Tennessee District's Initiative Held Up As Model Of Teacher Improvement Program That Works

Emily Hanford, a reporter for American RadioWorks, the national documentary unit of American Public Media, writes in the Los Angeles Times (10/18, Hanford), "Teachers are at the center of the great debate over how to fix American education. We're told the bad ones need to be fired; the good ones, rewarded." According to Hanford, however, "most teachers are in the middle - not terrible, but they could be better." As such, "the question of how to help teachers in the middle must be part of the debate."

 

After searching "for teacher improvement programs that work," Hanford says that "the best example I found is the Benwood Initiative in Chattanooga, Tennessee." The initiative began with Chattanooga's Benwood Foundation and "local education leaders" pairing "less effective teachers" with teaching "superstars." Hanford notes, "One distinctive feature of the system is that teachers spend time in their colleagues' classrooms, watching each other teach."