A Moment of Clarity.

WORDS.

"As a former teacher, what saddens me is that the sides draw battle lines where there need not be any. There is a sense that we are continually facing two doors: Address poverty factors or address school factors. Support standards or support teachers. Care about academic outcomes or care about the whole child. The ad nauseam this-or-that creates a house of mirrors that leaves us all turned around.

In each and every one of these cases, the answer is to do both. Helping children grow up in a low-stress, healthy environment directly affects their perseverance, empathy and academic success. Sending those children into the hands of caring, competent teachers who have high expectations and who challenge them to pursue their aspirations also directly aids their success and life choices. Take away either, and the road becomes all too familiar: tough, littered with dropout statistics and gravestones.

Teaching should be among the most respected professions. Teachers should be paid extremely well, and they should have tremendous amounts of support, resources and quality professional development. Teachers should bring out the creative spark in children. Teachers should help students gain high levels of rigorous knowledge and skills. And teachers should be held to high standards that look at how they and their students perform on a variety of measures, year after year. These “shoulds” build on one another; they do not tear one another down..."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Losers in the education wars