A Reflection on Deborah Ball's Presentation: (How) Can All Children Get Great Teaching?

A Reflection on Deborah Ball's Presentation: (How) Can All Children Get Great Teaching?

 

After a conversation at work that pit two ideas against one another--teacher development to support teaching effectiveness versus talent pipelines to replace ineffective teachers--I found myself particularly engaged by Dr. Deborah Ball who stated, “We must reframe the problem of teacher quality and educational inequity.”   

 

Such reframing includes moving away from simple teacher replacement, which generally falls in the wake of poorly developed professional development systems toward finding out what the top 20% of high-performing teachers do and teaching others how to do it.  The problem, according to Dr. Ball, is a “predominant focus on recruitment, outcomes, and sorting—instead of training.  This does not augur well for redressing educational inequity and uneven quality.  Without training, the teaching profession is undermined and the notion that teaching comes natural to some and not to others perpetuates the belief that effective teaching is based on the individual.  This notion reinforces style over skill."  If true, skillful instruction is lost on most individuals whose skill sets do not adequately prepare them for the profession.

 

Dr. Ball furthers this argument with several rather comedic comparisons between the ways in which one becomes a teacher to how pilots and surgeons are trained.  The gist of it was if the expectation is for pilots and surgeons to pass rigorous examinations, performance tasks or participate in residencies to determine their qualifications for practice, teachers--much like individuals who fly airplanes and perform operations—ought to have strong training so they, too, can engage in responsible practice.

 

From Dr. Ball’s perspective strong training for responsible teaching practice would have three facets: 1) “clear specification of skills, capabilities, and qualities of performance necessary for independent practice, 2) detailed developmental clinical training, progressing from observing to simulations to supervised apprenticeship to supervised independent practice, and 3) performance assessment of individual competence before allowing independent practice.”  According to Dr. Ball, next steps toward training that promotes responsible practice would include “identifying key practices of teaching and high-leverage content, developing specific approaches to training beginners to carry out those practices, and developing performance assessments of specific practices and content required for entry.” 

 

The night I sat in the audience to witness Dr. Ball’s presentation there was no better example that demonstrated why we (as a country) need clear parameters that describe and determine effective instruction than when Dr. Ball showed a video of a math teacher.  She asked the audience of at least 100 educators to turn and talk about the type of feedback we would give the teacher.  Then we were asked to raise our hands to determine whether or not we would rate the teacher highly effective, effective, ineffective or highly ineffective.  Although folks appeared initially reluctant to do so—which was probably out of fear that Dr. Ball would deem some of us wrong and others right—her point was well taken.  “Even in this room,” she said, “our ratings are pretty evenly distributed—some rated the teacher highly effective and others highly ineffective, but the majority of you rated the teacher either effective or ineffective.  That’s because there is no common professional metric of looking at a piece of teaching.”

 

Discussion Questions:

1) If given the opportunity to train ineffective teachers or replace them, which would you choose and why?  

2) Are there clear expectations or performance tasks that determine improved performance in your organization?  If so, explain the process or experience.  If not, describe the impact on performance in the absence of a common assessment to measure and promote responsible practice.

3) Why is it necessary for there to be an objective perspective about effective teaching?  

Click here for Deborah Ball’s Personal Page

Also, see Deborah Ball’s The Work of Teaching and the Challenge for Teacher Education

Vang SOE Colloquium Response

Hi All,

This post was written by Randy Dillard and Matt Bennet I am just moving it from comments to a post. We had some technical problems getting it posted.  Please be patient with us as we are just starting out with the Blogg. We will have the technical issues sorted out soon. 

Chris-

SOE Colloquium Summary: Community Opposition to State-Mandated Educational Management in a Large Urban School District in the Midwest. -Dr. Maiyoua Vang-


Urban education does not exist in a vacuum:



Dr. Vang established that educators cannot analyze the problems of urban education independently, but must examine it through its symbiotic relationship with suburban education. To study urban education you must also acknowledge and study the surrounding exosystems, which envelop both suburban and urban centers. 



Dr. Vang argues that researchers and educators are not asking the right questions to enable those in poverty to break the vicious cycle and transcend the social condition they are born in. She directly points to a form of structural amnesia that pervades the discourse currently. She asserts that this structural amnesia allows us as educators, as leaders, and as parents in many instances to ignore the educational policies that are dishonest and more importantly detrimental to the children most affected by those policies. 



