Is Instructional “Leadership” Perpetuating the Teaching Crisis?

By Kristi Levy

ASCD TIG Grantee

Oshkosh Area School District

Teachers -- our profession is in crisis. If you aren’t sure you agree, you need only look at recent studies and data that show a variety of frightening trends. When state legislatures around the country took aim at educators, they may as well have fired their political missiles directly into students’ classrooms. In the Learning Policy Institute’s recent study, A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S., released in Sept. 2016, the non-profit shared some sobering news for educators and policymakers. Currently, the profession is facing the first MAJOR shortage since the early 1990s and when looking at the data, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Consider this:

• Between 2009-2014 there was a 35% decline in teacher preparation programs nationwide.

• In 2015 the United States was 60,000 teachers short of filling all classroom openings. This trend is projected to increase with data indicating over 100,000 unfilled teaching positions by 2018.
• Surveyed teachers who left the profession in 2015 indicated numerous reasons for attrition, including:
• 59% left to have more influence over workplace policies and practices
• 57% left to have more autonomy and control over their own work
• Between 19%-30% leave within the first 5 years due to lack of high quality mentoring

Dr. John King meets with teachers to discuss the importance of teacher leadership

This week I had the honor of joining fellow educators and ASCD Teacher Impact Grantees (TIG) for a convening in Washington D.C. Our convening consisted of a day of professional learning at the Department of Education and culminated with Secretary Dr. John King’s monthly Tea with Teachers. It was one of the most impactful experiences of my career, but what stuck with me most were not the words of Dr. King. It was the words of my fellow educators who came from all parts of our nation to be a voice for the importance of teacher leadership.

During the day, I was unsurprised by how many educators recognize the debilitating implications of policies and budget cuts enacted by their state governments. But, what was surprising is that they pointed to more insidious practices causing teachers to leave the profession and the fox is inside the hen house. What stands in the way of teacher leadership is often Leadership, with a capital L. The data doesn’t lie -- many teachers leave the profession because they don’t feel like their voice matters. And yet, over and over again, teachers shared stories of their desire to lead the profession, only to be told “Your practices are exceptional, but not the focus of a district initiative” or, “We love what you’re working on; can we put it in the newsletter at the end of the month?” While these phrases are very different, the outcome is the same and the message to us is the same -- “Don’t worry teachers, we’ve got this.”  

In a political climate where teachers are being devalued and driven from the profession, school leaders need to be the counterbalance. When we lose teacher voice, we not only lose teachers, we lose the best part of our profession. Excellence in the profession can be found in every school building in every district, but too often schools are not working to amplify it. At best school leaders recognize it, but an acknowledgment does nothing to amplify practice. The focus of our professional growth needs to be on what teaching excellence looks like in the classroom, not what teaching excellence sounds like in professional development. And school “Leadership” needs to turn into school “Growership.”  There is a distinct need for district’s to have a vision for learning and align offerings with that overall vision. However, maintaining district vision and elevating teacher voice are not mutually exclusive practices.

Every district has teachers DOING the work that aligns with their vision and Growership involves finding them and elevating their practice to serve as a beacon for their colleagues. I work with so many colleagues who are doing to work of our district vision. We are a standards based learning district and we have Will Brydon who is helping 9th grade students learn to unpack the standards so they can better inform their own learning. We believe in formative assessments that drive instruction and we have Alex Griffith and Malary Hill who are not only using formative assessment to create learning paths for students, but are helping students to engage in the purpose of the formative process. And, there are so many more teachers like this -- exceptional teachers working toward our district vision for learning.  I also have the fortune of knowing school leaders who engage in Growership, like Matt Mineau who engages teachers in his building in teams designed to be educational think tanks for research and development. And Erin Kohl who has formed both staff and student cabinets to engage teachers and students in the vision for learning. Examples like these are how our profession, not only survives the current crisis, but thrives.

At the end of our Tea with Teachers, Secretary King told us the story of a few donors who were skeptical about investing directly in teachers the way Teacher Impact Grants do. He said they feared the grants would start 20 campfires that never had a chance to ignite a forest fire of change. He asked us how he should respond to their concern and my answer to him was simple -- Almost every single teacher I work beside would crawl through broken glass if they knew it would help a kid and teachers believe in what we can see and we believe in each other. Teachers have all of the desire necessary to create a forest fire. Educators account for 4.2 million tweets per day! Factor in other sharing outlets and there is no doubt that teachers are hungry to learn from one another, but we need the fuel grants like this can provide directly to teachers and we need our school Leaders to become Growers. Thank you, Dr. King, for believing in Growership.