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[quote=Anonymous]To me the Washington Post article was just a spin-off the high rate of child poverty in DC.  The problem is all of our education reform has focused only on teacher reform and missed the really important role curriculum plays.  My Thinking is that the reason Ward 3 kids are doing better is that the parents are able to help fill in where the gaps are in the current curriculum.  Poorer kids just don't have the resources.

The teacher quality conundrum: If they are the problem, why are kids gaining in math?

But there is a flaw in this logic. Recent years have seen surprisingly strong improvements in student achievement brought about by many of the same “bad” teachers who are supposedly our biggest problem.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (often called the “nation’s report card”) administers the identical test to a representative sample of American kids every few years, to gain a long-term picture of achievement gains for students in grades 4, 8 and 12. Reading scores over the last 20 years have been flat. But in math, scores have increased markedly. A fourth-grader at the 50th percentile in 1990 would score at about the 25th percentile compared to the kids taking the test in 2009. That’s an enormous improvement.

This raises an uncomfortable question for teacher quality advocates: If teachers are so vitally important, why have fourth-grade math scores dramatically improved, but reading scores have flatlined, given that — at least at the elementary level — the same teachers are responsible for each?

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/teacher-quality-conundrum-problem-kids-gaining-math-article-1.986066#ixzz1ftkioLuW[/quote]

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