Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

During my 27 years representing teachers, I encountered a variety of teacher assistance plans. The intended purpose was to provide more detail than just having an evaluator sit in a classroom for 30 minutes and then check the “Needs Improvement” box on the evaluation form.

But those plans varied wildly in quality and intent. Some evaluators recognized legitimate teaching deficiencies and tried to provide constructive assistance. The most beneficial plans were drafted with participation from the teacher being evaluated. That provided mutual ownership; the advice was shaped with the teacher instead of imposed on the teacher.

Those were rare.

Many times, assistance plans were long on critique and short on assistance. They often felt like a written colonoscopy without anesthesia. Too often, a veteran teacher challenged the leadership of a younger administrator, and then the young administrator was suddenly sure the veteran teacher “needed assistance.”

For those cases, I’d ask the evaluator to come and model the teaching behavior he or she desired. Many times, the evaluator would suddenly remember they had important “administrating” to do and couldn’t possibly spare the time for modeling. 

As I think back, plans of assistance could have been a useful growth tool. But too often, the goal wasn’t to improve overall teaching. Rather, the goal was to change the teacher being evaluated into a clone of the evaluator, or even worse, punish the teacher instead of improving their work.

Based on the recent sessions of the Iowa legislature, I thought the majority party might benefit from a plan of assistance. I wish I could meet with them to develop a plan together, but time and the need for immediate improvement prevents it.

Areas of Strength to build upon:

You did a wonderful job on passing a ban on handheld cell phones while driving. This law could save countless lives. You showed compassion by advancing a constitutional amendment to give young abuse victims the option to testify in court remotely.

Your school cell phone ban threaded the needle so local school boards would maintain some local control.  

When you pass bipartisan legislation, it survives even after you’re no longer in the majority.

Areas of Improvement:

We have things that need to be fixed, and you are the mechanics. Iowans want strong public schools. You struggled this year to agree on the amount of increased school funding. End that struggle and tie “State Supplemental Aid” (the amount the state provides per pupil to public school districts) to a formula that is both predictable and bipartisan. For years, Iowa lawmakers tied “allowable growth” for school district budgets to economic indicators. Take a page from your own history. 

You’ve created a publicly funded private school system. Shine some sunshine on its real cost by letting the state auditor provide a report on how private schools are using tax dollars from “Education Savings Accounts.”

You tend to get involved in shaping curriculum when people yell about something they don’t like. Shouting doesn’t make a complaint accurate. Take a beat before you write legislation correcting a problem that may not exist. Contact the school first. 

When an outside consultant comes peddling ideas, remember they don’t live with the idea. You do.

Strategies to improve:

The Iowa legislature’s session is too long. Leadership needs to limit it to four weeks. If there’s an emergency, call a special session. A vacuum is always filled, and most often it’s filled with fringe proposals that make people question your seriousness.

Attend and participate in local forums. Listen more than talk. Tough questions help hone your own arguments. Answer even the mean emails.

Please consider the power of different ideas.

You’re a coequal branch of government. Sometimes you need to say no to the governor from your own party. Even if they disagree with you, people respect independent thought.

Here’s the hardest and strongest strategy. After you’ve accomplished these strategies, term limit yourself and go home knowing you made a difference.