Schools Designed for Teachers

In 2001, we developed a dramatic new approach to education reform that could revolutionize public education. We did not start with a "school design" to be imposed on teachers; rather we set out to design a school for teachers. We believed that teachers, not programs, are the key drivers of student achievement^[1] - and by tapping into the knowledge, talent and passion of teachers, we could achieve ground-breaking results.^[2] We called our strategy "Schools Designed for Teachers."

We designed every aspect of our schools to ensure great teaching. We deliberately set out to create a rich intellectual life and an ideal environment that would attract the best talent, support their best work, and challenge them to keep getting better. We designed a school where teachers are trusted as professionals, empowered to make important pedagogical decisions, and held accountable for achieving clear outcomes.

By contrast, our nation has approached education reform with a fundamentally misguided notion that education is a product that can be replicated and controlled. Hundreds of commissions, reports and organizations have attempted to define what makes excellent schools work, and then mandated that teachers follow their programs, often investing millions of dollars to carry them out. We emphatically reject this "school design" approach. We believe the problems we face in public education will only be solved through a dramatic shift in strategy: a shift from programs to people. The distinction is profound, as the conditions that ensure the effectiveness of knowledge workers are completely different from the conditions that ensure the quality of products.^[3]

Here are some of the conditions that support the effectiveness of teachers:

Empowering Teachers

Empowerment is perhaps the most important element of our schools designed for teachers. As Peter Drucker argues, the critical question driving knowledge-worker productivity is "What is the task?" not "How should the work be done?" Most teachers possess enormous talent, intelligence, and creativity, but much of it is discouraged in schools where the decisions about teaching methods are made by a central office. Mandating curriculum kills creativity and motivation. You can't mandate passion. You can't mandate the desire to work hard and continually improve.

A school that empowers teachers unleashes passion and engenders exceptional performance. Our teachers' ideas are respected and teacher voice is central to all that we do. Teachers are entrusted to make important decisions about curriculum, lesson plans and instructional methods. Virtually all of our academic and behavioral systems and programs have been created by our teachers.

A Collaborative Learning Community

Our vision of professional development is inspired by the Japanese practice of Kounaikenshuu, in which teachers design, test, discuss, and continually improve curriculum and instruction.^[4] Professional development at Harlem Village Academies is not a series of workshops that interrupt the flow of the school year. Rather, it is integrated with instruction and assessment. Teachers collaborate in department teams to look at student work together, co-plan lessons, analyze assessment data, share best practices and refine instructional strategies. Teacher talent is developed through instructional coaching, data-driven feedback, and the opportunity for peer observation. In addition, every year teachers participate in Summer Institute - an incredible learning experience that is designed and improved annually with teacher input.

Kaizen: Continual Improvement

Teachers play a vital role in driving the school's continual improvement ("kaizen"). During weekly "workouts," teachers and the principal come together to solve any problems that have come up during the week, develop new ideas, and refine current programs. Teachers collaborate in grade-level teams to discuss each student's emotional needs, identify behavior issues, and develop practical solutions that are implemented quickly.

Accountability

In most schools, teachers are monitored for what they teach. At Harlem Village Academies, teachers are held accountable for what students learn. We provide clearly defined student learning outcomes, along with the support and resources to achieve them. Our performance-based compensation system and culture of accountability attracts talented, deeply committed educators who are passionate about educational excellence.

Rapid Response Assessment

Our rapid response assessment system uses frequent diagnostic assessments to keep a close eye on student progress and quickly identify students' learning deficits. Student academic performance data are analyzed weekly and monthly. Teachers improve lesson plans and create tutoring rosters based on the data. The clarity and coherence of the system enables principals and teachers to ensure that no student falls through the cracks.

Entrepreneurial Culture

We are relentless about banishing bureaucracy and minimizing the red tape that can pervade schools. We live and breathe an energized culture - if a teacher has a great idea, they are encouraged to run with it! When we see problems, we fix them quickly. Inverting the typical school district structure, our central office functions as a "shared services team" that treats principals as clients, is accountable to schools, and must "earn the business" of principals. This allows teachers and school leaders to focus their time and energy on student learning.

Professional Environment

Every teacher at Harlem Village Academies is respected as a professional. Teachers receive professional office space, computers, photocopying, email, voicemail, and off-site access to the school's computer network.

Team

What teachers say they love most about Harlem Village Academies is belonging to a team of smart, caring colleagues, teachers who are intelligent, creative, committed to children — and fun to work with! The sense of teamwork is incredibly energizing and enables each teacher to contribute in a meaningful way to building an excellent school for our students.

"The school leaders are building a true learning organization where faculty have ownership and all adults are engaged in continual improvement. The leaders have, more than any school we've visited, clearly articulated the vision and the teachers understand it and embrace it."
— New York State charter authorizer inspection report 

Footnotes

[1]

This approach is backed by significant business as well as educational research, such as Dr. William Sanders’ longitudinal analysis of six million students and 30,000 teachers, which demonstrated that “teacher effectiveness is 10 to 20 times as significant” as the effects of other factors, which “pale to triviality” by comparison. More than any other factor, the quality of a teacher determines how well a student will learn.

[2]

Jack Welch, in Jack: Straight from the Gut: “Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy. We learned the hard way that we could have the greatest strategies in the world. Without the right leaders developing and owning them, we’d get good-looking presentations and so-so results.”

[3]

See Peter Drucker’s discussion of knowledge vs. manual worker productivity in Management Challenges for the 21st Century.

[4]

James W. Stigler & James Hiebert, The Teaching Gap; Makoto Yoshida, Lesson Study: An Ethnographic Investigation of School Based Teacher Development in Japan; Catherine C. Lewis, Educating Hearts and Minds.

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