Teachers given power to improve U.S. schools

Press, 13 September 1988, Page 38

Teachers given power to improve U.S. schools

By

LEE MITGANG

of Associated Press in New York

At a time when education reform is a controversial topic in New Zealand, United States authorities are tackling similar problems, with teachers given a significant role.

Five years after a national commission branded American schools “mediocre,” billions of tax dollars have been spent raising classroom standards and teacher salaries. State Governments and individual school districts are easing their regulatory grip and giving teachers more power to improve their own schools. In a mirror-image of a move in American industry to bring workers into management decisions, some teachers are being freed from the direction of their bosses and school boards, and empowered to shake up their own classrooms. In a small town in Washington State, students at Moses Lake High School call one telephone help service for assistance with their homework, and another for personal counselling. In Arizona, a dozen

school districts are giving extra time and tutoring to students whose assignments are considered no better than average. In Pittsburgh, “instructional cabinets” of teachers and administrators can shape teaching techniques for individual students. “We want to remove the shackles of bureaucracy and regulation that inhibit creativity and initiative in our schools,” said the Governor of Washington State, Booth Gardner, where a pilot programme called “Schools for the Twentyfirst Century” is under way. Suddenly, teacher lounges in towns such as Moses Lake are alive with enthusiastic ideas for breaking the traditional public school mould to give students the special attention denied them in a rigid system. “We can experiment,”

said a teacher, Reggie Sutter. Sutter and his colleagues are among several hundred in the Washington State programme, which Gardner calls “a search for solutions.” The programme is backed by SUS2.I million (sAust2.6 million) in state money to pay teachers for extra time spent planning. Since the barrage of critical reports began in 1983, most states imposed layers of “top-down” reforms. They raised teacher pay but also imposed stricter course guidelines and new competency tests for both teachers and students. Reform leaders now are telling states that the path to better schools goes through the schoolhouse, not the state Government, according to a survey of schools in all 50 states. In many places, teaching has become less attractive because the new

rules thwart initiative, reformers said. . While students may be better test-takers, the critics said, they still are not learning the critical thinking skills needed in a competitive world“Most of the reforms so far have been paper and headlines,” said Beverly Corelie, president of the Maryland State Teachers’ Association. Getting beyond such surface reforms has been difficult in schools where educators refuse to acknowledge how disadvantaged some students are. “Very few schools look at the national picture and realise that only 15 per cent (of high school students) can write a simple letter. Only a small percentage can locate the United States or the Atlantic Ocean on a map, or follow a simple bus timetable,” said Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation im i—t— mrm —r

of Teachers. "So why should anyone change their ways and habits unless in their gut they feel the system isn’t working?” Some districts are getting the message. “There are people who say kids need to fail,” said Dave Briggs, principal of Alhambra High School in Phoenix, Arizona, one of the places where students are given extra help instead of disappointing grades. “I think that’s garbage. We’re here to teach you success.” Rochester, New York, made headlines with a teacher contract raising top pay to SUS7O,OOO ($109,900) from SUSSI,OOO ($80,700). But more important than salaries, say both the school board and the teachers union, are “school-based planning teams” in which teachers and administrators will plan how to run their schools relatively free of school board interference