I found the pill: If you just take this, we can close the gap!
January 07, 2016
Edwin Javius
Founder/President/CEO of EDEquity Inc.
Teacher efficacy is at the heart of student achievement and changing conditions for underserved students. Thus, district and site leaders must make it a priority to coach teachers up.
I have had the opportunity to travel across the nation supporting districts and schools in school improvement and building teacher capacity to reach and teach all students. More recently, education leaders are aggressively asking for more solutions to closing the multitude of gaps that continue to exist in our districts and schools. I have come to the conclusion after hearing their undying need to close the achievement/opportunity gap, our educational leaders and teachers can’t refrain from wanting a quick solution – “the pill” to solve this educational crisis. After I explain what the research says about how black and brown students learn and what teachers need to do with their planning and instructional delivery, the proverbial dazed look appears. They have a tendency to think the solution is rooted in some convoluted double reverse, flea flicker, Hail-Mary approach. I quote John Hattie’s meta-analysis research on what impacts student learning. I also share the research of the self-fulfilling prophecy, Pygmalion Effect and research from Dr. Wade Nobles, who is quoted as saying “the greatest barrier to learning is not what the student knows; it is what the teacher believes.” Most educators’ response is “the solution to the problem is not that simple.” So I have come to the revelation that I must come at this issue of getting folks to believe that the current school transformation and student achievement for students of color is a changeable condition. As Anthony Mohammad indicated, there is no magic dust to improving student outcomes. So I did not look for the dust; I just found the pill: First and foremost we will have to change the target. The target of school transformation is not student achievement.
Based on our nation’s testing history from the 1960s to current, the student achievement outcomes have moved almost every five years. The target is not to increase student achievement. The target is to improve teacher efficacy. School leaders must make it their top priority to coach teachers up. Districts and site leaders no longer teach the “little kids” in classes. Their classes have the “big kids” in them. Their faculty meetings and whenever they engage their teachers is their classroom. When I coach principals, I narrow their focus of “stuff to do” as a leader to one priority: coaching teachers and providing quality feedback to teachers. If what they are doing doesn’t directly impact teacher efficacy, they are not keeping their eyes on the prize. The other stuff can be done by empowered people in the building. The coaching of teachers must have a direct and profound impact on teachers’ beliefs that they have the skill and will to increase student learning for every child in the class.
Teacher efficacy has three essential components: Mind-set (direct factor), planning, and instructional delivery (indirect factors). Current research on mind-set is having resounding influence on teacher efficacy. Both fixed and growth mind-sets have negative and positive impacts on student learning. Information on mind-set must be an integral coaching element for site leaders. Unfortunately our current principal evaluation frameworks don’t have explicit goals, and objectives on the coaching of mind-set. Noteworthy to teacher mind-set in efficacy, instructional planning is key. I have shared that “the proof is in the data, but the details are in the planning.” Efficacious teachers of all students, and especially with students of color, know the importance of planning. I no longer think, but I now know, that instructional rigor is won or lost in the planning of lessons and not so much in the delivery. If our teachers are not engaged in rigorous planning of lessons and student engagement, the likelihood we see it in the classroom is drastically minimized. Efficacious teachers constantly reflect and plan for those students who will struggle in the lesson and also those students who will need extension to the content or skills being learned.
The teacher actually keeps the questions “What will we do for the students who do not get it?” and “What will we do for the student who will get it?” in their consciousness all the time, not just when they have professional learning community meetings. The efficacious teacher knows the importance of culture and race as positive antecedents to power student learning for students of color. They use powerful text selection to have students engaged in sophisticated deep learning and critical analysis. The teacher has an uncanny way of using positive descriptive feedback in an effort to keep even the struggling learner engaged and displaying multiple levels of resiliency. Validation and affirmation of effort is rewarded, and “peacock moments” for students are easily observed. Yes, I found the pill to closing the gap. Change our target from student achievement to improving teacher efficacy. Principals coaching teachers up and teachers’ efficacy will lead to increased student learning. So, the plan breaks down to this simple formula: A+B=C: Coaching + Teacher Efficacy = Student Learning. We must remember, not everyone who goes to the doctor actually takes the pill to get better. If we K.I.S.S. it (keep it super simple) and be aggressive in answering the question rather than posing another question, we will solve the problem. The pill is not for the little kids; it’s for the big kids. I found it y’all. No water is needed.
Source: Edwin Javius
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