Walt Gardner's Reality Check
Walt Gardner taught for 28 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District and was a lecturer in the UCLA Graduate School of Education. This blog is no longer being updated.
Education
Opinion
Closing Failing Schools
Education marketeers argue that closing persistently underperforming schools is necessary in order to provide students with the education they are entitled to. The strategy has great intuitive appeal to taxpayers who are fed up with efforts to turn these schools around. But this approach promises far more than it can deliver for reasons that are poorly understood.
Education
Opinion
Social Darwinism in the Classroom
When Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City told attendees at an M.I.T. conference on Dec. 1 that if he had it in his power he would slash the number of teachers in half and double the salaries of the remainder, his remarks went viral ("Bloomberg: If I Had My Way I'd Dump Half of NYC's Teachers," CBS New York, Dec. 1).
Education
Opinion
Drawing the Line on Parental Involvement
If there's one thing everyone agrees on in the education of children, it's the importance of parental involvement. Until recently, the issue has largely focused on parents monitoring homework, attending open house, and responding to requests for a conference. But lately another aspect has come to the fore.
Education
Opinion
Skilled Workers Beat Out Degree Holders for Jobs
In the debate over the value of a bachelor's degree, the usual argument is that its holders earn on average about $1 million more over their lifetime than those with only a high school diploma. But like all generalizations, the truth is far more nuanced, as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal made clear on consecutive days. What they reported warrants further examination.
Education
Opinion
Degrading Teacher Certification
Traditional teacher certification is hardly ideal, but it is a paragon compared with online, for-profit programs. A closer look at what is taking place in Texas leads to the inescapable conclusion that the alternative process has gone too far.
Education
Opinion
The Stealth Campaign to Privatize Education
You'd think that privateers would turn to their heavy guns now that anger and frustration about school reform seemingly have reached a crescendo. But they've learned that a head-on approach can backfire after voters handily defeated vouchers or their variants in state after state between 1967 and 2007. As a result, they've decided instead to take more incremental steps. I'm talking now about the use of educational technology.
Education
Opinion
Cultural Competency Enhances Teacher Effectiveness
Public schools have become increasingly multicultural since 1965 when federal legislation opened the gates to newcomers to these shores. Although some states have felt the change more acutely than others, the presence of these new arrivals in classrooms everywhere continues to pose a challenge at the same time that it enriches the atmosphere.
Education
Opinion
Parent Accountability in Learning
Sometimes it takes a public intellectual to drive home the importance of what should be so obvious about student learning. I was reminded of this after reading Thomas L. Friedman's column in The New York Times ("How About Better Parents?" Nov. 20). He confirms the indispensability of parental involvement in their children's education by citing the findings of a study conducted by a team of PISA researchers.
Education
Opinion
Teaching Is No Longer Fun
When Albert Shanker was president of the American Federation of Teachers, he penned "Where We Stand," a column labeled Advertisement because the AFT paid for the space. In "Our 'Easy' Schools," which appeared in The New Republic on Dec. 28, 1992, Shanker argued that schools in the U.S. demand too little of students compared with what is asked of students by schools abroad.
Education
Opinion
Walking in Teachers' Shoes
It's to Steven Brill's credit that near the conclusion of his new book Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools (Simon & Schuster 2011) he reluctantly acknowledges that without the support of teachers unions systematic reform is impossible. I think what happened is Brill began to realize as he delved deeper into the subject that reform is far harder than he initially thought. As a result, teachers need unions to represent them as demands for results escalate. In fact, if unions were to disappear tomorrow, school outcomes would not significantly change for the better.
Education
Opinion
Why Be Apologetic About Helping the Gifted?
Only in the U.S. are gifted children treated as stepchildren. Despite their growing numbers, which are now estimated at 3 million, they have no strong lobbies in Congress. As a result, they remain underresourced and underchallenged even though they are a national treasure. A new report by the National Association for Gifted Children found that the brightest students are falling behind their international peers on math and reading tests ("Brightest Stall, Low Achievers Gain," The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 12). This squandering of talent is hard to understand and even harder to defend.
Education
Opinion
Making Sense of International Test Competition
It was inevitable that a study of how American students perform against their counterparts around the globe would challenge longstanding assumptions about the role that poverty plays. In "When the Best Is Mediocre," Jay P. Greene and Josh B. McGee developed the Global Report Card to compare reading and math achievement between 2004 and 2007 for "virtually every public school district in the United States with the average achievement in a set of 25 other countries with developed economies that might be considered our economic peers and sometime competitors" (Education Next, Winter 2012).
Education
Opinion
What Skilled Worker Shortage?
As readers of this column know, I've always been skeptical about the claim made by companies that they can't find enough skilled workers to fill existing job openings ("A Closer Look at Skills Mismatch in the Workplace," Sept. 21). My view was validated most recently in the form of an essay by Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School and director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources ("Why Companies Aren't Getting the Employees They Need, The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 24).
Education
Opinion
Spending on School Elections
It will probably surprise many readers, but when it comes to spending on school elections, teachers unions make megacorporations, industry associations and labor federations combined seem like pikers. I was reminded of this fact after reading John Nichols's otherwise excellent essay in The Nation about the race for a seat on the nonpartisan board of education in Denver ("Big Money, Bad Media, Secret Agendas: Welcome to America's Wildest School Board Race," Oct. 21).