A Healthy Debate About Math Coaches
We’re in the middle of our collaborative budgeting process right now, and it’s a little tense. I get to sit in on it as one of the union reps. The money situation is not good—our cash reserves have been going down, the Feds are being stingy with the impact aide, etc.—and we’re in a mode of having to look at possible cuts. There can also be additions to the programs we offer, but those will have to be offset by cuts on the other side.
One of the additions suggested was to pilot getting a math coach to work with teachers in the elementary schools. It was brought up by one of the principals and had the backing of the superintendent, but when we’re in a cutting mode I couldn’t see adding it this year. My suggestion was to add the money to our extended learning budget instead, which would let us offer more programs before and after school to help those kids who need it, but that was shot down for a couple of different reasons:
Still, as the union guy, extended learning money is money that goes right to my members, so that’s what I’d prefer.
We went round and round on coaching for a good while. The bottom line is, our math scores are not good. Could professional development get us where we need to be? Not really an option, we’ve already set the in-service calendar for next year. Besides, one-shot classes don’t get us anywhere. What about book studies? Well, they’re always voluntary, and making that transition from page to practice doesn’t always happen. Maybe we should look at something else next year? But what about the problem we have right now, for the coming year?
It occurred to me, though, that perhaps the membership would like having a math coach, so I emailed all the certified people in my building to get their thoughts. It was nearly unanimous: “If we’re going to add staff it should be to lower class size or offer enrichment, not to tell us what to do.” “TOSA is not teacher on special assignment, it’s teacher off sitting around.” “What’s a coach going to tell me about teaching math that I don’t already know?”
What this shows me is that my building, at least, is not ready for instructional coaches. Maybe they never will be ready, maybe it’s something that will be thrust upon us later, but now is not the time. It would be divisive, and said coach would be behind handicapped before they even took the job. Right now all of us in the classroom are working like mad to get the new math curriculum aligned; having someone come in and tell us what to do when we haven’t even established the order to do it in wouldn’t work.
In a similar vein, Skip Fennell’s column in this month’s NCTM News Bulletin is titled For Principals Only, and it talks about the difference an administrator can make when it comes to the professional development of their staff. I’ll have to pass it along to my principal; you should be able to find it soon on the NCTM's website.
I’ll let you know what happens.
One of the additions suggested was to pilot getting a math coach to work with teachers in the elementary schools. It was brought up by one of the principals and had the backing of the superintendent, but when we’re in a cutting mode I couldn’t see adding it this year. My suggestion was to add the money to our extended learning budget instead, which would let us offer more programs before and after school to help those kids who need it, but that was shot down for a couple of different reasons:
- We can’t count on the kids who need intervention to come to the programs outside of the normal school day.
- We haven’t exactly done the greatest job of designing and implementing effective intervention programs.
Still, as the union guy, extended learning money is money that goes right to my members, so that’s what I’d prefer.
We went round and round on coaching for a good while. The bottom line is, our math scores are not good. Could professional development get us where we need to be? Not really an option, we’ve already set the in-service calendar for next year. Besides, one-shot classes don’t get us anywhere. What about book studies? Well, they’re always voluntary, and making that transition from page to practice doesn’t always happen. Maybe we should look at something else next year? But what about the problem we have right now, for the coming year?
It occurred to me, though, that perhaps the membership would like having a math coach, so I emailed all the certified people in my building to get their thoughts. It was nearly unanimous: “If we’re going to add staff it should be to lower class size or offer enrichment, not to tell us what to do.” “TOSA is not teacher on special assignment, it’s teacher off sitting around.” “What’s a coach going to tell me about teaching math that I don’t already know?”
What this shows me is that my building, at least, is not ready for instructional coaches. Maybe they never will be ready, maybe it’s something that will be thrust upon us later, but now is not the time. It would be divisive, and said coach would be behind handicapped before they even took the job. Right now all of us in the classroom are working like mad to get the new math curriculum aligned; having someone come in and tell us what to do when we haven’t even established the order to do it in wouldn’t work.
In a similar vein, Skip Fennell’s column in this month’s NCTM News Bulletin is titled For Principals Only, and it talks about the difference an administrator can make when it comes to the professional development of their staff. I’ll have to pass it along to my principal; you should be able to find it soon on the NCTM's website.
