Teachers' Centers: A New Approach to Improving Education

...in this post-Jencksian world, I must point out that no social revolution would follow from the modest reform of the educational system suggested here...

...The state boards and commissions of education are probably in the best strategic position to initiate a network of centers and especially a curriculum-development support system, but with a few notable exceptions—New York, Massachusetts, California—their resistance to innovation suggests that it is unrealistic to expect them to take the lead...

...A nonprofit organization of educators filed suit against the agency last March, charging that it has been operating illegally because President Nixon has not appointed the 15-member policy-making council called for by the statute...

...According to press announcements issued thus far, the agency's administrators (who are not supposed to set policy without the council) see their purpose as generating enough educational research to attain the "critical mass" necessary for a productive effort...

...Teachers actively engaged in solving their own problems will need a vast reservoir of accessible information and experienced individuals on which to draw...

...Finally, the centers have to be backed up by a network of support agencies that can deliver necessary resource materials and personnel...

...In my contacts with British schools I have been exposed to excellent, average and poor teachers...

...A major defect of most Federally administered attempts to solve educational problems is that they do not create new institutional environments on the local level to encourage teachers—on whose efforts everything ultimately depends—to initiate their own reforms...

...Under such a plan, a comprehensive network of teachers' centers could be established in a relatively short span of time and the financing would be equitably distributed...

...The second myth is that the centralized structure of the British system encourages educational change and makes it much easier to introduce institutional innovations such as teachers' centers...

...Consequently, it is no easier to bring about systemic change in Britain than in the U.S., except for the fact that the country is smaller and more homogeneous...

...These substitutes are also encouraged to introduce innovations in the schools they visit...

...The North Hertfordshire Teachers' Center, an attractive barn-like structure in rural Letchworth, serves an area where many schools have only one or two teachers, and it provides the main channel of communication for most of them...

...This formula has consistently failed in the past and would again in the case of teachers' centers because existing institutions are already fiercely competing for scarce education moneys...

...Balderdash...

...than it has been in England, but several basic concepts of the British model remain valid guidelines: The notion of the centers as places where teachers meet to deal with educational problems themselves, rather than to be told how they must deal with them, entails active teacher control over all activities at the centers...

...The most productive educational research is that which responds to the real needs of particular teachers and students in the classroom...

...Judging from the current debate both inside and outside of Congress over the effectiveness of present approaches to upgrading education, the feeling is widespread that there has been scant improvement in U.S...

...The crucial characteristic of English schools is the power vested in the individual headmaster by tradition and by the Education Act of 1944...

...Before evaluating the relevance of teachers' centers to the American context, I must dispose of two myths about the British system that seem to be current among some U.S...

...By now state officials have had sufficient experience with initially "free" social programs that have led to much-increased financial burdens after the trial period expired...

...There is, to be sure, a gap between theory and practice, and the Council's own research efforts have not all received unqualified high marks for teacher involvement, adaptability to different situations, or costs...

...The first myth is that English teachers are more industrious, sensitive and committed than their American counterparts, and that this superiority explains how they have established a successful network of teachers' centers...

...Originally an offshoot of a program to improve mathematics instruction in the primary schools, it later branched out into other subject areas to confront problems caused by the raising of the school-leaving age in Britain to 16...

...Essentially, the centers are places where teachers can come together to exchange ideas, revise curricula, discuss classroom techniques, investigate educational resources, organize study groups, or simply chat over coffee or beer...

...educational policy makers...

...Similarly, the idea that the centers are utilities serving teachers in the schools, and not merely facilities for them to visit, requires much mobility and flexibility on the part of the staff working out of the centers...

...Federal money would still be needed to initiate programs like the teachers' centers...

...The fundamental principle of the Council is that teachers are professionals and that thus its function should be to provide them with the tools to pursue their profession...

...Still, the very existence of the principles has set the norm for an institutional framework that allows individual teachers maximum participation in curriculum development and the greatest opportunity for professional activities...

...It is run by the primary advisor for the Berkshire Education Authority, most of whose time is consumed by other duties...

...2) on paper, the Secretary for Education and Science has considerable control over what happens in the schools...

...The centers would be most effective in improving the quality of classroom instruction, enriching curricula and stimulating teacher initiative within the schools-all important areas-and could eventually lead to larger systemic changes...

...It is even likely that a number of states would be reluctant to accept fully funded teachers' centers without assurance that some Federal support will continue beyond the first year or two...

