Below are articles of interest that represent RBT's position regarding education, supporting the mission of high-expertise teaching for all.
John Adams' Promise - How to Have Good Schools for All Our Children, Not Just for Some (ESSAY 1)
Curriculum reform, structural reform, funding reform, organizational reform - all these 20th century efforts have failed to make a significant dent in the achievement gap and the performance of disadvantaged students, especially in cities and poor rural areas. Could it be that we have focused on many good targets but missed the most important one?
You can’t fix a problem if you don’t define it properly. A central issue for improving schools in the U.S. is this: there is a common core of professional knowledge about teaching and learning that gets results for students. Large segments of it are missing in action from each of the ten processes that form the supply chain of our teacher workforce. No one is accountable for seeing professional knowledge even shows up in these processes, much less in an integrated way. This is eminently fixable, but only if we redefine the problem and radically refocus our resources.
This essay makes the case for both why and then practically how we can make teaching a true profession. It answers the questions: what characterizes a true profession? What is getting in the way? What are the steps to take? This essay has been widely used as a study group resource and reading-in-common by educators throughout the country.
This essay describes a practical plan, now well underway in Massachusetts, to fix the dysfunctional personnel pipeline that creates our educator workforce. The plan builds the large knowledge base about teaching and learning into all the levers of influence that impact what teachers know and can do. It makes the case that the geographical state is the unit of enduring change in American education. It goes on to describe how state policy and law can press the levers of influence on teacher capacity into alignment, both with each other and with professional knowledge.