OUR EDUCATIONAL DECLINE – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:  I have no illusions about the Washington Post.  It's a liberal paper, and can sometimes be infuriating.  But its editorial page is the best liberal editorial page in the country, and often defies the trendies and conformists. 

The Post has run a troubling editorial on a new report about our educational system, and its treatment of quality teachers.  Well worth reading:

A COMPREHENSIVE study three years ago by the New Teacher Project showed how U.S. schools generally fail to recognize teacher quality, instead treating all teachers the same. Now comes an even more devastating finding from the group: Even when schools know the difference between good and bad teachers, they make no special effort to retain the good ones. Just as the previous report spurred improvements in teacher evaluation systems, this study should prompt changes in how teachers are treated.

The aptly named report, “The Irreplaceables,” concludes that the real teacher retention crisis in urban schools is not about the number of teachers who are leaving but the loss of really good ones. The two-year study identified the top 20 percent of teachers whose students consistently make the most progress on state exams. Not only do these teachers on average help students learn two to three additional months’ worth of math and reading compared to the average teacher (and five to six months more compared to low-performing teachers), but they also get high marks from students.

Yet the researchers found little effort by districts to hold on to these top performers. Only 47 percent of these high-performing teachers said they ever got praised for their work, and only 26 percent were encouraged to take leadership roles. Particularly shocking was the finding that two-thirds of the best teachers were never asked to stay when they told principals of their plans to depart. “Our findings suggest that Irreplaceables usually leave for reasons that their school could have controlled,” the report says.

COMMENT:  I'm not shocked.  Too many schools, especially in the politely termed "inner cities," are patronage mills and political headquarters, rather than educational institutions.  Too many are part of what could correctly be called the education industry, one of the nation's largest businesses. 

In the mid-sixties, New York City had an ugly, raw debate over demands by black leaders for "community control of schools," insisting that only if blacks controlled their schools would education improve.  Anyone with minimal intelligence (and integrity) could see through the demands.  They were really demands by local pols for control of budgets and jobs.  But the trendies got their way, and community control of schools was adopted.  Forty years later it was judged a complete, total, absolute failure.  There had been no progress.  The schools had replaced competent teachers with hacks, and became nothing more than power centers for local interests. 

We know how to educate students.  Good schools do it routinely.  The question is whether the political class wants good schools, or just schools that help their political careers.

August 17, 2012