A recent article in the New York Times addresses one of the key elements of the education reform "debates" that have been going on of late -- specifically, how to address the quality of a teacher.
The article puts forward a simple method of measuring teacher quality: amount of instruction time. In brief, the author suggests that an effective way to measure teacher performance is how much class time is spent on instruction vs time spent trying to maintain order, conduct non-instructional classroom business, etc. In addition, making the teachers available to students for remedial instruction and tutoring, as well as availability of online resources for tutoring, would help narrow the gap education gap between those children of rich, highly educated families and poor, less-educated families.
On the surface, this seems like a good idea. There is certainly no denying that more efficient delivery of content, and availability of extra help resources would be a boon to students. However, there are practical problems with some elements. The assumption that poorer students will have access to the internet outside of school may well be a dangerous one to make, and the success of efficient delivery of material is still dependent on the students being able to actually come to school in the first place (and be motivated to do so). These extra resources, and focus on efficient teaching, are nice, but resources that are unused are of little value. Great ideas overall, but I doubt that they will be effective alone.
To end with a question: How might we best encourage underperforming students to take advantage of educational resources to supplement their education outside of the classroom?
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