School Information System: Super Teachers Alone Can't Save Our Schools

August 12, 2011

Super Teachers Alone Can't Save Our Schools

A superstar teacher or charismatic principal rides to the rescue! Downtrodden public school children, otherwise destined to fail, are saved! We've all seen that movie--more than once, starting with "Stand and Deliver" and "Lean on Me" in the late 1980s and more recently with documentaries like "Waiting for Superman" and "The Lottery," which brilliantly portray the heroes of the charter-school movement. And we know the villains, too: teachers' union leaders and education bureaucrats who, for four decades, have presided over schools that provide comfortable public jobs for the adults who work there but wretched instruction for the children who are supposed to learn there.

One of the heroes of this familiar tale is Dave Levin, the co-founder of the highly regarded KIPP network of charter schools (KIPP stands for Knowledge Is Power Program). But Mr. Levin would be the first to tell you that heroes aren't enough to turn around an American public school system whose continued failure has become the country's most pressing long-term economic and national security threat.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 12, 2011 1:08 AM
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Comments

We need the best teachers who not only teach

subject matter and assess, but also love the

students they work with. In turn, children must

work collaboratively with their teachers, and

classmates. Children must be taught to have

respect, and in turn, they will receive the

teacher's love and respect to! A great model for

success.

Posted by: Carole B. Reiss, PhD at August 14, 2011 8:15 PM

Americans don't seem to have basic common sense. They (we) tend to live in some bizarre place where we think we can have the best of everything and think we can demand it. This is the world of hype and advertising.

Remember grade school where adjectives like good, better, best had rules when they could be used. Isn't "best" the superlative adjective of "good"? Isn't the rule that with the superlative, one can only use the definite article "the" because use of the superlative requires uniqueness; "the best" used to mean something.

We cannot require our schools to have the best teachers. The sentence makes no sense. The only requirement is that all teachers be good. Nothing more can be asked for and nothing more can be delivered.

Posted by: Larry Winkler at August 21, 2011 11:58 AM