culture. Henrie, C. “Enrollment Crunch Stretches the Bounds of the Possible.” Education Week, September, 11, 1996. Examines the increasing number of students in school systems across the country, the shortage of teachers to handle the enrollment crunch, and the drastic measures school systems have taken to meet the needs of the growing student population. Hirsch, Eric. “Teacher Working Conditions Are Student Learning Conditions: A Report to Governor Mike Easley on the 2004 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey.” Center for Teaching Quality, 2004. Available at http://www.teachingquality.org/ pdfs/TWC_FullReport.pdf. Discusses how teacher working conditions affect student learning.

118 The Power of Teacher Networks Holland, Holly. “Can Educators Close the Achievement Gap? An Interview With Richard Rothstein and Kati Haycock.” National Staff Development Council 28 (Winter 2007). Available at http://www.nsdc.org/publications/getDocument.cfm?articleID=1356. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/ holland.htm Holt, Maurice. “It’s Time to Start the Slow School Movement.” Phi Delta Kappan, December 2002. To see what TNLI fellows say about this article, visit http://teachersnetwork .org/tnli/listarchive/slowmove.htm hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Addresses the issue of how we can rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism to encourage students to transgress racial, sexual, and class standards. Hubbard, Ruth, and Power, Brenda Miller. The Art of Classroom Inquiry: A Handbook for Teacher Researchers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1993. Presents the nuts and bolts of how teachers can carefully and systematically pursue their wonderings through research strategies. Ingersoll, Richard M. “Short on Power, Long on Responsibility.” Educational Leadership 65 (September 2007): 20–25. “Inquiring Minds: Creating a Nation of Teachers as Learners.” Education Week Special Report, April 17, 1996. Presents the different ways teachers are involved in professional development, beyond one-shot workshops. Jennings, Nancy. Interpreting Policy in Real Classrooms: Case Studies of State Reform and Teacher Practice. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. Examines the impact of policymaking on the classroom and details how classroom reading teachers implement state-level policy directives. Johnson, Susan Moore. Teachers Unions in Schools. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984. Sets out to determine the extent to which unions and contracts have affected school practices, to characterize the nature of those effects, and to account for different outcomes in different settings. Johnson, Susan Moore, and Donaldson, Morgaen. L. “Overcoming the Obstacles to Leadership.” Educational Leadership 65 (September 2007): 8–13. Johnson, Susan Moore, and Kardos, Susan M. “Keeping New Teachers in Mind.” Educational Leadership 59 (March 2002): 12–16. Kahne, Joseph. Reframing Educational Policy: Democracy, Community, and the Individual. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. Demonstrates the need to broaden the political and ethical frameworks used by policy analysts through examination of school choice, tracking, and progressive educational practices. Kahne, Joseph, and Westheimer, Joel. “What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy.” American Educational Research Journal 41 (Summer 2004): 237–269. A direct link to the PDF version of the full article is available at http://www.mills.edu/ academics/faculty/educ/jkahne/what_kind_of_citizen.pdf. This article calls attention to the spectrum of ideas about what good citizenship is and what good citizens do when informed by democratic education programs nationwide. Go to http://teachersnetwork .org/tnli/listarchive/citizen.htm to read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article. Kerschner, Charles Taylor, and Julia Koppich. A Union of Professionals: Labor Relations and Educational Reform. New York: Teachers College Press, 1993. Views professional unionism as a potentially powerful force for education reform when it focuses on the principle of union-management collaboration. Kohn, Alfie. “Abusing Research: The Study of Homework and Other Examples.” Available at http://alfiekohn.com/articles.htm. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/kohn_abus.htm Kohn, Alfie. “The 500-Pound Gorilla.” Phi Delta Kappan, October 2002. Available at http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/500pound.htm Kohn, Alfie. “The Folly of Merit Pay.” Education Week, September 17, 2003. Available at http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/meritpay.htm

