These shifts are happening for good reason and in response to the growing recognition that evidence-based reading instruction and high-quality instructional materials play a crucial role in student literacy. A higher-quality and more coherent approach to instruction has the potential to dramatically improve student achievement. 

But make no mistake: curriculum alone won’t solve the nation’s reading crisis. These shifts can work only if educators are engaged in a comprehensive adoption process and receive ongoing, high-quality professional learning. 

Districts across the country are failing to recognize the importance of strong implementation, and it’s deeply concerning. Data from Educators for Excellence’s Voices from the Classroom 2024 Survey shows that only 22% of teachers said they had a role in selecting the materials used in their school. Just 38% have received subject-based professional learning, and fewer than half receive curriculum-based professional development, despite its proven effectiveness — leading to just 1 in 4 educators saying their district has been “very effective” in helping them implement new curricular materials.

These alarming statistics likely contribute to the wide gaps between the standards-aligned materials required by districts and those used in classrooms — putting the mission of improving student literacy at risk.

Districts must take action to address these two gaps, starting with the crucial first step of including educators in their schools’ curriculum selection processes. When teachers have an active and early voice in adopting curricula, the overall quality and relevance of instructional materials are significantly improved. Furthermore, such an inclusive process improves teacher buy-in, aiding the program’s rollout and implementation. 

There are a variety of ways this can be implemented. For example, in a policy paper last school year, educators proposed assembling a team of teachers and other community stakeholders to determine the metrics and parameters for curricular materials. Districts could ensure that the committee is a diverse, representative group and incorporates community feedback sessions to ensure that everyone invested in student learning has the opportunity to be heard. 

It could be argued that involving educators takes too much time, especially given the urgent instructional crisis. However, urgency and collaboration aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s possible to quickly address students’ needs while keeping educators at the forefront. Excluding them or ignoring their feedback risks undermining implementation and worsening the existing instructional crisis. Engaging educators isn’t merely an optional or flattering touch; it’s an absolute necessity for ensuring success in curriculum shifts.

The second step is for districts to design and implement a multi-year implementation plan with a strong focus on high-quality, curriculum-aligned professional learning. The benefits are well documented, and a report from the Carnegie Corporation of New York showed that when teachers participated in curriculum-based professional learning, student test scores improved. This can be attributed to the fact that such training builds school leaders’ and teachers’ capacity to help diverse students access grade-level content. 

Professional learning that improves instruction can be achieved in several ways. One is for districts to conduct regular audits to ensure it is aligned with and utilizes the curriculum that teachers are using in their classrooms. The same local district teams that are engaged in curriculum selection could also plan out professional learning sessions that address existing gaps. Districts could factor in feedback to ensure professional learning is tailored to diverse students, such as those who speak different languages or have varying learning styles, by equipping educators to adapt materials as needed.

It could be argued that this approach is too costly, or that a strong theoretical foundation is necessary for understanding and implementing instructional practices. While theory is important, practical application is even more essential for teachers to see real-world results. And while ongoing professional learning is costly, the return on investment is high when it results in improved student outcomes. It’s precisely why some districts are making multi-million dollar investments in it.

Whether it’s extensive survey data from educators, research, policy papers or implementation in other districts, the need for educator engagement and high-quality professional learning throughout curricular shifts is undeniable. Curriculum is just one piece of the puzzle, and districts must invest in educators and engage their school community to achieve meaningful progress toward reversing pandemic learning loss and declining reading scores. 

As the new school year looms, there’s no better time for districts across the country to act upon and recognize this. 

The stress, burnout and strains on teachers have compounded so significantly that students, families and educators themselves face an undeniable crisis. Educators for Excellence’s seventh annual Voices from the Classroom teacher survey shows that just 19% of teachers say the profession is sustainable and only 16% would recommend it to others. Simply put, America’s education system is failing teachers and students.

While the world has evolved rapidly, the same cannot be said for the teaching profession. When I began teaching in 2007, I can vividly remember pausing after dismissing my after-school club and realizing I had been with students for the past nine hours. My day was focused solely on my classroom. I had little time to take care of personal matters, let alone collaborate with or learn from my colleagues to better our collective teaching skills. I loved my work and knew it was important, but I also knew that my students weren’t getting my best under these working conditions.

The survey results paint a picture that is eerily similar to the conditions of my school in 2007. Teachers are still asked to do too much with too little. They are rarely afforded opportunities to demonstrate the full extent of their skills or collaborate with their colleagues to increase their professional learning: Just 26% say the profession is dynamic and less than half, 46%, say it’s collaborative. This is evidenced by historically low teacher morale, with less than half expressing a commitment to staying in education for the long haul.

Piecemeal solutions have been ineffective, as evidenced by teachers’ calls for change. Instead, what’s needed is an urgent and sweeping transformation of the profession. Teachers unequivocally want something different, but they also want to — and ought to be — meaningfully engaged in designing and implementing the change that comes.

