Richard Rothstein: Is Education on the Wrong Track?

[tonysam]

I think we know the answer to that question.

Subject: Want to improve teacher quality? Fine. But that won't help the environmental factors outside of schools that are eroding student learning.

It is fair to say that I've asserted that "school reform efforts are distracting from more important social welfare goals," but a little misleading when phrased in this way. A better summary of my concern is that "school reform efforts are distracting from more important environmental causes of low student achievement."

It is conventional in education policy these days to say that the most important influence on student achievement is the quality of a teacher. This is only true if it is qualified as the most important school influence on achievement. Fifty years of social science research has confirmed, over and over again, that the best predictor of student achievement is not teacher quality or any other school influence, but the social and economic circumstances of the children.

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[midnight]

1. No child left behind removed the educational tracks. When we get serious

about laying down new tracks for education, we could also create a domestic policy that protects jobs in this country. That is if we are really serious about a solution. Or is this another scape goat on the working families in this country who will have to pay another penalty for not going as far as those families subsidized by big tax breaks?