Comments on: PROOF POINTS: Debunking the myth that teachers stop improving after five years

By: Mari Bonomi

Mari Bonomi — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 00:05:29 +0000

Reading that researchers find teachers don’t improve that much after their first few years are using far too narrow a measuring tool (as the last part of Jill Barshay’s discussion suggests).

I was a *far* better teacher in my latter years (I taught high school English for over 35 years). Why? Staff development. That is, I learned a great deal about how to encourage critical and creative thinking, how to create more authentic and engaging assessment tools, how better to manage student behaviors, how to be the “guide on the side” rather than the “sage on the stage” (thanks to Joe Renzulli for those phrases). And what made me even better at all those things (and others) was becoming a staff developer myself.

Once I’d had the opportunity to attend workshops on, for example, teaching students to be better thinkers, I returned to my district and presented workshops to my peers for them to learn more skills and techniques.

And then I became a mentor to novice teachers, and a trainer of mentors. To train others, I had to be skilled at the approaches myself.

I suspect I might have stagnated a bit between years 5 and 10, but I certainly grew profoundly from years 15 through 35.

No clue how my students did on high-stakes paper-and-pencil-and-Scantron standardized tests. They did quite well on what was then the CT Academic Proficiency Test (CAPT). But they also did quite well at their various post-high-school academic/training choices, and came back to crow about how much better prepared they were than most of their college classmates.

So let’s stop making untoward assumptions about teachers plateauing and coasting. ‘Tain’t true of most of us!

By: Frank Livoy

Frank Livoy — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 18:32:30 +0000

Jill,
As a 50+-year educator, I thank you for publishing this article about new research that dispels the myth about teachers’ failing to grow professionally beyond their first three years. Unfortunately, as valuable as some data can be, incomplete data like that from the 2004 report leads to unfortunate and sometimes counter-productive conclusions about teachers. Educators have long hollered “foul” at analyses of their effectiveness that rely wholly or even largely on standardized student test scores. Many parents understand that those test scores can’t capture the affects that good teachers have on their children’s learning. And until we can get research that can quantify those seemingly immeasurables in learning, I suppose we’ll have to continue to listen to such narrowly defined and incomplete analyses about teaching and teachers. But please keep pointing out, as you did so articulately in this article, the missing pixels in such incomplete pictures of education in America.

By: Keith Schoch

Keith Schoch — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 15:58:02 +0000

As a teacher of 30+ years, I would absolutely agree with the evidence cited in “PROOF POINTS: Debunking the myth that teachers stop improving after five years.” This “old dog” absolutely continues to learn new tricks! Through online interaction with colleagues, professional reading, attendance at EdCamps and other conferences, and simple curiosity, I continue to refine the art and science of my craft. Does it show in test scores? Yes. But more importantly, its manifests itself in students’ enthusiasm for learning. I can’t speak for everyone, but the day that this teacher stops being a student at heart, feel free to cart me out of the classroom ala Hannibal Lecter, because my role as an effective educator will be done.

By: Robert Piepenbrink

Robert Piepenbrink — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 18:24:15 +0000

I notice that the author–along, evidently, with Professor Papay–is unconcerned with measurable student outcomes. Otherwise, why the concern with “ability to ask probing questions, generate vibrant classroom discussions and handle students’ mistakes and confusion” which, one would think, are there to generate the improved outcomes which Rockoff, Papay and Kraft all seem to find little of after those first five years?

Most certainly, some student populations–and some years–are better than others. This is why one measures thousands, and not individuals. And surely some teachers might inspire students in ways not captured by a standardized test of knowledge. But Ms Barshay provides us with no reason to believe teachers “late in their careers” do this more often. They may also do it less.

Retaining workers by seniority, and paying them more by seniority regardless of performance (if any) is no doubt the preferred policy of industrial unions. If it’s supposed to be done for the benefit of the students, more information and less speculation is in order.