I spent time over the weekend with a recent graduate from an Ivy League university. He’s a brilliant, articulate, cosmopolitan guy who I am confident will rise to the top of his field (international relations). We started to talk about teaching— particularly Teach For America (TFA), which several of his peers were joining— and I started to get upset.

“Isn’t it a good idea to get the top people in there?” he asked, echoing a compelling talking point.

My condensed answer: TFA recruits aren’t the top people because they don’t have quality training. They could be the top people if they worked at becoming experts in the craft of teaching, which takes time, but since they haven’t done that at the beginning, they don’t yet qualify to be top people.

Success as a student and success as a teacher are extremely different things. As a student, you control almost all of your variables. As a new teacher, you need to get the most out of twenty-five or thirty other people, all of whom are unique individuals in a community that you don’t deeply understand since you haven’t been a part of it. You have to understand a range of pedagogical strategies, you have to be an expert on the curriculum, and you have to master the delicate balancing act of managing the classroom.

Teaching is a professional craft. Thinking that any high-scoring college student could come in and excel demeans it as a profession. No one would consider letting smart English majors perform surgery on low-income patients, or allowing cum laude math majors to do legal work for poor clients. Also, would you want to have been taught your whole career by rookies who didn’t study education and had no training? Would you consider them “top people” for the job?

I worried that I was starting to sound shrill and cut myself off. Indeed, TFA-ers are no one’s enemy. They are idealistic graduates who want to help for a few years. The market for them exists due to a shortage of highly qualified teachers.

The talk turned to other high-stress professions. Another member of the conversation mentioned oncology, a field with a built-in reservoir of disappointing outcomes.

He said, “I guess in that job you just need to tell yourself that you’ve done everything you can and you can’t take it too much to heart when someone dies.”

Again, I bristled at his well-meaning statement. (Jerome Groopman’s brilliant book How Doctors Think is still fresh in my mind.) No, I thought. Doctors can harm their patients. Indeed, they will make wrong calls on treatment and some of those decisions will have catastrophic consequences. Subscribing wholesale to the palliative there-was-nothing-I-could-do is a cop-out. Reflective doctors will realize those mistakes, learn from them, and become better.

There is a straight line here to teaching. Teachers, particularly inexperienced ones, can do harm. Like a doctor, a teacher does not provide either a positive or neutral experience his charges. Teachers can hold kids back in their development, whether by bad decisions, lack of craft knowledge, or inability to provide the attention a student needs. It doesn’t take malicious intent to hurt someone. The important thing is taking on the hard work to become better.

Efforts are being made to elevate teaching as a profession; the U.S. Department of Education’s RESPECT Project is one important example. My conversation with the Ivy League graduate clarified to me how far we need to go as a society in recognizing teaching as a true professional craft.

Stuffing under-prepared rookies’ ears with confidence and sending them into the fray doesn’t have a net neutral impact on our students or our national conversation on education.

The longer I work with 11th and 12th graders (this is my 5th year), the clearer it becomes to me that education really begins when a child is in the womb-- or even before. Lost time is rarely made up.

Each year a few of the 17-year-olds I teach light up in our English class and say some variation of: "This is the first book that I actually read!" It's intended as a positive comment, but I quietly take it as a crushing reminder of the collateral damage done by years of not reading and not learning--- a pattern that starts at home. In my experience, the students who say that tend to write in fragmented English, struggle to self-advocate effectively, and do not envision for themselves a realistic long-term path to stability in their professional and personal lives. It’s not what anyone wants for his or her kid.

The solution is to start early.  Last week at a panel discussion for Teachers College alumni on social entrepreneurship, I listened to 85-year-old Ruth Lubic, the first nurse to be a MacArthur “genius” grantee, who blew me away with her story of founding the Developing Families Center (DFC) in Washington, D.C.

Lubic is a midwife who in the 1980s launched a groundbreaking birth center in the Bronx, then moved to D.C. where the infant mortality rate was the worst in the nation. Her center is described in its literature as “a comprehensive, one-stop service center for childbearing and childrearing services.”

It’s a dizzying feat of bureaucratic synergy in the name of quality care for low-income African American families. Under one roof, the DFC offers services to families from pregnancy through toddlerhood via the Family Health and Birth Center, the Healthy Babies Project, and the United Planning Organization Early Childhood Development Center— funded by Early Head Start, Medicaid, private donors, and other federal programs.

Earlier this year, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius  chose the DFC as the location for launching a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation initiative: Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns.

There is a fantastic (though un-embeddable) video on the nonprofit’s website here.

At the panel discussion, Ruth was asked why, with such a successful program, DFS hasn’t expanded to more locations. The answer was money. “I keep hoping Gates will notice,” she said.

I hope so too. The Developing Families Center is a sustainable, brilliant long-term investment in stronger families, higher academic achievement, more competitive American workers, less crime, and good karma… and fewer low-skilled seventeen-year-olds exclaiming that they just finished their first book.

This week’s release of the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Teachers, Parents, and the Economy illustrates just how fear-plagued our schools have become. The whole report is worth reading, but check out this data (interspersed with my commentary):

In the past five years the number of teachers who feel their jobs are secure dropped from 92% to 64%. I guess accountability hawks would welcome this decline— they want teachers to sweat from year to year over whether their test scores have shown enough value added. I see it as a surge of fear, pushing more and more potentially strong teachers out of the profession.

29% of teachers report being fairly likely or very likely to leave the teaching profession within the next five years to go into a different occupation. That’s up from 17%, nearly doubling the number from just two years ago. When you add the retiring baby boomers to that number, we find ourselves facing unprecedented turnover. Recruiting, training, and supporting strong teachers who stay in the profession must be a priority. But what type of profession will they be entering?

