Followership refers to a role held by certain individuals in an organization, team, or group. Specifically, it is the capacity of an individual to actively follow a leader.  Followership is the reciprocal social process of leadership.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Followership).  A note here that Followership was the theme of my dissertation for my MSc in Educational Leadership.  A simple overview can be seen HERE. A previous post (https://yasirpatel.com/2017/01/28/followership-a-new-stream-of-leadership/) expands on the notion of Followership in more detail.   (For the full dissertation with references shown, please contact me.)

This is not a post about entirely about Followership, although it uses many of its key features.  The intention within this article is to focus on the concept of quality teachers within schools (in Followership, this could be referred to as Exemplary staff), in particular, measuring ‘quality‘.

Is it even possible to measure it?  What cannot be counted/measured?  Or how do we count what can be counted?  How much weight do we give to each factor?  This post is a culmination of thoughts, a mix of research, experience and intuition.  Any comments, questions, thoughts, doubts etc are more than welcome to enhance the dialogue.

Educators are aware that teaching staff are multifaceted and various aspects make up the ‘quality’ teacher or the teacher we wish to have in our schools.  What are these precise factors?  It is hard to argue against the fact that the quality of teaching and learning is the key trait.  However, think of that teacher who was (or is) brilliant in the classroom, yet something or many things just stopped him/her fitting in to that school.  Why is this so?

Quality Teachers:  It must be possible to structure our thinking into a more scientific and logical manner so that decisions to be taken have justification, beyond just ‘gut feeling’ or as often happens, a surface level discussion.

Proposition:  A Scientific and Measurable Approach

In order of importance, the five criteria listed below are proposed as the key factors when defining quality teaching staff, in order of importance with a suggested Scoring Key after each one.  The terms used within the Scoring Keys would need to be agreed upon as they can be subjective if not discussed and maybe they even need expanding further.

1. Quality of Teaching and Learning:  Without doubt, the vital ingredient.  Within this, a school must define what it means by Quality Teaching and Learning.  Some examples are:

• ‘Sensibility and doing the hard intellectual yards are what makes a teacher great – and memorable’ (Pringle, 2002)
• ‘Quality of teaching is its fitness for the purpose of promoting learning.’ (Ellis, 1993)
• Quality teaching is doing whatever it takes, ethically and responsibly, to ensure that your students learn and that they leave your unit with a passion for learning.
• ‘Significant progress made by each student in every lesson‘ (TBSC)

Within these definitions and big-picture statements, schools may have rubrics that break down teaching into various areas (e.g. behaviour, assessment, instruction etc).  A clear, open, well understood (by everyone) definition and structure is key here.

Scoring Key:  Excellent = 10, Very Good = 7, Good = 4, Satisfactory = 1,  Poor = -2, Very Poor = -5, Unacceptable= -8.

2.  Impact on School Culture and Morale:   Organisational culture is defined as the collection of day-to-day habits.  This is the ‘feel’ of a school when you walk through it and a culture that all staff should fit into (in the ideal world).  Teachers that do not fit in, often affect the morale of the school negatively.  This can be difficult to manage and its effect on the teaching body could be irreversible, if not addressed.  However, often, listening and professional development does close the gap.

Think about the culture a school has or wishes to obtain.  Then reflect upon how particular teachers fit into this and thus, the impact on the general morale of the teaching body.  Are they positive to this culture or the worse-case scenario, are they toxic to staff morale and school culture?  This also includes professionalism outside school.

Scoring Key:  Exemplary Follower = 8, Positive = 5, Neutral = 2, Negative = -2, Toxic = -5.

3.  Input and effect upon School Improvement:  Initiatives rolled out should generally (and once again, ideally) be well-thought out, discussed with various teaching groups and implemented with a lot of time.  Often though, ideas need to be implemented quickly and without the desired checks and balances.  How does a particular teacher react to change and new initiatives?  “Yes let’s do it and give it a chance” is the answer you wish to hear.  “Here we go again, what a waste of time” is not what one wants to listen to.  Obstacles, constant rejection, argumentative, resistance to change etc result in a low score here.

Scoring Key:  Positive and willing to help in order to move school forward = 8, Positive = 5, Neutral/Passive = 2, Negative = -2, Negative, not willing to try, resistant and can result in negative school improvement = -5

4. Relationship with Parents:  Maintaining a pleasant and positive relationship with parents is important.  However, it has to be within school policies and guidelines.  This is an important trait that can affect the day-to-day operations if not taken into account.

