Underpants Gnomes

In this classic episode of South Park , one of the main characters discovers that tiny gnomes are coming into his bedroom at night and stealing his underpants. When the gnomes are confronted and asked to explain their actions, they present a three-phased plan:

First, collect underpants.
Second, …
Third, profit!

The joke, of course, is that the Underpants Gnomes haven’t spelled out the crucial missing phase—how to turn stolen underpants into profits—but they continue their pilfering practices none-the-less.

So what does this have to do with PLCs? Well, I sometimes worry that, like the Underpants Gnomes, we are leaving out crucial details in our assumptions about how work in professional learning teams will lead to improved student learning. In a South Park version of a PLC, it might sound something like this:

First, collect and analyze student data.
Second, …
Third, improved results!

In my experience, much of the literature on PLCs speaks in detail about process (collecting and analyzing student data) and outputs (student learning), but provides much less information on the middle details. And what are those crucial middle details? Well, the research is pretty clear—if you want to improve the outputs, you have to make appreciable changes to the most important school-level inputs: the curricular, assessment, and instructional practices of the classroom teacher.

Now, I don’t want to suggest that the PLC model is ineffective, or that professional learning teams are just spinning their wheels when they collect and analyze student assessment results. One solid practice discussed at length in the PLC literature concerns grouping students based on data to provide either remediation or enrichment opportunities, and I believe that this is clearly an improvement over the more traditional practice of teaching, testing, and then moving on.

But if we keep on teaching the same material the same way, even if we’re re-teaching it a second time around to a targeted group of students, are we really likely to get dramatically different results?

One strategy that I have heard mentioned in numerous workshops is to, “Analyze the data from different classes, figure out which teacher did the best job on a particular concept, and then try to replicate what that teacher did in her class.” I have two issues with this. First, when student data differ across classes, how do we figure out what it was in the higher-achieving classes that led to higher scores? Was it the examples used? Was it the one-on-one time the teachers built in? Was it exemplary class management skills? Was it the fact that two teachers taught the lesson in the morning, when students were alert, and everyone else taught it right after lunch?

Second, while the data shown on overheads in the training workshops always clearly document one class of students doing better than the others (one class has an average 15 points higher than the others, with no students scoring below 80, while a third of the students in the other classes are hovering around 60), it has been my experience that student data across most classrooms are considerably more ambiguous. The differences between most classes in most schools tend to be pretty marginal, without clear patterns that jump off the Excel spreadsheet, making it difficult to draw quick and valid interpretations.

So, if simply analyzing data is not enough, then what is? In order to fill in the missing second phase in the Underpants Gnomes’ plan, we have to ask, and attempt to answer, the kinds of questions that explicitly connect the dots between teaching and learning. What does effective instruction look like? What specific instructional practices led to specific student learning outcomes? Was whole-class instruction superior to small group work, or vice versa? What were the right topics to focus on during one-on-one conferencing? Was it better to start the lesson with an open-ended question or a step-by-step analysis of a solved problem?

Data collection and data analysis are important first steps in the process of pedagogical improvement. The meat of the work, however, lies in identifying and replicating those practices that are most effective in and most tied to raising student achievement.

So how do we do this?

Building trust and a sense of community within a group is the beginning. Making collaboration—and data collection and data analysis—a regular way of doing business is critical, along with developing a collective sense of ownership of student results. But beyond that, teachers must collectively become students of the craft, identifying ways to investigate the connection between teaching and learning. Visiting each others’ classrooms on a regular basis is an excellent strategy, along with action research projects or lesson study initiatives. Teachers can video tape themselves teaching, and then meet as a group to discuss the ways in which students respond to specific instructional practices. Book study groups can explore the strategies in Marzano’s What Works. Administrators can engage their faculties in building-wide discussions of instructional effectiveness by collecting and disseminating instructional data using walkthrough tools.


My point is that the work of professional learning teams must go beyond basic data collection and analysis practices if we expect to use the PLC model as a vehicle for substantive student learning improvements. Collaboration is the way in which we should be doing business, make no mistake. But the details of that business—the specific activities of professional learning teams, the topics on which they choose to focus their time and conversations—must progress to an inquiry-oriented focus on the relationship between instructional practices and student achievement. To do otherwise is to fall prey to the same thinking as those silly gnomes, expecting underpants to magically turn into profits.

