Professional Learning Communities. Three words which strike fear into the hearts of efficient educators. Ongoing education is important in any field, but rarely do I see other professions waste large portions of their employees’ workdays to do it. As you can tell already, I am not a huge fan of this particular system of continuing education. In some ways it is a forced indoctrination platform. But really it is often a colossal waste of time, and teachers aren’t allowed to say a negative word about the process.
Professional….Learning….Communities. Sounds inviting. You will hear the usual kiss-ups say (say it in a Pee Wee Herman tone), “It’s great. We learn so much.” But since most PLCs are held during teacher planning times, that means that teachers lose ~20% of their planning per week if one assumes the PLC is held during one planning time per week. Or some systems will take one day per nine weeks, shut down the entire system, and do it then. Let’s see… four days per year over 13 years, and that adds up to 52 instructional days lost in a student’s academic career(almost 1/3 of a school year). Even worse, PLCs will sometimes be held during student learning time where an un-certified person covers the class. How many of us would like to have a job where we can’t actually sit down and do our jobs until after our paid hours are completed? How many of us would like to have a job where some of the material being disseminated runs completely counter to our moral compass?
Don’t get me wrong. There are talented teachers and admins out there who run effective PLCs. Everyone is bought-in. The material being studied is chosen together by teachers and admin to better themselves and their students. And if you are part of such a culture, consider yourself blessed, because that was not my experience. Here is my experience…..
A new literacy initiative was being implemented in my school system. Keep in mind, that my school had some of the highest writing scores in the system. This particular school’s scores were normally above or at the top of the system in several categories. But that was about to change, as we decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That began with the implementation of forced PLCs. (Interestingly, a lot of this pedagogy comes directly from a learning group in Greeneville, TN, and not coincidentally, three straight system superintendents had ties to that group, and maybe a fourth?)
As teachers, we were sorted by our willingness. The group that sorted us was called the Critical Triangle. We love acronyms in education. We were placed in three categories: speedboats, barges, and rocks in the river. I think I was a barge, meaning I could eventually be moved to their way of thinking, but with some effort. As I get older, I wish I had been seen as a rock. Peter was a rock. Rocks don’t move when they see something that is a false teaching. We began to study books. As a faculty, we didn’t choose those books. We were forced to read those books, and then immediately implement the contents of the books into our classrooms. The “academic coaches” who led these PLCs were straight fleecing our school system, just robbing us blind. They had never implemented any of this in their own classrooms, and honestly, I don’t think they had the ability to do so. But they made a ton of money making sure that we did, but without having to do the work themselves.
And what was the consequence? The staff left in droves. Our scores subsequently began to free fall after an initial bump. The new hires were only capable of saying, “Yes,” to whatever request, and that was about it. Within 5-7 years of the PLCs being implemented for Literacy, the school was on the warning list for gap closure problems. Closing gaps in education is exactly what it means. It means closing the gap between a subgroup and a main group. It is easy to say, but incredibly difficult to do. Well, one time I did see a school close their gap between non-Sped and Sped students by simply allowing the non-Sped group simply regress in achievement until they closed the gap. That is no lie.
Oh, and we had hired specialists who came into our school system just to teach literacy. In fact, some of the school system’s academic coaches began to work for this specialist. Conflict of interest, anyone? So, really our PLCs became a racket. If the local academic coaches promoted the specialist’s program, they got to work for him!
During this time, teachers lost the time to be able to grade papers(old school term, but legit), contact parents about behavior and/or academics, have actual professional conversations which matter, and go home and be with their families. By my best calculation, teachers were losing 1-2 planning hours per weeks. Keep in mind, teachers maybe get 45 minutes per day at the elementary level in order to “plan.” With the loss of that actual “work” time due to PLC discussions, all of that important work was moved to unpaid hours.
It gets worse. As you might imagine, teachers began to really deal with burnout. They were working 10-12 hours per day. Many would come into work at 6:30AM and go home around 6:30PM. They began working weekends. That still occurs today, but with distance learning/working options, teachers are now sitting at home pulling the same hours. To the part which gets worse, our “academic coaches” decided that we needed to use classroom time to have PLCs. So, we would meet during classroom hours and have flowery conversations about the latest book. Meanwhile, our students had subs covering their classes. And you can take one guess at how well that system worked. Taking student learning time to have PLCs is maybe the dumbest thing I have seen during my two decades of instruction. Taking teachers’ family time is the second. It took an immense amount of time to build sub plans which were rarely ever delivered effectively. Student instructional time should be protected at all costs, and it wasn’t. Learning is why students come to school, and why parents send them. So, unsurprisingly, none of that worked. Scores dropped. Teachers left. The spiral began at many at-risk schools where (gasp) they can’t lose instructional days or instructional hours or valuable teacher planning time.
I am sure the usual “yes people” are appalled that anyone would dare lift the veil on this ineffective, but bougie practice. But yeah, I also know there are many people who have lived through this, and wish they hadn’t. I know of a local business that states that an increase in meetings directly correlates with a decrease in production. Massive numbers of meetings usually mean something isn’t working, and it also decreases the time which employees need to do their jobs. In fact, the fewer the meetings…the better the organization was doing. If I were in charge of a school system, I would have meetings logged. I would bet that the buildings with the most meetings…have the most struggles. I would also bet that the building with fewer meetings have higher faculty satisfaction, stronger student learning, and importantly/consequently, higher staff retention.
A future post will discuss how PLCs should really be implemented. But first, we had to identify the problem….
Pro Tip: Teachers need to be a part of the process of selecting their own ongoing education. Other professions have that option. Teachers and admin need to be a part of the process for selecting ongoing education topics. If you want to see innovation in a building, giving the faculty the topic to study is a sure way to prevent that. Now, there should be boundaries as to what ongoing education looks like Ongoing education should steer clear of the political indoctrination of students, and focus directly on improving the student learning experience. Where do I see the most effective ongoing education? Go find a great marching band, and just watch for a day. Better yet, go volunteer. A good marching band has a staff which collaborates effectively. They hire or contract people to choreograph their shows. They hire people to build wardrobe options. They have folks who put together drill. They work with people to find music which will appeal to judges and audiences alike. They have an army of people who know how to transport all of that. Meetings are a means to an end, not a dog and pony show. Meetings are designed to improve the band, not impress someone doing a walk through. They don’t have time for stuff which doesn’t work. Organizational and personal improvement should be the goal of any ongoing education process. (By they way, speaking of rich instruction. Every, single level of Bloom’s taxonomy is covered by marching band.)