When teachers are given the opportunity to voice their opinions to those who can make meaningful change in the profession, they are clear in what they want to see. First, teachers want more collaboration: 63% report wanting more time to work with colleagues, making it the most popular activity out of 13 provided options, including wanting more time for grading, lesson planning, professional development or even classroom instruction. They also report wanting to learn about innovative approaches to teaching and learning: alternatives to the one-teacher, one-classroom model; how to use research-backed instructional practices; and how to incorporate emerging technologies that drive student success, such as artificial intelligence. 

How can teachers drive transformation within their own profession? Though state and national policy has a critical role to play, an often overlooked but deeply essential tool for unlocking transformation exists elsewhere, in one built by educators themselves: teachers contracts. 

Contracts serve as the guiding document of the profession, creating the structure within which teachers and students navigate teaching and learning. They are intended to be democratic documents, allowing teachers to shape the profession from within their ranks and empowering them to lead from their classrooms.

Far too often, though, they instead create rigidity and immutability that prevent school leaders and teachers from shaping their school together and evolving alongside the rest of the world. They usually codify a one-size-fits-all job description that ignores teachers’ individual skills and passions, limiting the ability of a school community to shift and meet the students’ needs through the talents of their educators. With just a third of teachers reporting being very satisfied with their union’s negotiating priorities, the moment begs reflection on how contracts can address dissatisfaction with the state of the profession and instead welcome innovative new approaches.  

Thankfully, there are shining examples where districts have seriously rethought what teacher contracts look like, designing them in a way that directly addresses educators’ strengths and needs. Take Ravenswood City School District in California, for example. There, district and union leaders worked together to develop a contract that allows issues such as class size and compensation to be renegotiated at specified times during its term. This offers a unique built-in mechanism for reflection and adjustment, giving teachers a regular opportunity to build a profession that supports them and their students’ ever-changing strengths and needs. The contract also provided for salary increases and an innovative career ladder designed to incentivize and reward exceptional performance. Ravenswood’s new approach was tested through a soft launch and pilot year with built-in opportunities for renegotiation, allowing teachers to get a feel for the changes and the ability to make final revisions.

To fundamentally redesign the role of the teacher, creating modern classrooms ready to better serve students and truly appreciate educators, contracts must be modified to reflect the collaborative, dynamic and sustainable profession teachers are asking for.

Right now, starting with Teacher Appreciation Month and continuing far beyond, is the time to ignite a national conversation around the crisis in K-12 public education. It is time to elevate the voices and power of teachers and to deliver upon a fundamental shift in the education structure. Voices from the Classroom shares the shifts teachers would like to see. It’s time to listen. 

1. Technology 

The first thing most teachers bring up is the improvement in technology. Not only has overall access gotten better, with many districts achieving a one-to-one ratio of devices to students, but both teachers and students have become more technologically fluent. This is especially true for educators and classrooms. According to one teacher I spoke to, schools took a five- to six-year technology jump in one year. Teachers had to adapt to online learning and were forced to learn modern instructional practices. The pandemic caused them to change their approaches to teaching in ways they might never have done if it had not been for the pandemic. Online platforms that were developed because of COVID have given teachers valuable tools for engaging students in instruction and evaluating their progress efficiently. One teacher highlighted the fact that online platforms allow educators to be more interactive with their students and more aware of their progress. 

2. Nurturing

Every school district, teacher and administrator knows that the pandemic has caused students to struggle with conflict resolution and appropriate social relationships. Students were isolated from their peers, and although they were interacting online, it was easy for them to turn the camera off, mute themselves and withdraw from interactions with others. But that same technology provided educators with a window into the homes of students and a glimpse into their lives. This gave teachers a new way to truly understand what students were going through and be cognizant of their family circumstances.

Because of this newfound understanding, teachers say they have become more nurturing. Teachers realized that they had to be more aware of students’ needs, be patient with them and seek ways to support them.

3. Mental Health Needs

COVID made clear how important it is to prioritize mental health needs for both students and adults. One teacher told me how, before the pandemic, she felt it was offensive to ask parents if their child was in counseling or if they were interested in services. But now, it isn’t taboo to ask. There is a shared understanding that it is okay to not be okay, and families are more open to resources to support their children’s social-emotional needs. One teacher said he incorporates social-emotional strategies in his classroom now that he didn’t think were necessary pre-pandemic. 

Another teacher said he was taking the practices he incorporates with his students and using them for himself. And as an assistant principal, I am aware of the social-emotional needs of my staff as well as the demands on them to develop each student. After the pandemic, my academic team has been more cognizant of teachers’ needs and has prioritized initiatives in order to focus on what is important.

4. Solutions-Oriented

The last significant theme that emerged is that schools have become more solutions-oriented. The teachers I spoke with agreed to stop putting the focus on the past. What is done is done. The question now needs to be, what are the solutions? The needs of students are evident, so schools must work on identifying resources to support them both academically and social-emotionally. It takes a collective effort to find solutions and make changes. Having a positive attitude and looking for good in circumstances is essential. The pandemic has given the world an opportunity to prove how resilient individuals can be. 

COVID-19 posed challenges that no one in this lifetime had experienced. Returning to in-person learning and getting back to normal has proved to be difficult; however, for all the darkness of the pandemic, there are some positive effects in the nation’s schools. 

