WGBH Lectures; WGBH Forum Network; The Future of Teaching in Massachusetts Part 3

On my far left we have Claudia El Faro the national executive director of the civic of civic engagement for Citizen Schools. Next to her is Jesse Solomon the director of the Boston teachers residency. Next to me is Susan Ambrose of it and she's the assistant superintendent of the Danvers public schools. Next to me on my right is Teresa Oaks a fifth grade teacher at the Ivan G Smith Elementary School in Danvers. And next to her is Tom to del Prete and he's the director of the Hyatt Center for Urban Education at Clark University and a key contributor to the formation of University Park School. In our last panel we heard about the possibilities and challenges when when transforming teaching for the 21st century. With this panel we'll talk to people who are actually in the trenches working in and with our schools. So just we want to start with you. Right Quick go to the demand on teachers

in the 21st century if they have changed dramatically. So how is the Boston teacher residency Abene dressing the shift from preparing prospective teachers for it. Thanks. Thank you for having us here today. So when I was teaching high school math and people would ask to what was it like and describe the work. I would always describe it as teaching ninth grade and fifth grade at the same time that you have a content that you're trying to teach say a ninth grade algebra and you're going to stay true to that content and you want everyone in your class to to master that content but at the same time you're you're filling in a set of skills that were missed or weren't fully mastered along the way and so there's this sort of duality in teaching and so I think as has been talked about earlier today there is this this very different goal that our country is taking on about actually educating all kids to high levels and about all actually meaning all as opposed to some or a few. So we start with a sort of fundamental notion that.

People that we look for when we recruit in the people that come to our program where we're trying to work with them to combine both a belief system that all children can actually learn at high levels with you know just sort of stubborn persistence about just trying everything they can possibly try and getting smarter and smarter about how to actually do that and we think that it's some combination of both of those things. So we pay a lot of attention in our program to student learning and that really is the sort of fundamental goal in our program and it's a little bit different to talk about the structure of the program. But so so really the outcome of our program has much more to do with kid learning than it does with Adult Learning adult learning is really a means to that end. There are two elements of our program design I'll talk about. One is that we believe in a deep extended practicum experience so our folks spend a full year in a Boston public school with a supported selected trained mentor teacher but actually working in a cohort. And the notion is that we feel like the way to learn to do this incredibly complex work is to do it at the elbow of someone who really

knows what they're doing who's engaged with this. This trainee in a kind of year long conversation about effective teaching and about student learning. So that's at the core of the program and our folks are actually in clusters. So really while you have one primary mentor you're with a group of other residents we call them and a group of mentors in a school destroyed this notion of learning in a in a team and then the second core element is really trying to think about how we bridge theory and practice. This this is not the traditional model what what has perhaps been wrong with some of the way we've done to preparation the past certainly my experience of it was you had a kind of split. You had your professors telling you what practice should look like and telling you that a lot of the practice you were seeing in your schools that you're working in was not good practice and you had people mentoring in the schools telling you not to listen to the professors that they didn't know anything about the practice. And you're sort of schizo frantic trying to figure out you know what what how to make sense of this and so we don't believe that you're going to suddenly have one pure

clean conversation. But we do believe that it's our job to help bridge those conversations and first of all physically to engage the mentors and the instructors and the sort of supervisors with the trainees in that conversation about what effective practice looks like and to create a set of courses and assignments that go back and forth and bridge what's happening in coursework and what's happening in the classroom. I know that I probably do have 30 more seconds. Oh sure I can combine obits not yet. So that's sort of in terms of that the teacher education piece. The thing I think is is worth saying is is sort of the structural setup of our program. We are the Boston public schools teacher preparation program. So in some ways we have a very different client in our in our client and we say this very clearly to one our our clients are the families and the children of Boston. And we get these great residents who come to us every year and spend a full year and they work really hard to get in they get there in the first day and every year I get up there and say you know we love you and we work and work really hard for you and with you and you're are you know you were going to pursue every day all year long. And by the way it's not about you

