NHEG-Magazine-November-December

www.NewHeightsEducation.org
Instead of providing political indoctrination dressed up as art training, successful art programs teach students studio art practices
that prepare them for a career in art practice. Students who have trained in drawing, design, and industry-standard computer
programs are clearly better equipped for employment in the burgeoning video game, film, and animation business than
those who have undergone avant-garde de-skilling.
Art programs need to teach students the skills they need to live a life in the art of their time. The reason CTEC and the ateliers
are thriving is because they are teaching practical skills very, very well. Students have noticed; will university art schools do
the same?
Charters Have
Achieved Their
Original Goal:
Innovation
www.NewHeightsEducation.org
Charter schools questioned the low expectations
that schools place on poor
students and challenged the now popular
assumption that student-led project
learning is the best practice
By Daniel Buck
Friday, May 31, 2019
Exasperated by apathetic students and a heap of failed tests, a fellow teacher recently asked me and several peers a question
as we ate lunch: “What’s the solution?”
He couldn’t figure out how to engage his class.
Few classrooms are ever empty at my school, one of the largest in Wisconsin, so prep periods are spent in cubicle-filled staff
lounges where all conversations are basically public. While a little too public for most, this communal setup does provide a
unique way to look for answers to that exasperated teacher’s question.
Teach Like a Champion
Specifically, most of my coworkers have on display some collection of their favorite pedagogy and general education books.
Shelves vary by subject area and personal focus, but there is one book that is ubiquitous across shelves: Teach Like a
Champion.
Despite its profound effect on American schools, this book is unknown outside of education. The original edition sold 800,000
copies, and a second edition has surely put that number over a million. Its author, Doug Lemov, is the managing director of
Uncommon Schools, one of America’s foremost charter school networks that is achieving results. Teaching a student body
with a poverty rate of 82 percent—far above the national average—they still achieve high tests scores and a 99 percent college
acceptance rate. Perhaps most importantly, they have shared their innovations outside of their organization.
Rather than keeping their techniques secret, Lemov spent years with a notebook observing the best teachers in the system,
trying to find commonalities. In the end, he determined 49 techniques that created success for students, compiled them into a
book, and disseminated the information across the country. Now, few schools remain outside the influence of his work (to at
least some degree).
The book garners valid criticism. It advocates for a regimented style, keeping classrooms teacher-centered and rote, but it
fosters a teaching method that boosts test scores and graduation rates among poor students unlike any other. Should it be
adopted uniformly across schools? Probably not, but its strict implementation has a place in many, and countless more can
adopt different elements to fit diverse needs.
Charter Schools Lead to Innovation
Though this book shaped my early career, I had forgotten about it until Bernie Sanders proposed banning charters in his education
platform, “A Thurgood Marshal Plan for Public Education.” In reading commentary on it, most criticism—both conservative
and liberal— focused on the benefit charters provide disproportionately to poor and minority students. While an important
point, missing was the benefit that charters provide to even those teachers and students who have never attended one.
100 100 NHEG | GENiUS Magazine MAGAZINE | November | www.geniusmag.com
- December
According to FEE’s Kerry McDonald, reformers created charter schools “to encourage educational experimentation and innovation.”
As our factory model of education pushes students through monotonous standards, bipartisan reformers recommended
charter schools as little laboratories where new teaching techniques and school structures could be tried. The argument
ran that free of oversight and ancillary to a district, educators could try new practices.
November - December 2019 | NHEG Magazine 101