...Though Washington's record of fostering institutional change at the grass roots level is spotty indeed, a vehicle for Federal involvement in the creation of teachers' centers already exists: the National Institute of Education...

...Once the idea received official encouragement it spread quickly, so that today there are more than 500 centers Irving J. Spitzberg, Jr., a previous contributor, is \tuilyiiig educational policies in a number of countries as a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs...

...Yet in reality the British system is even more decentralized in many respects than that of the U.S...

...in matters of curriculum and substantive education, his rights border on the divine...

...The Calcot Teachers' Center, a make-shift arrangement of two rooms and part of a hallway in an infant school near Reading, suffers from a lack of leadership and support...

...Unfortunately, the ability of the NIE to undertake such a program, while clearly within its Congressional mandate, is at the moment somewhat in doubt...

...Neither would the institute's current budget of SI03 million be adequate to cover much more than the costs of existing research grant programs transferred to it from the Office of Education and other Federal agencies...

...Nor is it feasible to adopt the usual strategy of funding a few showcase prototypes in the hope that they will motivate local governments to set up more of their own...

...The role of the Council, aside from supplying them with the necessary materials, is to undertake and disseminate the results of projects that are clearly beyond local means...

...throughout England and Wales, over half with full-time "wardens," or coordinators...

...Its purpose is to promote research and development in curricula, teaching methods, and examinations...

...An independent agency, the NIE was set up by Congress last year to give central direction to Federally sponsored educational research and disseminate its results...

...In addition, the school authority has organized a team of 20 substitutes whose availability makes it possible for regular teachers to spend 4-6 weeks at a time participating in curriculum-development projects at the center...

...This contrasts dramatically with the traditional pattern of educational reform in the United States, where the emphasis has been on the creation of teacher-proof materials that can be fed directly into the students' hands and used by even the least adroit educator...

...Moreover, to be successful, teachers' centers must be managed by full-time coordinators, who should be exceptionally well qualified educators...

...As the coordinator of the North Hertfordshire Teachers' Center put it, "The Council relies too much on writing and books as techniques for diffusing research results...

...Many of them grew out of curriculum-development programs sponsored by the Nuffield Foundation...

...Founded four years ago, the center was still not fully functioning when I visited it...

...although the teachers I talked with seemed enthusiastic about the promise it held out...

...By enabling teachers to become their own applied research workers, a national program of teachers' centers might do more to improve the quality of U.S...

...British teachers contend with problems similar to those experienced by Americans, and they have about the same pattern of success and failure...

...Change is no longer viewed as rippling out of a central source to the far reaches of the system, but as a decentralized process in which small groups of teachers scattered about the country can and do make their own waves...

...The first teachers' centers in Britain were founded during the early '60s...

...in this endeavor, the teachers' centers are the vital links, the focal points of innovation...

...Interestingly, one of the major complaints lodged against the Schools Council in Britain is its resort to the printed word to circulate its research findings...

...They complained that the district's attitude toward educational reform was markedly retrogressive...

...the distribution of pedagogic virtue does not appear to be exceptional...

...The club, numbering about 500 members, runs a series of in-service training courses on a wide range of subjects every academic term...

...it should be responsive to their wishes, not tell them what to do...

...In effect, the participating teachers would form a cadre of practical scholars, an unknown breed in American education today...

...one of these, on the topic of race relations, resulted in the creation of new study materials now being used by students throughout the district...

...education than all of the NIE's present projects combined...

...He has also set up theme-oriented development projects that cut across departmental lines...

...The state systems should include public representation to balance the teachers' self-interests with the competing interests of the larger community...

...From the beginning, though, the states should assume part of the cost for the potentially most expensive component of a successful program—partial released time for teachers who participate in the centers' activities...

...The Ealing Teachers' Center, which occupies part of a sumptuous recreation complex formerly owned by the J. L. Lyons Tea Company, was founded as a social club for the borough's teachers, many of whom are young singles who live in one-room apartments...

...The heterogeneity of American public schools makes diversity even more important for teachers' centers in the U.S...

...Indeed, a model already exists in the highly acclaimed British system of teachers' centers...

...The coordinator, a Welshman named John Jones, does not involve outside experts in the center's activities unless the members ask for such assistance...

...In addition to a budget far beyond its present $103 million, before the NIE could become a suitable launching pad for a network of teachers' centers it would have to rethink its stated objectives...

