Learning from New York to improve our education system

[brendan]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24718357-13881,00.html

Jennifer Buckingham | November 28, 2008
Article from:  The Australian

NEW York City's letter-grade school report cards form only one part of the reform program implemented by its schools chancellor, Joel Klein.

One of the first things Klein did was dismantle the "industrial" model of teacher employment. Teachers had been rewarded for how long they stayed in their jobs, not how well they did their jobs.

Tenure provided job security, but little professional satisfaction. The result was mediocrity.

School principals in New York now have the ability to hire the teachers that are most likely to meet the specific needs of their students.

The focus on strong school leadership and good teachers is to be expected. The value of strong leadership and high-quality teaching is well known. But why has New York taken this particular approach?

Critics of public accountability as a driver of school performance often hold up Finland as the example we ought to follow instead. Finland ranks highly in international tests, yet shares few of the features of the New York reform program. In Finland, there are no national nor external tests, and no published school-by-school comparisons. Schools play a role in the selection of staff, but have less freedom in this regard than other school systems.

Klein's response is that in formulating his approach, he looked to places with a comparable set of challenges to New York. Finland isn't one of them.

Finland and New York also diverge on socio-economics. On top of these differences, New York faces a different educational reality: its teachers are mostly drawn from the lowest quarter of tertiary graduates. In Finland, entry to teaching courses is competitive and only 10 per cent of applicants are admitted.

In New York, as in many other places, creating a workforce of highly skilled teachers is a goal. It can't be done immediately and won't help the children who are in under-performing schools right now.

For this reason, Klein is also a champion of programs that fast-track high-calibre university graduates into schools, such as Teach For America.

It makes sense that Education Minister Julia Gillard chose Klein's visit as the time to announce an Australian version of TFA. A similar initiative is taking shape in Victoria, but Gillard wants to create a national program, run by an independent, non-profit organisation with the help of businesses.

Fans of the Finnish system will again take umbrage, but there is no need. Australia can take what it needs from the New York experience to reveal and deal with the inequities we have in our schools right now. At the same time, there is scope to learn from how other countries attract the best people into teaching careers and keep them there, but this is a longer-term strategy.

Klein's message is potent because he has taken a good idea beyond the strictures of ideology and party politics. Hopefully, Gillard will do the same.

Jennifer Buckingham is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies