I am a lifelong Arkansas resident, a member of the Lincoln community and a parent of a child in Lincoln Schools. I am also a TAP District Executive Master Teacher, with a 26-year career in education that includes classroom instruction, teacher leadership, mentorship and a passion for helping students realize their potential.
The education landscape is changing in Arkansas and it’s becoming increasingly important that communities and parents alike all understand and focus on how we can help our children successfully climb the K-12 staircase. I’m proud to be a member of a school district that was transformed by TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement Program.
For so many of our students, education is the road to opportunity, and TAP has been the vehicle that is getting us there.
Teaching today is different than it was 26 years ago. As a newly hired teacher, you got your lesson plans and curriculum standards, and then you were thrown into a classroom. I would shut the door and teach on my own, and a few times every school year, an administrator would evaluate my classroom. There seemed to be a common acceptance that good teachers were born, not made. That was before TAP.
Before we implemented TAP in 2003, our student achievement scores were in the teens. Now, we’ve moved into the 70th, 80th and 90th percentiles. That represents results.
And increased student achievement is only one of the strengths of the TAP model. Aside from stronger test scores, it creates a team of teachers in the classroom — mentor teachers, master teachers and other teacher-leaders working collaboratively to target skills, weaknesses, field test new learning techniques and reflect on what works and what doesn’t. We work alongside other teachers and harness the passion from each other and the successes happening throughout the building. Now, when a teacher shuts their classroom door at Lincoln, the presence of the master and mentor teachers is still there. You see their ideas and enthusiasm carrying over into that individual and into their teaching style.
TAP also improves the work environment for teachers, which results in greater teacher satisfaction and growth. Our teachers become empowered to pursue individual development needs because TAP unlocks career opportunities for them. A building that previously had one leader now has a team of leaders — a support system.
The evaluation process that TAP has created takes us beyond a compliance evaluation to a collaborative, peer-based process of reflection and development. And it’s always tied back to student work. We’re looking at what the students are saying and doing, versus what the teacher is saying and doing.
TAP is doing many things in Lincoln: It’s building teams, bringing teachers together and reenergizing our education environment with a highly collaborative teaching support system that promotes the sharing of ideas, talents and experience.
My hope for the future is that all Arkansas children can learn and grow under the TAP system. I can only imagine how bright the future would be.
JANA CLAYBROOK
Summers