3 Who Governs Teaching?

Darnell couldn’t understand all the fuss. He’d been teaching his students the same way for the past forty years. Why did he need to change now? The things that his school’s curriculum director wanted Darnell to do to improve his students’ standardized test scores would throw him off. Making the necessary changes in his instruction would also take a lot of work. Darnell knew that the students wouldn’t like it. Darnell was one of the more-popular teachers in the school, and frankly, he didn’t want to give up that standing. He’d almost rather retire than do what the curriculum director demanded. But Darnell could also see that the curriculum director wanted him to give up and retire. And Darnell wasn’t about to give her that satisfaction. He’d earned the right to retire on his own schedule.

Governance

Teachers don’t, by and large, teach whatever they choose. Instead, teaching is typically accountable to some degree to standards and those who enforce them. Teaching, in other words, generally occurs within a regulatory framework. Teachers must know and respect that framework, if they are going to consistently get to carry out their teaching duties and opportunities. The teacher whose instruction doesn’t address the standards, and whose students fail to acquire the knowledge, skills, and ethics the standards prescribe, may for a time escape notice and accountability. But sooner or later, one or more of the several constituents interested in the standards is likely to hold the teacher accountable. Accountability can come in the form of declining student enrollment, poor student evaluations, poor student standardized test scores, administrator review, department correction, and teacher termination or reassignment. Know and respect your teaching’s governance structure. 

Contract

A teacher’s most immediate accountability is to the employing school. The legal or regulatory mechanism for direct teacher accountability to the school involves a contract. Schools employ teachers under contract. Those contracts typically require teachers to teach the number of days, hours, courses, classes, or other units the school assigns, according to teaching customs and standards. Many teachers work with some form of contractual protection for dismissal only for good cause. That protection is especially likely at public schools where labor agreements are more common and in higher education where tenure rules may apply. Dismissing a protected teacher for not using best practices is generally impossible under that protection. Instead, ineffective teachers using outdated or simply inadequate methods may persist until layoffs occur under a cyclical economic reduction in force. That’s when administrators keen on improving instruction may lay off lower-performing teachers, again if contract terms afford administrators that discretion. Poor instruction can also lead to poor teaching assignments and lower standing and reputation. Keep your practices current to enjoy the greatest standing and protection.

Tuition

A teacher’s next accountability is to the student. One legal or regulatory mechanism for teacher accountability to the student involves an express or implied tuition contract. In private schools and higher education, the tuition contract will involve an exchange of tuition for a promise of instruction and other services. In public K-12 schools, where the parent pays no tuition directly, only through taxation, the promise is only implied. But within that exchange is an implication that the teacher will perform according to the reasonable expectations of the parent and student, within the norms, customs, and standards for instruction. Parents and students hold teachers accountable not with breach-of-contract lawsuits but instead with their concerns and complaints, and if that doesn’t work, then with their feet. If they can, they’ll move the student to a school with better instruction. Schools, both public and private, compete for student enrollment. Declining enrollment means teacher layoffs. One ineffective teacher may not make a noticeable difference. But an ineffective teaching staff whose students consistently underperform on standardized testing may find the education market holding it accountable. Do your part, using best instructional practices. 

Standards

Schools at all levels also instruct to standards, to which teachers are accountable. States publish academic standards or benchmarks for students attending schools at K-12 levels. State laws typically require those schools to test all students using standardized examinations, measuring student performance against the state benchmarks. States also collect, study, and publish that data, often giving the schools ratings, ranks, or even grades. School rankings on standardized exams, measuring school performance at every grade level and across major subjects, enable parents and students to hold schools accountable. School standardized test scores also enable or require administrators to hold teachers accountable. Everything shouldn’t fall on the teacher in every case. Several factors beyond the quality of instruction can affect a school’s grade-level scores on certain subjects or across subjects. But any teacher seeing their students score lower than expected on standardized testing can face real concern over the teacher’s instructional designs. Be aware of the potential impact of the results of standardized testing on your teaching duties and opportunities. 

Alignment

Teachers generally don’t like teaching to the test. Good instruction seeks to instill in students the capacity for deep processing and critical thinking, not just memorizing facts to spit out in response to standardized test items. Good instruction also seeks to develop in students the attitude of a growth mindset, problem-solving approaches, generative engagement, creative capacity, and ethical attributes. Teachers are right to resist teaching to the test, to the extent that doing so implies rote memorization and automatic responses rather than reflective skills. Yet teachers need to remain responsible to teach the standardized curriculum, which educators design to meet broad student needs and prepare students for further growth and advancement. Teachers do so by aligning instruction to those standards. Curricula, texts, and educational materials commonly used in instruction tend to do the aligning for the teacher, giving the teacher room for further interpretation. But be aware of the standards that your instruction must meet. You may find your own creative ways to promote your students’ success in meeting those standards. 

Assessment

Standardized exams contribute to teaching accountability. At the K-12 school level, statewide and national standardized exams enable students, parents, teachers, and schools to measure student, class, and school performance against norms. To make standardized testing a fair measure, teachers should generally habituate students to the test environment, conditions, and format. Don’t let a lack of test-taking skills interfere with your students’ standardized exam performance. Your instruction may be on point. But if you don’t habituate students to the standardized test format, they will on the whole underperform. Test-taking skills can include not only how to reason one’s way through the multiple-choice, true/false, and problem formats, accomplished with plenty of practice, but also how to allocate one’s time, treat uncertain answers, and use extra time. Formatting your own quizzes, tests, and exams to the standardized format, and conducting your own testing under similar conditions to the standardized test conditions, can help prepare your students to perform as they should on standardized exams, after benefiting from your skilled and dedicated instruction. 