TNLI Recommended Reading List 119 Kohn, Alfie. “Unconditional Teaching.” Educational Leadership 63 (September 2005): 20–24. Available at http://alfiekohn.com/articles.htm. Discusses Kohn’s belief that teachers must practice “unconditional teaching” if they want to help their students become interested learners and better people. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/unconditional.htm Kozol, Johnathan. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation. New York: Crown Publishers, 1995. Kozol documents the inequities of funding in American schools, taking readers inside some of the worst and best schools in the country in search of answers as to how and why these inequalities exist. Kozol, Johnathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. New York: Crown Publishers, 1991. Kozol, Johnathan. “Saving Public Education.” The Nation, February 17, 1997. Posits that to bring public education into the information age, there needs to be a commitment to equitable learning environments for all children. Kumar, David D., and Scuderi, Pat. “Opportunities for Teachers as Policy Makers.” Kappa Delta Pi Record 36 (Winter 2000): 61–64. Landsman, Julie. “Confronting the Racism of Low Expectations.” Education Leadership 62 (November 2004): 28–32. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/landsman.htm Lensmire, Timothy J. When Children Write: Critical Re-visions of the Writing Workshops. New York: Teachers College Press, 1994. Revisits the creation of a writing workshop in an urban classroom, addressing how to create a community of writers among a group of children resistant to revealing their vulnerabilities. Lewis, Catherine C., and Tsuchida, I. “A Lesson Is Like a Swiftly Flowing River: Research Lessons and the Improvement of Japanese Education.” American Educator (Winter 1998): 14–17 and 50–52. Available at http://www.lessonresearch.net/lesson.pdf. Insightfully analyzes the efficacy of the practice of “Lesson Study” in the Japanese educational system. Lieberman, Ann. “Practices That Support Teacher Development: Transforming Conceptions of Professional Learning.” Phi Delta Kappan, April 1995. Addresses the problem of traditional staff development—that models have too often looked to outsiders as opposed to utilizing inside expertise—and recommends that teachers become collaborators in providing their own inservice education. Lieberman, Ann, ed. The Work of Restructuring Schools: Building From the Ground Up. New York: Teachers College Press, 1994. Examines compelling case studies and analyses of schools engaged in the complex process of restructuring. Lieberman, Ann, and Grolnick, Maureen. “Networks and Reform in American Education.” Teachers College Record 98 (Fall 1996): 7–45. Studies sixteen networks that have challenging agendas, encompass indirect learning, work collaboratively, are led by facilitation, and encourage multi-perspective thinking. Lieberman, Ann, and McLaughlin, Milbrey. Policymaking in Education. Chicago: National Society for the Study of Education, 1982. Considers the social and historical forces that shape policy and the extent to which policy itself is transformed differentially as it moves through the educational policy system. Liston, Daniel P., and Zeichner, Kenneth M. Teacher Education and the Social Conditions of Schooling. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall Inc., 1990. Prescribes an alternative model of teacher education, criticizing the ways our economic, political, and educational organizations function. Little, Judith Warren. “Teachers’ Professional Development in a Climate of Educational Reform.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 15 (Summer 1993): 129–151. Argues that the dominant training-and-coaching model is inadequate and examines some of the ways that current reform movements shape challenges, possibilities, and constraints for teachers’ professional development. Professional development should

