If every child is to receive a high quality education, what matters most?
When it comes to quality, everyone knows that teachers are what matters most. How to achieve high quality teaching is, therefore, an important question. Some might say it’s the larger question, because it’s more difficult to achieve than equity is.
What happens when we don’t get it right? One thing that happens is that teachers leave the profession. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, almost a third of all new teachers leave the classroom after three years and close to fifty percent leave after five years. http://www.nctaf.org/faqs/
Can we do something about this? Yes, we can. There are three basic areas we need to consider:
1) what teachers know and can do is the most important influence on what students learn;
2) recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers is the central strategy for improving our schools; and,
3) school reform cannot succeed without creating the conditions in which teachers teach well.
Yes, I know these are difficult questions to answer. Yes, I know we can ignore them. We can hope that high quality teaching and learning magically happen somehow. We all know that it won’t, however.
Now, when the students and teachers of Chile finally return to the classroom – will there be high quality teaching and learning? Sadly, the only answer we can expect is, “No“.
Quality, when neglected, is like a classroom with a hole in the floor.
Equity and quality, therefore, can not be separated. No one in Chile is going to be satisfied with equity in education, if it is not accompanied by high quality teaching and learning.
Quality is the neglected issue that urgently needs to be addressed, now, or we will find ourselves addressing it, just as urgently, later…
profesorbaker