it's about kids and it makes for a different kind of answer because it just it makes a different relationship between us and the district that when we're preparing teachers we're not preparing them just to finish our program we're preparing them to be successful afterwards. They make at least a four year commitment to Boston when they come to us and we make a four year commitment to them in return. So as was talked about earlier preparation isn't something that just happens in the 13 month preparation program. We try to think about a four year continuum of teacher development and really four years is an arbitrary number it could be eight years it could be 12 years it could be 30 years. But the notion is to really help teachers see themselves on that continuum and be working along that and to have our induction efforts because we support them for these first two years aligned with the preparation efforts of the kinds of things that we're preparing them to do in pre-service are continued on through their first few years and that's where we do. But it's also work we do very closely with schools and Margarito is here and Marjorie's is one of the schools that we work very closely with in terms of thinking about how does the school really raise up these teachers. And Jesse can you tell us a little bit about what your residence

actually add to the classroom and the overall school environment. So the first thing we do is is we don't we don't start with mentors we start with schools and we put out our peach year and schools apply to be host schools. And so our program is it's called the Boston teacher residency and feel loosely allow the sort of medical residency analogy. The notion is that these schools are the teaching hospital sites in the program and so what I think our folks bring is we get about. Last year we had a little over 500 applications for 75 slots. So we're able to be fairly selective. Half of our residents are our folks of color. Half of them middle high school folks are our math science people everybody's getting to a license in special education so they bring some of the sort of under represented areas that that we have trouble filling in other ways. But but really what they bring is there's a cohort of six or seven or eight talented committed people working really hard all year long in a school to help improve student learning outcomes in that school and that kind of cohort in a school I think makes a big difference. And we work very hard

both to find people and to support reflective practice across the school so we're working with schools that already are that do have reflective database cultures and we're working also to sort of push those cultures in schools so that you have much more of a whole school moving toward student proven. And I think the notion is not teacher preparation or teacher induction as an isolated program but teacher preparation teach induction as part of a much larger school improvement effort. So you're just a kid. District has been making a shift towards more collaborative teaching culture. So could you describe for us what that looks like and how your teachers are operating. Sure. Our idea or concept and the Dems public schools was to build the capacity for teacher leadership while honoring the notion that many teachers want to stay as practitioners in the classroom. So our central focus was to make sure that everyone knew that they had an equal role in the community of a school whether it be in ministry or teacher parent or a business partner.

And the key word here was an equal access or an equal buy into the concept of shared leadership. The first thing we did was determine that we could best achieve our goals for the development of professional learning communities in Denver so that whether that meant looking together to desegregate data to read books together to look at student work our whole concept was that we wanted a linear leadership model in the schools. And that's where we started that was our focus. From there we looked at the traditional administrative structure and sort of tipped it upside down. We took what we used to have as what used to be curriculum directors K to 12 and assigned curriculum directors to school level so that they would work alongside the principals to do the staff development and professional development that so necessary for those professional learning communities to be vibrant in the schools. So they did print the school principal and the administration along with the curriculum director now who is a generalist who works together and in the in the

school to make sure that they have laid out their professional development plans for the year so that they can sort of plot the vision for the school community in terms of a professional learning community. But what we did underneath that acknowledging that we needed torte of content specialists was added a teacher leader layer and that again brings back that honoring the practitioner. So teacher leaders work with a curriculum director the onsite curriculum director. In the middle and high school and we also have one curriculum director for elementary schools and they bring the content specialists knowledge to the group that is overseeing all of the work for this collaborative environment. The the teacher leaders facilitate meetings and they work on content knowledge they go visit classrooms. They do some peer observations and they act as mentors for their department. So the whole notion of print professional learning communities in the school has been expanded so that there is more buy in and more layers for people to work in the classroom.