It is of her opinion that if we are going to be serious about education reform then we must also be serious about acknowledging, addressing, and combating the structural factors that are directly impacting the physiological and psychological makeup of children living in urban settings. Education needs to be examined through the context in which it is delivered; education reform without contextual reform just brings us more of the same. 



Socioeconomic factors (SES) as predictors of the MEAP:



Dr. Vang cited Marylone’s study which closely examined SES factors as predictor of MEAP. Using a prediction formula, Maylone, with good accuracy, predicted whether SES would pass the MEAP. Maylone’s study showed that the factors that measure wealth distribution are extremely powerful in predicting standardized testing achievement. Dr. Vang prodded us to think more critically about the extra contextual factors that contribute to individual and familial economic situations and how in turn it impacts things such as standardized tests scores. Poverty matters! Consequently, she implores researchers and educators to listen to the data and follow suit of some of the other social sciences. 

Prison-industrial complex in the United States:

A portion of the presentation highlighted the significant problem of minority incarceration in the United States. The United States is one of the most highly advanced countries in the world yet has the highest incarceration rates. Ironically, as crime was leveling off in the late 70s, early 80s, incarceration began to soar in the United States. She went on to pose a rhetorical question to the group: What is our excuse? She then continued to point out the correlation between the surplus of “disposable bodies” in “disposable cities” like Detroit and the proliferation of political institutions set up to handle these “surplus bodies”. Cities like Detroit are fueling incarceration rates, as citizens, who lack skills and are denied social mobility, are turning to the underground economy (i.e., drug trade) as a means of survival. What is the solution though? The solution is delivering real school reform and providing urban students’ education that enfranchises, rather than disfranchises. 



The Baltimore Algebra Project – An example of grassroots organizing: 



Dr. Vang discussed the Baltimore Algebra Project in detail and we had the opportunity to hear from three young men (Trey, Tim, and Jamal) working with the project as they conference called in live to join our discussion. The Baltimore Algebra Project is an organization of civic minded young men and women who are campaigning for real school reform within their own communities, under the banner “No Education/No Life”. These three young men discussed the underfunding and discrimination that exists in Baltimore Public Schools. Through civil disobedience and petition, the Baltimore Algebra Project wants the state of Maryland to be held accountable and pay restitution, for what they believe, are unconstitutional acts. The Baltimore Algebra project is providing a voice to a segment of the population who have, historically, been silenced. Their belief is that real education reform must occur within, rather than from an outsiders, who are disconnected from the population and students they are trying to serve. As Trey articulated to us while on the call “top down decision making is not resonating with people in the Baltimore neighborhoods.” In their opinion if officials are unable or unwilling to authentically connect with the needs and wishes of the constituents in which they were elected or appointed to serve then these officials are really not serving a purpose at all. Students deserve leaders and decision making that acknowledges their voice, context, and delivers education that meets their needs. Until this occurs, education in Baltimore continues to restrict social mobility, is fragmenting the community, and is not providing students the skills to attain high quality jobs. 



Current state of education in Detroit:



To conclude the presentation Dr. Vang brought the discussion full circle and examined the current state of education in the city of Detroit. She discussed how a perpetual cycle of poor decisions and mismanagement has led Detroit to its current set of circumstances. A historical timeline was used to help those attending the presentation clearly see the sequence of decisions and their accumulating effects over time. She worries that privatization of education will continue to fragment the community and silence the voices of students and the electorate. Similar to the Baltimore Algebra Project, students, parents, local grassroots leaders, etc need to take back their voice and advocate for the schools and education that they deserve. 



QUESTIONS to start our discussion:



1)    In light of the fiscal realities is the movement toward more charter schools and/or closing the doors on public school facilities the best remedy for solving some of the most crippling educational problems in urban centers like Detroit?



2)    What are the ramifications, if any, on the social, political, and cultural capital of the neighborhoods left behind after public schools are closed in their area?



3)    Drawing from your own personal and professional experience respond to or expound upon one of the topics either in this post or from the the video sent to us by Dr Vang http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04CaLMODRuM