The Missing Link in School Reform (August 16, 2011) | Stanford Social Innovation Review:
The Missing Link in School Reform
In trying to improve American public schools, educators, policymakers, and philanthropists are overselling the role of the highly skilled individual teacher and undervaluing the benefits that come from teacher collaborations.
Illustration by Brian StaufferIn
Waiting for Superman, the 2010 documentary that describes the failure of American public education, several children and their families, along with educators like Geoffrey Canada and philanthropists like Bill Gates, drive home the argument that the key to school reform lies in improving the competence and skills of individual teachers. Making the case for a crisis in K-12 education is not difficult. Open any newspaper and you are likely to find an article reporting on the sorry state of US public education. Student competence in basic subjects like math and reading is alarmingly low and trails that of other nations. Three in 10 public school students fail to
