Imagining Successful Schools - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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This system has infuriated and shamed teachers, and is a lot of the reason that teacher turnover is so high, causing even many of the best teachers to abandon the ranks.
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anonymous on 01 Sep 14This was always a topical conversation and was the reason some of my colleagues left. I saw engineers go from somebody with pride in themselves to saying that they had to leave because they did not like what was happening to them.
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in order to meet the demands of a global economy, our educational system needs to be re-engineered for much higher performance.
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No other country believes that you can get to a high quality educational system simply by instituting an accountability system,” he says.
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The main thing that works is treating teaching as a profession, and teachers as professionals.
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That means that teachers are as well paid as other professionals, that they have a career ladder, that they go to elite schools where they learn their craft, and that they are among the top quartile of college graduates instead of the bottom quartile.
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When I suggested that American cities couldn’t afford to pay teachers the way we pay engineers or lawyers, Tucker scoffed. With rare exception, he said, the cost per pupil in the places with the best educational systems is less than the American system, even though their teachers are far better paid. “They are not spending more money; they are spending money differently,” he said.
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Tucker would not abolish tests, but he would have fewer of them.
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And they would have a different purpose: In the high-performing countries, the tests exist to hold the students accountable, rather than the teachers.
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When a school falls short, instead of looking to fire teachers, the high-performing countries “use the data to decide which schools will receive visits from teams of expert school inspectors. These inspectors are highly regarded educators.”
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Back to the inspectors, or I would rather say more like advisors who work with teachers improving their craft. I loved the idea of team teaching but a lot of teachers were not open to it, mostly I think due to the fear of being judged but for others it was a control issue too, "no one can teach like I do"mantra, which happens because of a perceived threat to ego that makes individuals more fearful.
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Tucker envisions the same kind of accountability for teachers as exists for, say, lawyers in a firm — where it is peers holding each other accountable rather than some outside force. People who don’t pull their own weight are asked to leave. The ethos is that people help each other to become better for the good of the firm. Those who successfully rise through the ranks are rewarded with higher pay and status.
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Would the teachers’ unions go along with such a scheme? The unions would certainly have to shed some of the things they now have, such as control of work rules.
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fixation with test-based accountability
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every other successful country has