Clare Kelly
Concepts of Education
Dr. Guerriero
Article Analysis
Article title: “School reform means doing what’s best for kids”
Publication: Wall Street Journal
Author: Arne Duncan
The most fascinating point that I extracted from this article was that more qualified teachers tend to gravitate toward stronger institutions, or in other words, schools of a higher quality. Moreover, this article was rather general, however it effectively articulated the dire need for reform in the United States educational system. Another prime point it got across was that there are far too many failing schools in the nation who need improving or even completely rebuilding from the bottom up.
Additionally, as recognized in the article, “They (the schools) will push for incentives that bring our most talented educators to schools in need.” This essentially means that talented and experienced educators need to recognize that it would ultimately behoove both them and the struggling schools for them to offer their services there in order to improve educational quality as a nation. The more teachers realize this, the sooner we will be able to repair the system from the ground up. That being said, it is up to the teachers to speed this process up.
However, naturally the government plays a major role as well. As extracted from the article, “The Race to the Top and Innovation What Works funds provide $5 billion to states, districts and nonprofit groups that most aggressively advance reforms.” This will also benefit the states immensely in repairing or redoing their educational infrastructures.
Additionally, the states’ funding should be funneled into more effective programs as opposed to the ones that do not yield ideal results, because when this is done the governors, state education chiefs, mayors and district superintendents will not receive grant money. In that same vein, this is all under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which demands a fair and candid assessment of schools in the nation and teacher quality, student performance and college readiness from state to state.
The root of the problem I believe is the ineffectual teacher factor. I believe this plays a major role in how a student will turn out. In my personal experience, I have had seemingly more dreadful teachers than effective ones.
For instance, there are far too many teachers out there are the farthest thing from inspirational. they lethargically teach lessons as if it’s complete and utter torture for them, and treat each student as if they are an immense burden to them. On this same note, I had a science teacher in high school who was wretchedly unapproachable, intimidating and unenthusiastic. When I would come up to ask a question or ask to stay after school for extra help she would scare the living daylights out of me. In turn, I retained absolutely nothing. If a student loves the teacher, they consequently will thoroughly enjoy the class and find it extremely intriguing.
Therefore, the government should work to rid schools, especially the suffering ones, of ineffectual teachers. All teachers should be methodically and thoroughly observed and evaluated and we should weed out the ones who have terrible reviews. By the same token, I wholeheartedly concur with the portion of the article that urged the school systems to have higher standards.
In addition to weeding out the bad teachers, we should transport more effective teachers to schools that are in dire need of improvement. This hopefully will result in heightened self-motivation out of learners. If we can manage to achieve this, then it will yield more success out of students and the nation’s schools. It is like a cycle: if teachers are effective in their instruction and engage their students and inspire them to work harder and succeed and accomplish their goals, then the overall structure of the school will improve.
The quality of the schools will be enhanced if all schools go about this method. The primary ambition as priorly mentioned is to rid schools of the useless teachers who only intellectually stunt their students. When this is achieved, states can use their funding properly and prudently in order to benefit schools in the best manner possible.
Another quote that resonated with me was, “When educators fully understand which of their colleagues are pulling their weight through a rigorous and fair evaluation system, they will hold each other more accountable. Teachers above all want a professional learning environment that supports them and recognizes and rewards excellence.”
Consequently, us as a nation can only hope that the excellent and effectual teachers influence and inspire those who are not as passionate about their teaching. This will hopefully be an enormous rude awakening for teachers who fall below what is acceptable in the school system, because then maybe they will get their act together, we can only hope. In short, ineffective teachers will only make the school system crumble more.
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