Note: This entry was originally posted on May 19, 2004. Due to a technical problem this entry was reposted on June 26, 2004. Unfortunately all comments were lost..
Over this past week there has been a lot of commentary about the state of our nation's public education system. This commentary has coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended segregation in our public schools. Many believed that integration was all that was needed to close the skills gap between African American and Caucasian students. Unfortunately fifty years after integration began minority students still perform lower on standardized tests than their white counterparts. Why is this still the case and what can we do to fix it?
Does taking a poor, minority student with low test scores and sending them to a school on the other side of town that is predominantly white, affluent and high test scores make the student's skills any better? Of course not! Yet that's exactly how we've been trying to remedy the situation. At this point that's how No Child Left Behind works too. If a school is failing parents have the option of moving their children to a different public school. That way the child's poor skills get averaged in with his/her new classmates who have higher skills. It's just like applying makeup to the bags under my eyes.
I have an idea that may help the situation. Studies have shown that the teachers working in poorer areas (and areas with a high concentration of minorities) are less experienced than teachers in more affluent school districts. So we need to get more experienced teachers to work in these locations, but how can we do that. Of course we could offer master teachers more money, but would an established teacher working near their home be willing to change jobs for a few extra dollars? I don't think so. Instead, I propose that we change the way new teachers are trained. Instead of a prospective teacher spending a semester doing student teaching, maybe they should work as an apprentice with a master teacher for a year or two. There are two benefits to this plan. First, the new teacher is getting more classroom experience so that they're not as wet behind the ears when they enter the classroom. Second the students in classrooms with apprentices are getting more individual attention because they have an additional person assisting their regular teacher.
I don't really expect this plan to be implemented nationwide any time soon. Universities and teacher's colleges have spent a lot of time and money (often tax money) making the profession of teaching more academic than professional.