Comments on: We’ll Also Include This Set of 5 Steak Knives http://www.eduwonk.com/2007/12/well-also-include-this-set-of-5-steak-knives.html Education News, Analysis, and Commentary Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:21:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: D.T. http://www.eduwonk.com/2007/12/well-also-include-this-set-of-5-steak-knives.html#comment-185 D.T. Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:22:00 +0000 http://www.eduwonk.com/wordpress/2007/12/well-also-include-this-set-of-5-steak-knives.html#comment-185 If a hospital needs more brain surgeons, it it can also force cancer specialists to transfer. When short of biochemists, we can force physicists to take over their jobs. When a college basketball team is challenged, then they can force its football linemen to change sports.<br/><br/>Fundamentally, NCLB is crude form of social engineering and that is why it will join other utopian approaches on the ash heap of history. Its most naive supporters simply did not or do not realize that high poverty schools, like secondary schools, are different from lower poverty and magnet schools. They don't understand that it takes a different approach for a 5th grader with 5th grade skills than for an 18 year old with 5th grade skills. I've known plenty of excellent teachers in lower poverty schools who could learn the very different profession of inner city teaching - if they chose to. But it took me years to learn my job. What makes an outsider think they can coerce a suburban or magnet school teacher into becoming an effective urban educator?<br/><br/>They is why The Turnabout Challenge, funded by the Gates, is such an important reversal. Now, they argue that the highest poverty schools have a completely different "ecosystem." They now correctly argue that we must recruit talent, using incentives, and retain talent in high poverty schools. The best way to do that is to restore our autonomy.<br/><br/>And we might ask why our high poverty and low poverty neighborhoods are so different? Bridge the gap between the two Americas by provding better health insurance, nutrition, early ed, etc., and the two educational worlds wouldn't be so completely different.<br/> <br/>John Thompson If a hospital needs more brain surgeons, it it can also force cancer specialists to transfer. When short of biochemists, we can force physicists to take over their jobs. When a college basketball team is challenged, then they can force its football linemen to change sports.

Fundamentally, NCLB is crude form of social engineering and that is why it will join other utopian approaches on the ash heap of history. Its most naive supporters simply did not or do not realize that high poverty schools, like secondary schools, are different from lower poverty and magnet schools. They don’t understand that it takes a different approach for a 5th grader with 5th grade skills than for an 18 year old with 5th grade skills. I’ve known plenty of excellent teachers in lower poverty schools who could learn the very different profession of inner city teaching - if they chose to. But it took me years to learn my job. What makes an outsider think they can coerce a suburban or magnet school teacher into becoming an effective urban educator?

They is why The Turnabout Challenge, funded by the Gates, is such an important reversal. Now, they argue that the highest poverty schools have a completely different “ecosystem.” They now correctly argue that we must recruit talent, using incentives, and retain talent in high poverty schools. The best way to do that is to restore our autonomy.

And we might ask why our high poverty and low poverty neighborhoods are so different? Bridge the gap between the two Americas by provding better health insurance, nutrition, early ed, etc., and the two educational worlds wouldn’t be so completely different.

John Thompson

]]> By: Karen http://www.eduwonk.com/2007/12/well-also-include-this-set-of-5-steak-knives.html#comment-184 Karen Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:29:00 +0000 http://www.eduwonk.com/wordpress/2007/12/well-also-include-this-set-of-5-steak-knives.html#comment-184 I am a former teacher (now attorney). In my first year teaching in a new district, I had the unpleasant experience of being transferred midyear due to a drop in student enrollment. The experience was very frustrating. I am not in favor of forced transfers of teachers to underperforming schools. If nothing else, from a practical standpoint it is very unnerving to buy a house or sign a lease in a location when you may be moved many miles away involuntarily at any time. Also, it is odd that the reward for excellent teacher performance would be an unwanted transfer to a high poverty school. I agree with the guestblogger that a much better way to handle this is to provide financial incentives for experienced teachers to work in underperforming schools. I am a former teacher (now attorney). In my first year teaching in a new district, I had the unpleasant experience of being transferred midyear due to a drop in student enrollment. The experience was very frustrating. I am not in favor of forced transfers of teachers to underperforming schools. If nothing else, from a practical standpoint it is very unnerving to buy a house or sign a lease in a location when you may be moved many miles away involuntarily at any time. Also, it is odd that the reward for excellent teacher performance would be an unwanted transfer to a high poverty school. I agree with the guestblogger that a much better way to handle this is to provide financial incentives for experienced teachers to work in underperforming schools.

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