There were investments in urban schools, in teachers, in teacher training, in teacher distribution that made a huge difference

The last time we made major headway on these issues was in the 1960’s and 70’s when we Rosetta Stone Spanish V3 had the war on poverty and we brought poverty, unemployment and segregation rates down. The achievement gap (between rich and poor) closed by more than three quarters in a very short period of time (15 years between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s). There were investments in urban schools, in teachers, in teacher training, in teacher distribution that made a huge difference. Had we continued with those policies, we would have had no racial achievement gap by the year 2000. In the 1980’s, we ended all those programs and never really regrouped.We have to address the problems now from both sides. On one hand, poverty and segregation are getting worse, and policymakers do not want to talk about it. On the other hand, we also have to address the issue of what we do to improve schools. A recent analysis of the ?achievement gap shows about a third of the achievement gap between affluent and poor students in 9th grade ?is present at kindergarten. That’s because kids are growing up in very different kinds of communities with different learning opportunities within the family and within the community. We’ve seen huge reductions in the achievement gap where communities have put high quality pre-schools in place. New Jersey is an example. The other two-thirds of the achievement gap is due to summer learning loss. Wealthy students continue to increase their learning during the summer, while low-income students lose ground. We have to improve education?? from September to June, but we also have to put in place summer learning opportunities.Then inside of school we have to equalize access to high quality teachers, and we have to improve the training of our teachers, which other countries have done. We have to get a curriculum that is focused on high order thinking and performance skills instead of bubbling in on multiple choice tests. Our kids are definitely disadvantaged because they are never asked on our tests to do the kinds of things that PISA asks them to do and other countries teach them to do: ?more focus on skills of research and analysis, requiring writing, Rosetta Stone Portuguese thinking and expressing your ideas.Is there a fast track to fix this?Many of the countries that were low achieving and are now high achieving made huge gains in a decade. We could make strong gains quickly if we could get focused.? A couple of things need to happen. We need to end the practice of allowing people to teach without training. There are states like Connecticut and North Carolina which put in place reforms in the 1990s where they raised salaries for teachers, raised standards for teachers for entry, preparation, and licensing, put in place induction ?programs to measure good teaching with strong performance assessments as well as support. In a few years they went from teacher shortages to surpluses, improved the quality of the teaching force, and raised student achievement. One of the problems we have in the United States however is that we tend to focus, make progress, and then backslide. We’re good innovators in terms of starting successful projects and programs in schools, but Steelers Jerseys without the emphasis that is needed to maintain the system.Is there a disconnect between education systems and the real world, i.e. the kind of education systems kids need to excel in the 21st century?I believe the disconnect is a concern in ?the UK as well as the US. Too often policymakers and educators ?think about a curriculum that consists of the facts you need to know across your 12 years of school, and schools are asked to make sure that students learn those facts instead of being able to use knowledge for complex problem solving, or being able to collaborate effectively.We need to expand students’ experiences to connect to the world out of school and we need to enable them to use technology to explore the world of ideas and to create new products.The change in mindset has to happen, first, at the governmental level, and it has to be reflected in student assessment.