Scoring Key:  Excellent = 4, Very Good = 3, Good = 2, Satisfactory = 1,  Poor = -1, Very Poor = -2, Unacceptable= -3.

5. Time Served:  In line with professional development, the above should be worked upon before a tough decision is taken.  For example, it is different to obtain a low final total score in the first year of service than in the fifth year.  Leadership has a professional obligation to work and develop staff, give them the time to improve and help all teachers fit in to the school.

Scoring Key:  1st year at school = 10, 2nd year = 5, 3rd year onwards = 0.

Add up the points.  Suggested final score and interpretation of the results:

• <6 (RED) = Not the right fit for the school/Time to move on/Do not renew contract.
• 6-10 (PINK) = Serious consideration to be given not to renew contract/Advise to look elsewhere/Not a good fit for school.
• 11-15 (YELLOW) =  Serious discussion as to whether the school is for them/Consider not renewing contract.
• 16-20 (Dark Green) = Can develop further/Worth retaining for now.
• 21-25 (Green) = Retain and renew/A good fit to the school.
• >25 (Light Green) = Retain and renew at all costs/Perfect fit for the school.

Try the above with a fictional (or real) personality.

To make life slightly more difficult for school leaders, they also need to ensure their recruitment policy and procedures pick up greens at the point of hire (again this is idealistic!), or staff are hired that will be give the correct professional development to guide them towards green (of course, a strong Retention Policy also comes in to play).  Recruitment is tough, getting harder by the day and needs a lot of thought.  See the post on recruitment for further details (https://yasirpatel.com/2016/11/19/recruiting-against-the-odds/).

Comments?  Amendments?  Questions?  Will this approach work for other organisations, outside of education?  What tweaks would be needed?  What is missing?  Ideas and opinions welcome.

Yasir Patel

Recently, England released its league tables for schools based on its new system of measuring ‘successful schools’. These focus on the results of a pupil’s best eight GCSE results including English and Mathematics alongside a raft of data from the Department for Education to evaluate how well pupils progress in a school. This is not unique to England with various countries (For example, USA, India) and organisations (PISA) now relying solely on exam results to measure success. A pertinent question to ask here is, is the data being used, valid (and reliable) evidence in order to judge the performance of a school (and even an individual teacher)? When one remembers that a school is much more than the exam results it produces and research consistently showing that various other factors play a role upon student results, a slight skepticism is only fair.

There is in fact little evidence to suggest we can link the performance of a teacher to exam results, and vice versa. However, there exists plenty of evidence to suggest hereditary and environmental factors have the dominant impact. Evidence that seems to be conveniently ignored. In a recent and extensive study by researchers at Kings College in London, they concluded that individual differences in educational achievement at the end of compulsory education are not primarily an index of the quality of teachers or schools: much more of the variance of GCSE scores can be attributed to genetics than to school or family environment.  In a sample of 11,117 16-year-olds, they found that heritability was substantial for overall GCSE performance for compulsory core subjects (58 per cent) as well as for each of them individually: English (52 per cent), mathematics (55 per cent) and science (58 per cent).

Research conducted by the American Statistical Association (2014) concluded that only 1-14 per cent of educational outcomes can be attributed to the “teacher factor”. Then even within that 1-14 per cent, there are plenty more factors outside of the individual teacher’s control to take into account, such as class size, available teaching resources and budgets. The Coleman study on educational equality found that the remaining 86 per cent can be put down to “out of school” factors. This explains the findings from Cambridge Assessment last year: “It is normal for schools’ results to change – even when teaching practices stay the same.” Yes, this is because, for the most part, results will vary depending on the children and parents, rather than the teachers.  The counter-argument, although arguably weak are the cases of schools, many in deprived areas, that achieve outstanding results.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, recently stated that the tables revealed only a limited amount about the true quality of a school. After all, how do we measure whether a child has become more polite? More respectful? More of a critical thinker?  The list is endless.  Furthermore, Professor Gorard from the University of Birmingham, stresses that attempts to measure pupil progress while at secondary school are doomed to failure due to a lack of reliable data.  Professor Gorard’s findings suggest that it does not matter what type of school a pupil attends – academy, grammar, private, specialist or faith school – as the institution itself will have little impact on student attainment.  Why then is there so much coverage on results? More cynicism could point to it being an easy political pawn for political parties. Some may say that is a simplistic viewpoint, but others may say it is entirely true. Unfortunately, the impact is felt strongly and most intensely with the students, and the teachers.  Students are unnecessarily stressed, resulting in demotivation and losing the love for many subjects, often learning itself. Many teachers are leaving the profession or moving abroad as a result of the unrealistic expectations with its inevitable stress-related consequences.

