Andrea Gabor has a valuable post about industrial history.
The lesson from the past is clear, she says: Everyone benefits when there is trust and collaboration.
Gabor thinks it is necessary to get beyond the punitive tactics of the present–the idea that lots of teachers must be fired–and to identify evaluation models that seek to support the ongoing development of teachers.
There are important issues of tone that affect–and that erode–trust.
Some years back, Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider wrote an important book called Trust in Schools, in which they concluded that no school reform could take place without trust. Trust, they said, is the glue that makes reform work and stick.
It is not up to the teachers to build trust; their work is crucial but they are at the bottom of a very sharp pyramid. Building trust is the task of leadership.
It is also a test of true leadership.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks, that’s a really insightful post and comparison: the key problem is not the workers, but management. That was the message of Deming, whom Gabor has written about so well. Deming said there’s always a bell curve with some excellent and some poor workers. So the issue is how to manage, not just chop poor workers.
This also reflects what the late Albert Mamery told me: the key is getting all programs and people in the school aligned for the same goals. If this is right, the idea that getting rid of bad teachers is the main problem is quite wrong headed.
I do not want to say that the whole teacher corps couldn’t be lifted. But this is a long term goal that has to involve in house training, increased pay to attract higher academic performers, and so on. In any case, though, just churning the existing pool is not going to accomplish anything.
Gabor has written well about Deming, who says that the system determines the success, not the workers in the system. Management must hire well, support well, train well. Any management that depends on firing as a strategy is a failed management.
Thanks, Diane. As a businessperson who is also a public school parent and fierce advocate of public education, I grow tired of the anti-business, anti-corporate rhetoric that is too often used by other public school advocates. Imagine what would happen if every school district in America began to collaborate with their local businesses — and I’m not just talking about monetary donations. I’m talking about businesses giving employees time off during the work day to go to the closest public school to be tutors, bus monitors, or library assistants, while local schools make a concentrated effort to reach out to these businesses, tell them “WE NEED YOUR HELP” and “IT REALLY DOES TAKES A VILLAGE”. The possibilities are endless. This is happening in some places — AT&T and Cincinnati’s public schools come to mind — but not enough; especially in our inner cities.
Here is the link to the story about the Taft High School/Cincinnati Bell partnership. It is really inspiring:http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_1168_Anthony_Smith.mp3/view
It took me six years of teaching to realize how humble I should be about the progress my kids make. Tiny tiny steps. And where they end up at the end of the year is a combination of everything they get from being in my classroom and the classrooms of six other people plus the others who lend them extra help after school. How can I take the credit for a student imporving in reading when she is reading in every class plus the school library? And now I’m supposed to be ranked and strive to teach better than anyone else? This is one of the hardest things for someone who doesn’t teach to understand.
Bryk and Schneider’s book, “Trust in Schools: A core resource for improvement” should be required reading for Chicago’s Board of Education, Superintendent and especially the Mayor. This work was conducted in Chicago Public Schools!