As I have said before, there is no quick fix for what is wrong with education. Many people have pointed out that schools are an integral part of the community and their improvement requires improvement of the environment in which they exist. Children who are hungry, ill, abused, and/or bullied cannot be expected to learn as well as those who come from a supportive home environment where extra learning opportunities are made available, and their physical and mental health are cared for. Nevertheless few major school improvement initiatives take such factors into account.
The most highly publicized reforms seek improvement by establishing standards, testing students frequently, evaluating teachers based on how well the students do on the tests, closing schools where students are not performing well, and offering choices such as charters or private schools. At best such approaches produce results that are equal to existing conditions.
There are approaches that are longer range and include community members with professionals in continuous information gathering, decision making, action, and evaluation. Such strategies need to be more widely adopted.
All of this is pretty general and stuffy sounding. To really understand what is happening you need to visit schools, talk with teachers, talk with kids and parents. For a four year period I studied high schools in large urban areas, small rural communities, and upper middle class suburban communities. Throughout the country I visited elementary and middle schools in widely varying communities. I saw situations where police were required to protect students as they came and left from schools and neighborhoods where kids had such an abudance of facilities available that you knew they live a very rich life. At one school every time I visited over a four year period a student had just died as a result of an accident or a killing. At some schools teachers clearly hated their work, at others they were energetically and enthusiaticall involved with the kids.
Do your own research--don't settle for the propaganda that comes from typical reform advocates.
Read Jerry Large's column from the April 18, 2012 Seattle Times to see what one person learned as he visited a school. The column is titled "Catching the kids we let fall" and it describes both the kids and the work of a teacher and a paraprofessional who are working to help overcome reading problems.
The most highly publicized reforms seek improvement by establishing standards, testing students frequently, evaluating teachers based on how well the students do on the tests, closing schools where students are not performing well, and offering choices such as charters or private schools. At best such approaches produce results that are equal to existing conditions.
There are approaches that are longer range and include community members with professionals in continuous information gathering, decision making, action, and evaluation. Such strategies need to be more widely adopted.
All of this is pretty general and stuffy sounding. To really understand what is happening you need to visit schools, talk with teachers, talk with kids and parents. For a four year period I studied high schools in large urban areas, small rural communities, and upper middle class suburban communities. Throughout the country I visited elementary and middle schools in widely varying communities. I saw situations where police were required to protect students as they came and left from schools and neighborhoods where kids had such an abudance of facilities available that you knew they live a very rich life. At one school every time I visited over a four year period a student had just died as a result of an accident or a killing. At some schools teachers clearly hated their work, at others they were energetically and enthusiaticall involved with the kids.
Do your own research--don't settle for the propaganda that comes from typical reform advocates.
Read Jerry Large's column from the April 18, 2012 Seattle Times to see what one person learned as he visited a school. The column is titled "Catching the kids we let fall" and it describes both the kids and the work of a teacher and a paraprofessional who are working to help overcome reading problems.
