ELP and Unions Are Powering Systemic Change in Education
Harriet with students from an educator global learning trip to Peru.
Imagine spending three years teaching early elementary school students. Your father builds a little house for your classroom, which of course your students love. You incorporate that little house into your curriculum, yet every time your principal comes into your classroom, he has no idea why or how that little house provides exciting opportunities for learning.
As much as you adore teaching, the system places too great a restraint on innovation. You end up leaving the profession, but that experience lingers and shapes your career.
This is Harriet Sanford’s story. There are likely thousands - if not more - stories similar to hers. Educators don’t receive the support they need to be effective, so they leave the profession.
When Harriet left teaching, she went on to grad school and a career in philanthropic work related to the arts. In 2005, she had the opportunity to affect education at a national level when she became President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation. It was here that she established herself as one of the country’s leading education reform experts.
Two young people, Cory Hunter and Blessed Sheriff) who taught Harriet what good teaching should include: truly seeing each student.
“My single goal at the foundation was to elevate union work in the practice space,” she explained. “Unions do great work on the policy and political action side, but not always the practice side. When you advance the practice side, it says you are committed to the students.”
During her brief teaching career, Harriet had zero contact with her union. In fact, she only knew she was a union member because dues were withheld from each paycheck. Neither her union nor the district offered her professional development.
Unions and the business of practice
In her early years at the foundation, Harriet created a successful small grants program for teachers. She and her team scaled it to include the school district, local union affiliate, and a community partner, but Harriet wasn’t content to stop there.
“I thought, why don’t I just look at a state affiliate model?” she said. “That’s when I began to look at the state affiliate capacity to improve the business of practice. Seven states were in our pilot cohort, and national union leaders did not support the work. They could see that state affiliates were going to dramatically increase their focus on professional development with the goal of creating more effective teachers, and by extension, improving student outcomes. This type of system shift was not embraced.
“I was always committed to have the union take a lead around the professional development and advancement of their own members,” she continued. “I wanted them to own that space and have a direct role in what happens in the classroom.”
When Harriet heard about ELP, she was delighted to see unions taking a leadership role in supporting and promoting the program. State affiliates have insights into districts that have outstanding teacher performance and student outcomes. “They can help lift up the work those districts are doing so other locals and districts can see what’s working,” Harriet pointed out. “This positions the state affiliate as a driving force in the change. You can’t build systemic change without them.”
The intersection of ELP and current education trends
Current education trends are not promising. As Harriet noted, “Burnout over the last couple of years has been too great. Couple that with some draconian policies around what you can teach and who you can talk about. Put those together, and you’re seeing the best and brightest leaving the profession.”
Even pre-pandemic, the number of students choosing to enter the education field had been declining. “If we don’t figure out how to provide systemic support systems, we’re going to see a turnover at a rate that is accelerated over what we’ve seen over the last several years,” Harriet said. “The architecture of the ELP program really gets at the heart of some of the issues New Teachers have to grapple with. It’s a very comprehensive support approach.”
Harriet with an outstanding educator, Josh Parker, who helped her better understand peer coaching and mentoring.
Harriet really admires that the ELP program pairs new and experienced teachers, but what really struck her is the virtual coaching. “It allows a safe learning and growing space,” she said. “Educators don’t have to reveal fears or worries to their school-based colleagues.”
This thought brought her to the fact that ELP empowers experienced teachers and views them as professionals with knowledge to share. “This happens in other fields,” she noted. “Take medicine. At a teaching hospital, one doctor will have three or four residents following and learning from them. Why can’t we do that in education? Educators need to be seen as professionals and they need to be allowed to drive growth in their field. It demonstrates a fundamental trust in their knowledge.”
Coming from the philanthropic world, Harriet knows that philanthropists look for and understand system change. “There are rare occasions when unions have led this kind of change,” she said. “It goes against the philanthropic view of unions and challenges that stereotype. But with the union as a leader, it will accelerate the change that needs to take place.”