that led me to this,
This does not mean we should not seek the best teachers and schools for these children - of course we should. But it does explain why research shows that the difference between teachers only accounts for at most 20% of the variance in student test performance.
What does this mean for teachers?I have given a lot of statistics that demonstrate the impact of poverty on student outcomes at the broadest level. Let me describe what this looks like from the standpoint of a teacher in a high poverty school.
If money doesn't matter, why not spend our public assets on our neediest children, rather than those who come to school with the greatest advantage? If class size does not matter, why do the schools of the privileged, including the school attended by the Gates family, have class sizes of around 16?
so i said this and wrote this:
as much as one way may sound better, more humane, than another... i'm thinking none will work till we call into question our standard of measure, our definition of success.
it's like those flat puzzles that you move the squares around till they make a picture, or a rubix cube. doesn't matter how much you move the squares, if you're trying to turn the puzzle into something it's not.
what does it mean to be human and alive... it's not about any achievement gap determined by test scores. until we call that into question.. we're moving pieces, to move pieces, to fight about, who's moving what pieces where. and all the while, people are dying, in multiple ways.
a push or outcry to fund more equitably a system that is not behooving of the human spirit, isn’t an equitable or smart move. no? perhaps that’s why we haven’t yet been able to figure the puzzle out. it’s like - who cares who gets more money, if how it is spent is mandated (or blindly accepted) in a way - we’ve proven is not beneficial - to people.
imagine we experiment with something completely different. a people agenda. a quiet revolution, crafted by youth, who get that we need to question what puzzle we’re trying to solve.