Diane Ravitch has noticed that to have good schools you need good teachers, and that to get good teachers you have to treat them decently.
Diane Ravitch discovers the formula for excellent public education:
seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
The more amazing thing is that she figured out that she was wrong about charters and the whole privatizing movement, and that led her to quit her positions at two big right-wing education think tanks. Well, it's not amazing she figured that out charters are a bad idea in so many ways it would take a book to list them all — that's been very obvious for years now — but it is amazing in that you don't often see people displaying that much courage.
So The One and his handpicked Chicago Education Secretary are wrong then? Because they're are big supporters of charter schools.
If a child gets to the sixth grade and cannot teach the children younger than the child, then the education system has already failed.
You do not need a college education to teach anything up until the eight grade at best.
Use the teachers as teachers for the ones that are not getting it. Film them in action and put together a computer based teaching system with more explanations to help those who really don't get it.
Alan Greenspan also finally realized he had been an idiot and a tool. Precious little good that will do anyone.
Malcolm Gladwell covered this in Tipping Point (although it may have been Outliers). The problem with teachers and quarterbacks is that there is no reliable way to tell who will be good at the job before they get into it. His solution is to hire teachers like the NFL hires quarterbacks. Pay well to attract potential talent. Have a rigorous training program and then throw them into the game and see how they do. If they don't cut the mustard they get booted. Matches pretty well with Ravitch.
Diane Ravitch changed her mind about education so she resigned her positions on boards of two conservitive research groups. So if these research groups aren't interested in the results of her research exactly what are they doing? Certainly not research it seems.
Commenter 'Things that are useless' feels that a sixth grade education qualifies someone to teach school. I disagree. The idea that teaching is a simple passing on of rote facts is a great part of the disrespect for educators that has undermined America's schools. Teachers must be trained in the art of teaching (pedagogy). It isn't an easy job and is one of the most important responsibilities an individual and a society can take on.
"best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect"
And of these, we are doing #3 only. Not gonna work.
Nope, we're not doing #3 either. In most young professional circles, the news that someone is an elementary teacher is usually greeted with disappointment or worse.