Instructional Reform: The New Elephant in the Classroom

Instructional Reform: The New Elephant in the Classroom
By Chris MarkerMorse

The elephant in the classroom; the large, unmovable, stinky mass that educators and the public often pretend is not there. The elephant? The failure of instructional reform to effect real change in academic achievement. Teachers are given the task of caring for, controlling, and preserving the elephant, but must continually pretend that it is not there, even while it hunkers down in the middle of the room.

Many teachers have spent their entire teaching career in the world of school reform, and have altered, changed, and at times completely upended their classrooms, instruction and instructional expectations. Teachers nationwide have been told that if they focus on standards, utilize assessment, raise expectations, strengthen rigor, and devote more and more time to direct instruction, both during regular class time, and before school, after school and during their recesses and their lunches, teachers would make significant changes in the lives of students.

So teachers complied.

Most teachers who have taught 10 years or more, especially in the elementary grades, have drastically altered their classrooms, instructional practices, planning regiment and collaboration practices at least once, and some have had to make these changes with alarming frequency.

Yet, student achievement, high school graduation rates, SAT/ACT scores and other indicators of student achievement and school’s impact remain statistically unchanged, even after the advent of NCLB and other nationwide reforms.

There sits the elephant, and it continues to be ignored, as the implications of having a large, unwieldy, dangerous animal in our midst becomes reality. Its harm is obvious- our focus on instructional reform has not caused students to achieve at higher levels, and schools have yet to close persistent achievement gaps. However, the fullness of the schools, and the richness and depth of the curriculum has been diminished, with student suffering the dumbing-down of the curriculum; this reduction in the rigor, complexity and depth of the curriculum has been effected to focus students and teachers on isolated skill building, basic language instruction, extensive and pervasive test preparation, and fidelity to instructional programs while ignoring instructional standards, the actual needs of students, and research-based best instructional practice. This reduction in the quality of the curriculum also caused the reduction or loss of science, social studies, geography, art, music and physical education so that teachers could implement the enormous variety of instructional reforms that have been demanded of them. Teachers have been harmed; they have borne the brunt of the blame for the institutional problems in which teachers find themselves. If teachers would only be on the same page on the same day at the same time, if teachers would just use the right materials, if teachers would just say the right thing at the right time, then school reform would work!

So teachers complied.

Teachers have differentiated their teaching to meet multiple levels of students, worked in small groups, individual and paired instruction, taught whole class direct instruction, phonics as well as reading comprehension skills, worked with both novels and basil readers- and scores have remained stagnant. Educators have worked with ELL students, devoting up to an hour a day from regular classroom instruction to meet the very real needs of this group. They have put up focus walls, written endless objectives that they in turn had students recite, held kids accountable by testing and testing and testing, and been held accountable for these same tests. Teachers have worked tirelessly, using whole language, back-to-basics, constructivist, direct-instruction, individualized teaching, whole class discussion, cooperative group activities with paired-shared student responses.

And our student’s reading, writing and math scores have remained largely unchanged. Colorado, which tracks students changes in scores over time, saw flat scores in their student's test scores over years, even thought they had implemented sweeping instructional changes. According to National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP)data, reading and math scores, as assessed by nationally normed tests, has been unchanged for more than 20 years. Lawrence C. Stedman from State University of New York at Binghamton looked at NAEP data, and stated, “... (student) scores have changed little in over a generation.”

Many instructional experts now agree that the educational establishment has tweaked the classroom to its limit, eking out the finite possibilities of instructional reform. Scores have improved slightly in some instances, and these gains disappear if students are given a non-CST, or normed, test. In some instances, scores and student achievement have actually decreased.

Alarmingly, the political fix that is now de rigueur is to blame the teacher for the failings of the schools. Currently in California, there is discussion of giving and taking away tenure, even employment, for teachers based on the test scores of their students. Colorado has already passed sweeping changes in teacher tenure, based mostly on student improvement on test scores. Our president has embraced the firing of whole school staffs based on poor student performance. The burden of reform, therefore, has been taken from the politicians and educational leadership, who have not been able to effect change without actually effecting any change, and placed this responsibility solely on teachers, even though the problems in education are clearly not teachers or their teaching, but the very structure of the schools themselves. Teachers are mandated to use specific teaching materials, are forced to use imposed pacing guides, directed to adopt school-wide instructional times, compelled to administer prescribed assessments and interventions. Furthermore, instructional techniques and classroom procedures are often forced upon the teacher. Teachers are held accountable for the outcomes of students, yet they have only narrow control over the curriculum, instruction, materials, assessment, or time in their own classrooms.

