"I had come to see that it was often useless to make a frontal attack on problems, since they have not arisen by themselves, but are the product of circumstances. Only by modifying the circumstances -- "lateral thinking" -- can one disperse the difficulties they create. So I had become accustomed to seeking out and trying to change whatever was causing the blockage."


It might help with problems like "the Chicago strike" if this wise counsel -- from a superb negotiator who succeeded with some seemingly intractable public problems -- were taken to heart; if some 'lateral thinking' were applied.

As usual, everyone involved, commenting and advising focuses on the visible problems: the issues in the dispute, the politics inside the union, the political difficulties of the Democratic elected officials who have bought into the new and now-popular concept of 'education reform'; focuses on.

But these problems have not arisen by themselves. They are the product of the 'circumstances', of the way things are conventionally framed:

 School is a boss/worker, management/labor, model.
 Evaluation is something managers do.
 'Teaching' is whole-class instruction.

These 'givens' make conflict inevitable.

 When authority and accountability are divided, management wants to tell the teachers what to do, and wants to hold the teachers accountable. Teachers, like most reasonable people, are unenthusiastic about accepting accountability for decisions made by others.
 For teachers presented with a group of students whose levels of attainment range from the 5th to the 95th percentile, the job is basically hopeless. If they teach to grade-level they lose the students at the low end and bore the students at the upper end. The age-graded school locks in the gaps in achievement students bring when they enroll.

It requires 'lateral thinking' . . . "getting outside the box", as the old phrase has it . . . to resolve these problems. Not to settle the strike -- that has now been done -- but to avoid in a constructive and lasting way the conflict that will continue, everywhere, to plague a K-12 system built on the traditional 'givens'.

To get out of that box, "Modify the 'circumstances'!"

 Test alternate forms of school-organization. Lots of white-collar professional work is organized in the partnership rather than in the boss/worker model.
 Bring together authority and accountability; giving the teachers the professional authority they need for student and school success.
 Let the teachers individualize the learning; eliminate the age-grading that locks in the gaps in achievement that students bring to school.

The fact that this can't be done everywhere, immediately, is no reason not to make a start.

Probably this country is never going to transform its K-12 education in one great act of political engineering.

The new system will evolve, change gradually, the way successfully-innovating systems do.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike hit an unexpected milestone when it continued into its second week. Public charter schools have also hit a milestone this year, marking their 20th anniversary nationally, and 15th in Illinois. As we look at these milestones, it is hard not to draw some contrasts between the two public school models operating in the Windy City. While the strike leaves 350,000 students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system out of school—a collective loss of over five million learning hours in the first week alone—the 52,000 students served by public charter schools remained in the classroom.

Chicago is the fifth largest district in the nation by number of public charter school students served. While charter schools make up nine percent of the Chicago public school market, they are only 2.9 percent of public schools statewide. The relatively high concentration of public charter schools in Chicago brings to head the operational differences between charter and traditional public schools.

One key difference is choice: parents have the ability to choose a charter school with a culture and curricular focus and that fits their child’s needs. Teachers too can opt to work at a school thatnor appeals to their educational philosophy. And the ability to make this choice may be a huge component of job satisfaction. While teachers in their first three years on the job earn comparable salaries in both CPS and charter schools, with increased experience the gap widens—with CPS employees earning up to $12,000 more per year.

Another difference is school design. One of the foundational principles underlying public charter schools is that they use their increased autonomy to pioneer innovations, which when proven effective, can then be shared back to the traditional public school system. Charter schools have road tested several of the innovations at the heart of the CTU negotiations: teacher evaluation methods, extended learning time, and principal control over personnel decisions.

Adoption of effective practices by the larger public school system is essential to leveraging impact. That said, collective bargaining agreements in unionized schools hinder customization of reform strategies. Specifically, charter schools are able to tailor implementation at the school- and sometimes even classroom-level. But the parameters of the CTU contract would make this school-level individualization near impossible. However, the negotiations present a great opportunity to bring tested reforms to scale. As Andrew Broy, President of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS) stated, “At INCS, we want to make sure that all public schools focus on what works, including a relentless focus on teacher quality and ensuring that every school is led by a strong principal. But until adults subordinate their interests to those of our students, the unfortunate reality is that far too many people will fight for decisions that hurt students.”