It’s no surprise teachers are considering leaving the profession and that a lack of enthusiasm for the field seems to be impacting the number of college students pursuing teaching degrees.

This needs urgent attention to ensure the next generation sees teaching as the rewarding and wonderful job we know it can be. School and district leaders and policymakers must provide systemwide support and take critical steps related to funding, professional learning, staffing and resources. 

Between the two of us, we’ve taught, held academic roles, led a union, written K-12 curriculum and developed professional development resources for teachers across grades. Throughout these diverse educational experiences, we’ve seen what it looks like when teachers are fully supported and well positioned to help young people reach their potential.

For starters, teachers need a say in the work they do. That may seem obvious, but too often teachers are handed resources and told to use them, or given a schedule and told to accommodate it. That’s shortsighted. Teaching is most effective when educators are brought into the conversation and work with school and system leaders to develop solutions to problems, set policies and establish best practices. 

We saw the power of engaging teachers when we worked together in New York a decade ago to write a math curriculum aligned with new college and career standards. Teachers were at the table, along with mathematicians from higher education, to ensure the resulting curriculum would be rigorous, usable and engaging in the classroom. Their contribution was enormous. After all, teachers have firsthand knowledge about the pacing and structure of lessons, and how children learn.

There has been a lot of attention recently on how kids are taught to read. Widely used literacy programs that de-emphasize phonics — how letters and sounds relate to each other — have been shown to be ineffective and received poor reviews from independent evaluators. Maybe if teachers were included in curriculum adoption decisions from the start, as part of a team of experts, more than a third of fourth-graders nationally would not be working below even the basic level on the Nation’s Report Card.

An interesting thing happened when we engaged teachers in that curriculum-writing exercise in New York a decade ago: Teachers learned a lot about math. It turned out to be a very deep kind of professional learning experience. That’s important; the more educators know about the content they teach, the better off students are.

The teachers also felt empowered. Many said no one had ever asked them to write materials that would be widely used. That curriculum ultimately became a freely available online resource for teachers nationwide. Those who had helped write it were proud of their impact on the field. Additionally, teachers using the curriculum felt respect for their profession since materials had been created with input from fellow practitioners. Feeling empowered and appreciated impacts how people show up every day in their jobs — and whether they stay.

But handing teachers great resources, even if they had a role in writing them, is only part of the solution. Educators also need ongoing learning to grow and develop in their roles, and they need a say in those programs. Too often, surveys show, teachers don’t have much of a say in what their professional development looks like. That makes no sense.

Teachers should help shape professional development and, when possible, help deliver it. There’s so much power in teachers teaching teachers. At San Tan Heights K-8 school, a traditional public school in Florence, Arizona, which we work with through our roles at curriculum developer Great Minds PBC, teachers routinely observe each other and then reflect on those observations collectively. That’s in addition to getting individual coaching led by content experts. 

Finally, while some educators are happy to stay in their classrooms for a lifetime, others, like us, find meaning in moving in new and different directions over time. Educators need pathways that allow them to grow professionally in areas such as curriculum development, professional development and coaching. If we fail to do that, we could lose educators to other fields altogether. 

Teaching will always come with challenges. Being thoughtful, however, about how we address common frustrations, strengthen the profession, and create new opportunities will encourage educators to stay where we need them most—in schools helping all children succeed.

Even when suspensions significantly declined through the pandemic, racial disparities in school discipline persisted. COVID-19 only magnified how generations of racist policies and practices that created and replicate those inequities influence school discipline.

While federal guidance and policy recommendations can help shape the conversation, they too often miss the point on practical solutions — particularly the fact that these solutions begin with supporting the day-to-day work of teachers.

For six years as a classroom teacher, I focused on improving school culture and discipline, realizing early on that if I didn’t, the very inclusive classroom spaces I sought to create for my predominantly Black students would be negated by traditional teaching approaches that punish them for culturally and age-appropriate behaviors. It became clear over time that discipline was actually less about practices that excluded students, and more about those that included them.

Here are five ways teachers can be supported to address school discipline this year. They are based on the ideas of my former elementary school students, families and school community in South Los Angeles, in addition to my work as a consultant at the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning and research for the California School Discipline Project.

Understand the spectrum of school discipline. Although the past decade has yielded major efforts to reduce punitive discipline practices like suspensions and expulsions, it should be clear that discipline isn’t simply a response to behavior, but instead reflects a school’s values and visions for young people.

In “Beyond Suspension Decline: Transforming School Discipline in California,” my team of researchers and I found that there are varying approaches to school discipline that can be thought of as a continuum. Visualized on a chart divided into quadrants, a vertical axis defines the purpose of school discipline as running from domination to liberation and a horizontal axis defines a range of approaches for achieving it from exclusionary to educative. The latter is generally described as discipline that teaches students to develop self-discipline.

Teachers and administrators engage in different actions based on their beliefs about the purpose of and approaches to discipline. Beginning with this spectrum helps educators map not just where they’re at in their discipline practices, but where they want to be and how they can get there.