120 The Power of Teacher Networks be constructed in ways that deepen the discussion, open up the debates, and enrich the array of possibilities for action. Little, Judith Warren, and McLaughlin, Milbrey, eds. Teachers’ Work: Individuals, Colleagues, and Contexts. New York: Teachers College Press, 1993. Examines the conditions, character, and consequences that confront classroom teachers in undertaking collegiality and proposes theoretical models to account for their findings. Mathews, David. Is There a Public for Public Schools? Dayton, OH: Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 1996, Chapter 1. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this chapter, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/mathews.htm McLaughlin, Milbrey W. “Listening and Learning From the Field: Tales of Policy Implementation and Situated Practice.” In The Roots of Educational Change, edited by Ann Lieberman (pp. 58–72). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Quiver Press, 1998. Examines the implementation problem—why it is exceedingly difficult for policy to change practice—and underscores the critical importance of fostering change not just in individuals but in teachers’ workplace contexts and professional relationships, which in turn affect the construction of practice. McLaughlin, Milbrey, and Oberman, Ida. Teacher Learning: New Policies, New Practices. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. Focuses on staff development, taking a fresh look at practice and policy on the basis of recent developments in teacher learning, examining what needs to happen in the policymaking environment for improved teacher practices to become widely implemented. McLaughlin, Milbrey, and Talbert, Joan. Contexts That Matter for Teaching and Learning: Strategic Opportunities for Meeting the Nation’s Educational Goals. Stanford, CA: Center for the Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching, 1993. Chronicles major findings of CRC research conducted over a five-year period, focusing on professional communities as mediating contexts of teaching, providing strategic opportunities for action, and integrating education reform strategies. Medina, Jennifer. “Schools Plan to Pay Cash for Marks.” The New York Times, June 19, 2007. Meier, Deborah. The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America From a Small School in Harlem. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Presents a compelling argument that good education is possible for all our children by drawing on the success stories of the radical innovation in the author’s alternative schools. Meier, Deborah, and Wood, George, eds. Many Children Left Behind. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. A citizens’ guide to what’s wrong with the nation’s radical federal education legislation— and a passionate call for change. Meyers, Ellen, and McIsaac, Paul, eds. How Teachers Are Changing Schools. New York: IMPACT II—The Teachers Network, 1994. Shares teachers’ insights into teacher-designed curricula, models of team teaching, new ideas for school governance, and school restructuring. Meyers, Ellen, and McIsaac, Paul, eds. How We Are Changing Schools Collaboratively. New York: IMPACT II—The Teachers Network, 1995. Describes the successful classroom, schools, and district changes teachers have made through their partnerships with colleagues, administrators, parents, other schools, universities, museums, and social service agencies. Meyers, Ellen, and McIsaac, Paul, eds. Teachers Guide to Cyberspace. New York: IMPACT II—The Teachers Network, 1996. Provides educators with an exploration of the Internet, presenting basic technical information, accounts of innovative classroom projects, information on grants and fundraising tips, and recommended websites. Meyers, Ellen, and Rust, Frances O’Connell. “The Test Doesn’t Tell All.” Education Week, May 31, 2000. Addresses the need to capture the subtle information unique to classrooms. It highlights the classroom experiences of NTPI MetLife Fellows and stresses the need to recognize the teacher’s voice in education policy. Miretzky, Debra. “A View of Research From Practice: Voices of Teachers.” Theory Into Practice 46 (October 2007): 272–280. Murphy, Joseph, and Louis, Karen Seashore. Reshaping the Principalship: Insights From Transformational Reform Efforts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 1994. Presents case studies that

TNLI Recommended Reading List 121 explore the challenges and dilemmas that principals in nine restructuring schools are facing. National Commission on Excellence in Education. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform. Washington, DC: United States Department of Education, 1983. Warns that the rising tide of mediocrity in our educational system poses a serious threat to our nation’s security. National Commission on Excellence in Teacher Education. A Call for Change in Teacher Education. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, 1995. Responds to A Nation at Risk through its investigation of the improvement of teacher preparation, recruitment, and retention. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF). What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future: Summary Report. New York: Author, 1996. Offers a blueprint for recruiting, preparing, and supporting excellent teachers in all America’s schools, creating a new infrastructure for professional learning and an accountability system that ensures attention to standards for educators as well as students at every level. National Education Commission on Time and Learning. Prisoners of Time. Washington, DC: Author, April 1994. A comprehensive review of the relationship between time and learning in the nation’s schools, concluding that our schools ask the impossible of students—that they learn as much as their foreign peers while spending half as much time in core academic subjects—and examines alternative models for more effective utilization of time. Newmann, Fred M., and Wehlage, Gary G. Successful School Restructuring: A Report to the Public and Educators by the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools. Madison, WI: Board of Regents of the Wisconsin System, 1995. Synthesizes five years of research on schools at many different stages of restructuring, analyzing schools taking part in a variety of district and state reform strategies, including public school choice, radical decentralization, and state level systemic reform. New York Department of Education. A New Compact for Learning. Albany: State University of New York, September 1991. A well-referenced, statewide school reform initiative. Noddings, Nel. “What Does It Mean to Educate the Whole Child?” Educational Leadership 63 (September 2005): 8–13. Oakes, Jeannie. Outreach: Struggling Against Culture and Power. VOICES. Los Angeles: Regents of the University of California, November 1999. Critiques the cultural bias and racial politics inherent in the way universities measure merit and intelligence; explains why outreach to low-income and minority students is not sufficient to balance college admissions. Obermeyer, Gary. “Interactive Journaling: Lessons Learned.” Learning Options. An abbreviated version of a presentation to the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 1994. Explores the process of establishing an online community committed to authentic dialogue among teacher reformers. Paley, Vivian Gussin. Kwanzaa and Me: A Teacher’s Story. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Examines how one teacher effectively accounts for and incorporates racial, cultural, and class differences in her classroom. Peterson, Bob. “A Look at Teacher Unions.” Rethinking Schools Online. Originally published in Rethinking Schools 8 (Fall 1993). Available at www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/ union/unside.shtml Profreidt, William A. How Teachers Learn: Toward a More Liberal Teacher Education. New York: Teachers College Press, 1994. Makes a compelling argument supporting the need for well-rounded, responsive, thoughtful teachers who are given greater freedom in using their skills and discretion in handling the multitude of demanding situations they face each day. Purnell, Susanna, and Hill, Paul. Time for Reform. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Publications, 1992. Demonstrates the importance of changing teachers’ traditional use of time and provides different examples of schools around the country that are using their time in unique ways.

