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First, educate the kids

March 29, 2009 By

It’s possible to create a good school for low-income students without parent involvement, argues Jay Mathews in the Washington Post. Parents will support the school when it proves itself, not before.

Low-income parents may often be distracted just trying to make a living, but they know what works. Once they see a school keeping its promises, they provide the kind of support found in suburban schools. But it’s important to remember that good schooling must come before parental support, not the other way around.

Poorly educated parents may not know how to support their children’s learning. It’s a role they need to learn from their kids’ teachers and school leaders.

Flypaper’s Andy Smarick agrees with Mathews and points to the Education Next article on paternalistic schools.

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Don’t mess with Massachusetts

February 28, 2009 By

Beware of requiring soft, vague 21st century skills, such as “media literacy, critical thinking and working in groups,” editorializes the Boston Globe. The state school board is considering a proposal by a task force which concluded that “straight academic content is no longer enough” for student success. The Globe warns:

The 21st-century skills movement could return Massachusetts to an era of low academic standards.

Massachusetts’ “15-year track record of successful education reform” is at risk, write Charles D. Chieppo and James T. Gass in Education Next.

Despite the clear success of more than a decade of education reform in Massachusetts, Governor Patrick’s administration has turned its back on the very forces behind that success: it is wavering on standards, choice is under continual fire, and the board of education has been stripped of the independence that for 170 years was Horace Mann’s legacy and had allowed the board to implement reform with a singular focus on improving student achievement.

. . . Results released in September 2008 showed a sharp drop in MCAS pass rates and flat or declining scores in the elementary and middle school grades and in many urban districts.

Massachusetts probably has the best education system in the nation. Why mess it up?

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Training teachers on the job

February 26, 2009 By

In Education Next, Katherine Newman looks at innovative models of teacher training that feature “rigorous selection processes, practical coursework and tremendous field-based support.”

(Boston Teacher Residency) is implementing a model that emphasizes training teachers on-site in actual classrooms with students and lead teachers, similar to the way medical residents grow into effective doctors by working directly with patients under the guidance of veterans. Instead of following a typical list of course and credit-hour requirements, the organization sponsoring the internship or residency-style program tailors coursework to meet the needs of the particular school or type of school in which the teacher will be employed.

Newman also looks at San Diego–based High Tech High (HTH), which trains and certifies its own teachers, and Alliance for Catholic Education’s Teacher Formation program, “the Teach For America of parochial schools.”

Traditional teacher-training programs teach “few skills applicable to real classrooms” writes Newman. But many alternative certification programs, which now prepare one fifth of new teachers, aren’t any better.

Of the alternative certification programs the NCTQ (National Council on Teacher Quality) surveyed for a 2007 report, only one-third require a summer teaching practicum and one-quarter provide weekly mentoring for teachers once the school year starts.

One-quarter take nearly all applicants, says NCTQ.

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Dems divide on education windfall

February 25, 2009 By

The $100 billion windfall for education in the stimulus bill may divide Democrats, writes Richard Lee Colvin in Education Next.

One side (of the party) backs strong accountability through reforms such as performance pay for teachers and more support for model charter schools that practice longer school days and longer school years. The other side looks to augment the current system with more support programs such pre-kindergarten, afterschool and summer programs.

Obama thinks there’s enough money to “do it all,” as he promised in a September speech. But there’s enough money.

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