After the expectations-busting success of Cage-Busting Leadership two years ago, it’s no surprise that Rick Hess, head of the American Enterprise Institute’s education policy shop, is back with a sequel. The Cage-Busting Teacher has an arguably tougher goal than its predecessor, as there are millions more teachers than district leaders, and thousands more bars in teachers’ cages. Hess’s advice provides a road map for ambitious teachers. But his acknowledgement of critical, systemic issues highlights the fact that teachers can’t—and shouldn’t—have to go at it alone.
The book uses real-life anecdotes, peppered with references to everything from Say Anything to Aaron Sorkin, to illustrate cage busting and urge educators to take an active role in reforming the system to work for them. It’s an eminently readable work with deeply practical advice. Chapters focus on “managing up” with overworked administrators; identifying problems and selling solutions; becoming a savvy networker with district, union, and political leadership; and explaining common trip wires, like budgets and the policy cycle, in plainspoken English. High-placed leaders from TFA to the AFT weigh in on how teachers can develop greater agency and autonomy within the profession. As a former teacher who struggled with finding both during my two years in the classroom—damage from an earthquake actually closed my school at one point, which is only the most dramatic illustration of how little control I felt I had—I can attest that there’s certainly a ready audience.
But in keeping with Hess’s use of pop culture, I have to mention a now-classic SNL skit: In it, Tina-Fey-as-Sarah-Palin declares, “Anyone can be President…all you have to do is want it!” Amy Poehler, impersonating Hillary Clinton, laughs bitterly and replies, “Yes, if I could change one thing, I probably should have wanted it more.” At several points in the book, teachers and policymakers point out that “teacher leadership” frequently just means extra work in exchange for doing a good job. Cage busting frequently leads to extra work too, but based on the teacher’s initiative; in a few examples, the cage busters’ programs or initiatives failed due to bureaucracy anyway. Working around the cage doesn’t eliminate it, nor does urging teachers to use their “moral authority” to get people to their side. Eventually, the teacher bumps up against either a cage or a forced choice to leave the classroom—thus making the premise of a cage-busting teacher a bit of a paradox.
Hess acknowledges this forced choice and suggests that better policies, created by cage-busting teachers collaborating with other cage busters, may create a better environment. I hope that this happens, and that books like this can bring more teachers to the table. But we need those cage-busting superintendents (and those cage-busting policymakers, parents, and lawmakers) to make the system truly work for teachers—and ultimately for students.
SOURCE: Frederick M. Hess, The Cage-Busting Teacher (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2015).
