Professional Learning for Busy Educators

n my upcoming book, #UnleashTalent, a major element that I discuss is supporting your staff. Whether you are a principal, teacher, custodian, nurse, secretary, or superintendent, we must support each other as adults to support our kids. Everything trickles down. Happy and supported staff equal happy and supported students.

Few pieces of research have shocked the American education system more than the 2009 study “The Widget Effect,” by the New Teacher Project, now known as TNTP. It found that classroom assessment systems were a sham, with fewer than 1 percent of teachers being rated unsatisfactory.

Reformers promised to fix this. They demanded that schools augment the standard ratings by principals with data on how well each teacher’s students did on standardized tests. Now, that reform seems to be crumbling as test results have proved erratic and unusable with subjects such as science and history that don’t have standardized state tests.

So, are principals triumphant, eager to assert their assessment responsibilities, show some spine and rate teachers honestly?

The answer is no. Two new studies reveal principals still trying to make nearly all teachers happy. Interviews by researchers and by Education Week reporter Liana Loewus reveal a troubling reason principals are not telling subpar teachers they need to get better: It takes too much time.