I’ll let you know what happens.
posted by Ryan at 8:10 PM
6 Comments:
You might remind those in your district that TOSA salaries/benefits don't come out of the general fund...they are I-728 (or Title I, if it's for Literacy). Also, if a school or district goes into improvement, it is required to spend more money on staff development.
By having a master teacher as a coach, you actually solve a bit of your budget problem and student achievement problem.
In my district, from a parent's view, coaches are doubly not useful. For one, it tends to pull the best teachers OUT of classrooms. They should be offered extra money to stay, not to go around trying to improve other teachers! Heck, take the worst teacher out of each school and send them on an extended tour of the great teachers' classrooms. There's a win-win: great teacher stays teaching, bad teacher not teaching, but *possibly* learning to be better.
The second downside is that while some math coaches were great classroom teachers they are not skilled at coaching. They may tend to be overly prescriptive, or to just teach while they are in a classroom -- a couple of great lessons, yes, but lasting improvement, not likely.
There were two fabulous math teachers (among others) at my sons' middle school. One left after the first one had her -- since then the number of kids placing out of a year of math is less than half of what it had been. My older son's year? 7 kids. (at least 5 had had her as a teacher). Younger son's year? 1.
There is one other fabulous teacher -- he's revamped the program and pushes the kids hard. Parents love him because test scores go up AND kids finally feel like they get math -- low kids and high kids. He tells the students he'll never coach, just teach until he retires. I just hope he plans on another decade so my youngest can get there!
While I don't know much about how all this budgeting and funding stuff works, I've had two different math coaches in the past two years. The first was horrible: She tried to take over the department meetings, she was constantly getting into petty arguments with teachers over little details, and when it came down to teaching or co-teaching a lesson she was pretty unimpressive.
This year, we've got a guy who can really teach. Not only that, he's a great coach: treats everyone as a professional, doesn't dictate to you, but at the same time offers lots of help and resources and new ideas and encouragement, and is able to host a good discussion about how to teach better. No small feat. It's amazing what difference a good coach can make. Even from the "bad coach" I learned a few things -- but I really resented the fact that she drew a salary. The "good coach" I wouldn't trade even for smaller classes or an extra prep. He's that good.
I'm an outsider, and a parent--so I realize my views aren't worth much, but how about a bit of focus on growing up? The mission of the school district is not to increase the employment options of teachers. Maintaining the current (not too successful) program with afterschool intervention (with a poor track record) because it puts money in the pockets of teachers just doesn't make any sense.
Neither does taking pot shots sight unseen at coaches because they are not doing the "real work" in the classroom. We know that the math education of elementary teachers is pretty limited. We also know (as was pointed out) that the typical one-day make-it-take-it workshop does not do much to improve classroom practice.
One would hope that the teachers and the union could be better served (within the mission of school which probably has something to do with educating kids) by trying to more effectively influence the credentials of who gets hires to be a math coach so that this position is useful. Likewise, the contract or job description--might it include modeling of classroom teaching practices? Might that person take on some of the tedious data evaluation to pinpoint areas of difficulty? Might that person have academic credentials in mathematics pedagogy that exceed those currently in the school? Might that person craft some parent workshops to guide at-home work?
Might even improve some test scores.
I think that the last two comments are an excellent counterbalance to each other.
To be an effective math coach, I think you need to be a guru. Someone respected for their teaching, both of children and adults, with experience all through the K-8 curriculum so that they know where the kids have come from and where they need to go.
The trick is, there's not that many of those people out there. We have a hard enough time in my area hiring qualified math teachers for the classroom; finding a qualified math coach, it seems to me, would be a different degree of difficulty entirely.
So if we create this position, and we settle for the person who comes along who seems marginally qualified, what's the end result? If we have the sort of coach that Mr. C first had, then the entire coaching movement in my district withers on the vine and dies, it's another wedge between the teachers and the administrators, and our recent budget woes become that much more pronounced.
If it works, there's a potential for an increase in test scores. Or not; we don't really have a sophisticated enough measurement system to know.
It's a question of risk/reward. At this point, I'm not sure the second part outweights the first.
I am a math coach, and have been for 1 1/2 years in Ontario, the program is very successful, the positive feedback from students and teachers is phenomenal. If you would like to know more about our successful program, please email me at buzzygolfs@rogers.com
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