Relentless Pursuit (24 page)

He was blackmailing them, and it was working. They were beginning to see the connection between homework and achievement. When they corrected their homework together in class, Phillip insisted that they ask him questions. He wanted to get them talking about math, comfortable with asking questions. They were not only learning geometry, Phillip was teaching them language skills, conversational skills, and if-I-don't-know-the-answer-I-can-ask skills. The kids weren't even close to TFA goals of 80 percent mastery. Maybe 50 percent were making a B or better (and that's if you didn't count the ones who were chronic ditchers or had other big impediments to achievement). As far as Phillip was concerned, though, this turnaround was major.

Phillip had asked his mother to choose which holiday she wanted to share with him: Thanksgiving or Christmas. She chose Christmas. So for the Thanksgiving holiday, he got a cheap $220 JetBlue ticket and flew to New York to spend time with a teacher friend who worked for the Peace Games Program, a nonprofit organization that promotes tolerance and conflict resolution to schoolchildren. In New York, Phillip felt totally disconnected from his real life. He didn't have to worry about Locke or TFA. He walked the streets all day long, slept in late, saw Ground Zero, and did Times Square. He sat in on a class that his friend taught. One thing he didn't do was see his father. His father had left his wife and was living with his girlfriend in New York. He had a new life. Phillip refused to be a part of it.

As it turned out, Phillip didn't go home for Christmas after all. He hadn't really been looking forward to it in the first place. The Massachusetts winter was cold and dreary, and the snowstorms had already begun. His mother worried about his traveling in bad weather, and she didn't have any extra vacation time to spend with him anyway.

So Phillip stayed in Los Angeles. He slept in and went to bed late. He watched his favorite TV shows—
Forensic Files
and
The Golden Girls.
He spent time with Emily, another teacher friend, and together they planned lessons and went out for drinks and the occasional dinner.

But mostly he worked. Over the three-week hiatus, he managed to prepare the upcoming chapter and develop lesson plans and work sheets for the two remaining weeks of the first semester. In his spare time he was on the phone, consulting with other teachers about their math programs and best practices. And he spent a lot of time thinking—reflecting back on the first four months of his teaching career and looking ahead to all that he hoped to accomplish in the coming months.
What could make my students more successful?

He decided to make some adjustments. Even before the break, he had approached Zeus Cubias, the math department chair, and his own small-school leader, Josh Hartford, about reteaching Geometry A to his failing students. It was an idea that had never been tried at Locke. In the past, students who failed the first semester of geometry (Geometry A) advanced to Geometry B the second semester and retook Geometry A in summer school. Phillip didn't think that made any sense. Though others in the department disagreed, he believed that Geometry A and B were linked, that one built on the other. He wanted his students to pass Geometry A before proceeding to Geometry B. He wanted his failing students back with him. He knew where they were academically, and he thought if he had them for one more semester, they would have a real chance to succeed.

The whole idea for repeating the class came from the notion that the students who were really being left behind were the smart ones, because he was constantly having to stop and slow down for the low achievers. His arguments won the day. Phillip began advising his failing students of their new option, and he forwarded their names to Chad's office for scheduling. For some kids, the idea of repeating the class was incentive enough to work harder.

Phillip had some other innovations in mind as well. He decided that he would start using his side whiteboard more effectively. Under the title “Coming Attractions” he was going to list the dates for activities, tests, and assignments that were coming up. He would also post the lesson plan for each day, and across the top of the board would be the California State Standards for Geometry, so the kids could see the connection between what they were learning in class and what was required of them by law.

Phillip was going to change his whole style of teaching as well. When school first began, his classroom was very structured—even the desks were in rows. Now, as the first semester was drawing to a close and his students knew his expectations, he wanted to move away from direct instruction to group investigations. He wanted his kids to do presentations, to work on projects, to not only pass his class, but to excel. He couldn't wait for the next semester to begin.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Disillusionment

Christmastime made Samir Bolar nervous. He knew that virtually all his CMs were still struggling, and he didn't like the idea of them being at home, back in familiar surroundings, with friends and family who might be reacting to their inevitable horror stories with concern instead of encouragement. This was a tricky time in their development as teachers, a time when they needed someone they trusted to tell them to hang in there. The last thing they needed to hear was “What the heck are you doing?” Samir had sent each of his fifty corps members a holiday e-mail. Over the break, he wanted desperately to call them, to check in, to make sure they were still on board. But he kept his distance.

It was hard. He knew that some first-year teachers never make it out of the disillusionment phase. Dave Buehrle was a case in point. Samir was still smarting over that train wreck. He had to be careful. Looking over his roster, he could see a few faint signs of smoke. There could be other derailments coming down the track.

He kept running Buehrle's resignation over in his head. Dan Ehrenfeld had told Samir that his roommate Dave was a very religious guy, someone who wanted to do ministry work. If that was true, Samir didn't see how he could have just left his kids. Jessica Miller, a second-year TFAer who had taught many of Dave's kids the year before, complained bitterly to Samir. She had worked so hard with those students; the idea that they were likely to spend the rest of the school year with a permanent sub was just galling. Samir was really bothered by the thought, too.
If only Dave and his fiancée realized the impact on the students and the other teachers at Locke.

