Brockton (Massachusetts) High School shows that strong schools can be good, keeping older teachers.
Meanwhile, it is in outer-space, compared to much of the rest of America. Rahm Emanuel (Chicago mayoral candidate) and Michael Bloomberg (New York City mayor), now a mysterious, multi-million dollar media campaign to generalize that younger (and the clincher: CHEAPER) teachers are far better than older, veteran (clincher: with SENIORITY SALARIES).
A LARGE SCHOOL, RETAINING ITS OLDER TEACHERS, SUCCESS STORY
Yet, in Massachusetts a heavily blue collar, heavily English as a Second Language, community, Brockton, the academic performance of the student body had been tremendously turned around, to have a much larger percentage of students that have passed the rigourous English.
Brockton High School did not get chopped into several pieces, small schools, small learning communities, whatever cliche you want. (With a 4,000 student body, it is the largest high school in Massachusetts.) It did not turn out its teachers. (And the English test (MCAS) that Massachusetts students must pass is far more rigourous than the infamously dumbed-down New York States regents English test.)
It developed a new intensive program of English skills, and the integration of literacy skills into other subjects, such as science. The principal did not turn out the school's teachers. It solicited contributions of ideas from teachers.
So, as Brockton High turned its performance, it did so without throwing out its veteran teachers. Read about BHS, for example, in this New York Times story.
...this and other stories on "education reform" that pleasantly, did not rest on teacher-bashing, older teacher-bashing, small-school-touting, charter school-touting, were on PBS, "Need to Know" tonight.
John Thompson: Ryan Walters Wants to be a Pea in Trump’s Pod
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John Thompson describes Ryan Walters’ frenzied campaign to be chosen as
Trump’s Secretary of Education. In Oklahoma, where he is State
Superintendent, Walt...
21 hours ago
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I (Heart) Public Education Blog Campaign: Valentine’s Day, 2011 (see the logo)
ReplyDeleteEveryone who cares about young people cares about our
schools. Our best schools nurture our children, make them feel safe, and able to take the risks they need to in order to learn. But our schools are in danger of becoming even more narrowly focused on test preparation, while class sizes rise, and teachers are blamed for the ravages poverty inflicts on their students.
We are responding. We love our schools. We declare
Valentine’s Day, 2011, to be I Love Public Education Blog Day. On this day we will write our hearts out, about why it is that public education is so important to us, our children, and our democratic society. If you or your readers will join us and tell why you love public education too, send your comments and posts to saveourschoolsmarch@gmail.com. Writing will be displayed at the www.SaveOurSchoolsmarch.org website, and will be tweeted with the hashtag #LovePublicEd. We offer the march and events of July 28 to 31st in Washington, DC, as a focal point for this movement, and we ask participants to link to this event, so we can build momentum for our efforts. If your readers wish to repeat this post on their own blog, we would love it.