Invest in ongoing relationships with students, families and community. While the conversation around school discipline tends to focus on the exclusion of students from the classroom or school after an incident already occurred, the need for discipline is greatly reduced when teachers build strong relationships with their students, families and surrounding community. These relationships help teachers learn more about their students, which not only develops deeper levels of trust but provides reference points for how to create a more inclusive environment that aligns academic and behavioral expectations in school and at home.

Ask the question of relevance. When behavior issues arise and discipline is needed, an often overlooked question is how relevant is what students are learning. Decades of research has found that effective teachers connect what students learn in school with the real, material conditions of their lives. As a way to measure relevance, teachers should question whether every assignment they give students has some immediate, applicable lesson or deepens and widens their connection and understanding of their world. This level of purpose in including and engaging students in their learning can reduce school discipline disparities.

Sharpen culturally responsive teaching skills. Thinking critically about how to teach can help educators gain a deeper understanding of their students’ learning needs. Culturally responsive teaching — which stems from culturally relevant pedagogy — considers students’ cultural backgrounds as strengths in the classroom and as a focal point for how to approach instruction. These include students’ gender, age, socioeconomic status and where they live — is it in the suburbs or a rural area?

For example, in some cultures, interrupting shows engagement in the conversation, not disrespect. Culturally responsive teachers incorporate that in the lesson instead of disciplining students for it. Teachers wield significant power in shaping classrooms to include and validate culturally appropriate behaviors that are often otherwise targeted for exclusionary discipline.

When possible, smile. My students always used to tell me, “Mr. Pham, you should smile more.” I didn’t know it at the time, but their advice is backed by a study that suggests greeting students “at the door sets a positive tone and can increase engagement and reduce disruptive behavior.” Although smiling in school is not always the easiest task, it might be that one small thing teachers can do to have a big impact on what already is proving to be a difficult year for students.

However, Black classroom teachers make up only 7% of the entire workforce, even though Black children make up at least 16% of the student population. 

For my school district in Middletown City, Ohio, these statistics are motivation to continually challenge ourselves to reimagine strategies to recruit and retain teachers of color. 

While I was fortunate to have several champions throughout my K-12 experience, I didn’t have a single Black teacher until high school Algebra II. My first and only teacher of color set high standards with the expectation I would rise to meet them. Those high expectations are part of the fabric of who I am today — modeling what I, in turn, expect of others. She also inspired my career path: I started as a middle school math teacher and now serve as superintendent of Middletown City School District.

Growing up, no one told me there was a need for Black males in education. But diversifying the field must begin by verbalizing to Black and brown children that they are needed and valued, and that teaching is a meaningful profession where they can truly make a difference. 

Several years ago, my district set out to diversify our staff, but without defining a successful outcome. When we achieved a 5% increase in overall staff diversity, we happily patted ourselves on the back. But when we analyzed what this really meant, we realized we didn’t know how or whether the culture had changed. We needed to define our envisioned success.   

We began reimagining our hiring practices by examining effective national models and finding ways to emulate them. Visiting other League of Innovative Schools districts, we saw how the Toronto District School Board and South Carolina’s Richland School District Two developed successful partnerships with organizations led by former teachers of color. This inspired a partnership with He is Me, a mentoring program targeting Black male college freshmen who are undecided on a major.

Through this program, our district is providing an opportunity for students to discover an interest in serving youth through education. We connect them with Black males who are already teachers and mentor them in hopes the students will discover an interest in serving youth and pursue careers in education. Ultimately, our goal is to hire 25 Black male classroom teachers — well-qualified, urban-minded young men with a passion for education and service to others — by 2027.

But even if we meet that mark, we know effective recruitment solves only half the problem – we must also develop supporting retention strategies to truly change the district’s culture. To gain insights on how to effectively retain teachers of color, we connected with Digital Promise’s Teacher of Color Design Studios, to engage our own teachers of color to create solutions for our particular district. A key takeaway was that teachers of color need to feel empowered to share thoughts and ideas, and maintain continuous involvement in the decision-making process. We made sure that educators who’d be most impacted by this program — our Black male classroom teachers — had a seat at the table. Their voices were instrumental in developing and implementing the teacher retention program.  

It was important for our district to create a culture where Black teachers view themselves as instructional specialists, content experts, and sources of inspiration for our kids, as well as support each other as family. Knowing that we needed all staff members to work toward this common goal, the first step didn’t call for action—we simply wanted staff to become aware of their own individual biases, privileges, and perspectives. We then slowly transitioned to action by offering every single staff member a series of micro-credentials based on diversity, equity and inclusion. Our hope is that this type of professional learning will eventually be hard-wired into the cultural beliefs of our school system and become a part of our overarching strategic vision.  

While we’ve still got a long way to go, we are already experiencing positive outcomes from our initial efforts to change our hiring practices to attract more urban-minded educators and diversify our staff. When we first began tracking our results in 2017, we saw a 5% increase in children participating in extracurricular activities over three consecutive years. More recently, a survey of students in third through 12th grade revealed that 96% said they feel safe when they come to school. With that, we’ve found that students feel more comfortable expressing themselves, and we’re getting better at listening. For instance, students expressed interest in a wider variety of different types of opportunities. In response, one elementary school now offers 15 dynamic after-school programs that change quarterly based on student feedback. 

