Top 10 Education Concerns

Michael Shaughnessy interviews the Washington Post's Jay Matthews:

7) What do you see as the top ten concerns in education? What are the biggest concerns in the Washington Circle?

My concerns or Washington's? I will go with mine:

1. Low standards and expectations in low-income schools.
2. Very inadequate teacher training in our education schools.
3. Failure to challenge average students in nearly all high schools with AP and IB courses.
4. Corrupt and change-adverse bureaucracies in big city districts.
5. A tendency to judge schools by how many low income kids they have, the more there are the worse the school in the public mind.
6. A widespread feeling on the part of teachers, because of their
   inherent humanity, that it is wrong to put a child in a challenging situation where they may fail, when that risk of failure is just what they need to learn and grow.
7. The widespread belief among middle class parents that their child must get into a well known college or they won't be as successful in life.
8. A failure to realize that inner city and rural schools need to give students more time to learn, and should have longer school days and school years.
9. A failure to realize that the best schools--like the KIPP charter schools in the inner cities---are small and run by well-recruited and trained principals who have the power to hire all their teachers, and quickly fire the ones that do not work out.
10. The resistance to the expansion of charter schools in most school district offices.

Matthews list is comprehensive and on target.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 17, 2007 11:55 AM
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