Its people, not policies, that teach kids. Nowhere is this clearer than at LA's Markham Middle School: "After 11 years of continuous, often overlapping reforms, (and) the expenditure of over $3 million dollars in extra funds," writes
Robert Manwaring, "
Markham Middle School is still, educationally speaking, a wreck. Sixteen percent of teachers are working under an emergency credential, 30 percent of classes in core academic subjects are taught by teachers who are not "highly qualified" under NCLB. After a turnaround partnership fired all of Markham staff, "almost half of the new hires were first- and second-year teachers, and many of them were under-qualified." I don't doubt Manwaring's indictment of the Los Angeles Schools System's policies, but we should
