Here’s a story about the different worlds that U.S policymakers and teachers live in and how those different worlds affect teachers’ use of new curricula and technologies.

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He came lower and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.” The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be a teacher,” said the balloonist. “I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?” “Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below responded, “You must be a policymaker.” “I am,” said the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You have no map, and no compass. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”[i]

And the takeaway from the story?

U.S. school reforms, especially those directed toward improving how teachers teach and how students learn (e.g., new devices, new curricula) have been made historically by top state and district policymakers and then delivered to principals and teachers to put into classroom practice. In many instances, this journey from policy to practice has disappointed policymakers. Often they complain about partial or distorted implementation of decisions. They see that their ideas of using new curricula and amazing technologies for classroom lessons have been too often ignored by practitioners.

These policymakers, however, wear blinders and fail to see that teachers are gatekeepers who decide what ideas and practices get past the classroom door. Policymakers live in a different world than teachers. This fact is reflected in the questions that each asks when a new curriculum or technology is proposed and adopted.

Policymakers often ask the following questions:

* Will the new curriculum or technology policy cost more, less, or the same to be put into practice as compared to what exists now?

* Will the new policies achieve more, less, or the same in reaching instructional and curricular objectives than current ones?

* What incentives and sanctions are there to reward and penalize principals and teachers charged to implement these new policies?

* How will what works in particular schools transfer to other schools in a district, state, and the nation? [ii]

Teachers, however, ask very different questions especially after policymakers have decided that teachers should use more, faster, and better technologies in their daily lessons.[iii]

* How much time and energy will we have to spend in implementing new policies and devices with accompanying software?

* What evidence is there that the new technology or curriculum will help students meet district standards and score better on tests than without these devices and software?

* When glitches in integrating hardware and software occur—and they will occur—will on-site professional and technical help be available?[ii]

Note how different these questions are from ones policymakers ask. Because policymakers seldom consider these teacher questions, the policy-to-practice journey often stops at the classroom door where teachers, as gatekeepers, ultimately decide what they will or will not put into their lessons. 

As researchers have established years ago, the teacher is the most important in-school factor influencing learning. Policymakers agree with researchers on importance of teachers enacting classroom reforms. If so, should not teachers’ ideas, beliefs, values, and questions get respectful attention and action from decision-makers? The answer is obviously yes, but in most instances, other than consulting a few teachers, token representation on advisory groups, or occasional visits to schools, policymakers pay little attention to what teachers think or even more importantly, to the gate-keeping function they perform.

No dark motive rests behind policymakers largely ignoring teacher questions about what policies enter their classrooms. I believe that policymakers wear blinders (or perhaps suffer myopia) by living in their insulated world and seldom observing or interviewing teachers. Inhabiting this separate world becomes a major hazard for both policymakers and teachers.  [iv]

Ergo, the conversation between the lost balloonist and the acerbic, questioning teacher he met.

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[i] Louise Locock and Annette Boaz, “Research, Policy and Practice – Worlds Apart?” Social Policy and Society, 2004, 3(4), pp. 375 – 384.

[ii] Richard Elmore and Milbrey McLaughlin, Steady Work (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1988), pp. 5-14.

[iii] Larry Cuban, Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 168.

[iv] The primacy of the teacher as the significant in-school factor in getting students to learn is embedded in the experiential wisdom of parents who seek out particular teachers, move to different districts for better schools, get into lotteries for charter schools, and even take government vouchers. Researchers have said as much over the decades. From the work of William Sanders in Tennessee to John Hattie’s meta-analyses to the recent findings of the Measures of Effective Teaching Project, all—and others—reaffirm what students, parents, and principals have said for years. See: William Sanders and Sandra Horn, “Research Findings from the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) Database: Implications for Educational Evaluation and Research,” Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 1998, 12(3) pp. 247-256, 1998; John Hattie, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning (London: Routledge, 2011); Thomas Kane, Learning about Teaching: Initial Findings from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project (Seattle: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2013).