How best to add value? Strike a balance between the individual and the organization in school reform

Susan Moore Johnson:

Two developments in public education converged near the turn of the century to bring rare prominence to the issue of teacher policy. First, several researchers reported with confidence that teachers are the single most important school-level factor in students' learning. Although schools could not influence the prior experience or socioeconomic status of a student, they could decide who the child's teachers would be, and those decisions would have long-term consequences for students' academic success. Meanwhile, school officials faced the challenge of replacing an enormous cohort of retiring veterans with new teachers. The demand for teachers in low-income schools was especially great.

Recognizing this pressing need for new, effective teachers, policy makers and administrators began to adopt strategies for recruiting, hiring, supporting, motivating, assessing, and compensating the best possible individuals. Their efforts succeeded in highlighting for the public the importance of teachers. Over the past decade, however, this sharpened focus on the individual teacher has eclipsed the role that the school as an organization can and must play in enhancing the quality and effectiveness of teachers and teaching. As a result, teachers are getting less support than they should and schools are less successful than they might be.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 6, 2009 4:22 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas