City School Stories

Teacher Stories

Submitted by Frank Murphy on November 7, 2011

Taking a School Walk Through was an activity that I often engaged in as a school principal. By making regular short visits to the classrooms in my school, I accomplished a number of objectives.  Of greatest importance to me was the familiarity I acquired regarding the activities that were taking place in my teachers’ classrooms.   Additionally, the information I garnered during these visits helped me to identify the teachers who needed extra support.  It also helped me identify teachers who were capable of providing assistance to their struggling colleagues.

I started to bring teachers who were members of our school’s leadership team along with me on these walks.  This happened over a period of time, as the staff became more comfortable with the idea of other adults frequently visiting their classrooms.  When we entered a classroom, we would look for evidence of the practices we as a school team had agreed to implement school-wide.  For example, the members of our school-based walk through team would pay close attention to how often students were writing during an instructional period.  Encouraging students to use writing throughout the day as a way to make apparent their thinking, was a priority objective in our school improvement plan.  The walk through team would gather data that could be used to assess how well our school community was addressing this objective.

In making our observations, we were attempting to answer a variety of relevant questions.   Did the students use writing journals?  Did the teacher ask the students to respond in writing to important questions?  Was there an abundance of student writing on display?  Was there a writing portfolio for every student?  Did students’ writing show improvement over time?  This process was quite useful in helping us to monitor and adjust our instructional practices.  We identified what we were doing well and we pinpointed what needed to be improved.  The data we gathered was particularly useful in identifying the professional development needs of our staff.  This information also helped us to customize the type of assistance that was offered to individual teachers.

Most of the teachers who were assigned to our school were new to the profession and they required continuous mentoring and support.  Having a process in place that provided them with ongoing and relevant feedback was quite helpful. I found it invaluable to have a team of teachers who could assist me in identifying instructional concerns and who also could help to develop strategies that addressed our school’s professional development needs.

In the Philadelphia School District version of a School Walk Through, regional and central office administrators are deployed to school sites in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the school’s instructional program.  The observations these external school teams make during their visits are narrow in scope.  They look at student desk arrangements, bulletin board displays, predictive test results, how well a teacher is following the mandated instructional scripts and procedures, and a number of other easily observable, but potentially superficial activities.

The protocol that these teams follow allows for little if any attention to be paid to how well teachers are actually meeting the instructional needs of their students.  The effectiveness of high quality instructional activities that are planned and implemented by an individual teacher is not even considered in this review.   What a teacher does in a classroom is irrelevant if it does not conform to the central office script.  The primary objective of this process is to determine the degree to which individual teachers are complying with the mandates of the central administration. Teachers failing to do so are expected to be rated as unsatisfactory by their school principals.  This approach has turned an effective teacher support strategy into a dreaded classroom intrusion.

The recent City School Stories post, “A Teacher’s Thought’s About an Academic Walkthrough” strongly resonated with our readers. Through a variety of communications, comments to the post, e-mails and personal conversations, it became clear to me how much teachers loathe these administrative visits. Knowing how valuable this practice can be when it is done well, I am disappointed and frustrated by how district leaders have turned a School Walk Through into a superficial top down compliance activity.

School level staff generally view this practice, instituted during Ackerman’s administration, as being punitive in nature.  It is perceived as a bullying tactic that is intended to force teachers to use scripted instructional programs.  Many building principals are also less than enthusiastic with this process.  The expectation that they will use the results of a regional School Walk Through in order to target teachers for unsatisfactory performance undermines their authority as the instructional leaders of their schools. It also limits their ability to address the specific needs of their school community.

The distaste that teachers express regarding these district walkthroughs doesn’t mean that they are adverse to administrative observation and supervision.  In the conversations I have with teachers, they consistently say that they are seeking meaningful and useful feedback from their instructional leaders.  But this isn’t what they receive.  Instead they are designated as being either a red (unsatisfactory), yellow (in need of improvement) or green (satisfactory) teacher.  This is useless feedback.

To really help to improve instruction, teachers should be given a detailed written report of what the observers saw in their classroom.  Individuals labeled as being less than satisfactory or unsatisfactory, should be offered suggestions concerning how to improve their practice. Teachers classified as satisfactory should also receive written feedback.  They should be told what it is they are doing well so that they can continue to do so.

In a school district where nearly half of its teachers have less than five years of experience and where more than fifty percent of these inexperienced teachers leave within the first five years of employment, the district leadership should be focused on how to better support and retain its staff.   They should concern themselves more with devising a plan for developing effective teachers rather than focusing on how to dismiss teachers.  This is a difficult task to accomplish when there are so many young teachers who need extensive support.  Yet in a district where high poverty, low performing schools are numerous, it is a challenge that must be met.

How well students will perform academically is often related to the quality of their instructors. In order to significantly improve the quality of instruction that takes place in our schools, greater attention must be given to developing the talents and skills of an increasingly young and inexperienced teacher work force.

Research clearly indicates that creating a welcoming and supportive working environment for teachers is an effective way to develop and retain a quality teaching force.  The current protocol for a District School Walk Through does not further this goal.

A great teacher in every classroom will only become a reality when our district’s leadership provides effective staff development and supervisory support for every teacher.   The demeaning red light, yellow light, green light system of coding teachers that is embedded in the current walk through process doesn’t further this goal.  In fact, it encourages many promising teachers to seek a different career path, one in which they will be treated with dignity and respect.