There’s no shortage of conversation being bandied about lately regarding education and the role the economic stimulus package is going to play in schools. People from nearly every sector of society are weighing in on how to best move forward in American education. The sheer variety of suggestions is stupefying, but there is usually one common denominator: almost all these conversations end up discussing the critical need for quality educators.
From various corners of our society we’re hearing a similar refrain: we need to recruit excellent teachers and we need to retain the excellent ones already in the system. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in an article in the Star Tribune said, “We have the young guns coming out of college, the mid-career types in their 30 and 40s and people closer to retirement in their 50s and 60s who have a good 10 more years to work. We need to open the doors to get more of each of these groups into classrooms.”
It is a relief to hear policy makers and influential people focus squarely on how to get the best people into the classrooms. But there’s a critical ingredient missing. No one has mentioned improving schools as workplaces. The conversation thus far is almost entirely about schools as places of learning—but remember: schools are not only places where students go to learn, they’re also places where adults go to work. Unless we create workplace environments that are supportive, empowering, and satisfying, our chances of recruiting and retaining quality educators is sabotaged before we even begin.
One of the interesting side effects of recruiting mid-career educators into the system, as Secretary Duncan suggests, is the natural reciprocity that would occur. People coming from the private sector would have much to teach schools about how to treat their employees. How would someone coming from an entrepreneurial environment react to losing the freedom to innovate and take chances? How would someone from a small company react to being in a system that didn’t reward success and progress? To weekly schedules dominated by meetings? To 20 minute lunches?
Clearly the learning curve for schools would be great.
Our collective hopes for the education stimulus are profound. The amount of change necessary is staggering. And none of this change will occur without the talents, time, and efforts of educators and their leaders. A key piece of our education reform must be an aggressive and creative re-thinking of how schools address the conditions in which educators teach. Make schools better places to work, and students will inevitably have better places to learn.
That’s the conversation I want to hear.
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