How Do We Scale Transformational Teaching?
A conversation with Ellen Moir of New Teacher Center
Ellen Moir is Founder and CEO of New Teacher Center (NTC), a national organization dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new and experienced teachers as well as school leaders. NTC works in underserved communities to ensure that low-income, minority, and English language learners — those students most often taught by inexperienced teachers — have the opportunity to receive an excellent education.
Founded in 1998 with its model of mentoring and professional development, online learning, policy advocacy, and research, today NTC has a staff of over 150 who work closely with educators and policymakers across the country. All together, NTC is in 34,000 classrooms across 500 districts, working with 7,500 mentor teachers. We sat down with Ellen to talk about her vision for the organization, where public education is today, and what’s ahead for our country’s students and families.
Tipping Point: Thanks for joining us, Ellen. Can you start by telling us how you came to do this work?
Ellen Moir: First of all, I like to say that I’m not special — I’m ordinary. I’m the first my family to go to college. My father sold men’s clothing, my mother didn’t graduate from college. My friends’ parents were all helping them get into great colleges, but mine couldn’t care less if I went at all. They loved me but they had no frame of reference for how this could ignite my life.
It was my high school Spanish teacher — Ms. Hayward — who shaped my life. She came to me and said, “You speak Spanish like a fluent Mexican, don’t you want to be a bilingual teacher?” Ms. Hayward told me I had to go to Mexico to learn more. She helped me raise money to go, and then she followed me and helped me make that transition into and through college. She helped me become a bilingual teacher. That was it for me — that was how my life got lifted, if you will.
I tracked Ms. Hayward down years later and told her about the work I do with teachers. My number one question was whether she was still teaching. “You know, I quit after two years,” she said. “I thought I was lousy and I couldn’t stand feeling like a fraud and I just felt so bad about myself. It was so hard and I had no help.” I said to myself, “This is exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing.” This person who made a huge difference in my life wasn’t supported enough to stay and make a difference for other people. In my DNA, I know how important one teacher can be in a kid’s life.
TP: How do you decide which teachers to work with?
EM: Normally, new teachers get the sink-or-swim method, which is the all-time worst thing you could imagine. As a new teacher, you both don’t know what you’re teaching, and you don’t get any help or mentorship. We work with large urban school districts to identify high-achieving teachers. Those teachers are released to receive training from of us to then mentor a caseload of new teachers.
Our approach is relationship and asset-based. We meet teachers where they are. We ask, “Who are you? What do you need? How do we help you move your practice forward?” And we set them up with a steady, strong relationship with another teacher. The mentor teacher is in the mentee’s classroom every week, so it quickly becomes a trusting relationship. The mentee can ask for specific feedback, let’s say, “Next week, can you focus on how I could listen better to these six kids, or, can you reflect back to me how I did when we came back together from the small groups?” It’s very concrete. The combination of the relationship, the tailored feedback, and the belief that the teacher can get better: this builds autonomy.
TP: What kind of impact is NTC having?
EM: First of all, we’re trying to make teaching a profession that people actually want to do. The working conditions are mostly terrible, and haven’t changed since my parents were in school. In how many other professions do you have to pee between two bells? We have to make the profession itself more attractive with more career pathways. If there are actually places for people to grow in their careers — to become principals, to become teachers of teachers or curriculum directors, then the whole field of education becomes more exciting.
Second, since the beginning, we’ve kept measurement and impact at the forefront of what we do. We have great data about student gains in these classrooms. For example, in two urban districts, new teachers mentored by us for two years had students who showed 3–5 months greater gains in literacy and reading in 4th through 8th grade. Beyond students, we’re bringing our mentors and new teachers into the community of practice they so desperately need. Over the past 20 years, only 10 new teachers have chosen not to be mentored. They know they need it, and they want it, too. Many of our mentors become principals and most of them stay in the profession. They come in as expert teachers, and they go out as expert teachers of teachers who see themselves as part of a whole educational system instead of just their classroom.
The U.S. is in a 12-year low of available teachers. We have a teacher shortage crisis. This means that even more students in black and brown and poor communities are going to get teachers in their classrooms with absolutely no training. That would never fly in more affluent schools. Under-served kids and communities get a lousy education, and yet education is the foundation of our democracy. I can’t fix the whole system but I found an area where I know I can make a difference.
Update: Since this interview, NTC’s federal i3 study results were released which show up to 5 months of student learning gains in reading and math in a Randomized Control Trial, the gold-standard for demonstrating impact.
TP: If you had to lift up and think about the system as a whole, what would you do to change the way public education is provided in this country?
EM: If I knew, we’d be doing it! We don’t know all the answers yet, but I’ll give it a shot. First, I would move teaching into an 11-month instead of 9-month job. If you move to an 11-month job, you could pay teachers more. I know it would be hard for them — teachers might look at you like you’re nuts — but I’m trying to look at the levers for better career opportunities.
I would give teachers professional development time throughout the year so they can integrate it. I’d encourage more roles emerging at each school with different career paths. I’d then figure out what specifically the teacher role is, and have the other parts be different jobs, so teachers could go to lunch off campus sometimes because they have other people doing bus duty. I think about career lattices and ladders. Not just ladders that go up — people going in and out of roles, too. I’d figure out how schools could be run by teachers.
I’d have much more community engagement in public schools with more parent involvement. And when schools are closed they should be used as space — we could be doing great activities with kids. I’d blur the line between in- and after-school time. We want to be able to represent the voices of people who don’t come to school, parents who may not be able to advocate for their kids. To me, that is one of the most important qualities in really talented teachers: they really care about each kid. They’re paying close enough attention to who needs what, when, and how, and school is a place that tends to those needs.
