School Reform

     The article, "The Myth of Charter Schools" was very interesting and informative.  The buzz behind poor performing public schools holding onto tenured "bad" teachers has not dissolved itself in the almost 4 years since the publication of this article.  I don't know if it's because we are in Maine, or in central Maine, but I do not hear much about charter schools or the dissatisfaction of public schools to the degree in which the article discusses.  It was nice to read though that not everyone feels public schools are all doom and gloom.  The author, Diane Ravitch does talk about some areas in which we could improve upon (like other countries- Finland, Japan, Korea) for example, better screening of teacher candidates, higher salaries for retention, and better support systems & mentoring programs for new teachers, she does defend public schools.  It was nice to hear that while teaching can be a small percentage of the issue of student performance (10-20%), nonschool factors make up a much larger % at 60.  And what can we do about poverty?  Working in Bangor, this is a reality of every school day.  One of the K-3 schools has a 93% poverty rate, with others being in the 40-60% range.  Maybe government officials so quick to put all blame on teachers for poor student performance (based on one standardized assessment) should worry more about how to improve poverty rates instead?