Proof You Shouldn’t Blame Teachers For The Achievement Gap

[LWolf]

Which teachers have been saying all along.

If teacher effectiveness is not contributing to the achievement gap, Isenberg said, researchers should look at what other factors are affecting children.

“I think the conventional wisdom is where you have a school with lower test scores, it must be the school or teachers,” he said. “It might be surprising that when we actually measure this, it’s not that the teachers is are actually less effective. Something else must be happening.”

“Things going on at home or in those early years before kids enter school and inequality between different types of families” could be playing a role, he said. Indeed, there is already an achievement gap by the time students enter kindergarten.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teacher-effectiveness_us_5818e277e4b00f11fc5c1e1d?

So does this mean we can leave the standards and accountability movement behind and invest in supporting communities and families birth to kindergarten and beyond?

[vi5]

1. Another issue that we've conceded....

....just like buying into the "taxes are bad" or the "deficit is bad" baseline discussion starting point, by falling for the charter school/standards and accountability/testing-uber-alles talking points we've already started going down the "blame the teachers/blame the unions" rabbit hole.

It's not too late for us to turn around just like it's not on those other issues as well. The Democratic party just has to want it. They have to see how it will benefit them and the voters.

It's going to require our elected officials to spend a bit more time outside of the beltway bubble where the most important opinions are those of David Brooks, or Joe Scarborough, or Tom Friedman. I'm not sure they are will to do that.

[tonyt53]

2. The last sentence of the statement - the first sentence. That says it all.

Time to put your damned cell phones down and lay off the social media. Get involved with the education of you child. Look at their school work. Go eat lunch with your kid at school. Ask questions at the parent/teacher conferences. Attend all school functions.