Teacher v. Teaching Quality

Imagine this scenario:

A school employs a woman who is woefully inept as a teacher. Her plans are disconnected and unrelated to the curriculum. She regularly hands out "packets" that the kids work quietly on for months at a time.

After joining a team of committed colleagues, her instruction changes for the better....but only because they were planning together and she was drawing from their base of knowledge. At first, the team didn't mind because they knew that her kids were better off. But over time, having to plan for another person unable to bring anything of value to the table grew frustrating.

The school principal knows that this teacher struggles, but can't pressure her with poor evaluations because in his classroom observations, he "sees" good instruction. He knows that this instruction is a direct result of the support this teacher receives from colleagues and is happy that her students are benefitting from the collaborative relationship---but he also knows that the other teachers on the team are growing weary of supporting a colleague with little return.

Does this highlight a disconnect between "teacher quality" and "teaching quality?"

I guess there are two ways to look this scenario:

1. Poor teacher can actually deliver high quality instruction if the right kinds of supportive conditions are in place, making a positive impact on the lives of children.

2. Supportive conditions mask the inability of poor teachers, leaving those in supporting roles exhausted and frustrated.

Where is the middle ground?

Blind Leading the Blind?

I've gotten into the habit of following the weekly focused conversations that Education Week hosts with experts across the professional spectrum. Tackling topics ranging from merit pay to mentoring, I find these chats to be a source of diverse viewpoints that stretch my thinking. Following the Crucial Conversations concept of "filling the pool of shared knowledge," Ed Week has done a great job making education policy approachable.

This week's conversation focused on teacher directed professional development. Guest experts from the Teacher Leaders Network took questions on the power of professional learning teams, structuring teacher directed professional development at the high school level and the role that action research can play in identifying instructional practices that work. Practitioners and policymakers alike submitted questions that were answered with a first hand understanding of what high quality, job embedded professional development looks like at the school level.

Perhaps the most intriguing question in the conversation came from Dr. Francis Gardner, an Emeritus Professor of Biology at Columbus State University, who wrote:

I have conducted over 30 teacher workshops (in content mostly; space science and biology) and taken more than 15 workshops and Chatauqua courses myself. My concern and question(s) is/are: Can the blind lead the blind; especially in critical areas that need reform?

Certainly we need the expertise only obtained by experience, but too often this trumps good, sound research. For example, education has been fraught with "trends and fads" for more than 100 years; usually created by complex interactions, especially in teacher education programs, with little input from content experts.

What checks and balances will be used in these "in-school" staff development programs? Does this approach offer just another over-simplified lip-service to "improving education"?


Gardner's post pushed my thinking...but not about teacher-directed professional development. He left me wondering how we've gotten to the point where the first-hand knowledge of practitioners is described as something other than "good, sound research."

Why is it that content specialists are seen as "experts" yet decisions based on classroom expertise qualifies as nothing more than "trends and fads?" How can outsiders judge sophisticated conversations between colleagues as "just another over-simplified lip-service," while demanding "checks and balances" for teacher driven professional development?

How can we---as accomplished teachers who understand the complexity of our work-- begin to re-establish credibility beyond our classrooms?

An Exam Meritocracy...

In a recent article titled Five Myths About U.S. Kids Outclassed by the Rest of the World, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post cites a conversation between Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and Singapore's education minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam. In it, Shanmugaratnam was asked why his country consistently ranks higher than the United States on international math and science exams, yet fails to produce top-ranked scientists, business leaders and inventors.

Shanmugaratnam answered that America, "is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well -- like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority. These are the areas where Singapore must learn from America."

How can we--as teacher leaders--make the case for the return of intellectual curiosity to our classrooms? How can we help to convince policymakers--or more importantly, parents--that creative thinking and innovation should be a part of every classroom, every day?

We often bristle at the increased role that standardized testing is playing in our profession because we know that meaningful instruction and assessment is far more complex than the skills often emphasized in test-driven classrooms, but what have we done to make the case for more sophisticated measures of student--and school--achievement?

Have we--as a profession--allowed America to become an exam meritocracy? Have we stood silent, watching as educational decisionmakers pushed creativity and innovation aside in order to secure a higher ranking in international exams?

What do we lose when we sit on the sidelines during these debates?

