One of the reasons education gets led by the nose from one fad to the next may be that there is no organized effort to evaluate the claims made by groups and individuals offering professional development workshops for teachers. In his second post on how teachers can get more respect at Britannica Blog, Dan Willingham suggests that the American Association of School Administrators take on the role of evaluating claims made by those hawking PD.
Suppose that every professional development workshop came with a research disclosure statement that put it into one of three categories: (1) there is some research evidence backing the idea; (2) there is no evidence bearing on the idea, positive or negative; (3) the idea has been tested and data do not support it. It’s hard to believe that districts would be eager to sign on for workshops in the latter two categories.
“If school districts were more selective in the professional development activities that they pursued, some of the faddishness would be drained out of education,” Willingham believes. Doctors rely on a data-driven approach before adopting new treatments. “The public does not view the education establishment as similarly measured, and that is to the detriment of teachers and administrators,” he concludes.
More than half the nation’s teachers are eligible for retirement over the next decade, according to a new report by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, which calls for school administrators “to take immediate action to lower attrition rates and establish programs that pass along valuable information from teaching veterans to new teachers.”
“We face a tsunami in the shift of the future of the teachers’ workforce,” Tom Carroll, president of the commission, tells USA Today. ”Over the next five or six years, we could lose over a third of our teachers.”
“The traditional teaching career is collapsing at both ends,” the report says. “Beginners are being driven away by antiquated preparation practices, outdated school staffing policies, and inadequate career rewards. At the end of their careers, accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems. In five years, two-thirds of the teachers we entrust our children to in America’s classrooms could be gone.”
You’re sending little Tyler and Emily to public school? How cutting edge!
The New York Times, its radar ever attuned to the lifestyles of privileged Manhattanites, reports that the economic downturn is prompting many families to consider actually subjecting their progeny to public school. In a classic example of the kind of story that serves merely to remind most Americans why they can’t stand New Yorkers, the paper refuses to report it straight. Instead, it’s a trend piece. “In these financially fragile times,” says the Times, ”the new bragging rights begin with a P.S. The rush is on to live near the best.”
For some young families who bought during the housing boom, having it all meant an affordable brood-sized apartment in possession of a good public school zone. But other parents in pursuit of real estate never even thought about schools. They assumed they would send their children to private school, often because they too had followed that route. That was before the economic crisis. Now, as many would-be private school parents scramble for a good public school, there is a despairing recognition that in this respect, geography is destiny: With odds of being accepted into a popular school in another zone slimmer than ever, they either live in a neighborhood with a decent elementary or they don’t.
Shocking, right? What follows is a series of anecdotes of New Yorkers weighing their options–from moving to committing fraud–to get their children into the “right” school. “I will certainly consider some alternative way to game the system by gaining a different address,” says one anonymous parent. “This is my child, who is a really smart kid, and he’s not going to my crummy zoned school. That’s just not going to happen.”
The paper even discovers a couple who have decided to buy $1 million apartment solely because of its zoned school even though they don’t have children yet. I know, I know. Millions of couples plan their home purchses around schools. But this is different. This couple are Manhattan lawyers! Oh, I forgot the best part. This article about education ran in the Times’ Real Estate section.
I live in Manhattan. Please accept my apologies on behalf of my city and it’s paper of record.
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