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
Why great teachers aren’t enough to make schools work
- 08-24-2011
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Guest blog by Harold Kwalwasser/Washington Post
We love to talk about teachers — good teachers, bad teachers. Our entire narrative about schools seems to revolve around finding good teachers and firing bad ones. In a way, it’s not surprising. We love to reduce complex issues to “people stories,” especially when we can paint one kind of people with white hats and pin black ones on somebody else. As appealing as it is, there are two problems with the “good teacher, bad teacher” narrative. The first is that it plants certain unspoken images in our heads, which we often wind up accepting as true without examination. We unthinkingly know what we know — to our peril. One of these unarticulated assumptions that takes root as a result of the “good teacher, bad teacher” narrative is that teachers are either naturals or they’re not. The number one strategy, then, is to find and retain the “right” people. The result in this case? (more...)
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