Testimony of Nicholas Lawrence, 8th grade teacher, Educators 4 Excellence member To the New York State Senate Standing

Committee on Education on The Regents Reform Agenda: Assessing Our Progress Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Senator Flanagan, members of the education committee, fellow panelists, community members, thank you for offering me the opportunity to speak at this important hearing. My name is Nicholas Lawrence. I am a concerned citizen, an education stakeholder, a union member, and Ive been a part of the Crotona Park East/Fairmont Claremont Village community for a bit more than five years. I am an active member of Educators 4 Excellence, a teacher-led nonprofit that places the voices of teachers at the forefront of the education policy discussion. Most importantly, my wife is a teacher and I teach 8th grade United States history and a college-prep elective called AVID to high school juniors at the East Bronx Academy For The Future. I am also a lead educator who coaches other teachers. Education reform is not a distant phrase to me. It is not a plan, or a newspaper editorial or a policy whitepaper or a think-tank panel discussion. My student and I live in every day in our classroom. Just as real for me is the necessity that our schools must change, must be improved, must yes be reformed. I know that teachers are not superheroes in and out of the classroom we cant do and be responsible for everything. We cant turn off the TV at night or give all our kids a stable home; we cant clothe them when theyre cold or feed them when theyre hungry, though we wish we could and sometimes try. What we can do, however, is teach them when theyre in our classrooms. We can, and must, engage them with literature, challenge them with math, impress them with science, inspire them with art and music, and through the study of history bring to them a sense of community in their borough, in their city, in their state, and in their country. Ive been in classrooms and schools where this is happening, where loud noises indicate creativity rather than chaos, where teachers have invested their students so well that when one kid is off-task, its not just the teacher who corrects him its his peers. In fact, its a community that doesnt only correct behavior; it is a community that promotes a healthy devotion to self-improvement a healthy approach to academic achievement. It is a community that values learning that believes learning history, and math, and science, and English not only leads to future success, but is worth doing, just for the sake of learning. There is still much work to be done, though. Teachers know it, parents know it, politicians know it our students certainly know it. On both the math and English components of the new Common Corealigned tests, the vast majority of our students about three quarters did not pass. Perhaps we can chalk some of this up to new tests and a new curriculum, but lets not kid ourselves: Students in New York City and New York State are not where they need to be, and far too many are graduating neither college- nor career-ready. And some arent even graduating. 1

 According to the New York State Education Department, only 74% of New York students are completing high school on time, and only 35% of students are estimated to graduate college- and career-ready. This matters. Its great to have a high school diploma, but we also know that in todays economy thats often not enough to get a living-wage job. Not all students will choose to attend college but all students should have the preparation and opportunity to attain a college degree or other form of higher education if they so choose. And indeed many students are pursuing this option, but sadly theyre finding that their K 12 education is not leaving them equipped to handle the rigors of college level courses. The New York State Education Department estimates that about 25% of students attending college must undergo some form of remediation and that number balloons to over 50% of students at two-year universities. Although there are a few dissenting voices arguing implausibly that, no, our schools are doing just fine, the vast majority of stakeholders agree that public education in New York needs drastic improvement and needs it soon. The much tougher question is how to go about making these improvements. As a classroom teacher, I live, breath, and implement the current attempts at improvement, and Ive seen the ways that two of the most important reforms teacher evaluation and Common Core State Standards have improved my school, supported me as a teacher, and, most importantly, helped my students learn. Let me start with teacher evaluations. I am a professional, and I should be treated as one. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects every profession that I can think of is evaluated and given feedback on the basis of their work product. But for years, this rarely was the case for the teaching profession. While my principal has visited my classroom to observe my class as much as possible to give me feedback on my performance, I know that this was not the norm for New York City. Even two to three years ago, my principal did not actively make teacher evaluation and improvement the priority of my school. This was no fault of my administrators, as there is an enormous menu of choices on which principals can focus to improve their schools in addition to the oppressive piles of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape. In the past two years, my administrators have also made the important decision to put teacher improvement at the forefront of their school improvement efforts. That said, many of my colleagues and my own wife have not been as fortunate as I. Many deal with administrations that are focused on compliance or disciplining teachers based on their own unique vision of what education should be, rather than assessing learning and teaching on a shared understanding of what solid instruction looks like. In those instances, 2

