It is time for the team of 6th grade teachers at James P. Timilty Middle School to engage in their midmorning common planning session. Led by Trey Pope, the team quickly gets down to business. Pope asks for an update on the progress of a male student. One teacher reports that she is okay with him, while the math teacher says he still needs work on basic skills. The social studies teacher adds that he has improved, but he claims to have handed in a report that the teacher can’t find. Timilty’s teachers have the benefit of two periods of shared planning time each day, allowing them to closely monitor their students. They also have three hours every Friday afternoon dedicated to professional development, where they can share their ideas and expertise.
The success of this approach, implemented nine years ago by former Superintendent Laval S. Wilson, is evident in the school’s collection of national awards. James P. Timilty Middle School, which attracts students from all over Boston, currently has a waiting list of over 600 6th graders for the upcoming school year. Principal Roger F. Harris has been a strong advocate for providing his teachers with the necessary tools to succeed. The National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future supports this battle, stating in a recent report that schools should be "genuine learning organizations" that honor teaching, respect learning, and prioritize understanding. The commission recommends that schools reconsider their schedules, restructure their use of time, and reorganize their staff.
Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the executive director of the commission, acknowledges that people are intrigued by the idea of placing teaching at the heart of schools but often find it hard to believe. Nationally, the proportion of school staff classified as teachers has been steadily declining as additional programs and mandates have increased. According to the commission, since 1950, the percentage of school personnel who are teachers has dropped from 70% to 53%, and only three-fourths of them teach regularly. Ms. Darling-Hammond explains that the creeping bureaucratization has occurred gradually, almost invisibly, and now we are left with layers of regulations that need to be peeled back.
However, new rigorous standards for students, which provide clear goals for educators, are motivating schools to reconsider how they use their time and resources. Increasing enrollment and financial constraints are also prompting administrators to critically examine the utilization of their teachers, support professionals, and technology. In a forthcoming paper by Ms. Darling-Hammond and Karen Hawley Miles, an education consultant, they explore how five high-performing schools have targeted their resources to achieve their goals. These schools include two small high schools in New York City and elementary schools in Boston, Cincinnati, and Memphis. Each school has a strategic plan that involves lowering the student-teacher ratio for core subjects.
Ms. Miles explains that these schools have a well-defined plan for when they have small group sizes and how those groups contribute to achievement. This plan is not dependent on the specific program or label of the student. In elementary schools, lower student-teacher ratios are achieved by reducing pullout programs such as Title I, special education, and bilingual education, and creating more generalized roles for all teachers. High schools, being departmentalized, can bring about more noticeable changes when reorganizing their staff. In New York, numerous small high schools have emerged in recent years, and they utilize their staff in innovative ways. For example, Central Park East Secondary School combines academic work into two two-hour classes each day, contracts with external providers for language instruction and electives, and eliminates positions such as guidance counselors, assistant principals, supervisors, and department heads. These changes, which the paper refers to as "deflecting resources away from teaching positions in the traditional school," are unnecessary when teachers have a very low student load, as is the case at Central Park East with only 36 students per term.
Cincinnati is another district that encourages schools to rethink their staffing patterns.
‘True Transformation’
Schools in Boston are struggling to meet the new academic standards set for students in the city.
Ms. Miles is collaborating with the 21st Century Schools, a group of 23 schools that have received grants from the Boston Plan for Excellence, an education fund supported by the local business community. The project aims to develop comprehensive school reform initiatives. These schools have committed to examining how they utilize their time and staff resources. They will closely cooperate with four "lead schools," including Timilty Middle School, to determine a central instructional strategy and optimize their resources to support it. The principals of the 21st Century Schools are utilizing a guide written by Ms. Miles to analyze how they organize teachers in core instructional areas, evaluate practices of grouping students, and assess teacher-student workloads. Although individuals in the schools often feel that they lack the necessary tools, Ms. Miles’ research indicates that Boston schools are relatively well-equipped. In 1995, she published a study of the district that investigated the disparity between the districtwide average of 13.2 students per teacher and regular classrooms with 23 to 33 students each. The solution to this perplexity, she discovered, lies in the large number of specialized teachers working outside regular classrooms, the provision of short planning breaks for teachers that require coverage by others, a formula-driven process for grouping students rather than one based on individual schools, and the fragmented schedules of secondary schools.
According to Ms. Miles, reconsidering all of these practices simultaneously "could create opportunities for true transformation of schools." This is precisely what Mary C. Nash accomplished in 1992 when she established the Mary Lyon Model Elementary School. Ms. Nash built her school around 30 emotionally disturbed students who would have otherwise been sent to private schools. Each of the five classes at the school has space for only 15 students – five special education students and ten regular education students. The school operates from 7:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, with three different shifts of teachers and assistants. While some of the school’s practices are tailored to its distinct population, Ms. Miles, who conducted a research paper on the school with Ms. Darling-Hammond, believes that two practices can be replicated anywhere. First, Ms. Nash obtained a waiver from the Boston Teachers Union to employ teacher education students from local colleges as assistant teachers instead of hiring paraprofessionals for the job. The aspiring teachers receive a payment of $10,000, as opposed to the $18,000 in salary and benefits paid to paraprofessionals, who typically have limited education. Graduates of the program then become dually certified in regular and special education, a valuable qualification in the job market. The school also channels the funds allocated for art and music teachers to contract with Boston organizations that provide these services. This arrangement allows for more flexibility in scheduling common planning time for teachers. Ms. Nash, chair of a task force on special education in Boston, explains that as students get older, class sizes decrease for regular education but increase for special education. She states, "The old approach was a sorting mechanism. We are now encouraging teachers to collaborate as professionals and view children from a different perspective."
Ending the Sound of Bells
At Timilty Middle School, teachers and students are not bound by the ringing of bells. Teachers have the flexibility to structure students’ time around their specialized classes, although 42-minute periods still prevail. Starting this fall, teachers will form teams of four, each responsible for approximately 70 students. Principal Harris expects each team to complete an interdisciplinary unit every month. In this aspect, the school is aligned with many of the recommendations of the national commission.
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