TBers,

The posting below is the first in a monthly series called Carnegie
Foundation Perspectives. (I will try and post these in the future to this
list)  These short commentaries exploring various educational issues are
produced by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
<<http://www.carnegiefoundation.org>.  The Foundation invites your response
at: [log in to unmask] In his introduction to the
series, Foundation president, Lee Shulman notes:

One of the obstacles to clear thinking about education is the
tendency to get caught in formulaic pros and cons. People are for or
against testing, in favor of vouchers or incensed by them, champions of
small-group work by students or dismissive of it. Often what's needed is a
different way to think about the issues facing educational decision makers,
be it at the policy level or in the classroom.

Our first piece looks at the topic of accountability, a subject that tends
to polarize thinking. Maybe that's because most of the recent discussion
locates accountability outside the classroom. What different picture
emerges, and what consequences follow, if we think about the
teacher as the primary agent of his or her own accountability? Indeed, what
if we think of external accountability as only a supplement to the primary
function of professional responsibility?

Reprinted with permission.


A DIFFERENT WAY TO THINK ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY - NO MORE DRIVE-BY TEACHERS

By Lee S. Shulman

It's hard to open the paper or turn on the radio these days without
finding yet another call for educational accountability. It's a
reasonable thing to seek. The public needs to know that schools and
colleges are delivering on their promises to students and to society.
The problem is that the typical mechanisms for ensuring quality (such as
external tests or other measures of some sort) often miss much of what
actually goes on in classrooms.

A different way of looking at accountability is through the lens of
the classroom, where, after all, the proverbial rubber of teaching
and learning meets the educational road. Do we need tests and state
"report cards" to take the measure of education's effectiveness as an
enterprise? Maybe. Do we need teachers who see student learning and its
improvement as their professional, ethical responsibility? Absolutely.

What is entailed in this responsibility? An analogy is helpful here.
Consider the story we read in the news at least once a year. In one
version, a passenger on an airplane experiences severe chest pain,
and the cabin attendant asks if there is a physician on board. A
physician comes forward and attempts to assist the patient, but after
several interventions the patient dies. Subsequently, the family of
the deceased sues both the airline and the physician, the latter for
malpractice. Had the physician remained in her seat and withheld her
professional service, she would have been held harmless, no questions
asked.

In another version of the story, an auto accident leaves several
people by the roadside badly injured. A physician drives by and
decides not to stop and render medical assistance for fear that he
will be held responsible for any care he delivers. Perhaps he had
just read a news story about the first physician. He is later criticized for
inaction, for an unwillingness to act professionally. Once a person or a
community takes on the mantle of a profession, every act is potentially
permeated with ethical questions.

My point is that excellent teaching, like excellent medical care, is
not simply a matter of knowing the latest techniques and technologies.
Excellence also entails an ethical and moral commitment--what I might call
the "pedagogical imperative." Teachers with this kind of integrity feel an
obligation to not just drive by. They stop and help. They inquire into the
consequences of their work with students. This is an obligation that
devolves on individual faculty members, on programs, on institutions, and
even on disciplinary communities. A professional actively takes
responsibility; she does not wait to be held accountable.

Consider the case of one of last year's U.S. Professors of the Year
(a program co-sponsored by Carnegie and the Council for Advancement
and Support of Education). Dennis Jacobs is Professor of Chemistry at
the University of Notre Dame. Several years ago, teaching the
introductory course in his department, he found himself face to face
(often during office hours) with students who were failing his course
or dropping out. This was disturbing for a couple of reasons. For
one, these students were clearly bright and hardworking enough to
succeed--but they weren't succeeding. Second, it was disturbing
because failure for many of them meant abandoning long-held dreams
and career aspirations.

Now, in some chemistry departments, the student failure rate in an
introductory course is a badge of honor. But Jacobs was having none
of this. Feeling an ethical responsibility for the success of his
students, he designed an alternative approach to the course,
employing small-group study circles and an emphasis on conceptual
thinking. And then--this is an essential part of the story--he set
about to document the effectiveness of this new approach. My
colleagues and I at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching refer to this commitment as "the scholarship of teaching and
learning."

Leaving aside many of the details, Jacobs's approach not only allowed
more students to succeed in meeting the chemistry department's high
standards (far more students passed the course), it also modeled a
kind of professionalism that should be at the heart of our ideas
about educational accountability. Jacobs didn't just "drive by" when he saw
what was happening to his students. He stopped what he was doing and gave
assistance. He took responsibility for the quality of his students'
learning through his own innovations and highly demanding assignments
and tests.

Teachers like Dennis represent a kind of teaching excellence that is,
admittedly, beyond what we find in lots of classrooms where teachers
are content to teach well and leave it at that. It's tempting to say
it goes "beyond the call of duty," but in fact my point is just the
opposite. Teachers must accept the ethical as well as the
intellectual and pedagogical challenges of their work. They must
refuse to be drive-by educators. They must insist on stopping at the
scene to see what more they can do. And just as is the case on
airliners and freeways, many of the needed resources may be lacking.
Nevertheless, they must seize responsibility.

There is no more powerful form of accountability.


Hope to see you at the next Teaching Breakfast - Dec. 7, 8 am Morris Hall.

Mr. James B. Greenberg
Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center
Milne Library
SUNY College at Oneonta
Oneonta, New York 13820

email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 607-436-2701

"Ignorance is curable, stupidity lasts forever"