Accreditors

Accreditors also play a role in holding teachers accountable to instructional goals. Schools at all levels, but especially in higher education, rely on accreditation to demonstrate program rigor, attract students, and qualify for federal and state funding. Accrediting bodies are typically private credentialing organizations with state and federal recognition. Accrediting bodies thus have a quasi-governmental function, acting as state and federal regulators would act, with similar powers to affect government funding. Accreditors typically require schools to submit annual data for analysis, verification, and publication. The data can include not only enrollment, retention, and attrition but also student and graduate performance on benchmark exams and licensing exams, and even graduate employment. Accreditors can also place schools on probation, require extra reporting and monitoring, and even revoke their accreditation when academic measures decline below acceptable levels. Appreciate your school’s interest in meeting accreditation standards having to do with the quality of your teaching and the learning that it influences. 

Administrators

Administrators tend to watch standardized test scores closely, both to ensure that their school can satisfy accreditors and to uphold the school’s reputation, to ensure adequate enrollment. Declines in standardized test scores and the associated school ranking can affect school reputation and enrollment. Of course, administrators may already know, from their own observation or from student and colleague reports, who are their more-effective teachers. But if not, standardized test results may tell them. Again, teaching quality is not the only factor in standardized test results. Administrators can recognize when aberrant results are due to other factors, when for instance a usually high-performing teacher has lower standardized test scores for a class that has produced lower scores at every prior level. Administrators may know that the better measure of instruction is how much gain each student or a whole class of students made from where they started at the beginning of the year or term under the skilled instructor’s tutelage. Still, appreciate the strong interest of your teaching supervisor and school administrators in the quality of your instruction. Remain accountable to your school, colleagues, and students.

Departments

Subject-matter departments within a school can also play a role in supporting effective instruction while simultaneously holding teachers accountable to the quality and alignment of instruction. Faculty members in higher education routinely belong to faculty departments, the members of which share similar credentials for instructing in the department’s subject matter. Even in K-12 schools, teachers may have the support of colleagues who teach the same subject, either within the school or around the district. Departments can share teaching resources and methods, offer coaching and mentoring, and even require teachers to use certain methods or materials, to promote alignment to standards and improve student learning. Administrators may rely on the information and recommendation of experienced department chairs to evaluate, assign, promote, or demote and terminate instructors. Ensure that you draw appropriately on your department’s resources, accept its guidance, and contribute to its collective work in teaching your subject. 

Students

Students have their own ways of holding teachers accountable for effective instruction. The teacher who consistently fails to support students effectively, and whose students therefore consistently underperform against benchmarks, will draw administrative scrutiny. Students need not complain about the instruction. Standardized exam results will do the talking. But students may also complain about the low quality, inconsistency, or misalignment of instruction. Schools have varying ways of gathering student information on instruction. Some schools require students to anonymously evaluate every instructor in every course they complete, while other schools have no formal survey system but accept individual complaints. In either case, department chairs and administrators quickly learn who are the teacher culprits. They may take student reports with a grain of salt, given that students may not always recognize instructional value. But some students can be quite perceptive, and their information can supply a factual basis for inquiring about the quality of instruction. Listen to your students. Your department chair and administrative staff are likely doing so, whether they like it or not. 

Parents

If you teach in a K-12 school, you already know that you are also accountable to your students’ parents. Parents have their own ways of calling an ineffective teacher to account. Parents may question and complain in direct communications with the teacher, not only at parent-teacher conferences but also on the telephone, by email or text, or at other in-person meetings. Teaching a K-12 student largely involves a partnership between the teacher and parent, or school and parent, in influencing the student toward the instructional goals. Parents may learn quickly when students don’t complete homework, don’t recall homework assignments, don’t bring necessary materials home, and accordingly suffer appropriate but undesired consequences, like lower scores and grades, loss of school privileges, and in-school detentions. Parents will respond to those consequences in their own way, to you or to school administrators, whether supportive of the teacher’s instruction and discipline or not. Parents of K-12 students with disabilities also have a legal right to participate in forming the student’s individualized education program where, once again, they will voice their opinions about the quality of instruction in efforts to hold the teacher accountable. If you teach at the K-12 level, you know your accountability to parents.

Reflection

Which accountability constituent is your biggest concern, accreditors, administrators, your department chair, your students, or parents? Are you well aware of the academic standards that apply to your instruction? What efforts do you make to select texts, materials, and assessments already aligned to those standards? Are you familiar with the format, content, and conditions of the standardized tests that your students must take, related to your course and instruction? What efforts do you make to align your instruction and assessments to the standardized tests applicable to your course and instruction? Does your department or school assist with your efforts at instructional alignment? Does your department or school share with you the performance of your students on those standardized exams, along with historical data necessary or helpful for its interpretation? How do students hold you accountable for effective instruction? Must you answer to another constituent, such as parents, alumni, graduate schools, or employers? 

Key Points

• Teachers are accountable to various constituents for their instruction.

• The employment contract holds the teacher accountable to the school.

• The tuition agreement holds the school accountable to the student.

• Academic standards determine the core instructional content goals.

• Teachers must generally align their instruction to academic standards.

• Teachers should also align their assessments to standardized exams.

• Accreditors hold schools accountable for effective instruction.

• School administrators hold teachers accountable for sound instruction.

• Departments can assist and evaluate teachers on instructional quality.

• Students may hold teachers accountable by survey and complaint.

• Parents of K-12 students also hold teachers accountable for instruction.

Read Chapter 4.