Edwards on Teachers and Super Tutors

As part of Edwards' plan to Restore the Promise to America's Schools, he wants to ensure an excellent teacher in every classroom. To do this, he'll raise the pay of teachers in high-poverty schools, provide more resources and support for new teachers, train more principals to work in high-poverty schools, reduce class sizes, and require tutors be highly qualified teachers. Wait, what was that last one? That last one strikes me as pie-in-the-sky crazy, despite its good intent. But first, my dos centavos on a few others. On pay perks: Yes, $5,000 might attract some new good teachers to work in high-poverty schools. But it's not enough to get them to put down any roots there, which is really the problem. $5,000 more for national board certification, which has shown some evidence of impact, is a nice idea but not much in the way of powerful incentive to come and stay in high-need and often high-cost urban centers. More support for new teachers is a good call but the devil is in the details here- he's really talking about fewer students and fewer responsibilities for new teachers plus a veteran-novice buddy system. My concern is that this is a tall order that sounds great on the menu but doesn't really convey to the plate. Better leadership is essential for better teaching, as Education Sector proposed here.

And then there's that tutoring idea. He's talking about using Title I funds, specifically for Supplemental Educational Services (after school services aimed at enhancing academic achievement), more responsibly, which is a good thing. We can't have just anyone setting up shop to provide "out-of-school" educational services for our neediest students. But requiring that all tutors be highly qualified teachers makes no sense. First, logistically this just isn't going to happen. State education agencies can't even ensure that all SES providers are quality- is this now going to be the measure for a "quality" SES provider- having a list of "qualified" teachers who, no doubt, will not actually serve as tutors? If we can't get highly qualified teachers in these schools, what's the plan exactly to get them to tutor after school? Second, tutoring and teaching are not the same. What it takes to be a good teacher is very different from what it takes to be a good tutor, and some of the best tutoring programs employ cross-age and peer tutor models. Attention to the afterschool world deserves to be on the agenda but not so carelessly. Note that Edwards' plan also includes "emphasizing extended learning time" as a way to turn around low-performing schools (again, these same schools that need good teachers and good tutors)--more attention to this is also good but proposing highly qualified teacher-tutors in one place and longer school days (ostensibly taught by these highly qualified teachers) in the other seems devoid of strategy.