122 The Power of Teacher Networks Reeves, Douglas B. “High Performance in High Poverty Schools: 90/90/90 and Beyond.” In Literacy development of students in urban schools: Research and policy, edited by James Flood and Patricia L. Anders. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2005. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/ reeves.htm Rose, Mike. Possible Lives: Promise of Public Education in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Examines classrooms across the country to show what really goes on in good classrooms— how teachers work, how students learn, what schools give to their neighborhoods—offering rich, detailed images of the possibilities of public education. Rosenbaum, James E. “It’s Time to Tell the Kids: If You Don’t Do Well in High School, You Won’t Do Well in College (or on the Job).” AFT American Educator, Spring 2004. Available at http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring2004/tellthekids.html. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/ tellkids.htm Rust, F. O’C. “Professional Conversations: New Teachers Explore Teaching Through Conversation, Story, and Narrative.” Teaching and Teacher Education 15 (1999): 367–380. Also in N. Lyons and V. K. LaBoskey, eds. Narrative Interpretation and Response: Teacher Educators’ Stories. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002, Chapter 13. Dramatically highlights the challenges new teachers face and vividly demonstrates the importance of flexible and imaginative teacher education. Saphier, Jonathan. Bonfires and Magic Bullets: Making Teaching a True Profession. Carlisle, MA: Research for Better Teaching, 1995. Proposes a new way of thinking about professional knowledge, emphasizing professionalization from within school culture. Outlines a campaign for changing public attitudes and proposes a functional model to implement change. Sarason, Seymour B. The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform: Can We Change Course Before It Is Too Late? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990. Synthesizes Sarason’s nearly fifty years of work in education reform, focusing on power relationships as the root of educational intractability to change. Scannell, Marilyn, and Wain, Judith. “New Models for State Licensing of Professional Educators.” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996. Examines the Minnesota Board of Teaching and the Indiana Professional Standards Board as models of professional state licensing agencies that are working to reform the preparation and licensure of professional educators. Schmoker, Mike. “Tipping Point: From Feckless Reform to Substantive Instructional Improvement.” Phi Delta Kappan, February 2004. Available at http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0402sch.htm Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline. New York: Doubleday, 1990. States that schools need to foster systems of learning and the ability to make connections between objects themselves, between ourselves and ideas, and mainly between ourselves and others. Sergiovanni, Thomas. Leadership for the Schoolhouse: How Is It Different? Why Is It Important? San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996. Looks past corporate models of leadership to another view that values the uniqueness of students and teachers and the special contexts of their learning environments. Shanker, Albert. “Quality Assurance.” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996. Explores how to improve teacher quality assurance and public confidence in the teaching profession. Singham, Sano. “The Canary in the Mine: The Achievement Gap Between Black and White Students.” Phi Delta Kappan, September 1998. Available at http://lscnet.terc.edu/ do.cfm/paper/8108/show/use_set-l_equity Sizer, Theodore. Horace’s Compromise. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. Sizer chronicles the ideas behind the Coalition of Essential Schools reform movement, laying out the guiding principles and examining their implementation in various settings. Sizer, Theodore. Horace’s Hope: What Works for the American High School. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. Sizer, Theodore. Horace’s School: Redesigning the American High School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