Samir convinced himself that Dave had quit because of the “fiancée factor.” But it was hard not to look at his own role in the disaster. That was, after all, the TFA way. At institute, trainees had been taught about the concept of internal versus external locus-of-control orientation, aspects of personality that TFA believed played a crucial role in teacher success. According to this theory of psychology, the person with an external locus of control believes that outside factors dictate behavior and events. An internal locus-of-control personality is certain that it is within each person's power to determine his own destiny.

TFA knew that the CMs with an external locus of control were apt to cite a host of outside circumstances that militated against student success as a way of absolving themselves of responsibility for results. By contrast, the most effective teachers had internal loci of control. They took full personal responsibility for student achievement, refusing to blame outside factors, such as truancy and lack of parental support, for underperformance.

The early reflective guides submitted by many of Samir's CMs tended to list attendance or school dysfunction as key teacher problems. It was a point of view that Samir struggled to wrest away from them. He urged them to look at the things they could have power over, the areas where they could effect change. That's what Dave should have been doing. It's what Samir was doing now:
What about me? What could I have done to prevent Dave from leaving?

To be sure, Samir had been struggling with the Co-Investigation model that TFA had just developed. He didn't think it was particularly helpful, and he didn't feel he was especially good at it. The bottom line was: he really didn't know how to have a highly structured conversation and still reach out to CMs with useful suggestions. Samir had the best of intentions, but the copious notes he gave them after classroom observations were seen as more critical than constructive. Some CMs read his comments and wept.

Samir changed his approach. He knew that the new teachers were critical enough of themselves on a daily basis; it was hard for them to internalize criticism from someone else. So he stopped typing out a minute-by-minute replay of what he observed in the classroom. And he started each meeting by noting all the good things he saw going on. He cooled it on the negative comments, jotting down clarifying questions instead.

But it was tough to get corps members to buy in. Among the fifty CMs on his watch, Samir had a few who must have flown in under the radar; they were not giving it their all. And he had neither the pay factor to motivate them nor the fear factor to intimidate them. The district hired them and paid their starting salaries of $37,000. Only the district could fire them. The sole incentive Samir had to offer corps members was the satisfaction of helping kids.

For most, that was enough. They took the job seriously and worked tirelessly. If they weren't totally on board, it was because they had too many other pressing things to do. They considered TFA's post-institute demands a hassle. So their reflective guides ended up being anything but—some gave no thought to the questions or to their answers. Some didn't bother sending data in at all. Too many thought the whole notion of Co-Investigation was nonsense:
Why do we have to do this? Why does the root cause have to be our fault? Why is TFA blaming us?
Samir would explain that Co-Investigation was actually all about self-reflective problem solving. They needed a systematic way of finding the answers to their problems on their own. TFA believed Co-Investigation would help them do that. The CMs weren't going for it.

Hrag seemed almost hostile. When asked to send in his reflective guide, he would sometimes respond in curt single sentences. And in the beginning, he didn't get around to sending in student data, making a true Co-Investigation difficult. Samir could tell that Hrag didn't really trust him. Hrag obviously felt he had already been overevaluated during institute. The guy was worn out and frustrated and defensive. He didn't think his kids were learning, and he wasn't sure it was possible for him to teach them—given that half of them never showed up for class.

Phillip still gave off the vibe that he didn't need Samir's help. He would start off a meeting by saying, “I know people think such and such about me, but…” Then he would go on to justify his teaching style and methods. Samir spent most of the hour agreeing with him, but it was as if Phillip couldn't hear him. When Samir did bring up key problems, it was hard to get Phillip to acknowledge teacher causes. It was discouraging; Samir got the impression that Phillip didn't really care if Samir was there or not. That was tough to handle. If there was anyone Samir felt capable of helping, it was another math teacher.

Rachelle was a problem, too. She was having a tough time with classroom management, particularly during fourth period. The story about Dante peeing in her classroom during the lockdown in early September was now part of Locke lore. People felt sorry for Rachelle.
Rachelle
felt sorry for Rachelle—especially since when she returned to the classroom the next morning, no one had cleaned up the mess. Rachelle had to deal with the urine-filled bucket herself.

Samir's round-one visit to her classroom was a disaster. Instead of teaching biology, Rachelle had had her kids doing an acrostic puzzle. It was a Friday, a day when attendance was always low and attention spans especially short. Rachelle hadn't wanted to start a new chapter. So it was a filler day, a day without a real purpose. When Samir asked her what she was doing, Rachelle said “confidence building,” and even as she was sputtering out the words, she felt totally lame. Samir sympathized with her plight. Several kids were primary school readers. The rest were not much farther ahead. The kids had biology textbooks, but they were stacked along the walls; no one could read them. Samir urged Rachelle not to lower her standards. She
had
to keep her activities content-related. She
had
to squeeze in some biology.

