1. Pick from the Best
2. Seniority Distraction
3. Radical Change
1.Pick from the Best
In this portion of the interview Joel states some rather contradicting opinions. Joel believes that teaching could be made better if teachers were chosen from the top of their class, just like doctors and lawyers. Then he turns right around and says that teachers' performance in the classroom is enormously different from teacher to teacher. This would imply that while you may pick three people with a 4.0 GPA they would not perform at the same level. That being stated, should the GPA be the deciding factor or classroom performance? Mr. Klein never really answers this question. I personally believe it is more-so about classroom performance.
Joel also says that we need to change the way we reward teachers. The current system is to give any teacher who has made it a certain amount of time without being fired seniority. That leaves teachers with nothing to work toward after that. Once you have run/won the marathon, you tend to stop training. I do agree with this. Teachers should have the oportunity to advance once they are brought in. Goal oriented work places tend to reach higher standards than were originally set.
2.Seniority Distraction
Joel goes on to talk about how job security is too easily accessable in the teaching field. The way things are set up makes it hard to remove teachers who are no longer beneficial to keep around. He believes teachers should be tested often, just like doctors. This is certianly an idea to consider but you must also ask yourself who will administer these tests, what will they ask and who will grade them? What grade is too low? Will you test each teacher differently according to their subject or grade or will it be a standard across the board test? In my opinion, the way we teach is moving away from standardized testing so the way we choose teachers must move with it. That way of testing knowledge is becoming outdated so why would we update with an outdated method? This suggestion leaves me with more questions than answers.
3.Radical Change
Here Mr. Klein wraps it up with a talk about running schools more like businesses. Allowing the population to choose where they want to go to school, so that they are able to choose the best schooling. In the first paragraph he stated that "poor students" get stuck with "not always very effective, teachers" as opposed to the middle and upper class. He did not provide any data to back that up or give me any reason to believe what he is saying is true. From my personal experience with people in poverty, they go to the school that has a bus stop outside of their house. I do not believe that if the regulations were lifted that would change. Poverty is much more complex than that.
In conclusion it would be lovely if things were as simple as Mr. Klein makes them out to be but, alas, they are not. He seems rather inconsistant with his opinions. The only thing I can find in this article that even accredits him to have a worthy opinion on the matter is the fact that he has, "...run New York City's public school system for eight years..." and according to him the amount of time you have been working is irrelevant when it comes to your performance. I have only this post to evaluate the quality of his opinion. Therefore, the very few "solutions" he gave to the very broad "problems" he presented just aren't enough to convince me that in the event there was a magic wand to wave and make things change that he should be allowed to touch it.
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