Interesting editorial today in The Dayton Daily News says, “Poor children need quality teachers, too.” It implies that the teachers in poverty schools are inferior to the teachers in high income schools.

There are a lot of interesting comments.  Here is what Max said:

I am soooooo very tired of the poor performance of poverty-ridden districts being attributed to a “poor” teacher – there needs to be “better” teachers. Education is NOT meeting the needs of these students – there are not alternatives for disruptive students, they are left in the classroom to disrupt the educational process for all. Parents are not held accountable for sending students prepared for school. It’s an all encompassing problem – not just the teacher.

A lot of commentators at the DDN site agree with Max and make the point that there are a lot of factors that determine the overall quality of public education.  I keep coming back to the theory of systems taught by W. Edwards Demings that 85% of quality issues are system issues, only 15%, at most, are people issues.

Our biggest hope to bring about the big needed leap in quality in public education is via transforming the system — it’s an 85% opportunity, compared to 15% for all other opportunities added together.  We need a transformed system structure quite different from the structure we have today.  In my campaign to be elected to the Kettering School Board, I made this point in my League Of Women Voters statement:

Public education needs a big leap in quality — including a big leap in cost effectiveness. We need a ten year process of transformation that will result in a 21st century system of education. Community consensus is needed. Leadership is needed. The biggest challenge for the Kettering School Board is to lead the community in creating a shared vision of the future, and, in creating a well-thought out, long-term plan to bring that vision to reality.

I’d like to think that at least some of the 4481 Kettering citizens who voted for me — to be their school board representative — agreed with the idea that Kettering needs to develop a long term plan for transformation.

The DDN headline, “Poor children need quality teachers, too,” brings up a great question:  How is “quality teacher” defined? The DDN explains, “High-poverty schools, in both rural and urban areas, are avoided by many veteran teachers,”

The DDN seems to define “quality teacher” as “veteran teacher,” but that is not credible — any more than it would be credible to define “quality surgeon” as “veteran surgeon.”

It is impossible to describe the qualities of a “quality teacher,” without an understanding of what it is that a teacher is suppose to do.  In American public education today, there may be a lot of rhetoric about teacher quality, but the biggest task for a teacher, in order to be considered a quality teacher, is to adjust to the requirements of the system in which he or she works. The bureaucracy has a check list, and with enough checks the teacher is considered “highly qualified.”

The DDN reports: Ohio is working on a new teacher “career ladder” that allows top teachers to move from beginner, or “resident educator,” to higher rungs of accomplishment termed “professional,” “senior professional” and “lead professional.”

The problem is, if the bureaucracy says you are a “quality teacher,” or a “professional,” it hardly makes it so.  And, if the bureaucracy says your school is “excellent,” it hardly makes it so.

I am attempting to develop a vision of a transformed future and put it in a new Lulu book — “Kettering Public Education In The Year 2022: How Do We Get To A Great Future?” I am going to try to discipline myself to focus 45 minutes each day in its development.

In a transformed system of public education there would be a transformed meaning of how the term “quality teacher” is defined — as compared to how a “quality teacher” is now defined.  In a transformed system, there would be transformed meanings given to all now commonly used educational terms — such as, education, school, teacher, evaluation, student, grades, and learning.

A transformed system will have a transformed meaning of “excellence” as applied to these terms and the meaning of excellence will be based on a clear understanding of the system’s overall aim and purpose.

Here are some related articles from previous blogs:

1. The Kettering School Board’s Biggest Challenge Is To Gain Public Support For Transformation
2. “What Is The Purpose, The Aim Of Public Education?” — Every School Board Candidate Should Answer
3. We Are The Ones To Make A Better Place
4. Thinking Through Purposes and Principles Needed To Guide the Re-Design of Public Education

Thomas Friedman fears that our democracy is so broken it will not be able to meet the big challenges of the future.  In “Advice From Grandma,” he cites six stubborn realities that are paralyzing America:

1. Money in politics has become so pervasive that lawmakers have to spend most of their time raising it, selling their souls to those who have it or defending themselves from the smallest interest groups with deep pockets that can trump the national interest.
2. The gerrymandering of political districts means politicians of each party can now choose their own voters and never have to appeal to the center.
3. The cable TV culture encourages shouting and segregating people into their own political echo chambers.
4. A permanent presidential campaign leaves little time for governing.
5. The Internet, which, at its best, provides a check on elites and establishments and opens the way for new voices and, which, at its worst provides a home for every extreme view and spawns digital lynch mobs from across the political spectrum that attack anyone who departs from their specific orthodoxy.
6. A U.S. business community that has become so globalized that it only comes to Washington to lobby for its own narrow interests; it rarely speaks out anymore in defense of national issues like health care, education and open markets.

Friedman wonders if the “failed state” of California is a prelude to the coming failed state status of America.  Friedman says the hope that leaders such as Schwarzenegger and Obama might make a difference is turning to disappointment.

Friedman writes, “The standard answer is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we’re in trouble. A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will, in time, fade from being a great power.”