Abigail Thernstrom, author of No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, in an interview on NPR All Things Considered this evening.
The main points --
* Give principals autonomy to hire good teachers, whether or not they have ed-school credentials, which Thernstrom regards as largely useless.
* Longer school hours, including Saturday mornings if necessary
* Focus on core subjects
* Insist on disciplinary rules that the public schools feel powerless to insist on
* Pay good teachers more than mediocre teachers
* Asian students are "culturally lucky" because Asian parents tend to make their kids work hard and do well in school. But hard work is a "culturally transferrable" trait. Kids from other cultures are just as capable of working as hard as Asians.
* There aren't enough schools that transmit the message that "hard work will put you on a path to success in American society ... it doesn't matter what your color is. You can go far but you have to have skills and knowledge. Work for them."
* Instead of trying to turn around an entire failing urban school district from the top, better to turn around a lot of individual schools by turning them into charter schools where the principals would have autonomy and authority to manage budget, curriculum and discipline.
* Close the schools that aren't working
* Accountability: educate the kids or you're gone.
Hard work, accountability, incentives, autonomous schools. Yes, sometimes it really is that simple. Listen to the whole thing.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 25, 2003 05:13 PMDang, Stefan, you came across one of the rare high-grade NPR interviews. I didn't have such luck this evening driving home.
On my radio, NPR was going on about undeclared campaign contributions this evening. Oh, it was a bad thing indeed, some horrible Republicans in Texas had contributed half a million or so to the political activism of their choice, and only their IRS records identified it. A grave threat to the country, indeed.
Simultaneously, over on Joanne Jacobs' site there's an item about an IRS investigation of the NEA. Said organization declares it spends nothing for political purposes, but the sums described in the item make those cheap Texans look like amateurs. Just think of what those millions could do if turned to educating children, particularly outside of the clutches of the NEA. More power to the IRS, and where's NPR when you need them to share their deep concern about such a political travesty?
Posted by: Insuf on November 25, 2003 06:27 PMDear Stefan:
I heard the same interview, and was similarly impressed. The school she was talking about, the KIPP Academy in the Bronx, is really an incredible place. Here is the homepage for the national KIPP movement (http://www.kipp.org/about/index.html).
I heard one of the founders speak at a Manhattan Institute education seminar a few years ago and he was really impressive. (See http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/past_events_2000.htm) They are doing some very important work under difficult conditions.
Posted by: Spart on November 25, 2003 08:04 PMYour suggestions fail to account for one key reality:
Some kids are ineducable. Below the level of 75 IQ, you might as well be trying to teach Java programming to Java Man.
In most cases, bad schools = dull students.
Cf: The Bell Curve.
Posted by: wordwarp on November 29, 2003 08:34 PMAt the KIPP school where I work, we have a number of students with IQs below 75. They do quite well, though it may take them longer than some of the other kids. All of them end up passing the state test at the end of the year.
Posted by: Mills on August 29, 2005 08:11 AM