Three Wrong-Headed Ideas Driving Reform of U.S. Teaching Force

This story originally appeared in The Washington Post.

“When the going gets tough in our wealthy societies, the powers-that-be often choose quick fixes. In search of a silver bullet instead of sustained systemic improvement, politicians turn their eyes on teachers, believing that asking them to do more with less can compensate for inconvenient reductions in school resources.”

So writes Pasi Sahlberg, a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and one of the world’s leading experts on school reform and international educational practices.  Author of “Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?” and former director general of Finland’s Center for International Mobility and Cooperation, Sahlberg has written a number of important posts for The Answer Sheet, including “What the U.S. can’t learn from Finland about ed reform,” and “How GERM is infecting schools around the world.” In this post, which appeared in the ATA Magazine of the Alberta Teachers Association, Sahlberg writes about three fallacies underpinning efforts to change the teaching force in the United States and beyond. I am publishing it with permission...

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