...schooling since the Act went into effect in 1965...

...And the Schools Council and teachers' centers together form the beginning of that framework in Great Britain...

...The argument suggests that the Secretary for Education and Science pulls the financial strings from Whitehall and the bureaucracy operates like a Punch and Judy puppet show...

...The center is for the teachers and by the teachers," he explains, "not for the university psychologist or educationist to earn a lecturing fee...

...At present it has 73 projects under way on topics ranging from music for young children to senior-level physics to secondary examinations...

...An imaginative superintendent or school board could set them up in a local district, or a teachers' union or professional organization could bargain for them as part of a contract package, on the grounds that the opportunity for professional improvement is an essential condition of employment...

...The team of relief teachers in Ealing points up the importance of strong support from the local school authority (roughly equivalent to a U.S...

...They should also serve as liaisons with the national agencies devoted to upgrading education...

...Besides offering convivial surroundings, they often feature exhibits of new textbooks, programmed instruction, audio-visual aids, and student projects...

...In any event, given the financial bind of most state and local school boards throughout the country, teachers' centers will not get off the ground in significant numbers without substantial Federal assistance...

...Though relatively little hard evidence has been presented concerning the particular programs it linances, I believe there is a strong element of truth in this criticism...

...In conclusion, I should perhaps make clear that I am not suggesting a national network of teachers' centers would in and of itself wreak profound changes in American education...

...The Council's other principle is that curriculum reform is an on-going process and must involve the classroom teacher at all times...

...There are three reasons for this belief: (1) Funds for school buildings do come from the government and teachers' salaries are set and paid nationally, though the day-today operation of the schools is financed by local authority budgets...

...The danger is that the baby will be thrown out instead of the bath water...

...Some teachers and students would merely be happier and there would be a more equal distribution of knowledge about education, not to mention education itself...

...Nonetheless, he makes a point of seeing that the teachers all receive information about current educational research revelant to their particular problems...

...about the lack of communication between primary and secondary schools in the county and expressed the hope that the center could be utilized to develop a better relationship between the two levels...

...By providing the necessary support system, and perhaps even establishing state and local equivalents of the British Schools Council, it could launch a teachers' center program on a nationwide basis...

...On the national level, the centers receive backup services—studies, reports, conferences, etc.—but no financial aid from the Schools Council, the institution most responsible for stimulating the phenomenal growth of the centers over the last decade...

...Thus, apart from covering the price of procuring or constructing the necessary facilities, Washington should commit itself to permanently paying the centers' staffs and partially funding support services, with other operating expenses being gradually shifted to state and local governments after the first year...

...More significant than the Council's specific activities, however, is its philosophy...

...school district), the agency that provides the facilities and funds for the centers...

...But books are the least satisfactory means of communicating curriculum ideas to busy teachers...

...They were quite concerned, too...

...and (3) the British have been imaginative in devising national agencies to assist local authorities—for instance, the Schools Council, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools, and the National Foundation for Educational Research...

...The impetus for establishing teachers' centers in the United States could come from practically any level of the educational hierarchy...

...If trying to impose change from the top down has not worked, it may be time to give teachers themselves the primary responsibility and the necessary facilities to develop new programs and experiment with new methods of instruction...

...others began chiefly as social clubs...

...Its coordinator, Ernest Millington, has helped teachers of different subjects organize associations to undertake curriculum projects for their respective disciplines...

...State support systems, patterned after the British Schools Council, should be set up to make these resources readily available, and to assist local coordinators in organizing center activities...

...Practicing teachers predominate on the governing board of the Council, an independent body embracing many other educational interest groups that is funded half by the national government and half by the local authorities...

...However valid this approach may be for research in medicine, space technology, nuclear energy, or even educational psychology, I would argue that insofar as the NIE is supposed to encourage practical research and substantive change in education, the critical mass approach is unsound...

...They vary in physical comfort, focus and quality, as the following reasonably representative cross-section suggests: The Newham Teachers' Center, located in a Victorian-era school building in a working-class borough of London, is one of the oldest in the country...

...This approach may account at least in part for the overwhelming lack of success of nationwide curriculum-enrichment efforts in America...

...Should a special revenue-sharing program for education eventually pass Congress, the terms for continuing Federal payment of personnel might be modified, but that ought not to relieve Washington of its responsibilities as a national source of innovation...

...Furthermore, teachers at the center have been working on ways to ease the students' transition from primary to secondary school...