The elementary level we've also done district wide data leadership teams and volunteer teachers work together with a consultant who uses the using using data process to desegregate our standardized test scores. And what she does is challenge the notion in our schools of why students are achieving are not achieving at certain optimal levels before teachers just get to the bottom line about why as our students aren't achieving. They develop hypotheses to make and inferences and develop observations about why students are are not achieving what we found through this desegregation process was that even though Danvers is a very homogenous community in terms of ethnicity our low income students who are being significantly under served in the classroom. And that was something that wasn't apparent until we got through that desegregation process. This teacher leaders in the leadership project at the elementary schools then go back to their own schools and work on that same process with with their teachers

and in in their schools. Our lesson our mentor program induction program has built in opportunities for lesson study and peer observation. And finally for those teachers who really wish to go through an administrative path we have developed with Salem State College a cohort cohort where we have developed a succession plan for teachers who want to become leaders in the true sense of the word in terms of building managers. So what is the role of most of the school administrator in this collaborative model. I think. The role of the school administrator in the collaborative model has changed so that you become the lead cheerleader a public relations person explaining the objectives of professional learning community to not only the school community but the parents in the business community at large. I think you need to bring people in we've brought lots of people in from the business and surrounding communities to look and see and help us out in the classroom so that they know what's going on and can appreciate the tough job that teachers have in the classroom. I think

another one is to be a human resource broker. And it's it is the goal of the administrators in the district to look at teachers and help them reach their capacity in terms of the location so they don't feel as if they're in the classroom as we talked about earlier. For 35 years without any career path to show them that there are opportunities to lead outside of the classroom but still maintain the integrity of what your core is as a teacher. So we've tried to provide that I think an administrator needs to work backwards as well and be the projector of the vision and let go of the minutia that sort of hamstrings a lot of administrators day to day because in a true collaborative model the staff works together as a linear group of educators and how we get to the end vision doesn't really matter to us it really only matters that we achieve the vision. So if the staff wants to go one direction and the administrator feels it necessary that he wants to hear she wants to go this way.

You have to be able to let go of that and let the staff figure it out for themselves. Their ownership is ultimately the success of the school. And as a teacher Teresa in a school that has a collaborative culture what does it mean to you and other teachers to have a team of educators that you can work with to determine lesson plans or share strategies to improve student achievement. Well in addition to the numerous opportunities that Sue described at our school we have an entity called the faculty forum and that is where once a month every Friday during the school day all the teachers are staff all 35 of us meet for two and a half hours to discuss issues around our choice around instruction assessment school culture curriculum anything any direction we choose. And so put simply for me the benefit is simply a matter of two heads being better than one or 35 heads being better than one in our school. So on my own I can plan a

pretty good lesson and my students show success I have been successful. But in faculty forum I gain the benefit of. 35 different mines. I have the expertise of our special educators who can help me see where I can differentiate the lessons both for the students who struggle as we were talking earlier. Help me see where I can take students further. I have access to the ideas of our specialists who help me infuse art and music and movement into my lessons and make the learning for my students more permanent and meaningful. Working with teachers across the grade level we sometimes work in small groups with a kindergarten third grade fifth grade teacher I can see where those students have Ben and the prior knowledge I need to connect to. I can see where they are going and where I need to build their schema. So all those contributions stay with me and when I'm planning my lessons at home my kitchen table. I still have all that expertise in here and I can draw upon it when planning my lessons

and in front of my students and they look like it's just me teaching them. But being part of a collaborative culture means that all of us all the time are taking them as far as we can collectively. So that your school where there's these opportunities to become a teacher leader. Can you tell me from your perspective why are they important and what do they contribute of the teachers and the overall learning process. For me the greatest value in becoming a teacher leader was the shift in perspective. It Big helped me see that my responsibility was not only to the 20 25 students in front of me but to all the students in my school and through the especially the data team that Sue is describing to all the students in an AI district. I became less territorial about my teaching less isolated more willing to share with and learn from my colleagues. I began to see my role as working with my administrators. My perspective shifted from the impact I could have on the kids in my classroom to the impact I could have on students I would never even meet. And I'm not

sure I had that before I took more leadership roles. In terms of teacher leaders contributions to other teachers just as we know that modeling is so important for our students I think that teacher leaders become models for their colleagues. Teacher leaders model a willingness to take risks be it to hold a lesson study were other teachers come into your classroom and help perfect that lesson or to take a risk to present a dilemma that teachers having and get the group input to solve it or to be offer to offer forward a piece of student work for people to analyze for the group to analyze. The models willingness to take risks to model reflect reflective teaching and analytic thinking empathy by being a mentor lifelong learning. So the modeling works I think at our school where teachers are stepping up to be leaders. Other teachers are then more eager to join in. I think being here today that it is vital that we create opportunities for talented