TNLI Recommended Reading List 123 Sizer, Theodore, and Sizer, Nancy Faust. The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999. The Sizers insist that students learn not just from the environment but that the routines and rituals of school help teach students about matters of character and ethics. A culture of trust and respect needs to be created by educators to help prepare their students for a lifetime. Snyder, Jon, Morrison, Gale, and Smith, R. C. Dare to Dream: Educational Guide for Excellence. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California, 1996. Describes three projects’ efforts to mobilize over fifty schools in twenty-six sites by using educational guidance as the lever for school change. Stansbury, Kendyll, and Zimmerman, Joy. “Smart Induction Programs Become Lifelines for the Beginning Teacher.” Journal of Staff Development (Fall 2002). Available at http://www.nsdc.org/ library/publications/jsd/stansbury234.cfm Steinberg, Laurence. Beyond the Classrooms: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1996. Contends that parents and peers—not educators alone—are the people who have the greatest influence over a student’s classroom performance. Steptoe, Sonja, and Wallis, Claudia. “How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century.” Time, December 10, 2006. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachers network.org/tnli/listarchive/wallis.htm Stigler, James, and Hiebert, James. The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas From the World’s Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom. New York: The Free Press, 1999. Using videotaped lessons from the United States, Japan, and Germany, the authors reveal exactly how other countries stay ahead of the United States in the rate of their child learning. American schools can be restructured as a place where teachers can engage in career-long learning and classrooms can become laboratories for developing new, teaching-centered ideas. Stock, Patricia Lambert. “Toward a Theory of Genre in Teacher Research: Contributions From a Reflective Practitioner.” English Education 33 (January 2001): 100–114. Tate, William F. “Rethinking Mathematics: Race, Retrenchment, and the Reform of School Mathematics.” Rethinking Schools Online. Available at www.rethinkingschools.org/ publication/math/RM_race.shtml. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/tate.htm Teacher Policy Institute. If We Want to Give Our Children the Best Possible Education, Then . . . New York: IMPACT II—The Teachers Network, 1996. Investigates the role of public school teachers in educational policymaking by fifty New York MetLife fellows who participated in IMPACT II‘s first Teacher Policy Institute. Tyack, David. The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974. Examines the politics, ideologies, and power struggles that formed the basis of our current educational system, illuminating the change from village to urban ways of thinking and acting over the past 100 years. Viadero, Debra. “Lisa Delpit Says Teachers Must Value Students’ Cultural Strengths.” Education Week, March 13, 1996. Available at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1996/03/13/ 25delpit.h15.html Viadero, Debra. ”Research: Holding Up a Mirror?” Education Week, June 12, 2002. Available at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2002/06/12/40research.h21.html. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/bennviad .htm Wallis, Claudia. “How to Make Great Teachers.” Time, February 13, 2008. To read what TNLI fellows wrote about this article, go to http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/listarchive/ wallis2.htm Wasley, Patricia A. Stirring the Chalk Dust: Tales of Teachers Changing Classroom Practice. New York: Teachers College Press, 1994. Discusses secondary school teachers, their experiences with the Coalition of Essential Schools, and the manner in which they are revising their practices to make school a place where students use their minds. Weiss, Carol. “The Four ‘I’s’ of School Reform: How Interests, Ideology, Information, and Institution Affect Teachers and Principals.” Harvard Educational Review 65 (Winter 1995):

