"THE NEW education reform law is a modest step forward, mainly because it will help Massachusetts win additional federal funds. It allows for more charter schools and gives superintendents more leeway in dismissing teachers in low-performing schools. By themselves, though, these changes are unlikely to make much difference in the high-poverty schools on which the bill is focused."
Children whose parents have limited education come to school with enormous deficits in vocabulary, background knowledge, language skills, and number sense. Although these problems can be overcome, it isn’t easy. It takes a major shift in the way teachers teach, the way schools use data to assess progress, how the principals lead, and how the staff and school schedule are deployed to help teachers. This can’t be done one teacher at a time, but requires a concerted, school-wide effort lasting three to five years.
The fact that few teachers and principals learned in college the skills they need to deal with these needy students is the single biggest obstacle to better performance. Some day we’ll need to reform teacher preparation; for now, we need to give hands-on help to schools with high concentrations of low-income and minority students.
Certainly there are many principals who care passionately about making sure all kids succeed, who insist that teachers use research-based pedagogy, and who have the complete backing of their superintendent to changes in the way their teachers teach. They do this without charter status and without changes in current union contracts and dismissal procedures.
