"In a meeting recently in Northern California, an educator grumbled that it didn't do any good to make a field trip to Long Beach to try to copy the local school district's successes in raising student scores. And he was right.
But here's what would do some good. Take a close look at what is working there and elsewhere, and you'll find the secret of success. It's surprisingly simple, but it's also hard work.
Long Beach Unified has its problems, but it also is has won the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education and has been a finalist for the prize five times. It is doing many things right, and although an educator can't copy them with one field trip, the techniques can be learned.
As Amanda Ripley has written in a recent edition of the Atlantic magazine, people tend to ascribe great teachers' gifts to some mystical quality that we can recognize and revere, but not replicate. But at last, research about teachers' impact is too overwhelming to ignore."
But here's what would do some good. Take a close look at what is working there and elsewhere, and you'll find the secret of success. It's surprisingly simple, but it's also hard work.
Long Beach Unified has its problems, but it also is has won the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education and has been a finalist for the prize five times. It is doing many things right, and although an educator can't copy them with one field trip, the techniques can be learned.
As Amanda Ripley has written in a recent edition of the Atlantic magazine, people tend to ascribe great teachers' gifts to some mystical quality that we can recognize and revere, but not replicate. But at last, research about teachers' impact is too overwhelming to ignore."