doug lemov presentation - policy exchange/teach first
TRANSCRIPT
“Where are all the Superheroes?”
The Inaugural Policy Exchange Education Lecture
Doug Lemov
10 September 2014
King Solomon Academy
A Story
LA Unified School District has hundreds of Jaime
Escalantes -- teachers who preside over
remarkable successes, year after year, often
against incredible odds. But nobody is making a
film about them.
Most are like Zenaida Tan, working in obscurity.
No one asks them their secrets. Most of the time,
no one even says, "Good job." Often even their
own colleagues and principals don't know who
they are.
Tan brims with effective ways to reach limited-
English students, handle discipline problems and
keep the kids engaged. "I do a lot of singing,
games," she said. "It doesn't look like a lesson."
But no one asks for her advice. She says her
fellow teachers at Morningside consider her strict,
even mean. She tends to keep to herself.
"Nobody tells me that I'm a strong teacher," she
says.
That's OK by her, she adds. Year after year, she
watches her students make enormous progress
and feels a quiet sense of satisfaction.
By LAUSD's measure, Tan "meets standard
performance," as virtually all district teachers do -
- evaluators' only other option is "below standard
performance." On a recent evaluation, her
principal checked off all the appropriate boxes,
Tan said -- then noted that she had been late to
pick up her students from recess three times.
"I threw it away because I got upset," Tan said.
"Why don't you focus on my teaching?! Why don't
you focus on where my students are?"
The Moral of Our Story?
Teachers: Heroes…Misunderstood
Failure Rate
Industrial Model
Postcard from a Successful Charter
Postcard from a Successful Charter
“Manage,” value and develop teachers better“Teacher choice matters… possibly more than student choice
Great Teachers
But You Knew That
Actually,
Everybody Does
I am Not Exaggerating
Exotic Problems
And ‘Endemic’ Ones
Breakthroughs in innovation have
historically been preceded by
breakthroughs in measurement
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Our Data
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6th Grade Math Results -- All NYS School Systems
Is postal code destiny?
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Or Is It?
Secret: Teachers are Entrepreneurs
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A Little Better at Every Interaction, Hundreds of
Times/Day.
Uncommon Schools and the Achievement Gap
Our teachers: “We have to be better. You have to
be better at helping us.”
Training Programs Were Highly Theoretical
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Videos From the Upper Right
Katie Bellucci
Paul Powell Bryan Belanger
We Have Some Catching Up to Do
The Power of Bright Spots
Achievement Gaps
For ExampleThere is no achievement
gap that some teacher,
somewhere has not
closed. We just need to
identify, study and share.
How Teachers are Defined
Grow the Pie
Anyone Can Run the Numbers
Teacher Evaluation (APPR)Teacher Eval
Human Capital
“The quality of a school (system) can never exceed the
quality of its teachers.”
Either you get that or you fail. ‘Charter’ doesn’t matter.
Effective schools use every tool they can to honor, develop,
understand and study their teachers.
Questions? I am Ready!
October 9 and 10www.teachlikeachampion.com
@Doug_Lemov