Only 44% of teachers report being very satisfied with their jobs— a fifteen-point drop since 2009 and the lowest in over 20 years. The economic downtown has injected significant stress into an already-struggling school system.

72% of parents and 65% of students worry about their family not having enough money for the things they need. Over 60% of parents worry about losing or not being able to find a job. Interestingly, there is a startling information gap between parents and teachers. 76% of teachers report decreases in their schools’ budgets in the past year. However, only 35% of parents thought their child’s school budget decreased; 32% didn’t know. The report goes further: “Lower income parents are particularly unsure— nearly half (47%) whose household income is less than $50,000 [did not know].”

66% of teachers report that their school has had layoffs in the past year. Layoffs are everywhere, ripping away much-needed teachers and poisoning the atmosphere. The toxic “last in, first out” debates breed generational bitterness in an era when teachers need to unify.

Pessimism and worry are pervasive in American schools. Contending with elimination of services, suffocating poverty, more layoffs, larger classes, and an accountability regime at odds with genuine teaching and learning, America’s teachers are freaked out.

Last week the Brookings Institution released a report by Tom Loveless declaring the Common Core standards to be big waste— two years before they even go into effect. The top highlight listed on the report’s website lays it bare:

“Predicting the Effect of the Common Core State Standards on Student Achievement: The Common Core will have little to no effect on student achievement.”

Bummer.

Loveless lays out three “theorized effects” of how proponents believe the Common Core will improve education. They are:

• Quality theory: “The Common Core will raise the quality of education nationally by defining a higher-quality curriculum in English-language-arts and mathematics than is currently taught.”

• Rigorous performance standards theory: “A new Common Core test will presumably end such discrepancies [between state tests] by evaluating the same standards for every state, and these standards are to be more rigorous than those currently used.”

• Standardization theory: “One high-quality textbook— or perhaps a few that are aligned with the same content standards— used by all American students attending the same grade would be an improvement over the status quo.”

Sounds pretty good to all of use doe-eyed educators who have been baffled by the patchwork system out there. But then Loveless shreds those “theorized effects,” wielding NAEP score data with idol-smashing fervor. He writes:

“…[D]o not expect much from the Common Core. Education leaders often talk about standards as if they are a system of weights and measures— the word “benchmarks” is used promiscuously as a synonym for standards. But the term is misleading by inferring that there is a real, known standards for measurement. Standards in education are best understood as aspirational, and like a strict diet or prudent plans to save money for the future, they represent good intentions that are not often realized.”

Sure, standards alone will not lift public education.  But better curriculum and better trained teachers will.  The transition to Common Core standards is a golden opportunity for high-quality professional development centered on improving instruction and better (though unfortunately not fewer) tests. It’s an alarm clock moment for teachers to share expertise around crafting quality curricula.

The standards themselves provide just the spark— they won’t move mountains alone.

I’ve had two full days of PD on “unwrapping” (great edu-jargon) Common Core standards and it looks good to me. I think these guideposts/standards/benchmarks/aspirations will make classrooms better. I’ve pasted at the bottom of this blog (it’s rather long) the ten College and Career Readiness (CCR) anchor standards for writing, as well as the first writing standards, tracked from grade 6 to 12.

It’s smart, noncontroversial stuff. I look forward to my two-year-old daughter Sadie building these skills in her schooling. Declaring the Common Core standards useless or counterproductive at this point doesn’t make sense to me.

The will and the funds seem to be in place for an unprecedented influx of quality professional development. In 2014 we should have good standards, better-prepared teachers, and better curriculum. Why quit before we’ve begun?

Here are the ten CCR anchor standards for writing:

Text Types and Purposes

• 1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
• 2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
• 3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Production and Distribution of Writing

• 4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• 5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
• 6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

Research to Build and Present Knowledge

• 7. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
• 8. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
• 9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Range of Writing

• 10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

And here is the first ELA standard for writing, tracked from 6th through 12th grade. To my eyes, it builds with logical, appropriate rigor:

W.6.1. Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

• Introduce claim(s) and organize the reasons and evidence clearly.
• Support claim(s) with clear reasons and relevant evidence, using credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text.
• Use words, phrases, and clauses to clarify the relationships among claim(s) and reasons.
• Establish and maintain a formal style.
• Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from the argument presented.

W.7.1. Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

• Introduce claim(s), acknowledge alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
• Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text.
• Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), reasons, and evidence.
• Establish and maintain a formal style.
• Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

W.8.1. Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

• Introduce claim(s), acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
• Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text.
• Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
• Establish and maintain a formal style.
• Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

W.9-10.1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

• Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
• Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.
• Use words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.
• Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
• Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

W.11-12.1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

• Introduce precise, knowledgeable claim(s), establish the significance of the claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that logically sequences claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
• Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level, concerns, values, and possible biases.
• Use words, phrases, and clauses as well as varied syntax to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.
• Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
• Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

The NEA has come a long way. Last year, the largest union in America assembled an all-star team of educators for its Commission on Effective Teaching and Teachers (CETT), provided them with all the resources they needed, and provided no editorial guidance. I had the privilege of lunching with some of the commissioners at the NEA convention in July, and they are definitely some of the most impressive teachers I've met.

Earlier this month, the commission delivered their report, a brilliantly articulated vision for “Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning.” It's a blockbuster.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing. We need to rally around this. Our disparate voices have weakened us for too long. My hope is that 2012 will be the year that educators finally move towards a common platform— and the CETT report is it.