the old evaluation system was often times treated as a hoop through which teachers and administrators must jump, rather than a tool to make our schools better by improving teacher quality. Things are different this year throughout the city. I will receive one of four ratings: highly effective, effective, developing, or ineffective. Overwhelming research confirms that teachers vary in our effectiveness, and our evaluations should reflect this. I felt fortunate that my school has been working for two years now to create a culture wherein teachers strive to be better and in which teachers are given an informal rating on this scale. This year the state has made a similar system more official, but the sentiment of improvement is still present. Perhaps most exciting for me to report is the way that New York Citys evaluation system is effecting a cultural shift in city schools. No longer are we encouraged to shut our doors, and do our own thing instead by supporting professional development, observations, and use of the Danielson rubric, the evaluation system is encouraging teachers and principals to talk about what effective pedagogy is, and how we as professionals can continue to improve our practice. In New York City, we are given the choice of being observed four times including one formal evaluation or six times. We are also given the choice of whether to be videotaped to hone our teaching. These are minimum observation numbers, and I hope my principal comes to visit more often than that. This isnt about gotcha! its about supporting struggling teachers and recognizing top-notch performers. The choices embedded in the system are also an important step in treating us as the professionals we are. Indeed, the preliminary conferences that Ive already had with my principal have been very positive. They are, in fact, a continuation of the work weve been implementing over the past two years. The feedback Ive received has affected my practice in a positive way. It has forced me to continue my own professional development and pedagogical improvement even when its not easy. You neednt take my word for it. At an event with Chancellor Walcott hosted by Educators 4 Excellence more than 100 teachers in the audience were polled on a variety of education issues. Over 60% of those voting expressed hope that the new evaluation system would lead to useful feedback and support. Nearly two thirds agreed that the most positive change in their school as a result of the new system was an increase in conversations about teaching. This is a sea change and an important one. Since research shows that teaching quality is the most important in-school determinant of student achievement, I am convinced that the new focus on quality instruction will improve my students academic and life outcomes. The second important change that is affecting my classroom is the new Common Core State Standards. Like the vast majority of teachers in my school, and teachers in the city and 3

state, as well as educators in the 45 states that have adopted the standards, I believe that the Common Core will raise the bar for students and teachers alike, challenging us to go beyond rote instruction and into the deep critical thinking that constitutes an excellent education. In a recent poll conducted by the National Education Association the countrys largest teachers union almost three quarters of the teachers surveyed expressed support for the Common Core, with just 11% opposed. The Common Core sets high-quality standards that students in states from Hawaii to New York and many in between will be using. It has been endorsed by a host of groups and individuals, from Republicans like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie to Democrats like President Obama and Andrew Cuomo. Of course, as a teacher, I understand that the real test is not whats written in the standards, but how the standards are implemented in classrooms across the state. And its certainly and unfortunately true that there are many schools in New York that have not received enough support be it in curriculum, professional development, or administrator support. I count myself lucky that my administration recognized the importance of these standards early on so that the school community could begin to receive professional development and training on how to shift to this set of standards, if at the very least to start to engage in conversation about the implications of the shift. Even in a school that worked to implement the standards early, I feel as though there is a great deal to learn about the set of standards as well as how teachers can weave them into the curricula and classes they have established as parts of their school communities. These stories of implementation issues are no reason to abandon the Common Core. The solution to lack of support for teachers is more support for teachers. The solution to a curriculum that is not aligned is a curriculum that is aligned, as well as supporting the teachers who will rewrite their curriculum to align with the Common Core. The solution to bad tests is better tests, designed by teachers. The solution does not lie in delaying stakes so they may never come, or so that implementation is a dress rehearsal rather than the real thing. After all, for our students, there are no moratoriums on their education. The truth, I think, is that examples of faulty implementation, though very real, have been emphasized by those for one ideological reason or another who would like to see the Common Core fail. But in fact, at the Educators 4 Excellence event I spoke about earlier, 66% of teachers said they felt at least somewhat prepared to teach to the Common Core standards. Certainly buried in that number is room for growth, but it also belies the notion that roll out of the new standards has been a failure. We know that improving our schools will be a long and challenging task, requiring immense political will. As a classroom teacher, I know how hard it is to execute a great lesson executing a plan to strengthen all classrooms in the state is a daunting task indeed. But its also a deserving one. 4

I cant promise you silver bullets or miracles or meteoric test rises. What I can promise is that if New York stays the course on these reforms, teachers across the state will continue to work to give the best to their students. For veteran teachers as well as new teachers, this may be the most important point. These reforms are real and worthy more so than many, if not most, prior education reforms in this city and state. Veteran teachers have felt duped by past reforms and new teachers are entering our profession in a time of great change. To retract support for them would be to pull the rug out from beneath the teaching force yet again. The long and short of it is that we need time to implement these changes. As we assess the progress of reforms, what were really doing is aggregating all classrooms progress. I cant speak for all of them, of course, but I can speak for my own. And in my classroom, progress is the word that comes to mind my own progress as a teacher, my students progress as learners, and that the states progress in implementing successful education policies. This progress is real and it ought to continue. It is what makes my job exciting and worthy. It is why I work so hard. Thank you and I welcome any questions.