Institutionalization of mediocrity?
One of the reasons I like the Eduwonk blog so
much is that Andy Rotherham doesn’t pull any punches. I may not always agree
with what he says, but he dares to speak his mind. For example, in a recent post he
says that K-12 education
‘is a culture that accepts and institutionalizes
[teacher] mediocrity’
and that there is a
‘chronic lack of emphasis on effectiveness and
performance at every step along a teacher’s value chain from preparation,
recruitment, hiring, induction, mentoring and support, and professional
development to evaluation and compensation.’
He goes on to say that
‘talented people don’t want to work in places that aren’t talent sensitive
and this creates an adverse selection problem that reinforces these problems.
[Also,] current practices make this even worse in practice … and credentialing
rules, which often have little connection to research, further limit the pool of
would be or could be teachers.’
post is here
and includes some interesting links to other sources. What do you
think of Andy’s comments? Is he off-base or right on the money?