By developing a positive connection to adults and fostering a sense of belonging, which leads to the confidence to speak up, we believe our children will feel more emotionally safe while they’re at school. When teachers include cultural perspectives in the classroom, students experience greater academic and social-emotional success, ultimately graduating with important skill sets and hopefully eager to get back into education.

Ultimately, the key to success is more school districts nationwide working together to prioritize recruitment and retention of Black teachers. If we can all continue to inspire each other, we can keep creating and sharing new, successful frameworks and models to get more Black teachers into our classrooms.  

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation provides funding for Digital Promise’s Teacher of Color Design Studios and The 74.

The 2021-22 school year was a tough one for America’s children. 

From regular f-bombs and bullying to difficulty finishing assignments, raising hands or buttoning pants, young people across the country are struggling to adjust to classrooms after lengthy pandemic isolation. 

122 teachers from 37 states and Washington, D.C. painted a picture of a generation emotionally anxious, academically confused and addicted to technology, in a survey created by The 74.

Educators from coast to coast noted students had difficulty with common classroom routines — writing down homework, raising their hands to speak, meeting deadlines. And for the youngest learners, underdeveloped motor skills made it difficult to use scissors, color, paint and print letters. 

In their responses, teachers plead for parents and other adults in their life to lead with “grace”: ask questions, read to them every day, listen to frustrations and model behavior.

“We have a huge problem we’re facing with kids now as a result of the pandemic, which isn’t over,” said Pedro Noguera, sociologist of education and dean of USC’s Rossier School of Education. “I hear it directly from teachers — talking about a kind of chronic absenteeism, kids not wanting to come, kids not being motivated when they do come, and then the behavior challenges that come when they are present.” 

And while states iron out summer programs and tutoring initiatives for next year, made possible by pandemic relief funds, teachers have identified a summer wishlist for how parents and guardians can help the young people in their life.

The skills typical of age groups have seemingly shifted, teachers reported in the survey. Elementary students fumble to form sentences, use scissors and pencils; middle school students can’t quite grasp the concept of multiplying and dividing fractions. High schoolers are silent during discussions, averting the gaze and judgment of peers. 

And racist, homophobic and transphobic language is on the rise, teachers say, as part of an a pattern of more aggressive behavior. 

“This year’s students had significantly more behavioral problems than most previous groups of students. They made inappropriate racial remarks, struggled with owning the issues they created, made disrespectful comments to staff, engaged in bullying and even physical altercations,” a 7th grade teacher observed in Nebraska. 

In Kentucky, an elementary educator asked a school mental health practitioner to lead social skills peer groups to curb conflict and get kids talking about their emotions. 

Above are the words teachers used to describe student behavior and discipline challenges in the 2021-22 school year.

One fifth grade teacher in Arizona said students struggled to manage emotions and respect each other: “…Being honest about social issues (never heard so many lies before), tidiness, respecting others property [or] space. Arguments and competition [are] getting out of control.”

“Any little thing can wreck their whole day,” they added.

Young people now need extra practice with staying organized, taking notes, managing their time and following through with deadlines, many teachers told The 74. As one Texas high school English teacher said of their students’ executive functioning skills, due dates would “snowball… They quickly became overwhelmed.” 

“Their fuses are just shorter and the concept of respect seems different. You can’t push them too much or they turn off … Their emotional state is still in turmoil, partly because they are teens, but also since the concept of school is new again,” one California English teacher said. 

Accordingly, educators are adapting policies and class time to help students manage workloads. 

“I’ve learned to be much more understanding to what’s going on at home. I’ve also scaled back on ‘homework’ and deadlines due to absences and personal situations,” said a 7th grade English teacher in southern California. I’ve also used class time to help students organize themselves or catch up on work. Some often just appreciate time to clean out their backpack.”

Academic challenges

In elementary and middle school, teachers observed a host of language challenges. Students found phonics and reading aloud difficult, along with forming grammatically correct sentences and capitalization. 

Reading longer texts, inferring meaning, and thinking critically were challenging for students of all ages, educators said. 

In math, elementary school children struggled to understand numbers and order of operations. 

“4th graders came having major gaps in basics of arithmetic … operations, number sense, problem solving,” said Stafford, Virginia teacher Jill Lottes, whose students could also not speak or write in full sentences when they returned in-person last fall.

Educators across state lines and grade levels noticed shorter attention spans and a lack of “stamina” or motivation to focus — listening to peers in class, and on most assignments. 

In response, teachers incorporated more learning by doing; slowed down the pace of lessons; and added reading and writing activities to classes that never usually reviewed them, like math and Spanish. 

“I am very firm with procedures and expectations, and saw much more success this year. I was able to build relationships with the students because they knew what my expectations were, but also that I cared,” said Andrea Calderon, a 7th grade English teacher in southern California. 

For one first grade teacher in northern California, the biggest change in her teaching was devoting regular class time throughout the year to talk about behavior — how they treat each other, and why. It felt counterintuitive, given how much academic growth needed to happen.

“I think that a lot of last year for them was sitting in front of an iPad for a few hours at home, and then watching TV the rest of the time,” the teacher said. “I don’t know how much time most of the parents of our students spend with their kids talking with them, problem-solving with them, engaging with them.” 

