o Mark Reichard

o Ann Arbor, MI

NYT Pick

Mr. Waronker is right when he said that our schools are designed to create docile, compliant workers. It's no coincidence that many of our greatest innovators, creators and inventors, struggled in conventional schools because there was little tolerance for the individualism we Americans are so proud of.

Here's hoping the New American Standard School changes all that. Now, how does one apply for a teaching job there?

A bunch of brilliant, innovative, and highly motivated teachers employing unorthodox methods produce remarkable results.

Big deal. This was the same story I read when going through teacher training more than 30 years ago. The problem is always the same: how to get the same results with teachers who aren't used to these methods, aren't comfortable with them, and aren't teaching in a supportive environment, or given the resources necessary to succeed.

I have seen this over and over in the place I work. A pilot project shows great promise, perhaps because it was well-funded, and staffed with people who helped develop it and are enthusiastic about it. Then it is turned into a sheaf of papers and instructions, given over to staff who don't see its value, don't have the talent of the first group, and who are told to do it with fewer resources and with less time. The result is failure, or mediocrity at best, and administration blames the staff and the staff blame the design.

If I were a betting man, I would bet that schools like the New American Academy will continue to be created and continue to thrive --- as the rare exception.

The real question is what can be done to improve the schools that exist without exceptionally talented teachers and without new architecture and without great pots of money which childless taxpayers don't want to spend.

NYT Pick

As others have noted, the model described here may be new to Brook, but it isn't new to anyone who is teaching or has a long-term acquaintance with the fashions in teaching over time. In a way, that doesn't matter. If Waronker gets funding by presenting it as innovative, good for him.

We should have a variety of teaching methods and styles available to every child so that parents and teachers can place him or her in the best possible situation. Not every child could make the choices necessary in an open classroom model, and not every child is comfortable in a relatively unstructured environment. One the other hand, there are kids who thrive in a room full of motion and choices--and they aren't necessarily the ones you might choose if you didn't have experience with kids and teaching.

Best of all for kids are schools that allow a variety of teaching styles within a building. If we all teach the same material, we can do it differently and provide different environments for kids in rooms right next to each other. We can even swap kids for specific projects so that they get variety and we can observe what works best for them. If we could do that, we could have neighborhood schools that provide a quality education for every child.

Of course, this requires hiring good teachers, having them work together, and understanding that the same job can be done in many ways. Now there's an innovative thought!

NYT Pick

It's nice to read about an education reform idea that does not start with "First, you need to buy more computers and software and subscribe our proprietary knowledge transmission technology platform...". At least, I hope the lack of the terms "virtual classroom", "computer-based", "flipped classroom" or, my favorite, "digital learning transformation for better learning environments", means that this school holds to the unfashionable idea that human contact, as "inefficient" as it is, is still an indispensable ingredient for a superior education. Unfortunately, because carbon-based (i.e. human) systems can not yield the same profit margins as silicon-based ones for the private sector, which is where the future of education seems to be headed, this "model" will probably not be widely adopted. But thanks for the pretty picture of how it could be in a world where people matter more than profit.

NYT Pick

This format was tried back during the 1960's in multiple locations and failed.

Not because the faculty failed.

Not because the students failed.

It failed because it takes years of working together as a group for both teachers and students to become successful. It failed because if one teacher leaves and new member is introduces the entire synergy falls apart. It failed because if one student deliberately becomes disruptive the entire large greater room dissolves.

It fails because large groups, even with excellent student/teacher ratios, are by their very nature difficult to focus.

One sentence stands out in this piece: "master teachers make $120,000 a year." When teachers are well paid, schools will have their pick of smart, talented people to put in the classroom. Good teachers make all the difference, whether they are in a big classroom or small, interdisciplinary or one subject, collaborative or alone. We need to decide, as a country, to pay our teachers more - way more. And no, I am not a schoolteacher, and yes, I would happily pay higher taxes for better schools.

Experimentation is a good thing as it can show what works and what doesn't. I ran across a version of this idea maybe a decade or so ago, propounding it as a cost savings measure by having a lot of kids in one big room with "facilitators" moving around between them helping them learn, the idea being that much of the learning would be self-directed.

I always felt the idea that you could put large numbers of kids in a room and have any learning going on a lovely pipe dream by folks who've never experienced what happens when teenagers gather en masse. And, while some kids are indeed self-motivated learners, to believe that most kids will actively embrace taking the degree of initiative in their own education called for in that model is delusional in a society or area where as many as 1/3 of kids may not complete high school.

This particular model seems somewhat better, with a teacher/student ration of 1:15, which is also pricier than the standard education model of one teacher in a room with 25-35 kids. The emphasis on learning by smaller groups also seems right, as current scholarship indicates its superiority as a learning model. But I still think it puts such a premium on classroom management skills as to be only possible with superior teachers, a commodity which, like professional excellence in any field, is scarce.

Perhaps this is working at this site, but I doubt the model is scalable for mass instruction.

NYT Pick

David, I'm highly suspicious of these private/public charter schools, and I'm surprised you are proselytizing the movement. Public schooling does work and has worked in the United States for decades. Sure, there are localized problems related to the host community's problems, but by-and-large the United States has enjoyed great economic success due to the success of our public schools.

Charter schools cherry pick students, drain public educational funds, and experiment with the education of our children as if they are lab rats. They limit community standards for education and are free to push agendas that may be at odds with the greater good. Long-term studies of charter schools are showing they do not scale, so what is the point if they aren't likely to provide a global solution?

Rather than try to pursue some magical thinking that corporations will somehow do a better job at educating our children, that a few high-performing educators can jump-start a new wave of educational excellence, we should expand the budgets and expectations of our public institutions. We should increase teacher salaries and ensure that Unions meet both their members needs and the students needs, equally.

The last thing this country needs is Haliburton High.

o March 23, 2012 at 5:19 p.m.

o RECOMMENDED67

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