124 The Power of Teacher Networks 571–592. Using what she refers to as the “4-I” analysis, Weiss zeros in on shared decision making as a reform initiative and explains how these 4-I’s affect teacher and principal responses; through this lens, she discusses the implications for school reform. Willis, Scott. “Creating a Knowledge Base for Teaching: A Conversation With James Stigler.” Educational Leadership 59 (March 2002): 6–11. Wise, Arthur E. “Building a System of Quality Assurance for the Teaching Profession—Moving Into the 21st Century.” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996. Explores the need for new systems of teacher training. Wise, Arthur E., Darling-Hammond, Linda, and Berry, Barnett. Effective Teacher Selection: From Recruitment to Retention. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Center for the Study of the Teaching Profession, 1987. Examines teacher selection procedures in six school districts and suggests ways in which procedures might be improved to meet the hiring challenges of the next decade. Wise, Arthur E., Darling-Hammond, Linda, Berry, Barnett, and Klein, Stephen P. Licensing Teachers: Design for a Teaching Profession. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Center for the Study of the Teaching Profession, 1987. Presents a new approach for evaluating performance that requires both a supervised internship and a new standardized test of teaching skills to determine whether novice teachers are ready to begin professional practice. Wise, Arthur E., and Leibbrand, Jane. “Profession-Based Accreditation: A Foundation for HighQuality Teaching.” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1996. Examines the idea of teacher growth and development as a continuum that spans a teaching career, offering a framework to guide the creation of new standards and assessments. Zeni, Jane. “A Guide to Ethical Decision Making for Insider Research.” In Ethical Issues in Practitioner Research, edited by Jane Zeni (pp. 153–165). New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. An insightful guide to aid the “action researcher” through both the bewildering regulations regarding insider research and the ethical questions every researcher must face.

References Berry, K. (2008, March). A report on my experiences as a TNLI fellow. Paper presented at the spring meeting of the North East Florida Educational Consortium’s Teacher Research Facilitators, Gainesville, Florida. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2006). Troubling images of teaching in No Child Left Behind. Harvard Educational Review, 76(4), 668–697. Dana, N. F. (2005, April). The role of teacher research in school leadership and improvement. Keynote address delivered at the fourteenth annual Fairfax County Public Schools Teacher Researcher Conference and The Association of Teacher Educator’s National Academy on Teacher Research, Fairfax, Virginia. Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2008). The reflective educator’s guide to professional development: Coaching inquiry-oriented learning communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2009). The reflective educator’s guide to classroom research: Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practitioner inquiry (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Darling-Hammond, L. (1994). Developing professional development schools: Early lessons, challenge, and promise. In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Professional development schools: Schools for developing a profession (pp. 1–27). New York: Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond, L. (1996, September). From what matters most: Teaching for America’s future. Report of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Flinder, D. J. (1988). Teacher isolation and the new reform. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 4(1), 17–29. Freire, Paulo. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Good, T., & Brophy, J. (1994). Looking into classrooms (6th ed.). New York: HarperCollins. Kincheloe, J. L. (1991). Teachers as researchers: Qualitative inquiry as a path to empowerment. New York: Falmer Press. Kreinbihl, J. (n.d.). Action research: Pedaling as fast as we can and getting nowhere! Teachers Network. Retrieved November 2008 from http://www.teachersnetwork.org/tnli/cases/ kreinbihl.htm Levin, J., & Nolan, J. F. (2000). Principles of Classroom Management (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Lieberman, A., & Grolnick, M. Networks and Reform in American Education. Teachers College Record, 98(Fall 1996), 7–45. Lieberman, A., & Miller, L. (1992). Teachers—Their world and their work: Implications for school improvement. New York: Teachers College Press. Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mann, D. (1983, Summer). The Impact of IMPACT II. Teachers College Record, 84(4), 837–870. McDonald, J., et al. (2003). The Power of Protocols. New York: Teachers College Press. McLaughlin, M. W., & Talbert, J. (1993, March). Contexts that matter for teaching and learning: Strategic opportunities for meeting the nation’s education goals. Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching, Stanford University. Meyers, E., & Rust, F. (2003). Taking action with teacher research. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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126 The Power of Teacher Networks National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. (1996, September). What matters most: Teaching for America’s future. Retrieved November 2008 from http://www.nctaf.org/documents/ WhatMattersMost.pdf Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1–22. The Teachers Network. (1991). The teachers’ vision of the future of education: A challenge to the nation. New York: IMPACT II. Retrieved November 2008 from http://www.teachers network.org/tnli/ChallengeToTheNation.pdf

