Gov. Nathan Deal’s suggestion that Georgia “look at” a recovery school district modeled after the one in New Orleans has raised more than a few eyebrows in our state.
Louisiana, where Advanced Placement exam results for 2013 are ahead of only Mississippi, is known more for LSU football and “Duck Dynasty” than public education. Higher scores in the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress still leave the state at the bottom of the national scorecard. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce gives the state’s educational system an “A” for choice but a “D” or “F” for academic achievement, international competitiveness and workforce preparation.
The New Orleans Recovery School District that Deal suggested we emulate was rated as one of the lowest-performing districts in the state. If Georgia wants to improve its schools, we don’t need to look to New Orleans.
Here’s what we should do:
Believe in and support teachers. Poverty is the cause of achievement gaps and the No. 1 obstacle to educational success. Stop the culture of blaming teachers for poverty. Teachers don't cause poverty any more than law enforcement causes crime, or doctors create disease.
Invest in teachers. Restore professional development funds. Professional development should be experienced teachers working with less experienced teachers. Pay great teachers to share their knowledge and ideas in ways that allow them to stay in the classroom. One great teacher working with three or four others is a powerful tool. Large groups of teachers listening to one "expert" in an auditorium is not.
Pay great teachers more to work in high-poverty schools. Working in these schools is difficult. Make it worth the effort for teachers who want to increase their salaries and stay in the classroom. Want to attract great teachers to high-poverty areas? Pay them to travel and teach there. Want to identify high-poverty schools? Simply look at standardized test scores. They don't tell you anything about teaching and learning but do serve wonderfully to point out the zip code effect of the level of poverty in a given area.
Eliminate standardized testing for other than diagnostic purposes. The money saved would be more beneficial invested in teaching and learning than in the autopsy reports generated at the insistence of accountabullies in the name of accountabalism. Allow teachers the opportunity to teach without having to teach to the test.
Don't believe in magic bullets. The answer is not in canned programs guaranteed to produce higher test scores. The answer is in the power of great teachers. Invest in people, and not in programs. Success through standardization is a myth. Every student needs and deserves individualized learning at all levels. Educational achievement, like excellence, cannot be legislated.
Technology is a tool for teachers and not an answer unto itself. For every child who learns through technology alone, there are more who fail miserably without the intervention and guidance of a teacher. Reduce class sizes, eliminate furlough days, and give teachers the time and tools to teach.
Help prevent legislative meddling in teaching and learning. Unfunded mandates and legislative attempts at applying statewide solutions to local educational issues have done more to hurt public education than to help. Standardization is not a solution unless your goal is to help Bill Gates sell a lot of technology.
Top-down implementation does not work in education any more than it does in government. Issuing a decree that all children will succeed does not automatically mean all children will succeed.
Teachers are not the problem, but the answer. Have the courage to ask them, and follow their advice.