Our Bulemic Reality...

In a recent comment on my NSDC blog, Mike Ford wrote, "Teachers are the stability of the system. They must lead, create, and work to sustain all professional developments if the system is to enjoy quality. Unfortunately, in too many systems, a paternalistic or maternalistic view of leadership exists. Folks look to the top to drive change, and, alas...we end up with bulemic systems that binge and purge per the whim of the leader du jour."

Talk about on point. I've been through literally dozens of binges and purges in my 14 years of teaching, never quite understanding how each new decision played a part in the development of human capacity within our organization. While individually, every opportunity was valuable, none was given the complete time and attention necessary to become an integral part of the "way we do things" in our building. Instead, we seemed to flitter from one program to the next---in the proverbial "inch deep, mile wide" approach to professional learning.

And I agree that a "paternalistic view of leadership" still serves as a barrier to true teacher engagement in decisionmaking---but I hold teachers equally accountable for that reality. In the end, teachers have a responsibility to step forward and lead. All too often, we're willing to vent frustration at our lack of involvement, but we do little to make empowerment less risky and more rewarding. Instead of developing the kinds of relationships with leaders that inspire confidence, we sit back and take the "this-too-shall-pass" approach to our interactions with school administrators.

Here's an interesting question: Where does the primary responsibility for engaging teachers in key decisionmaking rest? Do school administrators bear a greater burden in seeking out accomplished teachers who can advise and lead school change? Or do teacher leaders bear the responsibility for building positive working relationships with administrators that can lead to greater classroom influence over decisionmaking?

How do we restore balance to the administrator/teacher relationship in schools? After all, Roland Barth reminds us time and again that the key to success in schools is the relationship between the adults involved in education. Are positive working relationships a matter of luck--happening only when the right people come together in the right place, or can they be taught and implemented across schools, driving systemic change?

The Spaghetti Project...

In a really interesting post comparing schools to spaghetti sauce, Parry recently argued that the amount of information being given to parents regarding student success is inadequate.

"Once a child is enrolled in a school, parents receive relatively limited information about the quality of education the child is receiving. While parents may see good grades on a report card every nine weeks, do those grades necessarily reflect the quality of education?" he writes, "How many parents with students in K-12 public schools have a clear understanding of what their children should be learning, how their children are progressing relative to those learning goals, and how their children’s rate of progress compares to that of children in other classrooms or nearby schools?"

What's more, Graham argues that providing parents with more information would actually lead to improved schools. "By providing parents with more specific information about the quality of education that their children are receiving, we would give them tools to help us improve the quality of education that we provide. External, consumer-driven pressure is a powerful force for improvement in any industry, but consumers can only make good choices if they have good information."

While I agree with Graham's central premise that parents deserve accurate, timely, easy to understand information about student performance--information that is often not currently provided--I think he's missing a few key points that must be addressed to make his plan possible.

First, teachers will need significant support in developing formative assessments that accurately measure student achievement. As an "accomplished educator," I am almost ashamed to admit that I have little confidence in my own classroom assessments because I've never been taught how to create high quality, reliable measures of student achievement. While I've got a "good sense" of what my children know and can do, it is based on more than fourteen years of experience---not on the homework assignments or quizzes that I give.

(Don't tell my principal that I said that!)

What's more, I have little access to management systems that allow me to quickly and easily collect and analyze data at the classroom level. "Looking for trends," and "making comparisons" between students means shuffling through stacks of paper or flipping pages in my gradebook. Our school--a leader in student achievement and innovation--asks teachers to keep data records in three-ring binders--and I end up drowning in data that I struggle to draw meaning from.

Finally, teachers will need significant time to develop reporting systems that work. While the trend towards increased communication between home and school is essential, it also chews away at already limited planning hours. Between replying to emails, updating websites and returning phone calls, communication has become an almost overwhelming task. To add additional expectations and responsibilities without extending non-instructional time for teachers would hurt the quality of classroom teaching.

Graham's logic is sound---Parents deserve to have accurate information about the performance of their children. But generating and communicating accurate information is a task I'm not sure I'm currently qualified or capable of completing.

