Don’t believe the education “reformers”
Public schools are better than we think and efforts to quantify teacher performance are typically destructive
(Credit: iStockphoto/RonTech2000)
TOPICS:EDUCATION
Three mildly heretical thoughts about American education: First, given the impossible assignment we’ve given them—an egalitarian mission in a nation rapidly growing more stratified by income and class—American public schools are probably doing a better job than they ought to be. One big reason is greater professionalism among teachers. A lot has changed since I wrote a Texas Monthly article documenting the awful state of teacher education back in 1979, mostly for the better.
Despite melodramatic pronouncements to the contrary by sundry politicians, tycoons, tycoon/politicians and media-enhanced “reformers” like former Washington, DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, the