History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Making teacher quality reform's latest red herring
- 05-13-2010
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By Peter Berger/Education Week (free subscription required)
Nobody ever suggests curing our health-care woes by replacing doctors and nurses with better ones. But many policymakers tout restaffing schools with better teachers as the key to healing public education. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is one of them. As is true for carpenters and dentists, there are some teachers who are bad at what they do. I’ve known a few of them. Most teachers, though, are competent. That’s not to say that many of us are excellent, but that is the nature of excellence: It’s rare. Any scheme to rescue public education that rests on staffing schools with “excellent” teachers is a pipe dream. Most teachers will never be excellent. (more...)
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