I recently came across the following interesting quotation, from Bill Gates:
Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.
While we wrangle over federal grants and legislative changes and judicial opinions that might offer parents more flexibility in choosing schools for their children (at taxpayer expense), we would do well to always keep in mind that school choice doesn’t only mean choosing a different school.
As Gates points out, it can also mean making choices at the schools your child is currently assigned to. For an inspiring example, read about how Jonathan Mooney’s mother worked with the teachers and administrators at his school to focus less on what he couldn’t do, and more on what he could. Mooney ended up graduating from Brown University, writing several books, and ‘creating organizations and initiatives that help people who get the short end of the stick’.
Also, it can mean making choices about how you prepare your child to make the best use of his time, regardless of what school he’s in, or what teachers he has. For example, even if you aren’t qualified to teach your child, say, algebra, it doesn’t mean you can’t take responsibility for helping him learn to love reading and learning and thinking, instead of leaving things up to the public schools system and hoping for the best. (Do that right, and he can teach himself algebra.)
But for some reason, where schools are concerned, people often focus on ‘solutions’ that require convincing large numbers of people to agree with them. To get ‘school choice’ legislation passed, you effectively have to get more than half the state to go along with you. To get a school district to adopt a ‘school choice’ policy, you effectively have to get more than half your district to agree to the changes. And you’ll be battling against teacher’s unions and other special interest groups.
But to get your child assigned to a different teacher, you might just have to convince a principal. To help a teacher better understand your child’s needs, you might not have to convince anyone of anything. And so on.
The point is, trying to change an entire system so that your own child will be treated differently is like covering the world in leather to avoid stepping on sharp stones. It might be better to just wear shoes.