Challenges with motor, executive functioning skills 

Above are the words teachers used to describe motor and executive functioning skills students were missing in the 2021-22 school year. 

Across ages, teachers also observed students’ difficulty keeping track of their work and collaborating with their peers. 

“Students really struggled with completing group [or] partner activities … having to wait their turn or share materials wasn’t something that was as big of an issue in middle school prior,” said one 7th grade teacher in Columbia, South Carolina. 

Elementary school teacher Catherine Graber noticed similar trends in Louisville, Kentucky: “Social awareness and relationship skills were areas of growth. I worked with the school mental health practitioner to facilitate social skills peer groups for some small groups of students.”

Behavior challenges

As compared to pre-pandemic school years, many teachers noticed a rise in behavioral concerns, including fighting, bullying in person and on social media, and using sexual and racial slurs. 

“The last two years have been some of the most divisive in American society … Show the kids what it looks like to respect each other and stop treating everyone like an enemy,” said Illinois middle school teacher Anthony Modica. 

For young children, behavior changes were more subtle. 

“It was fairly obvious to me that they probably hadn’t had a lot of adult interaction over the last year or two, and they were just so talkative, so needy, just sort of over the top in terms of how much energy they needed and wanted from me and the other adults in our classroom,” said a first grade teacher from Emeryville, California. 

Key for most educators was getting to the root of behavior and showing kids what it looks like to talk through emotions. 

“I still took time to ask questions about how or why a student was feeling or acting out negatively,” said a 2nd grade ESL teacher in Carrollton, Texas. “I also took the time to apologize to them when I overreacted and explain my feelings in a child friendly way. This went a long way in building trust and respect between us.”

Virtually all 122 educators surveyed acknowledged that behavior and academic challenges are challenging but not unexpected given the pandemic and exacerbated youth mental health crisis. 

“We can’t just expect kids are going to just pop right back into where they were pre-pandemic,” a third grade teacher outside of Minneapolis said in an interview with The 74. “We’re going to have to do a lot more work to settle them into what school really is like and make them feel safe…”

And academics like Pedro Noguera say children will need much more than just academic recovery to feel like school matters. 

“We have to bring some joy to learning and to being in school, so that kids want to be there,” said Noguera. “A sense of joy comes from a sense of belonging…So music, theater, sports have to be more integrated into the academic program, and not treated as an afterthought.”

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For many Black people in America, the past year of virtual working and schooling has meant a reprieve from some of the daily traumas that racism visits upon Black life in our country. As a Black woman, my reentry into “regular” life means a return to in-person workplace and personal microaggressions. For Black children, the return to in-person schooling can mean reentering classrooms that are antagonistic to their very identities.

In the wake of a global pandemic and last year’s racial uprisings, schools and districts have implemented school- or district-wide diversity, equity and inclusion training and begun planning additional mental health supports to help students navigate the residual effects of a year of loss. But these measures are simply not enough.

If our public education system does not urgently and directly address the culture that Black students experience in classrooms, it will continue to fail them. In the absence of remote learning, Black students will be exposed to the tangible differences they uniquely feel when they cross the threshold into their classrooms.

Before COVID, Black students were suspended or removed from class at higher rates than non-Black students, they faced racial aggressions around their hairstyles or cultural dress and endured systematic disenfranchisement that barred them from advanced classes attended by their peers. During COVID, Black students’ lack of access to technology was characterized as disengagement, overpolicing continued even in the virtual space and, in many districts, learning loss was most acute for Black students. After COVID, the education sector has a choice: return to the status quo or finally address the anti-Blackness that undergirds these discriminatory outcomes for Black students.

At the Center for Powerful Public Schools, we believe that powerful public schools are essential to an equitable society, economy and democracy. We equip educators with tools to create equitable classroom experiences. Sadly, as executive director of an organization deeply focused on equity, when I try to think of classrooms that fully affirm and support Black children, too few come to mind. Instead, what is true, both in digital and in-person learning environments, is a persistent lack of safety and care for the vast majority of Black students.

However, when I walk into the classrooms at Baldwin Hills Elementary School in Los Angeles, I am able to see, hear and feel first-hand a school that is confronting the status quo. Principal Letitia Johnson-Davis has created an oasis of learning. She and the teachers at Baldwin Hills have built the kind of affirming and holistic classrooms that all Black children deserve.

In culturally affirming, pro-Black classrooms like these, students receive assignments that celebrate who they are, engage with teachers who have deep relationships with them and their families, and are able to see their interests and identities embedded in curricula and school policies. Recent Los Angeles Unified School District parent focus groups revealed that many Black families experience their children’s schools as “indifferent and even hostile to them.” Schools like Baldwin Hills ask the question: What would it feel like for Black students, families and communities to feel revitalized and uplifted in their interactions with schools?

The pathway to classrooms and schools that are free of microaggressions, bias, anti-Blackness and racism is clear. First, schools must require professional development centered on providing culturally relevant and ongoing instruction for current teachers as well as teacher candidates. When businesses have severe incidences of racial bias or prejudice, those businesses require all employees to undergo diversity, equity and inclusion training. Education should be no different. Every part of the school community, including board members and support staff, must be trained in identifying their own biases and assumptions. Engaging in this kind of professional development should be mandatory, and no one should be able to opt out.