teachers to grow as professionals and remain in direct contact with students. I think that they need early the top of the career ladder. They need chances to grow. And so teacher leadership is the venue for that I think. Thank. You Prince and similar things from teachers at the University Park campus school. Tell us a bit about the seven to 12 grade grade model and in particular how did the teachers work together and why has this made your model proved so successful. Well let me introduce a school briefly first. University Park campus school is is located in a pretty economically depressed neighborhood. It's a neighborhood school it serves kids most of whom if they make it to college will be the first in their families to do so. About two thirds of the kids come from families where English is not the the language as spoken at home. About 75 to 78 percent of the kids qualify for the free or reduced lunch program. So those are the kind of basic conditions of the school we knew in

developing the school there would have to create a culture if we wanted to get all the kids for college and that was the mission. We have to create a culture to support that so that when the hallmarks of that culture would be for the good in terms of the kids that there would be a high degree of personalization and support for the kids good communication with families and a tremendous amount of collaboration among teachers so they could share and develop practice together and. And create a powerful learning culture for the kids. So one of the hallmarks of the culture in the collaboration that we've been able to develop there. There are a few very important things and the first is that the kids I'm sorry that the teachers actually share responsibility for all the kids in the school. So it is a deep collective sense of responsibility in terms of getting all the kids ready for college. Now how does that that work in practice Well there are a number of practices and structures that enable the collaboration.

For example when kids enter the school as seventh graders they are greeted by a team of teachers and an interdisciplinary team and that that team will be working with those kids for two years so they get that they get to know the kids very well they develop strong relationships. They have a common understanding of what they're trying to achieve with the kids and they focus on that together. They also meet regularly to discuss each kid. It's a small school. And that condition is helpful it's not that big schools can't create this kind of personalized culture but it's somewhat harder and in a large school setting University Park campus close 240 kids of a 14 academic teachers and a couple of the support staff it's very teacher driven and and teacher managed. So the the the teachers in the in the seven eighth grade working with the kids for two years really work hard together. Developing them academically and they have a keen sense because they are also working in collaboration with the nine through 12 teachers regarding what kids will need to get to that next academic

level. This is the teachers as a whole school be weekly and that's structured into the weekly schedule of the day and in a typical faculty meeting weekly I've had I attend them fairly often. The teachers begin by talking about kids and almost everybody in the room can have if they don't know the kid yet personally they'll be able to contribute in terms of whatever need or or problem solving is entailed with the particular kid. So that creates a powerful culture unified around support for kids. There are couple of other things that happen. Besides teachers working in teams and looping the teachers also have to recognize that they need to be consistent in their practice for kids. This consistency in practice would seem like something that would be common sensical in a school but it doesn't always happen particularly big schools and particularly for schools that are serving low income kids. You often have variations in achievement from one classroom to the next in a school that's collaborative in a collaborative culture. You don't see

those variations in achievement from one classroom to the next they begin to even now because the teachers are working in teams. So in a school like University Park campus school the teachers have to learn to develop practice together. They've learned to practice inquiry together as they begin to think to begin to investigate why kids might not be learning. Some kids might not be learning as well as other kids. And there's one practice mentioned one it's called rounds. It's actually also adopted from the medical model of training and in that practice the teachers get together in each other's classrooms. Now this is this is not typical in a school culture but they're in each other's classrooms and then the host teacher in the classroom actually frames. The learning process for the kids and the learning process for the teachers who enter the classroom so the host teacher will think of some questions that are really inquiry oriented to try to help understand what the learning process is for the kids and that particular moment of

