WORLD OF LEARNING: WHAT WORKS? WORK

"What Works in the Classroom? Ask the Students" New York Times 12/10/10

While this article is about the value of students’ assessment of their teachers, it does have another purpose: coverage of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's report on the findings of its Measures of Effective Teaching Project.

No one can deny that America does not have the good educational system it once did. It seems obvious that the key element of good education is good teachers. But raising a ruckus about that avoids the bigger issue: Are we, as a society (that’s fallen on hard times) willing to pay? If schools are going to attract high quality teachers, throwing the bad ones out, as recently happened in Compton, isn’t enough.

It would be nice if every school district had great schools, whether they were charter or not. How do we get there, though? It’s going to take hard work, and what could be painful allocation of resources.

So often it appears that no one is working, and everyone is shouting--Bill Gates versus Diane Ravitch, and Waiting for Superman versus Race to Nowhere. I know that's not completely true, and that the debate is often pumped up by our media, but when the issue is framed as good guys against bad guys, it's distressing.

Now Michelle Rhee, ousted as the capital’s chief educator as a result of this sort of squabbling, is starting StudentsFirst, what she calls “a national movement to transform public education in our country.”

I hope she and other reformers would begin to make that happen, rather than making noise. As Rhee puts it, enough of us “understand and believe that kids deserve better.”