A new state-commissioned review of the lowest-performing schools in Indianapolis Public Schools paints a devastating portrait of unprepared teachers, overwhelmed and distracted principals and meddling central office edicts.
The most basic finding, though, was that at most of the schools many teachers either couldn't or didn't teach.
At Northwest High School, for instance, evaluators saw few teachers making lessons interesting and little response from children: "Students in the main are compliant in classes rather than truly engaged."
Professional educators keep coming up with ever-more exotic ways to improve the process, as if we're going to discover something truly new and startling about the way people learn after all this time. Sometimes it really is as simple as rewarding good teachers and getting rid of bad ones.
Comments
Maybe we should go the other route and reward good students and get rid of bad ones. (But, that leaves the question of what to do with the bad ones when they've been ejected.)
Great idea! Here's how we'll do it: We'll give A's to the good students to let them know they're good and F's to the bad students to let them know they failed.
Nah. Nodody will go for anything that radical.
Leo:
Wow...a real "deja-vu" moment for ME there...
Isn't that the way we USED to run the educational system?
...And those students that failed can either go to summer school, OR a "special" remedial school...just like the ones we had back in Philly...in the 60s...you know, those archaic (halcyon) days of education when a LOT more kids behaved themeselves, and GRADUATED, and we're dealt with both by the schools AND the parents when they refused to want to do either of the above.
A "wheel-reinvention" in the making...yessirree!
I can see it now.
Obviously it's a lack of funding.
/sarc