time in that particular you know during that particular lesson. So it's a for the host teacher it's a reflective act because that teacher has to think about not only how do I communicate my my practice with my colleagues but how is it what questions are essential to ask for me to find out whether the kids are learning well and doing what I hoped. What are the kinds of things that I would look for and listen for. And what's happening in the classroom in order to know that that becomes data. So collectively the teachers are in each other's classrooms gathering this data and helping each other think through in a very you know fundamental concrete way what was going on in the class. All the activity I'm describing is actually reinforced by the university partnership you know that the school was conceived in partnership as a fully public school and fully neighborhood you know or in a school. But the university place a critical role in expanding I think the collaborative culture that the teachers work in. So what I've described as a collaborative culture for teachers is reinforced by the collaboration with the university faculty and staff so the teachers work regularly with us

sometimes directly on support programs for the kids. And almost and ongoing only in terms of our curriculum and teaching practice that round process that I very briefly describe when we're when teachers are in each other's classrooms also includes faculty such such as myself in the process and graduate students who are being introduced in the profession are also part of the process so there are a number of ways of collaboration a number of ways to working or working together. All built around the mission of preparing the kids for college all built around a deep sense of personal responsibility for each of the kids. Can you tell us how you prepare new teachers to participate in that collaborative learning culture like the one at the university. Yeah. You know Jesse mentioned in his remarks that one of the things they that they try to bridge is theory in practice and one of the ways to do that is to embed people in not simply in practice but in practice that is being reflected on

in a systematic and collaborative ways. So that's what we do with our students mainly in the University Park campus closed example when we have a set of graduate students every year who are hosted by University Park campus school for the entire year. So they're similar to Jesse's program. They're part of the faculty the staff of the school culture for a full academic year now. So they're in a team also themselves and they represent different disciplines but they're working together as a team. Partly curriculum planning partly in observing some of the best practice that teachers are exemplifying in the classrooms around them. So they they do that as a team they're supported by a group of mentor teachers in that process and a group of university faculty who are integrated into the process. So our students are socialised into a collaborative reflective inquiring culture because they're working in a partnership in a school where that's exemplified. And in a partnership where that example fights our students the interaction between faculty and teachers for instance all the

time. They're there right now three teachers at University Park campus school all graduates of our program who who are co instructors in critical courses in the program and their classrooms actually become in effect state case studies for us students. So they're reflecting on their practice working in collaboration with faculty. We've managed to create a a culture and an environment so that supports socialization so for our students graduating from the program that's pretty much the norm. That's the way the life of a teacher should be. It's not always the case when they go out and they get jobs that they experience that directly and they have to become agents to try to make that happen. We try to support that process a little bit. But that's how we introduce them to the to a profession that can that can support teachers that can sustain them and help develop them make learning continuous. And perpetuate good teaching in the culture.

Thanks Claudia. Your organization Citizens schools has done some work with the University Park and other urban districts. They're focused on extended learning or expanding the school day. How does that impact student learning in teachers. Great question. Thank you for having us. I think one of the things that is different about their of my colleagues on this panel is that Suzanne schools is an organization that pattern that works in schools middle schools throughout not only Massachusetts but the country to extend their learning time that we spend with children. And we utilize the time that is normally what we normally think of as after school time. So what do we do. It's we we work very closely with the schools that we partner with. We had to make sure that the learning that has taken place during the school day is actually highlight and make it even more relevant during the afternoons. But we do it in a way that we think it's quite innovative. Not only are we partner with the university to make sure that our staff is

on a board to me to continue their education and get a master's in education through the time that they're with us. But we also go out and gate 60 cents to come in and assumed a role of second shift and the caterers to come in and share what they log and know with middle school students throughout the country. And we there's three things that we highly focus on more time more talent and more relevant learning. You know one of the things that I really love of US citizens schools is the fact that you bring the community into our schools so. Can you tell me why is the spend so significant for teachers. I think one of the things one of the reasons what is so significant is because we heard all this morning about the importance us and thinkin that you can really know I really have one sole educator in each classroom assuming that that one person will be the one and only person the leader in that occasion for children. What we do is to bring in all these nontraditional

teachers scientists and business people and people that are highly qualified. The sounds that are currently in the business world currently making a difference in our states and in our cities that are indeed the holders of the information and knowledge who better to come to our classrooms and share and expand the learning that scientific chair is coming and try to teach our students. A scientist that is currently working in a biotech company here in the city of Boston. It's common in the afternoon to teach middle school students about how to peel a rocket and to bring relevance to this science classes that are taking place in the morning in the afternoon the students actually are able to connect and understand why it's so important than the basic science that you're learning in the morning and how you're going to be able to use it in a job how are you going to be able to think about those 21st century skills in a way that makes our students a more rounded citizen.

