Reply to Jan. 9 BOE Business Meeting Discussion Thread

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In the math data part, were they trying to say that instructional coaches are the answer? In the vast majority of math classrooms, the teacher isn’t the problem. I’ve encountered students in MS and HS who can’t add single digit numbers without a calculator. I wonder what the instructional coaches would suggest in order to help them. [/quote]

I wonder if they have data about the effectiveness of coaches...or other efforts to improve outcomes via some sort of teacher training.  This is totally a guess, but, based on workplace training programs to which I've been exposed, I wouldn't be surprised if some teachers would get there on their own, given similar resourcing dedicated to their time with a modest incentive structure, while other teachers wouldn't really benefit without significantly more in-situ support (aides, smaller class sizes, significantly more/more protected planning time, etc.).  That said, I don't doubt that [i]some[/i] amount of training/coaching/mentoring is beneficial.

The thing would be to recognize that teachers are heterogeneous in their abilities and approaches.  There's an amount one might effect to that mix with recruiting, but the labor pool vs. the positions and the nature of teacher turnover is such that they can't  expect to have great shifts, except at the margins, towards those more independently able in this regard.  Meanwhile, any recruiting change carries risk and administrative/political hurdles.

If there's credence to the above thought about differential training effectiveness, MCPS needs to figure out how to allocate resources to the team it has instead of trying to change the nature of the team.  Maybe they've done that analysis, though, and arrived at the conclusion that coaching is the best option.[/quote]

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