The current state of affairs has been foreseen and forewarned. In 1979, the psychologist Donald Campbell theorised that, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” He also wrote: “Achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.” Quite simply, when the measure becomes the objective/goal, and when people are punished or rewarded for meeting or not meeting this aim, the measure is corrupted.

In a 2008 research paper, Holding Accountability to Account, Richard Rothstein points out that accountability and performance incentive plans in education are compromised by goal distortion, gaming, and corruption.  Tying high stakes to measurable goals affects behaviour in negative ways in every field, not just education.  Education policy makers who design such plans have paid insufficient attention to similar experiences in other fields.  He does feel accountability measures work but not the current ones in place as they are prone to corruption.  Instead, he advises more open-ended and subjective measures to be implemented.  The lesson of Campbell’s law: Do not attach high stakes to evaluations, or both the measure and the outcome will become fraudulent.  Daniel Koretz, author of The Testing Charade: Pretending to make schools better concluded that the reform movement in USA failed badly because of its devotion to high-stakes testing as the one and only measure of educational quality.

Despite the clear failure of test-based accountability, which Koretz amply documents, policymakers cling stubbornly to this corrosive doctrine.  Testing taps into peoples’ love of competition, incentives, and scores.  It makes perfect sense to rank football players and sports teams by their wins and losses, but it does not transfer to children or schools. Children may be talented in the drama or sports or other areas, and it will not show on the tests.  Education is a developmental process, a deliberate cultivation of knowledge and skills, a recognition of each child’s unique talents, not a race.

Sadly and finally, it seems that Albert Einstein’s famous quote, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”, has not been heeded by the various governments and organisations.  Instead, we seem to have a system whereby gaining immediate and quick approval, via so-called tangible results, is the norm.  A perfect example here is George Bush Junior’s educational reform in 2002 based on so-called success in his method in Texas.  It is quite baffling how our educated and high-profile leaders resort to leaning towards such weak ‘evidence’ and worryingly allow it to dictate wholesale policies.  The result is what we see now – overemphasis on testing, teachers fired (or leaving) based on this measure and no real educational improvement.  This rash, uneducated and ill-informed approach appeals to the masses but is affecting our children.  It must stop, but who will be brave enough to say enough is enough?

Yasir Patel

Sources:

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/thousands-teachers-are-long-term-stress-leave-new-figures-reveal

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/teachers-can-only-ever-have-a-small-impact-their-students-results

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-42366024

https://newrepublic.com/article/145935/settling-scores

https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/

https://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/league-tables-flawed-ignored.htm

Without doubt and with much research to back this claim, the key to a successful school is excellent teaching and great leadership (in that order).  In 2009 the OECD concluded that ‘The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers and principals, since student learning is ultimately the product of what goes on in classrooms’, echoing the MacKinsey report’s findings from 2007.  It is hard to disagree.  Thus, it goes without saying then that schools should place huge emphasis on their recruitment processes.  In international schools where it is often difficult to find replacements quickly, plus the normal practice of contract lengths being 2-3 years (mostly two), it means that hiring the right person is all the more important.

John Tomsett (https://johntomsett.com/) claims that despite what Nick Gibb (Minister of State for Schools in UK) might say, finding great teachers is not so simple, and that the UK is in the middle of a teacher recruitment and retention crisis.  However, principals must aim to find the best of the best.  It is simply impossible to improve a school by hiring average people. Average is officially over.

Some claim that recruitment is mostly a matter of luck.  I disagree entirely and argue that it is largely scientific with a very small, possibly insignificant amount of luck.  Steps can be put into place, a well thought-out policy created and clear procedures followed.  If done properly and thoroughly, schools can maximise the chances of hiring the right person for their school.  It is pertinent here to highlight ‘their’, as all schools should be looking for the right ‘fit’ for their school and not just standalone excellent teachers.  An excellent teacher in a school that does not align with the teacher’s own philosophy will soon become demotivated, frustrated and even angry.