Thanks. You know she's absolutely right engaging in the community is important but I think you could make a similar case for the university. And I just think partnerships as well so how can we ensure that the teacher preparation programs are meeting day. The district needs the challenges that the districts now I think universities can play a critical role in the process. I just want to step back for one second and mention one thing better connect I think connects to the discussion so for what I didn't mention before was that the kids benefit from being in a collaborative culture it's not only the teachers because not only do they see that modeled but they begin to see that too as a way to to act in the world and to create something good in the world. And that goes that goes the same for partnership. The students at University Park campus school frequently on the Clark University campus and campus is an extension and the university is an extension of their learning environment. And not only that because Clark offers the students tuition free education if they qualify to attend the university

this is a very tangible incentive for them and it creates a pretty broad horizon line for them and their own life trajectory in their own educational trajectory and I think that that should go on notice to the kind of environment we create for teachers in the kind of partnerships that we set up. What in the name of collaboration can have a profound impact on the kids themselves. Now in terms of university being a partner with the district. You know the credibility of a teacher preparation program is really at the school level and the people who witness to the power of our program are the teachers and the principals and they're the ones that tell the district you know this is working well. We want to hire these students into the program. We make adjustments accordingly. You know the teachers in the principals are telling us we're so kind of mutually indebted now. This is an ongoing conversation with a fairly mature level in our collaboration so we don't we don't we get feedback continuously we we have a shared understanding what we're trying to do. But we've only arrived at that point because we listen

to each other and we collaborate. Now in our case the principals talk to human resources we talk to human resources human resources director for a number of years now has come to the university and interviewed our students directly even before knowing what the job openings are in the schools because they hope to get them into the pipeline. Now there are a number of other factors that enter into the hiring process that unfortunately prevent. More of our students getting hired and then are hired at least in the city because we're trying to prepare our students to work in urban environments like like our city like Worcester. But it's that credibility that we established at the school level is the degree of collaboration around the program. It's the impact of our graduate students teaching and learning in the schools. University Park and the schools are a great example because more than half the teachers at the school who are full time graduated from the teacher or teacher preparation program hold master's degrees from the university and five or six additional graduate students are in

the building every year so more than two thirds of the teaching of this highly successful school is being conducted by prep by current or former graduate students. That's tremendous evidence to the to the district that this is a that that partnership is can be very powerful and a win win for everybody. So certainly it's possible to create these collaborative environments where teachers and students thrive. But obviously it's not happening everywhere so what are some of the obstacles and how's your How has your district overcome them and and been able to navigate the barriers that that I'm sure exist. I think one of the biggest obstacles is fear on the part of both the teacher and the administrator that their roles are going to morph into something that they don't want it to be. Teachers are by nature performers in their own classroom and they feel very comfortable talking to a group of students. But once they get out into a larger arena and they have to share their craft I think they found that to be sort of daunting at first. So overcoming obstacles sort of just like getting the teachers into the

idea or the notion that share leadership is very good for you for kids as we heard today the idea that everybody in a school knows a student's name and in his or her background instead of just the group of teachers that he or she cycles through is is totally worth it. So we've been able to overcome the obstacle of fear by just gradually leading people into teacher leadership opportunities and choosing those people who we think will be good role models later on for people who do who might be reticent but are. Eventually going to be ready to be a teacher leader. Another part. Another obstacle has been turned over in staff. We just think we get a culture set and it's a great culture and all the Pistons are firing and lo and behold five or six or seven teachers leave and a job for everybody in the school then becomes to ingrain them and indoctrinate them into the culture of a school that takes a few a few months or at least at least to get them going. That

I think the idea of collaborative learning community is saleable to anybody though any any obstacle. If you put the focus on what students need to achieve to their highest potential that is an indefensible argument for anybody and and everybody who is in the field of Education wants to buy into that and wants to be part of a larger something outside the classroom. So we found that asking them to be part of that and come join us on our journey to help students achieve has been a good selling point. When our district did do that was a little innovative I think as we put together a district design team that was. That is comprised of administrators teachers parents and outside consultants who have looked at our district and looked at the deficiencies that we have. For example as I said earlier we are on the margin margin Asli groups in terms of our ethnic background and socioeconomic background really there's not a lot of diversity.

