Center Focuses on Teachers, Not Test Scores

First the work centered on creating a culture of cooperation and support among teachers and staff members. Then they worked on improving instruction by making it more rigorous and engaging. As a result, attendance shot up, and the school was one of the few in the District that met federal requirements for adequate yearly progress for the past two years.

The success at Tyler prompted Brearn Wright, principal at Clark Elementary School in Northwest Washington, to call Margolis. His teaching staff was observed by center experts last year, he said, and this year will start undergoing professional development designed to meet their needs.

"People always say that the teachers in [D.C. schools] are ineffective, not competent," he said. "The reality is that they are competent . . . but through all the reform movements [in the city], teachers have been beaten down. What Center for Inspired Teaching said was, 'You go back to the main reason why teachers become teachers.' "

Teachers who have undergone training by the center say it is unlike other professional development, which, they said, is often unconnected to the realities they face in the classroom. Instead, teachers said the often-intensive training teaches them ways to address learning, discipline and other facets of the teaching experience within the constraints they face every day.

The training runs from single workshops to year-long courses for teachers, some of whom spent two weeks this summer in seminars with such titles as "Succeeding in Spite Of . . . " and "Becoming a 'Tempered Radical.' "

"It was a paradigm shift, an awakening, almost a religious conversion," said Carole Betts, a D.C. teacher who has been involved with the center for several years. "I've been to a lot of different workshops, and you come in with your workshop face. But this is for two weeks, and you get past the jaded stuff. Here they teach you how to concentrate on children."

Betts said the training she received from the center has given her tools to work within the system, although it can be difficult, she said. For now she has decided to remain and fight it out.

Pierre-Farid left the traditional D.C. public school system this year. Now the principal at Southeast Elementary Academy in Anacostia, operated by Friendship Public Charter Schools, she has brought the center with her, asking for help in creating a working culture conducive to excellent teaching.

The team from Center for Inspired Teaching remains at Tyler, too.