Index Abramoski, Dan, 53–54, 92 Action, networks as inspiration to, 13–14 Action research description, 53–57 sample study: What Happens Next? 92–103 workshop handbook, 87–91 Activities, network action research, 53–57 advocacy, 58–61 cases, 63–64 designing and timing of, 35, 37–38 documentation and dissemination, 61–63 importance of, 52 partnerships and relationships, 64–65 Advisors, university identifying, 31 role of, 43 Advocacy, 58–61 Affiliate directors checking in with, 46 identifying, 31 role of, 43 Affiliates, TNLI, 4–5 Allies, creating, 38–39 Application form, 77–80 Are You In or Are You Out? (case), 63, 106–112 Been There, Done That: Student Inquiry of High School Dropouts (action research study), 63 Berry, Kevin, 10, 12 Blame, 28, 30 Blogging, 13 Boyer, Ernest L., 20 Brain trusts, 49 Bush, George H. W., viii, 2, 18 California State University, 5 Cases description, 63–64 sample: Are You In or Are You Out? 106–112 Central office, role of, 31 Change, 68–70

Chicago Foundation of Education, 4 Chicago TNLI, 4 Clinton, Bill, viii, 2, 18 Cogdill, Susan, 16 Colton, Charles Caleb, 7 Commitments, 32–33 Communication, promoting, 42–44 Content, sharing, 44 Coordinators, identifying, 31 Creativity, 16 Credit, in-service, 51 Cunningham, Greg, 9–10 Darling-Hammond, Linda, 5, 6, 18 Dempsey, Ellen, 18 Devaluing of teachers, 9 Dillon, Peter, 54, 56 Directors, affiliate checking in with, 46 identifying, 31 role of, 43 Directors, network, 4 Dissemination, 39, 50, 61–63 Education Fund, 4 Education summit of 1989, viii, 2, 18 Empowerment, teacher, 11–12 Envisioning process, 17–18, 25–26. See also Vision Expanding meeting venues, 45–47 Face-to-face meetings, 46 Fairfax County Public Schools, 4 Fairfax County TNLI, 4 Fariña, Carmen, 52 Feedback managing networks and, 65–67 in meetings, 35, 37 staying true to vision and, 50 Fenton, Judi, 65 Florida, University of, 4 Formalizing roles, 42, 43 Freire, Paolo, 68 Frustration, 12–13 Funding, ensuring, 38 Future of teaching, 70–71

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128

The Power of Teacher Networks Gainesville TNLI description, 4 establishment of, 7–8 Gandhi, Mahatma, 40 George Mason University, 4 Geringer, Jim, 64 Gold, Susan, 64 Golub, Barbara, 57 Grant proposal, sample, 81–84 Gutierrez, George, 56 Hippard, Peter, 59 Holmes Partnership, 7–8 Hubbell, Debbi, 13–14 Incentives, creating, 48 Input, lack of, 16–17 In-service credit, 51 Inspiration, networks as source of, 13–14 Internet as antidote to isolation, 16 growth of Teachers Network and, 2 See also Blogging; Listservs Interviews, recruitment description, 47–48 sample agenda, 80 Inventing the Future of Teaching, 17–18 Isolation, teacher networks as antidotes to, 9–10 as problem to be addressed, 15–16 Jaskolski, Jayne, 56 Jones, Judy, 20 Kemmler-Ernst, Amika, 20 Kincheloe, Joe, 13 Kirkland, David E., 53 Kits, technical assistance, 49 Kohn, Alfie, 9–10 Kreinbihl, John, 12 Lieberman, Ann, 2, 53, 54 Link, Holly, 60–61 Listservs inspiration and, 13–14 as means of communication, 44–45 meetings and, 35, 38 points for moderators, 85 self-esteem and, 10–11 Litke, Erica, 63, 106 Local meetings connecting to vision of network at, 46 as means of communication, 43 Local networks, 4–5 Los Angeles TNLI, 4 Los Angeles Unified School District, 4