We can't entice people of color to come to our district. Part of that has been frustrating in terms of the hiring process our students deserve the richness of diversity in the world in their classrooms now that they will go out into later on. So that's been an obstacle that we also have had. Terms of the collaborative community collaborative community sure from one perspective. How much richer that would be if we could engender the support of other. Other backgrounds and cultures to share with our students. And finally I think one of the other things is just being creative about time. People do want to meet I think we heard that all day throughout both panels. We need teachers need time to collaborate. They can't do it on their own time they have lives outside of school just as everyone else does. If we can somehow be creative and we have tried to through a faculty forum and things like that so that teachers do get that opportunity to work together as professionals during the school day to make their jobs

on a higher plane. I think that it will be successful and I think we have been successful. Thank you. We're open the the panel up to questions. So again if you're in the upper tier you have to come down to the microphones on the other side. And while we're getting people into position to ask their questions. Jesse what else do you think is needed to give schools and districts the power to create a collaborative culture for teachers. While I guess I'd start by saying that I think schools and districts have the power and that I don't think a collaborative culture is something you can legislate or force on folks. So I'd love to see and I think we found that structures just by themselves don't work. Right so there's been a push toward common planning time. But you go and you walk into some common playing time sessions and everyone's sitting there doing their own thing. And so they're calm and they're in the same room but they're in their planning and it's time but they're not

working together. Where you walk another complaint times and they're doing the kinds of things that Tom is talking about it. You know that we talked about on the panel in terms of actually thinking together about kids and standards and how it actually can help all kids kids achieve so. I think I guess I think again it's sort of the collaborative culture can't be and it has to be the means and I think we have to move towards a belief system an understanding and a set of models some of which you've heard about today which say look we're actually going to help every single kid achieve at high levels for actually going to retain teachers in this new you know with people coming out today expecting to have eight careers by the time they're 50 for actually going to retain folks so that they can actually get good people. There's got to be a connection between the kinds of cultures we build in schools and holding on to folks and producing better results for kids. If those things are correlated then collaborative culture is sort of a nice thing that we talk about and appreciate. But what they have to go together and so I think the more we can we can develop and spread some of these models and then I think. The last thing that say one is that we've talked a

bit about principle as instructional leader and I think I think you've said this before the sort of notion of principle as human resource manager human capital manager and when you talk to great leaders of organizations and their number one job as far as I can tell is going out and getting the best people and getting them on board and finding ways to keep them happy and developing and growing and working together. And it would be great to see that mindset in my mind at least as as right at the front of a principals job and what this will mean is then you start to think about some of the structural stuff because the principals warning about the buses every morning. It's really hard to be a great human capital manager if you're constant worry about the you know the fight that happened on bus 17. Similarly if you're a teacher and you're trying to you know be part of a club of culture and you're worrying about when am I going to get to the Xerox machine because it's a 45 minute wait if I get there after 7:30 in the morning it's hard to think about being part so the point is that once you start to put some of these larger things in place then you can think about the underlying sort of things that you can legislate which would free up some time and energy to build these kinds of cultures.

Thanks Jeff. And we have a question. Could you identify some place. Thomas Lee University. And I'd like to know within the context of your training programs in your present professional development programs and also in the schools that you work. What are some of the successes or example you might give particularly working with English Language Learners whether they come into your system from as you know as young children coming from a family environment where no English is spoken and they speak only their native language or whether they come in late or late elementary middle high school directly from a nother country where they have little experience with education and or and know English or whether you're dealing with students who have been in the system for a while and have already developed what I call in the cap that is slowly growing as they go through the system further within the constraints of the English immersion programs that are part of a question to end and perhaps in collaboration or to compliment to what those risk constraints might be. What are some of the things you've found successful particularly working with those

