{"id":31193,"date":"2025-06-04T09:58:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T14:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=31193"},"modified":"2025-06-04T09:58:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T14:58:39","slug":"eleven-thoughts-on-making-the-work-of-k-12-teachers-more-successful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2025\/06\/eleven-thoughts-on-making-the-work-of-k-12-teachers-more-successful\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleven Thoughts on Making the Work of K\u201312 Teachers More Successful"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PeopleThe Fall 2024 Marquette Lawyer<\/em>\u00a0magazine included essays looking at the broad question of why so much K\u201312 education reform brings so little progress. If I do say so myself (and I was much involved), it was a provocative and thoughtful discussion.<\/p>\n

In the end, one sentence stood out to me and others involved in planning programs at Marquette Law School\u2019s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote, \u201cWhat if, instead of pulling policy levers, we redirected the reform movement\u2019s energy and enthusiasm toward improving classroom practice?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, what if? Pondiscio argued that better training of teachers and steps to lighten the workload of teachers would open paths to better results. He said too much is being expected of many teachers now. He advocated particularly for providing teachers in many subjects high-quality curricular materials so they don\u2019t have to spend large amount of time developing lessons plans and can focus on actual teaching and connecting with students.<\/p>\n

To advance the conversation, Marquette Law School, teaming with the Marquette College of Education, hosted an in-person forum on May 8, 2025, titled \u201cFocusing K\u201312 Education Reform on Teaching Efforts.\u201d Before an audience in the Lubar Center of more than 100, including a number of leaders in Wisconsin education, Pondiscio expanded on his thinking; Sarah Almy, chief of external affairs for the National Council on Teacher Quality, offered additional perspective; and a panel of Wisconsin educators offered their thoughts.<\/p>\n

We intend to pursue this important conversation in further events and in the Marquette Lawyer<\/em> magazine. For the moment, let me offer a set of thoughts from the conference\u2019s speakers.<\/p>\n

Pondiscio on the teaching workforce overall:<\/strong>\u00a0With about 3.7 million K\u201312 teachers nationwide, it is unrealistic to expect the large majority to be \u201csaints and superstars.\u201d The large majority, he said, are people who want to be good teachers but are, for one reason or another, more middle-of-the-pack in their work. But, he said, they could become more successful. \u201cThat\u2019s why I come back to raising not the level of teacher quality, but of quality teaching\u2014making this job doable by the teachers we have and not by the teachers we wish we had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pondiscio on reducing the burden on teachers who often must deal with duties that go beyond actual teaching: <\/strong>\u201cSomething\u2019s got to come off the teacher\u2019s plate. And the most obvious thing to me is curriculum. . . . Somebody else can write the curriculum. Nobody else can give feedback, get to know the kids, etc. So that one basic shift alone would probably make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pondiscio, when asked who will do all the non-teaching things teachers do now:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t know what the answer is, but I know what the answer is not. It\u2019s not asking Miss Jones to do it. . . . This is about making teaching easier and doable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pondiscio on the education reform movement in recent years:<\/strong>\u00a0Some reformers wanted to \u201cbeat teachers up\u2014you know, \u2018look at these terrible teachers, they\u2019re lazy.\u2019 A lot of us in education reform said, \u2018just fire bad teachers and all will be well.\u2019\u201d In fact, he said, teachers were not \u201cthe sinners,\u201d but \u201cthe sinned against,\u201d by being put in positions where they faced unreasonable demands and were not trained well. \u201cThe teachers are not the bad guys here. When teachers know what to do, they\u2019re not that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almy on the gap between policy and practice in education:<\/strong> \u201cI think a lot of times we really fall down on translating policy into implementation and practice. . . . I think we put a lot of energy, whether it\u2019s at the state level or the district level, into getting the policy passed and the political pieces of that. And then everyone takes a sigh of relief and sort of assumes a lot of this will translate at the classroom level.\u201d But pushing waves of reform onto teachers and local school leaders often means that things don\u2019t change \u201cbecause the classroom door closes and the teacher does whatever the teacher\u2019s going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almy on teacher-training programs, a major focus of her organization:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cWe need to stop putting all of the onus on training teachers on the districts, and we need to ensure that we\u2019re holding our teacher-prep programs to really high expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor Thompson, a first-year first-grade teacher from Oshkosh who has used a literacy curriculum called Core Knowledge Language Arts:<\/strong> \u201cCKLA has actually given me a clear, structured path that supports my teaching and my students\u2019 learning . . . . That structure has allowed me to focus on how<\/em> we are teaching things, rather than spending hours worrying and figuring out what <\/em>we are teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maggy Olson, director of equity and instruction for the Greendale School District in suburban Milwaukee, on those who say education is not succeeding: <\/strong>\u201cI think so often in education that is the narrative: \u2018It\u2019s impossible.\u2019 It is, \u2018teachers are failing, kids are failing, our schools are failing, it\u2019s a mess.\u2019 I want to say that is absolutely false. . . . Our schools are not failing. They\u2019re doing more than they\u2019ve ever done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kanika Burks, chief schools officer for Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy, a Milwaukee charter school, on the obligation of administrators to support teachers:<\/strong>\u00a0Administrators need\u00a0to \u201cpay attention to the heart of the people that are in front of you. . . . If the person who is in front of our young people is not healthy, if their heart is breaking, if they are breaking down, they are not going to be the most effective person regardless of the curriculum and the faith in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cynthia Ellwood, a Marquette University College of Education faculty member, on striking a balance between curriculum and teacher presentation:<\/strong> \u201cIt\u2019s not just a matter of going out there and finding the perfect material. I don\u2019t think it boils down to a single approach to curriculum [or other factors]. . . . We must know that every single one of our students is capable of high intellectual thought, that they are capable of seeing themselves as intellectuals. And what we\u2019re doing right now is not building pathways so that every child is offered this incredible challenging curriculum and the appropriate supports that make it possible for them to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olson on the future: <\/strong>\u201cIs there hope? Yes, there is so much hope in our children and our educators. Right now, we are in a very dark place. I would argue that we are not in a tomb, we are in a womb, and we\u2019re ready to be reborn. . . . . Hope is in the work that we have moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The in-print symposium in the fall 2024 Marquette Lawyer<\/em> magazine may be read by clicking here<\/a> (online version) or here<\/a> (PDF).<\/p>\n

Video of the May 8 program at Eckstein Hall may be viewed by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fall 2024 Marquette Lawyer\u00a0magazine included essays looking at the broad question of why so much K\u201312 education reform brings so little progress. If I do say so myself (and I was much involved), it was a provocative and thoughtful discussion. In the end, one sentence stood out to me and others involved in planning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,349,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-law","category-lubar-center","category-milwaukeepublicschools","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31195,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31193\/revisions\/31195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}