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Tatler Staff 2012–2013 Editors-in-Chief Alec Glassford Francis Wilson Design Chief Emily Ruppel
Editorial Staff Features/ Copy Editor News Opinions Life & Culture Sports
Max Chen Jani Adcock Paulina Glass Shelly Bensal Mary Kuper
Arts Polls Editor Photo Editor Web Editor Publisher Web Master
Tho Tran Julia Laurence Gilda Rastegar Gautam Hathi Peter Ballmer Fletcher Woodruff
Advisor Margaret Hardy
Designers and Photographers
Public Dilemma
Ross Bretherton, Lucy Johnson, Gavin Blake, Miles Blessing, Ishani Ummat, Nick Rubin
Writers Kate Kim, Pierre Suignard, Chris Gellein, Jennie Glerum, Andreas Molbak, Madee Ehrenberg, Josh FuhitaYuhas, Clare Larson, Rana Bansal, Juliana DeVaan, Nicolo Gelb, Kailee Madden, Sofia Martins, Elda Mengisto, CJ Paige, Grace Pollard, Kevin Yang, Walker Caplan, Isaac Kleisle-Murphy, Marla Odell, Nina Selipsky, Amy Wang Tatler is a student-run publication and therefore is not reviewed by the school administration prior to distribution. As student journalists, we recognize and hope to fulfill our responsibility to follow journalistic standards. The opinions in Tatler do not necessarily reflect those of all students and faculty of Lakeside Upper School. We encourage readers to submit their opinions by means of a letter to the editors. We will not print any anonymous letters, and we will withhold names only upon request. Submit or letters to the boxes of the editors or email us: francis.wilson@lakesideschool.org or alec. glassford@lakesideschool.org
Reforming Public Schools in the U.S.
SOFIA MARTINS The Chicago teacher strike and the presidential campaign have once again directed the nation’s mind to education. Over the past few years, the American Education system has gotten a bad report card. According to the latest results from the Program for International Student Assessment, the U.S. ranks 32nd in math, 23rd in science and 17th in reading. The Council on Foreign Relations put it bluntly: “The United States’ failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country’s ability to thrive in a global economy…[the country] will not be able to keep pace- much less lead- globally unless it moves to fix the problems it has allowed to fester for too long”. Although parties involved in education reform don’t agree on much of anything, they do agree that education merits hours of political redirect, strikes, and stalemates. The weight placed on education makes sense, after all children are the future. Much of the current debate about how to improve education centers on its perceived pumping heart – teachers. Teacher evaluation and teacher pay are key to improving schools. If teachers are better evaluated, then poor ones can improve and the skilled ones can be compensated for their work. Genevieve Knaus, a Lakeside math teacher who taught at thriving and failing public schools in Chicago and Bellevue, believes administrators in public schools should be more present in the classroom during the evaluation process, offering teachers constructive feedback in a collaborative environment. However, many of the assessments currently taking place tie teacher evaluation to student test scores. Ms. Knaus suggests this may be too narrow a lens to accurately assess teachers. She explains, “How can what I’m doing for 45 minutes per day be the sole factor when maybe [the student] didn’t have a place to sleep for the past month, or they haven’t being doing their homework, or they didn’t have breakfast that morning. That your pay is on the line for those test scores just doesn’t seem fair.” Testing can also hamper learning by re2
stricting what can be taught. Deborah Johnston, a Lakeside history teacher with fifteen years of experience in Massachusetts public schools, believes that having, “the freedom to diverge from the curriculum based on whatever else is happening in the news…. is important.” Ms. Knaus agrees, “It’s important to protect the process of a teacher mixing it up or trying something new without being penalized for it.” Even if teacher evaluations are conducted in a way that benefits teachers, Stagnating education correlates with stagnating economic growth. there is no guarantee (Chart Credit: Harvard Report Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, Ludger Woessmann) that they will want to remain in the profession. A lack of appreciation and compensation greatly reduces the appeal of the job. “The profession is not respected. Teachers don’t get paid well so the teachers that can actually do something somewhere else and make money for it, unless teaching is there number one passion, are going to do it,” said Ms. Knaus. Although a slew of reforms have been implemented across the nation, so far they have made limited impact. The U.S. continues to be outpaced in student improvement by other nations. According to a Harvard University study, students in Brazil and Chile are advancing three times faster than American students. Perhaps we should take a page out of Finland’s book, a country with one of the best education systems in the world, and institute evaluation programs that shift the emphasis from test scores to school self-inspection, improving the way teachers teach rather than just emphasizing a test score.
The United States’ “failure to educate its
students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country’s ability to thrive in a global economy. - The Council on Foreign Relations
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