Next, schools and districts must develop clear and consistent communication and messaging around the eradication of anti-Black behavior, built in collaboration with parents and community. At the center of this communication must be clear metrics to assess how Black students and families experience the changes that are implemented. Data around how many Black children are suspended or access to advancement opportunities within school buildings must reflect this shift toward equity.

Finally, teachers must learn how to facilitate discussions about racism, discrimination and bias in their classrooms and among their peers in education. Schools and districts must communicate that if teachers are not ready to do what it takes to ensure all children are safe, they should no longer be teachers.

When students return to classrooms in the fall, many — in particular, Black students — will be wrestling with the myriad traumas we’ve faced throughout this year. The environment students enter at this pivotal moment could be life or death for them. Targeting the dismantling of anti-Blackness and institutional racism for classrooms is critical to student well-being. Our kids cannot wait for equity any longer.

Dr. Alicia Montgomery is executive director of the Center for Powerful Public Schools

]]> https://www.the74million.org/article/a-teachers-view-how-the-murder-of-george-floyd-inspired-a-new-curriculum-in-my-school-that-is-changing-how-students-see-themselves/ Mon, 28 Jun 2021 19:01:00 +0000 https://www.the74million.org/?post_type=article&p=574083 Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here for The 74’s daily newsletter.

As our country wrestles with the murder of George Floyd, Daunte White and far too many other Black individuals at the hands of white police officers, as a public school educator, I wrestle with how to help my fourth-grade students make sense of the violence they see being perpetrated against people who look like them.

I teach at Rocketship Rise Academy, an elementary charter public school east of the river in Washington D.C., where 98 percent of our students are Black and 83 percent are at-risk. At Rocketship, we believe in the potential of all students, and our school is intentionally designed to help our students understand their value. One way we do that is by giving them what we call windows and mirrors. We give them mirrors with a teaching staff that looks like them and understands them — 86 percent of our staff are educators of color. And we give them windows by helping them envision a life beyond what they currently know, while celebrating their culture and community.

For my students, the trauma of police brutality stretches beyond high-profile incidents that they see in the news and on social media. In their own daily lives, my students struggle with the dissonance between being told that the police are trusted adults, while already having witnessed — despite their young age — countless examples of the police mistreating their family, friends and neighbors.

It’s the ultimate responsibility of our public education system to prepare students to be engaged and informed citizens. Our democracy literally depends on it. For that reason, understanding modern society through the context of history should be a critical part of every student’s education.

But the same structures of systemic racism that have made the type of police accountability we saw with the Derek Chauvin trial incredibly rare have also allowed the history books and social studies curriculum that are mass produced for use in public education to be told, almost exclusively, through a white, male lens. History stories often treat the white actors kindly, while failing to recognize the contributions of African-Americans or actions that have undermined their well-being. We can’t teach Black students how to become active citizens if we’re not giving them a true understanding of how 400 years of history has shaped their lives today.

So last summer, as protests against racial injustice spread throughout the country following the murder of George Floyd, our school community felt the pain of this injustice deeply — and we knew we needed to do more. Our school principal asked me to develop our own social studies curriculum. We call it Seeds of Civil Power.

The idea is that we are planting the seeds of a civic education for students so they will one day be able to convert that understanding into power. The definition of “civil” is, “relating to ordinary citizens and their concerns.” But since history is rarely taught in a way that relates to ordinary citizens and their concerns, our public education system is preventing the masses from truly being empowered. While elementary students may not fully embody the learning that they’ll need to change society, we can at least plant the seeds. We’re doing this by helping them learn, think about and question the world around them.

The curriculum is designed as a series of five units, starting with a study of community and how our students fit in. The units build on each other. After community, the units cover culture, economics, government and activism, all through the lens of the Black experience. Too often, students are taught history and culture as something that only happens to others — that was definitely my experience growing up. I was never made to feel, as a Black person, as an American, that I had a culture. I want my students to understand that their lives as Black people are part of a rich, historic culture that’s worth studying.

Lessons are implemented once a week, during our regular community meeting time. Each lesson involves both discussion- and project-based learning, and includes a series of guiding questions that open the floor to discussion on the topic we’re exploring in depth that week. This format is designed to encourage critical thinking, so students can reflect on their own experiences as well as information about societal structures and the experiences of others, and begin to envision how they can influence the world in which they live.

Some of the first lessons were about family structure. We looked at the history of families in the African-American community and discussed how they are similar and different today as compared to the 1800s, when many Black people in our country were enslaved.

Part of the discussion included students sharing what their own families look like. One student, who I know lives with his single mom, intentionally misstated that his dad lives with him as well. We discussed that there’s no right or wrong family structure, despite what the dominant narrative in society tells us, and by the end of the lesson, the student felt confident in sharing with the group that he actually just lives with his mom. He may not even realize it, but his perspective about himself changed that day.