Parents as Consumers

I just finished reading the executive summary of an education report called Tough Choices or Tough Times. The report was written by a blue ribbon panel of education, business, and civic leaders, and it recommends some pretty drastic reforms to public education. While some of the recommended reforms are, like the PLC movement, intra-systemic reforms—that is, reforms that come from within K-12 schools—many of the recommended reforms are extra-systemic, coming primarily from local and state governments.

The report got me thinking about the kinds of extra-systemic reforms that could likely have a significant, positive impact on public schools. Several recent extra-systemic reforms have played a large role in the education landscape, including the standards movement and the accountability/testing movement. Another attempted extra-systemic reform, one with a controversial pedigree, is the charter school and voucher movement. It is this movement in particular that I have been thinking about recently.

The premise underlying the charter school and voucher movement is that of choice and competition. By treating parents as consumers and providing them with multiple school choices, the thinking goes, the pressure on local schools to improve will increase as those local schools compete to attract students.

The same premise holds true for consumer products. Say, for example, that you go to the grocery store and want to buy a can of spaghetti sauce. Because there are multiple companies that make spaghetti sauce, and those companies are all competing with one another to convince you to choose their product, there is an incentive for those companies to offer the best spaghetti sauce available at the best price. As the consumer, you win.

In my opinion, however, there is an important flaw in this line of logic: picking a school is dramatically different from buying spaghetti sauce. When you buy a jar of spaghetti sauce, you have a lot of information to aid you in your decision. You can quickly compare the prices of different jars of sauce. You can also compare the variety of spaghetti sauces—one brand may have chunky tomato with garlic, whereas another has mushrooms and parmesan cheese. You can pick up the jars and check out the ingredients. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, you can buy a singe jar, take it home, try it out, and then make future purchasing decisions based on that sample.

When choosing schools, however, parents are particularly ill-informed consumers. Whereas there are multiple, immediately accessible metrics available for comparing spaghetti sauces—price, brand name, ingredients, taste—there are very few metrics available for comparing schools: the only two that come to mind are test scores and word-of-mouth reputation. And, realistically, those metrics don’t provide much information about your child’s individual educational experience (which is what you are really interested in), but rather an aggregate of experiences.

Additionally, once a child is enrolled in a school, parents receive relatively limited information about the quality of education the child is receiving. While parents may see good grades on a report card every nine weeks, do those grades necessarily reflect the quality of education? How many parents with students in K-12 public schools have a clear understanding of what their children should be learning, how their children are progressing relative to those learning goals, and how their children’s rate of progress compares to that of children in other classrooms or nearby schools?

Here is my point: competition can be a positive thing—competition is the reason we have so many good choices of low-cost spaghetti sauce available—but competition only works as a means for improvement if consumers have good information about the products they purchase. I believe that some level of consumer pressure from parents could serve as a positive extra-systemic force for school improvement. Before this could happen, however, parents would need to become better informed consumers.

How would this work? Parents would first need a clear, concise understanding of what their children should be learning at each grade level in each subject. State standards are a good place to start, but they are typically broad and difficult for non-educators to interpret. A simple list—maybe one or two bullets per quarter per subject—written in simple language is all that would be necessary. NCTM’s new Curricular Focal Points are a step in this direction.

Next, parents would need frequent, easily accessible feedback on how their children were progressing relative to those standards. This would need to go well beyond quarterly report cards; you don’t want to have to wait nine weeks to find out that your spaghetti sauce doesn’t taste right, and you shouldn’t have to wait nine weeks to find out whether or not your child is effectively mastering specific learning objectives. This type of information should be available online and should be easy to understand and interpret.

Finally, parents would need comparative data. Has your child mastered a skill that only 25% of the other students in the class have mastered? Are the majority of students in your child’s class still struggling to master skills that students in other classes at the same grade level have already mastered? By providing comparative data, parents can become well-informed consumers and applaud a teacher’s and school’s successful performance or question below-standard performance. Additionally, parents who are dissatisfied with the quality of education in one school can look at the data from nearby schools when weighing the decision to transfer a child from one school to another.

By providing parents with more specific information about the quality of education that their children are receiving, we would give them tools to help us improve the quality of education that we provide. External, consumer-driven pressure is a powerful force for improvement in any industry, but consumers can only make good choices if they have good information. As we continue to identify ways to improve the quality of K-12 schools, expanding the role that parents play as consumers of public education, and providing better consumer-type information to parents, is clearly one option.