"Getting to the Heart of Quality Teaching"

One thing that I learned from this article that I found very disturbing is the fact that teachers of color make up only 16% of public school teachers. I wonder if this has any correlation to the achievement gap. I feel that having diversity among teachers might help to inspire younger students to feel they can be educated too. We need to encourge our young students to step up and become leaders for the future. Another shocking fact I found in this article is that 20% of all new public school teachers leave the profession within three years. The third item that I learned from this article is that you can teach at a private school in certain areas without even a high school diploma.

From this article, I had one thing I disagreed with a little bit. While I do not feel that our standardized tests are the most accurate, I do feel that they are important to have because they help us ensure that education across the country is equal. It also helps to ensure that students from poorer schools are receiving the same education as students from wealthy schools. A question that I had from this article is what does an effective teacher education program look like? Is it possible to create such an institution or are good teachers born with their gifts?

The article mentioned that teachers simply do not have enough time to reach all of their students, providing them with the necessary feedback to succeed. I would like learn more about ideas for solutions to this problem. The only solution I can think of is reducing class size, however this could be a costly endeavor.