By design, the curriculum we’ve developed is equal parts social studies and social-emotional learning. If we start by getting students to think of themselves as social beings within a specific culture, we’re not only improving how they view themselves, we’re also laying a foundation for them to understand and accept other cultures. Most importantly, they begin to understand that all cultures and societies have been shaped by individuals throughout history, and it’s something they can work to shape, as well.

Seeds of Civil Power in its current form is really just the beginning of what it can be, and where I hope to take it. All students should be learning history and civics through a variety of perspectives. But for now, at our elementary school, our Black students are seeing themselves in these lessons and, therefore, know that they matter.

Riah Williams is a fourth-grade humanities teacher at Rocketship Rise Academy in Washington, D.C. 

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March 12, 2020, was my last typical day in the classroom before COVID-19 changed everything. When my district closed the following day, I assumed, as did many, that this was a temporary precaution. As the closure continued, fear began to set it in. With each passing week, I worried that the growth in reading my first-graders and I worked so hard for would fade away.

Many schools have been closed for in-person instruction for over a year. While models of hybrid and remote instruction have evolved, many students have not re-entered the classroom. Teachers and caregivers rightfully worry about the long-term adverse effects of interrupted instruction.

Many pre-pandemic instructional approaches to teaching reading were already failing students and teachers. Only one-third of students in the U.S. had achieved reading proficiency at grade level in 2019. As the years go by, the gaps become larger, and as instruction shifts from learning to read to reading to learn, students who are reading below grade level seldom catch up to their peers. And for many children, the consequences of reading failure extend beyond difficulty in the classroom. These students often confront significant social and emotional challenges as they become increasingly aware of their differences from their classmates.

Teachers are not immune from the consequences of reading failure. They want nothing more than to help their students experience success, and the pressure they feel to ensure their students succeed despite factors beyond their control can be overwhelming. It is unsurprising that nearly half of new teachers leave the field within the first five years.

The stress of COVID-19 has only exacerbated these challenges. When my district reopened for in-person classes in the fall of 2020, we were faced with difficult decisions about how to best deliver instruction. One factor that helped streamline this transition for educators at my school was our background in and knowledge of instructional practices aligned with the science of reading. Having an extensive knowledge base of what we needed to teach allowed us to focus on how we would teach.

The science of reading is a vast body of scientifically based research about reading and writing. This research has been conducted over the last five decades and has resulted in thousands of studies that inform effective literacy assessment and teaching practices. The findings from the science of reading can inform educators about which approaches and programs provide the most benefit to the most learners, closing gaps in foundational skills and other aspects of reading and writing.

At our school, all students take a series of short screening tests to assess reading ability at the beginning of the school year. Using results from these tests and other ongoing student progress assessments, I then tailor lesson plans and provide supplemental instruction throughout the year. If a student receives a low score in a particular area, I conduct a follow-up assessment to learn the underlying reason for the difficulty. For example, if students score poorly on a measure of oral reading fluency, I then administer a phonics test to see if their fluency is being hampered by phonic patterns they have not yet learned.

Next, I analyze data from all the students’ assessments and create small groups focused on the literacy skill(s) students need to work on. One group may receive additional instruction on reading and writing words with a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern, while another practices words featuring the silent E. If a student is not making adequate progress, I adjust the intensity of reading instruction, the amount of one-on-one time spent with that student or the group’s size. Implementing evidence-aligned instructional practices in small groups focused specifically on topics students need the most practice with allows me to maximize limited instruction time — which has become especially critical in ever-evolving distance learning environments.

This model shifted minimally during the 2020-21 school year, even in the midst of school closures. As educators training in the findings derived from the science of reading, my colleagues and I built virtual lessons that center on the critical components of foundational reading skills. We conducted reading exercises to practice skills such as phonemic awareness, the ability to identify and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words, on video with small groups of students. Using other online platforms, we created interactive lessons in which students practiced reading and writing specific words, and reading full sentences and answering corresponding comprehension questions. The software enabled us to see all students’ screens at once and gauge who was on target and who needed additional support. It also provided information for planning subsequent lessons.

Understanding evidence-based approaches to learning dictated our lesson planning, while the digital tools help bring them to fruition. Having a strong understanding of the science of reading also allowed us to teach creatively and flexibly, to effectively meet each student’s needs.

Educators at my school learned a great deal during our brief time teaching remotely, and we applied some of these methods when we resumed in-person instruction. A major obstacle of COVID-era teaching, even in person, is that students cannot leave their classrooms and I cannot pull together students from multiple classrooms who have similar skill levels. To ensure small-group instruction could continue, we leveraged our student teachers, who were able to participate only in remote instruction even after we returned to the classroom. The student teachers virtually led small groups composed of students needing intervention on the same skills from the four classrooms in our grade level.

There are multiple factors that teachers cannot control; one person alone cannot make the systematic changes needed for all children to reach proficiency in literacy. But one knowledgeable teacher can forever change the trajectory of a student’s life. Students will face many challenges once they leave the classroom. Low literacy does not need to be one of them.

Jessica Pasik is a reading specialist with the Fulton City School District in New York, an adjunct professor of literacy at SUNY Oswego and a board member of the national literacy education nonprofit The Reading League.

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