He had difficulty arranging subsequent meetings with her. She wasn't available at night, so their conversations were always held in her classroom after her last class. Things would inevitably come up—someone would call or poke a head in the door—and she would end up canceling or cutting their sessions short. And she never sent Samir her data. Without evidence of how her students were performing, their conversations were anecdotally driven. Samir fretted that their meetings were not as useful as they might have been, since they never got to plumb the core issues that were hobbling Rachelle as a teacher. When the hour was up, neither party felt particularly satisfied.

Taylor was different. Their meetings were amazing. She was always prepared, and she had the TFA core value of humility in spades. She dutifully sent in her data, and her reflective guides were thoughtful. She was eager to improve, welcomed his input, and, though she might initially resist a suggestion, inevitably embraced it. She was a self-starter, too. When Samir wasn't around, she reached out to others for help. And though she was stoked about her successes, she was never satisfied with them. She was in relentless pursuit of the mission.

Still, the round-one meeting with her at the beginning of the year had been rocky. The very first thing Taylor said to Samir was “Tell me how to get better.” But telling her how to get better wasn't what he had been instructed to do during his one-week training in Houston. He was supposed to be a “thought partner” to Taylor, to help her understand and find a solution to one key issue impeding student progress. It was hard for her—and for the others—to understand why he didn't just give her the concrete help she needed, why he wasn't just feeding her a few tricks of the trade.

Sometimes he didn't have any tricks to offer. After all, his experience as an educator was limited. He had been wildly successful as an eighth-grade math teacher, but he had taught for only two years, and it had been at a very small middle school. He had lots of ideas for his math CMs, but when he came across problems he himself had not encountered, he didn't know what to say. Because he felt especially insecure about helping out special ed or English teachers, he sometimes overcompensated by offering too many suggestions. When that happened, he got pushback from them for being too commanding, not collaborative enough. He felt like he just couldn't win.

It was stressful. Samir found himself endlessly replaying his Co-Investigation conversations in his head and wondering if he had said the right things. He was constantly asking the other five PDs in the L.A. office for their advice. And then, based on their input, he would pester the CMs with phone calls and e-mails telling them the things he should have said and didn't. He was already working lunatic hours, but the more anxious he became, the longer and harder he worked. He was doing three or four observations during the day, then three one-on-one meetings after school that lasted until seven or eight in the evening.

The organization was lean and nimble—or stretched too thin, depending on your view. Overseeing struggling CMs was not Samir's only responsibility. He was assigned to manage a lot of side projects—like setting up recruitment fairs, organizing social events for the L.A. corps, and arranging alumni meet-and-greets. In fact, Samir was actively involved in every aspect of the program right across the continuum: recruitment, selection, matriculation, school placement, support, and alumni affairs. That was cool; he got to fulfill the mission at every stage. But it meant late nights and long weekends. He was being paid $50,000 a year for seventy-hour workweeks. He was as overwhelmed as the recruits he supported.

Of course, he was being evaluated himself. Felicia Cuesta and another member of the L.A. staff sat in on some of his early one-hour Co-Investigation meetings. He would spend an inordinate amount of time reviewing his observation notes with the CM before launching into a detailed discussion of three or four problems that stood out. Then, with his bosses looking on, he and the CM would chart out causes and solutions for all the issues. It was way too much for one meeting—everything got muddled.

Cuesta asked him why he conducted his meetings that way; had he been trained wrong? Samir insisted the problem was the system: Co-Investigation wasn't a good model for supporting struggling CMs, especially CMs who were already resentful of the added burden TFA placed on them by requiring them to write reflective guides and collect student data. The novice teachers had too many other things to attend to. What they needed from their PD were practical solutions to pressing problems.

Samir was dispatched to observe several other PDs who were having more success with Co-Investigation. And he began to get it. Over the Christmas break and into the new semester, he did a fair amount of self-reflection. TFA had received the midterm surveys on corps member satisfaction. Cuesta presented Samir with the feedback from the fifty CMs under his management. He didn't exactly get rave reviews. In the open-ended comments, Rachelle said that she “didn't feel much interaction with TFA on a personal level.” Hrag noted that “there is help…but thinly spread.” Taylor said that the CMs “often do not feel emotionally supported by TFA.” Phillip didn't offer any comments at all.

Samir was crushed. He took the comments as thinly veiled rebukes. He felt like a failure, and he didn't know what to do to turn things around. The year was halfway over, two of the four observation rounds were in the can, and his reviews were lukewarm at best. Some of the CMs he had spent the most time with marked “somewhat agree” when asked if the PD had been very helpful. Others, whom he had felt he might have been neglecting, gave him high marks. Samir felt superfluous.

And nervous. He knew that even though some CMs just dashed off responses with very little thought, the CM survey was one of the most scrutinized pieces of information within TFA. Recruit feedback often led to changes within the program itself—and promotions for the PDs deemed most effective. TFA put a high premium on CM satisfaction. An analysis of the significant gains data overlaid on the CM survey results indicated that the most satisfied corps members tended to be the ones making the most significant gains. By contrast, dissatisfied corps members actually posed a threat to the mission; they were unlikely to stay allied with the movement as alumni and, in fact, could hurt recruitment and development through negative word of mouth. So the results of the corps satisfaction survey were demoralizing for Samir. He may have been one of the organization's most effective teachers, but he was nowhere near one of its most effective PDs.