RE: Education and Presidential Candidates

[Roger Key <roger.key@onet.co.uk>]

Hi All,

Hi over ther it is us over here calling!  Wait for this.  Often we get the
US education system held up as a good thing and something to aim for.  I
think some of this is based on the college system you have, and to some
extent the sporting prowess from the colleges.

This idea of moving the best teachers to the best schools etc etc.  SOunds
to me like a good way of making the best better and the poor diabolical.
Also how do you judge how good a teacher is?  As has been said, you can
predict the scores a child will get in a SAT on the basis of their home
size.  Surprise surprise environment has a load to do with academic
acheivement.  Is the teacher doing "poorly" in an inner city sink estate
school actually working miracles?  Is the teacher doing "well" in a leafy
suburb actually holding the students back?

Two examples for you.  The key point is the environment not the teachers.

1.  For a TV programme a headteacher from a state funded comprehensive
school (12 to 16/18 no barriers to entry) swapped roles with the
headteacher from a privatly funded girs school (11 to 18).  Before they
swapped they were filmed discussing what they will do and where they saw
the problems etc.  The headteacher from the private school - and power to
her for leting it be transmitted - was scathing about the state system and
that all it needed was a bit of quality in leadership, good targets for the
children etc etc etc.  After she had been in the state school for a while
she had completly changed her mind.  She was pointing out how the state
school was funded at £1500 per student per year.  Her private school was
funded at £10,000 per student per year.  She was absolutly stunned at the
level of acheivement the statre school was acheiving based on pocket mony
incomes.  She went back to her school questioning how little IT acheived
based on the funding it had.  She had also come face to face with
situations that NEVER occour in the private sector - like children who do
not want to learn!  The opposite was true for the state school headteacher.
She was amazed at the funding of the private school but even more amazed at
how little 'social' issues raised their head.  A bit of smoking and that
was it. They were different systems and could not be compared.  However IF
the local education authority had the money they could have head hunted the
private sector headteacher for their state school - she was after all
acheiving more than the current headteacher.  They would have bombed -
simulaly the state headteacher would have been no where as good in the
private sector.

2.  We have this idea in the UK that you can take headteachers from schools
that are doing well and call them Superheads.  You can then put thenm into
"failing" schools and throw a load of money at it and you will have fixed
the problem.  This has been tried and it has destroied the careers of
great headteachers by putting them into a dysfunctional system, with no way
of addressing the system and expecting it to work.

All the ideas of competition between schools etc will (IMHO) do diddlysquat
because it is not changeing the system.  BUT it is not the teachers or the
politions fault.  They know no better........

---------------------------------oooOOOooo--------------------------------------
Roger C. Key 				 mailto:roger.key@onet.co.uk
Prescient - The Whole as One
(44) 01639 871062
Web based training for Organisations,	 http://virtual-deming.com
Leadership and Life!