Steve Poizner Learns from Teaching in a San Jose High School

In the May 9 San Jose Mercury News, I review Steve Poizner's new book "Mount Pleasant: My Journey From Creating a Billion-Dollar Company to Teaching at a Struggling Public High School."

Some critics have slammed Poizner for not portraying every student as eager and academically prepared. On the contrary, I find that this candidness is a strength of the book:

One personal insight that Poizner comes to is how difficult it can be to boost student achievement. He arrives at Mount Pleasant High School somewhat romantic about what one teacher can accomplish for children who have been in weak schools for years.

He never lets go of the goal of bringing out his students' full potential, but comes to recognize that many of them are missing the academic "background knowledge" and scholastic aspirations that many students have in upper-middle-class schools. He courageously faces these politically incorrect facts and the extra work they necessitate, without ever giving up in the least on his students.

Some of the critics have focussed on whether San Jose's Mount Pleasant High School was rough or whether the surrounding neighborhood was rough:

Even though this school and surrounding neighborhood seemed rather rough and dangerous to Poizner,...in fact, the neighborhood is average for San Jose and that, while there are third-generation gangs in the neighborhood and "gang-intervention specialists" at Mount Pleasant High School, the number of fights among students is not dramatically high.

While making points such as these, radio journalist Ira Glass, a major critic of Poizner's book, acknowledges that "some things about the school could clearly be better," when it comes to academics. Glass notes: "The school doesn't hit its goals in statewide testing." It is in the bottom 40 percent of California schools.

The book is primarily about Poizner's personal experience as a teacher, but it contains policy suggestions as well:

Poizner finds the public schools a bureaucratic morass, with too many details dictated from the state Capitol. This red tape constrains principals and teachers, the educators who could be making teaching and learning happen.

Poizner's solution is to empower educators by cutting Education Code red tape and reforming school finance so that decisions about money are made close to the classroom. At the same time, he wants incentives that will encourage educators to put student learning first....

He likes charter schools because they ­ by definition ­ aren't tied down by red tape and can provide competitive pressure and examples to learn from for regular schools. He wants to have teachers treated "like professionals." He wants to give "great teachers great pay" and hold all teachers "accountable for their work." Poizner is not afraid to say that ineffective teachers "should be dismissed."

How Regular Schools with Regular Teachers Could Replicate the Results of High-Powered Charters

Education Sector's Steven Wilson in an important AEI pamphlet (drawn from an earlier scholarly paper) looks at the talent that has contributed mightily to the success of high-performing charter schools. He then discusses how regular schools with regular teachers can achieve the same success.

First, Wilson asks, "Do the 'no excuses' schools depend on rare human capital?" He finds that they do:

I found that more than half of the...staff members [of the six high-performing Boston charter schools that he studied] had attended elite undergraduate institutions (Barron's "most competitive" rank), and fully 83 percent had attended at least a "very competitive" college (Barron's third-highest rank)....

I examined the educational background of the academic staff of eight "no excuses" charter schools outside of Boston....As with the Boston-based...schools, faculty members were most likely (37 percent) to have attended institutions in Barron's "most competitive" category; 56 percent had attended "highly competitive" schools or better, and 77 percent attended "very competitive" schools or better.

Wilson also looked at the qualities that "no excuses" schools seek in teacher candidates. One exemplary charter school looks for prospective teachers who graduated from a top-tier college with good grades and a major in an academic discipline and, moreover, who:

• have a "history of getting high student achievement, tight discipline and culture";
• believe that "measurable student achievement is the number one goal"; and
• "[like] standards, statewide testing, and accountability."

Student achievement is a part of a teacher's evaluation at this charter school.

Wilson then points out that prospective teachers having "the educational credentials and commitment" sought by such charter schools are scarce.

How then to get the effective teaching that's needed? Of the two solutions that Wilson considers, one is the most promising. It is "making the job manageable."

Wilson asks us to consider the teaching force once again:

Imagine the broad swath of career educators who, though they may not have attended elite colleges and universities, are nonetheless committed to rigorous academic standards, the continuous improvement of their craft, and a path to college for every child. Could they be equipped with a powerful set of tools that would permit them to produce gap-closing results...?

Consider the job of the "no excuses" teachers....These schools often expect teachers to devise curricular and pedagogical systems largely for themselves....If teachers neither had to remedy years of prior failed schooling nor forge their own tools, then the job would be far more manageable.

In the course of Wilson's discussion of existing effective programs, the reader gathers what Wilson thinks is needed (as re-phrased by me) -- namely, schools with:

• a solid, step-by-step curriculum;
• a "no excuses" culture;
• a focus on college-preparatory academics;
• teacher-led, whole-class instruction;
• clear lesson-plans aligned with state standards;
• regular, frequent diagnostic testing;
• classroom discipline;
• explicit teacher accountability for performance; and
• a school principal with the power to make key decisions.

All this has to reside, Wilson says, in an institutional setting (work-rule and pay flexibility, local district policy, state law) that allows such schools to thrive.

If these components are there, Wilson contends that regular schools can have KIPP-like results without Teach for America/Ivy League-grad teachers.

Wilson recognizes that a major obstacle to putting into effect this promising proposal for success is the"thought world" of K-12 education:

Ironically, such systematic approaches pose a challenge in recruiting teachers. Many career educators have a long-standing aversion, fanned by unions and schools of education, to external oversight. Powerful norms protect the teacher's "autonomous sphere of private discretion" and are more likely to celebrate teacher innovation than measurable effectiveness.

Waiting for enough Superman-teachers and Superwoman-teachers is waiting for Godot.

Instead, Wilson's proposal could give regular teachers the tools to succeed and the incentives to excel professionally.