When conducting interviews, interviewers should keep questions simple and consistent.  Many studies have shown that interviews are generally conducted badly and some interviewers even make a subconscious judgement call within the first ten seconds of an interview!  The problem is, these predictions from the first 10 seconds are useless and worthless.  They create a situation where an interview is spent trying to confirm what we think of someone, rather than truly assessing them.  Psychologists call this confirmation bias, “the tendency to search for, interpret, or prioritise information in a way that confirms one’s beliefs or hypotheses.”  In other words, most interviews are a waste of time because 99.4 percent of the time is spent trying to confirm whatever impression the interviewer formed in the first ten seconds.  Why not rename the forum from interview to discussion?  After all, this is a meeting between two professional parties looking to find the right fit.

According to various studies (COBIS and ISC being a couple), the number of international schools opening worldwide is fast outpacing the number of teachers available.  The gulf between supply and demand of teachers is growing wider, quickly.  The consequences of this will be:

• Schools recruiting teachers without following due diligence in line with a detailed policy, hoping for some ‘luck’ along the way instead.
• Job openings advertised earlier and earlier.  A recent search showed many teaching positions being advertised twelve months in advance.  Do not be surprised if within the next five years, adverts for teaching positions are posted two years in advance of the actual start date.
• Higher salaries for shortage subjects such as Mathematics, Sciences.
• Higher salaries for teachers with excellent recommendations.  One prediction suggests the first $100,000 teacher by 2020.  This article suspects this will happen sooner than 2020.
• Salary scales becoming less and less common, mainly related to the above two bullet points.
• An increase in recruiting unqualified teachers.
• An increase in Skype (or similar) interviews and big decrease in face to face interviews.
• A multifaceted interview process (lessons observation, presentation, interview etc) will become less and less common.
• An increase in the use of recruitment fairs (i.e. short interviews).
• Schools suffering with respect to quality due to rushed recruitment processes.
• Students will be affected negatively as a result of the demand for teachers and schools simply not following a thorough process.

So what can be done to ensure the right teachers are recruited, given the obvious challenges?  These challenges are tougher in countries going through difficult times.

Firstly, despite the challenges, no short-cuts should ever be taken.  If in doubt, just bear in mind that it is the students that will inevitably suffer.  Headteachers should follow develop complete policies, follow them to the tee and tick off every box.  I am also of the strong belief that the Head of School (Superintendent/Principal) should play a major part in recruiting and be the ultimate person responsible for hiring.  Yes it is very time consuming and yes it can be extremely mundane, but schools revolve around the right staff being recruited.  A success of a school depends on the quality of its staff.

In 1998, Frank Schmidt and John Hunter published a meta-analysis of 85 years of research on how well recruitment assessments predict job performance.  They found that the best predictor of how somebody will perform in the job were:

1. Word of mouth recommendation from trusted sources.
2. On the job test (e.g. observing applicants teaching a lesson).
3. A written intelligence (cognitive) test.
4. A structured interview.

Ideally, a mixture of all the above should be aimed for.  This allows for triangulation of data leading to a much better informed decision.

In addition to the above, the following is a set of procedures that could (and arguably should) form a school recruitment policy:

1. Intention Survey: Conducted early in the academic year.  This is not a formal resignation but should give the school an idea of who is staying and who is leaving.
2. Follow up on Survey:  Staff leaning towards leaving should be given the opportunity to state their reasons.  The possibility of retaining this member of staff increases as a result of this conversation.
3. Advertise:  Adverts can be pulled if any staff member decides not to leave the school.  Within the advert, describe your school, teacher profile and ask for a specific point within letters of application (e.g. describe your ideal school).  The latter point will allow you to separate generic applications from individualised ones.  Recruitment companies and agencies are expensive and this is a big hindrance for many schools.  An alternative opened recently is YKBEducation (www.ykbeducation.com) who allow schools to post job openings for free.
4. Resignations:  Between the survey and actual job offers for new staff, a date must be set for resignation letters to come in.  This will avoid any confusion.
5. Review applications:  In the ideal world, the letter of application should be personalised to your school and the cv/resume is concise.
6. Reply to all applicants:  Although tedious, this can increase the school’s reputation in an industry which is small in reality and where word of mouth is vital.
7. Set up interviews:  This should include a small lesson observation that can be uploaded online, a small task (e.g. a presentation about what the applicant likes about education or does not like!), structured interview (set generic questions for all – both behavioural and situational) and a clear success criteria linked to a school’s teacher profile and philosophy.
   • Note that a structured interview means the same questions for everybody.  Although tedious, this allows for a fair comparison between candidates.
   • Case interviews and brainteasers used by many firms are worthless.
   • Laszlo Bock writes that questions such as, “how many golf balls fit inside a 747?” are useless and performance on such questions are at best a discrete skill that can be improved upon through practice.  They do not assess the candidate’s suitability for the job.
8. Interviewing:  Face to face is by far the best method.  Skype is increasingly common and will become more as demand increases.  Recruitment fairs are not ideal but again, schools are being left with little choice.  Interview in pairs (at least).  Although increasingly difficult, if possible, allow a student team to speak with the applicant also.
9. School contacts:  Allow applicants you are interested in to contact any member of your staff body.  This may seem scary at first but it shows a level of transparency and trust that will benefit your school.  This will also allow potential new teachers to gauge their ability to fit into the school and location.
10. Child protection:  All possible checks must be taken.  There are no excuses whatsoever for not doing so.
11. References:  At least two references required and one from current (or most recent) Head of School.  Do not accept pre-written references, i.e. they must come from the school to you.  Call the current (or most recent) Head of School too.  There is an increasing reluctance to put things in black and white, thus the last step is important.
12. Google the candidate:  Yes it matters!  Search the candidate online.  If you don’t, you can be guaranteed students and parents will.  Avoid an unpleasant surprise.  Can your social media postings also damage your chances of landing that dream job elsewhere?  Well, yes. Social media is now an integral part of the vetting process, whether companies admit it or not (BBC).   A study by recruiter, Robert Walters, found half of employers are prepared to research candidates using social media, whilst 63% have viewed a job seeker’s professional social network profile, e.g. social network LinkedIn.
13. Decision time:  Take the decision to hire or not with at least one other colleague’s opinion.
14. Feedback:  Do not let the process end with the decision.  Give feedback to unsuccessful candidates.  It is well worth personalising your feedback to applicants that you would be considering in the future.  This will maintain a positive professional relationship.

It is worth noting here that not all teachers need to fit one box.  Indeed, the theory of followership (a post will be written soon) allows for five different types of followers/staff (exemplary, pragmatic, passive, alienated, conformist) and a requirement for a balance between the five is needed.

Furthermore, and although beyond this post’s intention, schools should set up a Retention Policy.  Some key points could be:

1. Feedback questions and discussions taking place early in the academic year.
2. Head of School meets all staff informally for 5-10 minutes in Term/Semester 1.
3. Head of School meets informally and voluntarily with all staff early in the academic year through Staff Reps system (or similar).
4. Head of School discusses situation further with any staff member who may be indicating to leave, with the aim of honing in on any reasons, with the aim of holding on to key staff members.
5. Traffic Light system for staff (red = leaving, yellow = maybe, green = staying).
6. Intentions Survey as described above.

A word of caution for candidates.  If you are a candidate interviewing for a teaching position, this is what you are up against (or should be).  Schools conducting such thorough processes should augur well and be a school one would like to work in.  Great schools have principals who are looking for a candidate, who demonstrates a love for kids; who articulates a clear picture of what their classroom will look, sound, and feel like; who reveals incredible content knowledge; who takes ownership in their own professional learning; and the most important obstacle you are up against is this internal question, “Would I want my own child in this teacher’s classroom?” (Anonymous Headteacher).  Furthermore, Lyn Hilt states that teachers should possess passion:  “Passion is necessary.  Don’t make me request your emotions – provide them, in every word, every response, every example of why you want to teach in my school.”

Finally, a lot of the above is easy to write down, but it is very difficult to do in practice. Managers and leaders hate the idea that they can not hire their own people.  Interviewers cannot stand being told that they have to follow a certain format for the interview or for their feedback.  People will disagree with data if it runs counter to their intuition and argue that the quality bar does not need to be so high for every job.  Heads/Principals do not like the time spent on recruitment.  However….

Do not give in to the pressure and fight for quality.  Think of your students and keep reminding yourself that the success of a school depends on the quality of its staff.

Yasir Patel

Sources:

https://www.wired.com/2015/04/hire-like-google/

https://johntomsett.com/2016/07/24/this-much-i-know-about-how-we-are-on-our-own-when-it-comes-to-the-teacher-recruitment-crisis/

http://www.developer-tech.com/news/2015/aug/27/googles-recruitment-process-straight-ex-machina/

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160826-think-before-you-overshare-yes-it-can-get-you-fired

http://connectedprincipals.com/archives/12426

Book for recruiting:  https://books.google.co.ve/books/about/Work_Rules.html?id=M6idBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

Top Recruiting by Bradford D Smart

Excerpted from Work Rules: Insights from Google that Will Transform How You Live and Lead by Laszlo Bock