{"id":2664,"date":"2011-08-10T11:53:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T15:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=2664"},"modified":"2016-11-16T20:41:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T01:41:22","slug":"in-their-own-words-identifying-and-training-great-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/in-their-own-words-identifying-and-training-great-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"In Their Own Words – Identifying and Training Great Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each day this week, Amicus will feature an editorial post written by one of CRCL\u2019s new General Board members.\u00a0 Today\u2019s post discusses the challenges inherent in education reform and producing great teachers.<\/em><\/p>\n

The past two decades have seen the filing of dozens of cases of so-called \u201ceducational adequacy\u201d litigation, state court cases in which plaintiffs have charged that the state has a responsibility to offer all of its children an adequate education.\u00a0 These cases\u2014which are based on clauses in state constitutions that guarantee all students some essential level of education\u2014have succeeded more often than they have failed.\u00a0 Indeed, a major outcome of these efforts is that state Supreme Courts throughout the country have held, in clear and forceful terms, that students have a right to an education that will allow them to make effective life decisions, play a meaningful role in the political process, and compete favorably in the job market.\u00a0 Some courts have gone further, ruling that the constitution requires the state to fund after-school programs, health services, and pre-kindergarten.<\/p>\n

Many courts have made a point of stressing the centrality of effective teaching to adequate education, without which meaningful learning\u2014at the primary level, at least\u2014is close to impossible.\u00a0 But even if it were undisputed that children have a moral (or at least civil) right to quality teaching, there would remain the obvious problem of formulating a consensual, coherent definition of effective pedagogy.\u00a0 Many state legislatures have attempted to address this challenge by requiring statewide peer review of teachers.\u00a0 Peer review, however, is limited in its efficacy; it relies on the assumption that senior teachers\u2014the teachers who do the reviewing and thus set the tone for their younger colleagues\u2014are capable of powerful, imaginative pedagogy.\u00a0 If they are not, however, what results is merely a case of the blind leading the blind.<\/p>\n

The failure to agree on what constitutes effective teaching points, naturally, to a related set of issues: the process teaching the teachers.\u00a0 A recent New York Times story<\/a> profiles some of the familiar difficulties inherent in relying on colleges and universities to mass-produce quality teachers.\u00a0 For one, to the extent that education schools are driven by profit, it is not clear whether they can be expected to make responsible decisions about how best to fulfill their mission (the same must be said, of course, with regard to law schools).\u00a0 Even more obvious is the fact that effective teaching requires the ability to perceive how students think and feel, which in turn requires high levels of discernment, empathy, and emotional awareness\u2014skills universities do not impart.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, as illustrated by an oft-cited 2006 report<\/a> from the Education Schools Project, there is little consensus about the value of formal, university-based approaches to teacher preparation.\u00a0 But whatever one thinks of education schools, efforts to achieve educational adequacy through courts must be accompanied by a willingness to think about precisely what it means to be a strong teacher, and about whether the skills that make a teacher great can themselves be taught.\u00a0 The answers to these questions will play a vital role in shaping the future of education reform.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The past two decades have seen the filing of dozens of cases of so-called \u201ceducational adequacy\u201d litigation, state court cases in which plaintiffs have charged that the state has a responsibility to offer all of its children an adequate education. State Supreme Courts throughout the country have held, in clear and forceful terms, that students have a right to an education that will allow them to make effective life decisions, play a meaningful role in the political process, and compete favorably in the job market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46],"tags":[863,197],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amicus","category-youth-and-education","tag-education","tag-educational-adequacy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZrWS-GY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2664"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}