More hours? Come to my school and see how many hours and DAYS are wasted time due to the classroom being 90+ degrees. No teaching or learning occurs on those scorching days because both students and teachers are just trying to cope. The curriculum on those days is drink, drink more, go to the bathroom. Dizzy or nauseated? go to the nurse.
More students? More students means less time I have to work with each individual to get them where they need to be or to help them achieve even greater skills and understanding. More students means either I don't give the neediest the full amount of time and attention they need, or those who are at the top of the class are left on their own since they don't need extra help. More students means I can't even give their written work the attention it deserves and give feedback to improve it.Fewer students means I can reach both groups and give them tutoring or enrichment so they can both raise achievement and reach their own potentials.

Excellent! I teach fourth grade when we're given a class of 27-30 children, with reading levels that span seven or eight grade levels. I'm supposed to be sure all these students read, write and understand problem solving by reaching them at their level. Hmmm. I'm one teacher with several students that could care less about learning because their parents flunked out of school. I highly advocate that no person can make a decision about educational issues unless they've "walked a mile in my shoes."

Sometimes, it seems that educational leaders do a good job of weakening the best teachers. Who do we want on every committee imaginable? The best teachers. That, of course, reduces the amount of time they had previously devoted to the classroom. When there are "problem kids" for other teachers, where do we send those students? To the best teachers. While they will probably work with the student better than the previous teacher, when the volume of students being sent in becomes great, the effectiveness of the teacher probably reduces and stress rises. Who do we pull from the classroom to become administrators or work in the district offices? The best teachers.

In other words, when educational leaders find something that is working, they push it until it fails or remove it entirely from the educational environment. (Interestingly, this works with many educational reforms, as well, that five years later become relatively useless, perversions of an initially effective reform.)

As an experienced teacher in a struggling school, I understand that we have an overwhelming amount on our plates. I have also witnessed the profound impact effective teaching can have on even the most struggling students. I had the opportunity to hear Secretary Duncan unveil the Project RESPECT initiative. Most of the ideas included in this came directly from conversations with a staff of teaching fellows from across the country and from listening to real teachers during a series of Teacher Town Halls. There are some excellent ideas to come from Project RESPECT, notably ideas of adding opportunities for career ladders and differentiated pay to the teaching profession. I applaud this initiative for realizing that the way things are now just isn’t good enough for our kids.

I don't feel as though I need a special "reward" over other teachers for doing a "better" job. If my teaching is going well, then my students are responding well and that is my "reward" and the only one I need.

Excellent piece. I only wish someone at the US Ed Dept or NYC DOE were listening.

Agreed! Performance/Project based learning is the key for most learning that takes place in a classroom environment. Focusing on using our time effectively during our present schedules makes more sense then rushing into time extensions. When I teach participatory government, I don't talk them through it, They role play by creating a student council government for our elementary school: creating platforms, nominations, speeches, campaigning, and finally voting for the best candidate with the best platform. Learning doesn't get much better than that for them! Thanks for your insight and I am hoping the "right" people read this article.

This year I kept track of how many instructional periods I lost due to random testing, assmemblies and meaningless trips. (I love trips that have student interest and a real purpose.) I lost 20 periods. That is 4 weeks worth of curriculum. Yes, we need to do better with the time we have.

What if the decision-making "leaders" spent as much time "in session" (at least 180 days / 10 hours a days) as teachers and then their "in recess" days directly involved working with folks to be affected by their decisions (farmers, teachers, factory workers, etc.)? And isn't it true that in some of the European countries and Japan, where students surpass ours academically, the school days are actually shorter than ours in the U.S.?

I agree that any time that students spend in school should be used wisely! What about schools partnering with community organizations to help provide some of that additional time and filling it with project-based, hands-on learning that engage kids? I work with an organization called Citizen Schools that is doing just that in NYC and other communities across the country. We pulled together schools leaders and teachers from across the country this past weekend to work with them to determine how we can best support their work in the coming year.

I think the idea of an extended school day is an excellent idea, although I would amend this suggest to be an extended school year instead. I teach in a high school in the Bronx where I am currently also teaching summer school. A large portion of our students attend summer school, and there are even a number of students who don't need to come who have signed up anyway. Attending classes in the summer, even if it is just for a few weeks and only in one or two subjects, is an important way to make sure students' skills stay sharp and to keep them out of trouble during long, hot summer days. Summer classes would allow teachers to jump right into new material in September, thus increasing the amount of material students have the opportunity to learn every year.

a quick response about successfull teachers in a charter schools. Teacher of the Year.

http://www.conceptschools.org...

Successful teachers should be rewarded by: fewer standardized tests, that diminish the curriculum increase stress and waste time; reasonable class sizes; reasonable facilities; and an employer that appreciates the importance of collaboration over competition in education.