populations. I just have a quick I have at CVS in schools. There is actually one that I want to have from project that we're working on. There's in Charlestown and one of the schools that we work with we have a growing population of Chinese students that is just as you described. We work with real schools still and so they had to be there being in an elementary school still kind of learning the line way to or they had just recently arrived. And there's a couple things that happen when you are not a native speaker. And one of them is that you could be put as put in a class where you consider where you need to have a special education classes. But it's not really addressing the fact that you really need special education you actually need to learn the language. So what we do is that Im partnering with the schools that we work with we again have been able to go out to our city sense in the cities that we work in to

engage those who are needy to speak or their profession working in professional jobs or working in that community to come in. I will work with the students that we are we have in their classrooms to again find their relevant social there's to and the relevance of the learning that has taken place during the school day. So we have a woman that is working at MIT and she used to astronomy to the to the assistance in Charlestown and just the fact that these students could see somebody else that speaks their very own language that has been able to successfully build a life for herself here in this country and can breach wards and expressions between the students and what their learning has been very powerful. And then again it's connect there right back into the regular school day would what is happening with the rest of the teachers. It's like to end with just two quick things one is what I think is about who we recruit into

teaching. So for us it's very important to have folks coming into our program who've had life experiences similar to those you describe so that it's not always sort of imagining someone else's life experience actually yes I did the same thing 20 years ago I came to the country and so finding people who had who are bilingual who've had those life experiences. And the second thing is I think we've tried to structure the preparation program in many ways around the notion of inclusion and that's inclusion for students with disabilities that's inclusion for students who are English language learners it's just a broad sense and we tride of it. So we try to make that one of the kind of primary metaphors or frameworks that folks get when they come to the program from day one. So they don't think about themselves in a segmented way the way that many of our schools are structured right. That I teach regular ed kids in the person down the hall teacher especially. I teach all kids right and all kids are special and some have disabilities that have been identified sometimes begins at home. But the point is to get them to think about themselves that way and then their job is to learn a sort of set of habits and dispositions and skills to help all students achieve and our sense is that it's very important to start that on day one so

that you can sort of build that throughout rather than adding it on later. I think I can add I think I can add briefly you know University Park campus school the as I mentioned two thirds of the kids have don't speak English at home. What we've relied on in order to support those kids in the academic program is the sense of community and collaboration that occurs within classrooms and the sense similar or just the saying the sense that you are equal to everybody in terms of your worthiness in the class. Kids are grouped heterogeneous Lee at University Park campus school so nobody separated out for for any particular reason. If you need extra support you get it in the before and after school homework center which are really important or in some other way that the teacher builds into the classroom instruction because that also to figure out how to support all kids. Now we have also been surprised at how that those simple principals can support kids who are who are who would otherwise maybe be marginalized or or

left behind in the in the in the process we manage to keep you know kids are entering with with a lower level of English proficiency than that seventh and eighth grade period they're getting lots of support and lots of collaboration having lots of dialogue with peers getting kids to who who are more proficient but who may be bilingual in their language to support them so these kinds of Bill you know kind of built in the ingredients of what we're carries a day for our kids. Thank you. Any other questions. Well since we've come to the end of the questions and coming very close to the end of our time I want to thank both the panelists that we have with us now and those that were with us earlier. At the risk of of understating what we've heard here today I think that there's there's two things that we need to say. First of all there are some amazing pockets of really excellent education taking place in the state of Massachusetts. But we've all also said that we have a long way to go. And if we

really want to be at the vanguard if we really want to be at the forefront we have to do what people on this panel have done take the bull by the horns change what we're doing change the way we're doing things be nimble in our ability to be able to change where we're going and what we're doing because it really means the difference between our kids succeeding between the. The achievement gap we have now and the the closing of that gap that we want to be sooner rather than later. So I want to thank you all for participating I want to thank our panel here because you truly are the people who are there doing it for our kids and for all of you out there who are listening and thinking about teaching. Be a teacher. I have to admit to being a desert or I was a teacher for 13 years and it was it was a great time in my life and it's something that I think you all should give back to kids by being a teacher so thank you very much.