Making a Difference reporting form, 113 Managing a network brain trusts, 49 content sharing, 44 designing and timing activities, 35, 37–38 dissemination of news, 39, 50 expanding meeting venues, 45–47 expanding recruitment, 47–48 feedback and, 35, 37, 65–67 formalizing roles, 42, 43 funding, 38 identifying roles and responsibilities, 30–32 incentives, 48 making a commitment, 32–33 motivation, 33–34 partnerships, 38–39, 48 planning and carrying out meetings, 34–35, 36 promoting communication, 42–44 supporters, 49–50 technical assistance kits, 49 tensions, 41–42 vision and, 50 Mason (VA) TNLI, 4 McIsaac, Paul, 17, 18 McLaughlin, Milbrey, 5, 6 Meetings expanding venues for, 45–47 local, 43, 46 national, 43 planning and carrying out, 34–35, 36 Merseth, Katherine K., 63 MetLife Foundation, 18 Meyers, Ellen establishment of Gainesville TNLI and, 7–8 in-service credit and, 51 Miami TNLI, 4 Milwaukee Partnership Academy, 4 Milwaukee TNLI, 4 Motivation, creating and sustaining, 33–34 Multi-site videoconferencing, 44 National meetings, 43 Nation at Risk, A, 17 Network directors, 4 New York City TNLI, 5 No Child Left Behind, 59 Partnerships building, 48 creating, 38–39 dissemination and, 64–65

Index Paul, Peter, 8, 27–28 Peterson-Grace, Lisa, 53 Podcasts, 44 Policymakers, influence on, 11–12 Publicizing, 39, 50, 61–63 Rather, Dan, 18 Recommended reading, 114–124 Recruitment expanding, 47–48 sample flyer, 86 Reform without input, 16–17 Ritchie, Gayle, 57 Rogasner, Marjorie, 56 Roles, formalizing, 42, 43 Roles and responsibilities, 30–32 Rose, Caron, 29 Rossi, Sarah, 56–57 Rust, Frances, 53, 67 Sacramento TNLI, 5 Santa Barbara County Office of Education, 5 Santa Barbara TNLI, 5 Self-esteem, 10–11 Shager, Erik, 63 Shanker, Albert, 20 Sharing content, 44 Short Changed in the City (film), 60 Sims, Monica, 30 Snowbird conference, 18–19 Socrates, 51 Speakers, 65 STAR (Special Teachers Are Rewarded) initiative, 12–13 Status quo, 15–17 Summit, education, viii, 2, 18 Supporters, remembering, 49–50 Taking Action With Teacher Research (Meyers and Rust), 53 Teachers Network (TN) founding and growth of, 1–2 management of New York City local TN affiliate by, 5 mission of, 29–30 1989 education summit and, 18 vision statement of, 73–76 Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) application form and group interview agenda, 77–80

establishment of Gainesville affiliate and, 7 evolution and activities of, 2 locations of affiliates, 4–5 mission of, 29–30 origins of, 18 sample grant proposal, 81–84 Teachers networks characteristics of, 3 reasons for forming, 9–14 Teachers’ Vision of the Future of Education, The, 18–19 Technical assistance kits, 49 Technology, 44, 46–47. See also Blogging; Internet; Listservs Teleconferencing, 44 Tensions, recognizing and embracing, 41–42 TN. See Teachers Network TNLI. See Teachers Network Leadership Institute Turnover, teacher, 16 University of Florida, 4 Vandiver, Fran, 7, 8, 9 Videoconferencing enhancing network with, 46–47 as means of communication, 44 Vision creating one’s own, 19–24 envisioning process and, 17–18, 25–26 naming of problems and, 15–17 staying true to, 50 Teachers’ Vision of the Future of Education, The, 18–19 Vision statement, 73–76 Web sites, 44 What Happens Next? Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School’s Class of 2006 in Their First Year after High School, 92–103 What Is Policy? (video), 54, 104–105 What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, 17 WIFM (What’s in It for Me) factor creating motivation and, 33–34 incentives and, 48 partnerships and, 48 Ziegler, Warren, 15

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