As the public charter school movement enters its next decade, it’s time to maximize the lessons learned from their past 20 years by turning innovations into reality for all public schools. The resolution of the CTU strike will impact this possibility in urban centers across the country.

As I watch the events in Chicago, affecting many students, parents, and teachers I know well, I am struck by how superficial much of the media coverage of this strike have been. When teachers finally reach the point where they are willing to risk everything by going on strike, it's not money. When money becomes the only thing left to argue about, it means many other things have gone very, very wrong for a very long time.

Thankfully, there have been some real nuggets buried in the coverage. For example: On her show this past weekend, MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris Perry included on her panel a Chicago high school teacher who spoke passionately about working with 170 students a day while trying to pursue quality education.

Layered within the CNN coverage have been testimonies, such as this story on one special education teacher:

Her students need special supplies, so she's spent $4,000 to $5,000 of her own money since she began teaching three years ago, she said....

'I teach special education in Chicago because regardless of the working conditions, I am going to find the resources somewhere to make our classroom function,' she wrote on CNN iReport.

These comments and many others are best summed up in a recent blog post about the strike by my Teacher Leader Network colleague and co-author, Barnett Berry in which he focuses on the issues of teacher working conditions and mistrust. Says Barnett,

Today, Chicago teachers point to their current working conditions that have appeared to have substantially deteriorated—conditions that hurt students and their ability to learn.

Chicago is not the only school system in the nation in which the conditions for students and teachers have worsened. Some teachers, many of them excellent educators, have left either the public schools or the profession in hurt and frustration. Others have chosen, often at the expense of their own families and careers, to stay with their students, trying to do what they can for as many as possible. The CTU teachers have resorted to striking as a means to publicize and change the situation for them and their students.

In another article, earlier this year, Barnett made "A Revolutionary Suggestion" that one of the best ways to truly reform American public education is to rebuild our trust in teachers:

We could draw on the expertise of accomplished teachers to craft better student assessments, additional evaluation measures (like peer observation), and systems that support the professional growth of all teachers (whether in their first year or their twentieth).

Teachers are well-suited to inform teacher development and evaluation. They understand the nuances of the work they do each day—and can help create equally nuanced systems for gauging and supporting teaching effectiveness. They grasp the complexity of their profession.

Will the situation in Chicago be a model, or another missed opportunity to address the real problems?

Last year, I spent a week working with two elementary schools in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.

To reset my perspective, I just Googled “englewood chicago murders”. Here are some of the first page links: “Chicago’s Highest Murder Rate in Englewood”, “Murder Rate Down Everywhere in Chicago But Englewood”, Fewer Chicago Homicides, Except in Englewood.”

Tough place to be a kid. Tough place to be a teacher. Tough place to be alive.

I don’t know much about the Chicago teacher strike, but last year I learned first hand about teaching in one of city’s toughest neighborhoods. Here were some of the lessons I took away:

• I had never seen adults more welcoming to me and more thankful for whatever small bit of assistance I could provide.
• I had never seen adults take better care of such vulnerable kids in such a tough place.
• I had never seen principles who were more serious about improving their schools.
• I had never seen kids who needed so much more than a school system can provide.
• I had never seen a shorter school day.

I had never seen a lot of the things I saw during my week at two schools in Chicago.

I did enjoy very much the 30+ classrooms of kids I got to teach. I also enjoyed working with the teachers. But I don’t work there all year long. And even though they told me that taxi cabs don’t come to Englewood to pick you up, mine did, and off I went after school each day, back uptown to a comfortable hotel. As positive as my experience was, I don’t know how positive I would be about it if I lived it every day.

I saw burnt out teachers and incredible teachers, and it wasn’t hard for anyone—not me, not the kids, not the principals, not even the teachers themselves—to tell the difference. So are things like due process and teacher evaluation really the sticking points we have to keep coming back to again and again? Maybe for teachers in tough assignments it is. I heard plenty of hot language about who was pulling their weight and who wasn’t.

On the other hand, it’s also understandable why the district would want a longer school day. At the same time, I can also understand teacher resistance to this regardless of any adjustment in compensation. It’s a long, hard day in the Chicago schools, even when that day is shorter than almost everyone else’s.

