Tully: A plea to lawmakers: Listen to the teachers

Regardless of what happens this election year, Indiana’s political leaders will emerge with a long list of urgent education matters to tackle.

There are big questions about testing policies, school funding, teacher accountability and the future of charter schools and support for programs that allow students to attend private schools with the use of public money. All of these issues and more — I didn’t even mention preschool — will greet the state legislature and the next governor come January. The debates that follow will be as important as they come, and full of potentially divisive agenda items that have sparked so many setbacks in recent years.

The voices of many factions will be loud and persistent. The wishes of powerful special interests will be considered. The power of unions, business interests, the reform community and others will hang heavy over committee hearings and important votes. The stakes will be high.

With all that in mind, I have idea: Today, let’s listen to a teacher. A great teacher whose voice echoes the concerns of many of her colleagues and whose hope is to help improve the quality of education that our state’s children receive. Let’s listen to Micah Nelson today, and then let’s hope lawmakers listen to her and many of her fellow teachers in the months to come.

“I want them to be thinking about what is best for children, in every decision and every conversation,” said Nelson, who teaches social studies at IPS’ Center for Inquiry School 2. “I want them to think about what is truly best for children and not what is best for the budget or for one group or another. Put kids first, and I don’t think they do that enough. And what’s frustrating as teachers is that we are the experts but we are not often involved in these discussions.”

Nelson, the current IPS Teacher of the Year, acknowledged the reality of state budgets. But like many of us, she asked lawmakers to think not only about the short-term costs of spending and programs, but also about the proven long-term benefits and savings.

As we talked over coffee during IPS’ fall break, Nelson echoed the concerns about testing shared by many teachers as well as parents. Those concerns came as the state studies ways to replace an ISTEP test that few consider useful.

“Testing companies and their lobbyists have more influence on this issue than teachers,” Nelson said. “The truth is, I never look at the testing results and learn anything I didn’t know.”

Rather than hold more meetings at the Statehouse, Nelson, who teaches seventh and eighth grades, had an idea for state lawmakers who will soon make another round of critical decisions.

“I wish they would spend time in schools,” she said. “I would love to invite (House Education Chairman) Bob Behning into my school for a week to see what life is really like and to see what the needs are. All of the things that kids face. And it doesn’t have to be extreme examples of what so many of our kiddos go through. Being a teenager is hard in the best of circumstances.”

She continued:

“We need a voice. Teacher input is not necessarily solicited. I would welcome anyone from the Statehouse anytime, for any length of time, in my classroom. I don’t need any advance notice. Just show up. You’d probably learn something, and you’d probably enjoy it.”

Not surprisingly, given the ongoing debate over replacing ISTEP, Nelson pointed to three overriding problems with how standardized testing has been used and conducted.

First, she said, the results don’t provide helpful, timely information.

Second, they create an unhealthy degree of stress and test-prep in schools and classrooms and, sadly, diminish the ability of teachers to step back and “have a teachable moment when they think that would help.”

As a social studies teacher, she has a bit more freedom from testing that allows her to, for example, spend the coming weeks digging deep into the elections. She believes in creating experiences that help students grasp lessons and concepts, such as field trips and project-based learning. Math, language arts and other teachers, she said, are hostage to a brutal testing schedule that doesn’t allow such flexibility.

Third, there is the problem of tying teacher reviews to test results, both in their classrooms and schoolwide. There are much better ways to grade teachers, she said, the best being classroom observations by quality administrators. One-shot annual tests, Nelson argued, are impacted by so many outside factors, and by test-prep, that they don’t tell you enough about what’s truly going on in a classroom. She said the 23-member state panel studying the future of testing would have benefited from having more than three current classroom teachers on it.

I asked Nelson what she thought most lawmakers did not know.

“At the root of it,” she said, bluntly, “I don’t think they know good education philosophy. I don’t think they know what good education looks like and feels like. Because of that so many decisions are rooted in the wrong factors. For example, I don’t think you’ll find a single teacher who thinks an annual statewide testing system is beneficial for their kids, yet we continue it.”

The best thing about talking to great teachers is that I always learn a lot, just like their students do. As we talked, Nelson educated me on a long series of topics. I have my own views on plenty of education issues, and generally believe education reform has lifted quality in Indianapolis, but I also know that I don’t know half of what a great teacher does.

Nelson talked about teacher salaries, which don’t match the importance of the job. She laughed at the state’s A-F school grading system, calling it a superficial label that doesn’t match the complexity of life in schools. She agreed with the need to hold teachers accountable, but stressed the need to do so in fair and helpful ways. She pushed for education schools to do a better job of preparing college students for life in the classroom. She said policymakers should look for ways to give teachers more quality, relationship-building time to spend with students. And she told them to save the money being spent to look into the teacher shortage problem. “Just ask a teacher,” she said.

And then she said this:

“Teaching is my calling. I think that is how most really good teachers feel about teaching. When I think back about the number of kiddos I’ve had over 13 years, and the opportunity I’ve had to have an impact on their lives, that’s what matters to me.”

That should matter to all of us. And while we need to listen to many voices during the upcoming education debates, the voices of teachers must be atop that list.

Thank you for reading. You can reach me on Twitter: @matthewltully.