<p>"But there is one thing that characterizes a surprisingly large number of the people who are transforming public schools: they attended private schools.</p>
<p>Which raises the question: Does a private school background give them a much-needed distance and fresh perspective to better critique and remake traditional public schools? Does it make them distrust public schools or even worse poison their perception of them? Or does it make any difference?</p>
<p>Private schools don’t have to operate under the same oppressive rules and “one size fits all” curriculums as public schools. And they’re not burdened by the No Child Left Behind Act.</p>
<p>Still - they also don’t have to deal with the myriad of problems that come with children from diverse socio-economic situations since private schools cherry pick.</p>
<p>So the good thing is that people enter with fresh ideas and a broader perspective. The bad news is those private school people may also be myopic in thinking their techniques will directly translate to the new environment. </p>
<p>For instance, reading that one way to “reward” districts is to tie teachers to test scores is ludicrous especially in an urban district. If the majority of students enter a classroom reading several years below grade level, how is the new teacher supposed to overcome that and get them up to grade level expectation? Who has done the assessment on the home situation? Whether the children are malnourished? Anemic? Suffering from treatable psych disorders?</p>
<p>Private school students have access at school and at home to more resources and intervention than public school students. Because they are “chosen” the more problematic students are already weeded out of the pool. Parents are somewhat more engaged. A good example would be that a child from a suburban home enters kindergarten with a vocabulary hundreds of times larger than a child from an impoverished home. And the latter rarely catches up without significant intervention.</p>
<p>We get what we measure and I often find some of these “superstars” well meaning, but as misguided as the systems they are trying to replace. Not knowing the cause of a problem before trying to fix it is often why the new solutions fail as well (or get glossed over by cherry picking the stats to show improvements).</p>
<p>There is one person who has transformed public schools in America. Wendy Kopp attended public school. (She went to my high school) She founded Teach For America.</p>
<p>Umm, I would hardly say that Teach for America has “transformed” public schools. TFA gives recent college graduates a job for a couple of years while they figure out what they really want to do when they grow up. </p>
<p>Throwing a newbie teacher at a classroom of disadvantaged kids is not doing anyone a favor.</p>
<p>Well maybe it hasn’t “transformed” public schools but it has made a difference. I was referencing the article in case you didn’t read it. The article listed people like Cathy Black, politicians, and founders of charter schools. Wendy Kopp has done as much if not more than many listed. These “newbie” teachers are a lot more qualified than many teachers in poor performing public school districts.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised that many high-achieving people attended private schools, but let’s not mix up cause and effect. A lot of the high-achievers were groomed to achieve because they had parents who valued achievement, who were proportionately more likely to cough up the dough to place their kids in a selective academic environment. </p>
<p>It becomes a virtuous cycle: achieving (affluent) parents beget achieving (affluent) offspring, who in turn produce achieving (affluent) offspring… Many less affluent families are finding it more and more difficult to get a foothold onto this virtuous cycle.</p>
<p>I can’t remember what school district it was, but this district resolved to buy books for the kids to take home and keep, because of some study which concluded that there were more books in households of higher achieving kids.</p>
<p>Devon- I know you’re a big booster for Teach America but I’m not convinced that an organization that forces districts to pay thousands of dollars per head “finders fee” for its teachers who are only required to stay in the district for two years is healthy for the students or the district.</p>
<p>They are often not replacing long-term tenured teachers with performance issues, but newer teachers without tenure who haven’t had the “time” to prove themselves. They are claimed to be “innovators” but are replacing teachers who were required to teach rote standardized curriculums.</p>
<p>So - maybe they can transform America. Maybe not. But it’s too soon to tell. I know of several teachers I consider “best practice” who are not being renewed so we can bring TA finds. The money, IMHO is better spent on the resources the teachers did with out. I mean - we can pay $3,000 per teacher in “fees” to TA but can’t afford put paper in the copy room?</p>
<p>Exie, I only think TFA is a good thing. I wouldn’t call myself a big booster. I only was referencing the article that said: </p>
<p>But there is one thing that characterizes a surprisingly large number of the people who are transforming public schools: they attended private schools.</p>
<p>The article listed people like Cathy Black (what a joke). Where it did not mention Wendy Kopp who has done a LOT more for public schools than Cathy Black. I just was pointing out that Wendy went to public school and that there are people out there who had public school educations that have helped public schools in America.</p>
<p>I hear ya. Sorry about the mini rant. I just think that videos like “Waiting for Superman” missed the mark because we keep trying to identify the messiahs while the parents stuck in the system abdicate the responsibility for looking inward for solutions. In some ways the people mentioned are improving things for students. In others, they leave devastating damange which are shoved under the rug. They get rich on book and speaking tours. In my city a large number of teachers with low seniority are being removed to make way for Teach for America teachers with about the same amount of experience (or less). But the district can’t provide any data to prove those teachers will be more effective than the ones we are losing. And in an era of high unemployment and people at risk of foreclosure - I find it unexcusable.</p>
<p>Teach for America has replaced unions (which many people have issues with) with a different kind of monolith.</p>