Can professional learning communities prosper without treating teachers as professionals? by Stephen Kotok

Since the days of the one room schoolhouse, teaching in the United States has been characterized as an isolated profession. Even as one-room schoolhouses gave way to massive schools – sometimes with thousands of students and hundreds of faculty – classrooms continued to resemble isolated, self-sufficient cells (Lortie, 1975). However, over the past two decades, there has been an increasingly loud call amongst educators, school leaders, and policy makers to break down the walls of classroom isolation in exchange for a more collaborative approach commonly known as professional learning communities (PLCs). Professional learning communities are groups of teachers collaborating for the purpose of sharing ideas about teaching, problem solving, and working towards common goals.

The fact that states such as Delaware included a PLC mandate for all public schools on their top ranked Race to the Top application suggests that many policymakers are at least superficially embracing the idea of teacher collaboration. The move towards collaboration in places such as Delaware offers great potential for improving teaching and learning conditions, but efforts to spread PLCs run the risk of being labeled “another policy fad” if we fail to provide educators with the support and autonomy necessary to make PLCs worthwhile. While I do not advocate a one size fits all idea for PLCs, there are some important ideas and examples that can guide our conversation on the subject. Specifically, I think that there are valuable lessons to be learned not only from teachers themselves, but also states such as Delaware, and even other countries around the world.

A cruel irony exists in that while policy makers in the U.S. increasingly acknowledge the importance of PLCs, the average time for teachers to engage in such activities has decreased in the last few years.

As somebody who has worked at multiple schools, I would argue that almost all teachers value the idea of collaboration, but resist it when it infringes on our precious preparation time. A cruel irony exists in that while policy makers in the U.S. increasingly acknowledge the importance of PLCs, the average time for teachers to engage in such activities has decreased in the last few years (Darling-Hammond, 2013). Moreover, many of these same policy makers justify increasing instructional time as part of the international education arms race while ignoring the fact that teachers in nations such as South Korea and Singapore only actually teach about 35% of their work day compared to 80% in the U.S. (Wei et al., 2009). The Delaware Department of Education mandated that all teachers have at least 90 minutes a week of collaboration time in addition to their individual prep time, but an average of 18 minutes a day for collaboration still pales in comparison to many of the East Asian education systems we often envy. Moreover, too many districts in other states besides Delaware are expecting PLCs to prosper while providing even less than 90 minutes a week for collaboration.

Lastly, while I advocate an active role for school leaders, I fear a temptation amongst policy makers to overly standardize collaboration. Talbert (2010) warns that a bureaucratic approach to PLCs – mandatory attendance, strictly prescribed activities, and over emphasis on testing – results in teacher resistance and anxiety towards collaboration rather than feelings of mutual trust and shared responsibility. In the case of Delaware, they have tried to integrate individual professional goals, but the structure seems more bureaucratic than organic. For example, they have recruited and trained strong teachers to become data coaches who work with the administration and PLCs to assist teachers in order “to build a lasting capacity” (DDOE, 2012). If the data coaches are truly only present to build a lasting capacity, I think it is a useful bureaucratic reality. However, if these data coaches become permanent fixtures, they are likely to become viewed as middle management administrators and could stifle creativity and honest dialogue amongst educators.

Despite what seems to be a welcome shift among some policy makers towards teacher collaboration, I contend we are rarely providing teachers with the support, time, and autonomy to make PLCs worthwhile and effective rather than just one more thing on a list of “what I have to do.” Moreover, in standardizing PLCs, we run the risk of making PLCs a “Trojan Horse” for district agendas and professional development rather than true spaces of professional learning. For PLCs to truly flourish, it requires a much greater cultural shift in how we treat teaching as a profession.

References

Darling-Hammond, L. (2013, April 11). What teachers need and reformers ignore: Time to collaborate. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/11/what-teachers-need-and-reformers-ignore-time-to-collaborate/.

Delaware Department of Education (2012, October). Delaware teachers say time to plan together, data coach help valuable. Retrieved from http://www.doe.k12.de.us/news/2012/1001.shtml.

Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Talbert, J. E. (2010). Professional learning communities at the crossroads: How systems hinder or engender change.” In M. Fullan, A. Hargreaves, and A. Lieberman (Eds),  International handbook of educational change, Volume 2. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Wei, R. C., Darling-Hammond, L., Andree, A., Richardson, N., Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and abroad. Dallas, TX. National Staff Development Council.