This is not to suggest that educators walk away from a focus on good teaching- bad teaching has long-term, and educationally and socially catastrophic results. A focus on current, research –based instructional strategies, and looking at best practice, is a necessary component for maintaining successful schools. However, alone and without other systematic changes, instructional reform is not sufficient. It has not worked in isolation from reforms that are necessary to change the system of schools, and the sole focus on instructional reform cannot be the impetus to make the changes needed to truly improve schools and bridge achievement gaps.

Tenure, which protects teachers from ever-changing political whims, has led to the isolated, yet troubling, spectacle of bad teachers who seemingly can not get fired. Firing bad teachers is, of course, a necessity. But basing hiring and firing of teachers on test scores can not be the answer. Thoughtful, rational evaluation of teachers must be implemented, with robust and meaningful targets and measures, as well as meaningful training and retraining as necessary. Hold teachers accountable, but ONLY for the factors for which they have direct, explicit control. The current regime of evaluation reform is obviously, when looking at the 20 year effect of instructional reform, counterproductive, destructive and blatantly unfair.

The exciting, hopeful and emerging direction of necessary school change is becoming obvious as the years of assessment, research and evaluation of what actually works for school is rolling out to the public. Here are the changes that must be made before teachers are held individually accountable for a system they do not, and cannot, control.

1) Instruction that uses the arts, science, and social studies as a major portion of content to teach reading and writing.
2) Recognition of the impact of low socioeconomic conditions, and a directed, planned, universal and complete early intervention program.
3) Consistent and sufficient funding commensurate with current teaching and school demands
4) A national, uniform curriculum, assessed at multiple points throughout the year, with multiple measures, over time.
5) Appropriate, specific, limited national standards that lend themselves to depth and mastery.
6) Extension of the physical school day- This would include before and after school workshops, tutoring and instruction, specifically for low-achieving students and our English Language Learners, as well as weekend classes and trainings for both students and parents.
7) Create workable and continuing training of parents and families that support success for students in school.
8) Extension of the day virtually and on-line- videos of lesson of the day, homework help, discussion boards, video and online reading assignments, on-line activities, classroom and school webpages, email, social networking for school and classroom communication, as well as virtual classrooms. These are all available and relatively inexpensive technologies that can be implemented today.
9) Year round education- No more long breaks- the year is seen as ongoing, with appropriately spaced breaks throughout the year.
10) Longer school years
11) Longer school days
12) Teaching, grouping, assessing and planning for both students grouped by age AND students grouped by ability and levels, mixed throughout the day.

These requirements, coupled with teacher training and supported best practice in the classroom, will make significant inroads towards real, sustainable student achievement and increased high school graduation and college for all of our students. By continuing to blame the teacher, and continued ignorance of the large pachyderm in our way, school reform will continue to stall under the weight of erroneous fault and blame, where teachers continue to bear the full weight, pain and economic and professional consequences for the American politico’s failure to effect long-term, systemic change.

ETEC 623/Educational Leadership

I am Chris MarkerMorse, a 6th grade teacher in the Riverside Unified School District, and a grad students in the Instructional Technology program at CSUSB.

Playing Last Night with D-Tension Band

Last night, D-Tension band had a really nice coming-out party, our first full gig (two sets) at the Riverside Plaza. Many people turned out. We actually got to set up all of the equipment, try out our various styles of song choices, try all of us switching instruments throughout the set, and overall see if our entire set list works.


I was very pleased with the overall sound, selections and performance. I was especially impressed with Dave's playing and sound (great, multi-layered sound- really had the vibe of each original recording) and his wonderful, expressive lead solos.
And Susan's vocals were stunning. She really wailed, especially on the Bonnie Raitt numbers, and her bluesy quality she has been working towards really cut through the mix and made her vocals a strong centerpiece of the band.


Here are some links to video from last night that really show off our band...