Maybe I can see this situation from both sides. But what I can’t see is the value for management in squeezing labor, or the value for labor in holding out. Districts have months, and sometimes years, to work out a deal. Why not settle up before kids come back to school? And for unions, what’s the long-term value in a short-term strike?

While I respect the rights of teachers to bargain collectively and to strike if they feel the need, and while I also understand the reasons districts have for dealing (or choosing not to deal) with this possibility, I think both parties can do better. Adults in education are justifiably frustrated when students miss deadlines on assignments. Isn’t it just as disappointing when adults miss theirs?

I can attest that Chicago is a tough town to teach in. Even from my very privileged perch as an outside consultant, I felt emotionally drained every day. In situations like this, I don’t think teachers or administrators serve each other or their students very well unless they’re willing to come together. It’s just too tough—in Chicago and just about anywhere—to go it alone.

Chicago Teachers Union members earned the nation’s attention when they raised their voices to shout ”Enough is enough” to Mayor Emanuel’s steroid-fueled version of federal educational policies. Their action highlighted the growing resistance to high-states testing that is sweeping the nation. Now, their victory – in the streets and at the negotiating table – will strengthen the campaigns of allies across the nation.

Of course, the teacher blame game goes on unabated in many quarters. Like the kids in the back of the class who aren’t interested in the lesson, many self-styled “reformers” remain stuck in a mind-set that holds teachers fully responsible for problems largely caused by the impoverished settings in which their students must live.

But here’s the positive part. “Reformer” talking points that say teachers are simply in it for the money and don’t want to be held accountable are being proven false. Many members of the public are opening their eyes to the real reasons why teachers so vehemently reject policies like test-based evaluations and “merit” pay.

Unlike new prescription drugs, which must be carefully tested to ensure they are safe and effective before widespread administration, new education policies are foisted on public schools without any evidence that they are likely to work. Most teachers share a sense of urgency about addressing their students’ needs. But they are not willing to become human guinea pigs for remedies that are either untested or proven failures. The very reformers who promote these untested "drugs" on schools then blame the teachers for the harmful consequences that ensue.

Remarkably, despite the severe disruption to the lives of Chicago families, more voters polled supported the teachers than opposed them. Many parents shared teachers’ disgust at what a tsunami of NCLB-spurred testing has done to their children’s school days. They are concerned about what has been washed away: things like art, music, phys ed and recess.

A growing number of parents recognize that, instead of punishing front-line teachers, policy makers at the city, state and federal levels should be held accountable for their failures to create conditions in which all children can learn.

The attempt to improve Chicago schools through increased use of high-stakes tests over the past 20 years has been a colossal failure. The damage is worst in classrooms serving the city’s neediest children. (In Chicago, 80 percent of students qualify for free or reduced price lunches.)

Mayor Emanuel’s scheme to evaluate classroom educators based on their students’ test scores, a technique independent experts say is severely flawed, will make the situation worse. If history is a guide, it will mean more curricular narrowing, more test prep, and better teachers fleeing for the suburbs. Some will seek jobs in private schools like the one Mayor Emanuel’s children attend, the elite University of Chicago Lab School.

Several years ago, the Lab School’s director, David Magill, wrote, “Physical education, world languages, libraries and the arts are not frills. They are an essential piece of a well-rounded education.” To his credit, Magill sees what’s going on around him and is dismayed. In a statement on the school’s web site, he said, “Measuring outcomes through standardized testing and referring to those results as the evidence of learning and the bottom line is, in my opinion, misguided and, unfortunately, continues to be advocated under a new name and supported by the current [Obama] administration.”

Mayor Emanuel can’t say nobody warned him. In March, researchers from 16 universities around Chicago sent him an open letter, saying, “The new evaluation system for teachers and principals centers on misconceptions about student growth, with potentially negative impact on the education of Chicago’s children.”

A wealth of creative solutions that more effectively address public education’s problems already exists. Groups like the Forum on Educational Accountability and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education have developed comprehensive plans for reform based on what has worked. It remains to be seen, however, whether the strike will spur creative thinking among policymakers and produce effective solutions to the problems faced by educators working in impoverished communities and the communities themselves.