Customer Reviews

To Build a Better Teacher: The Emergence of a Competitive Education Industry

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I work in the human resource department of a large school system in Virginia. After reading this book I have a new perspective on my job. Mr. Holland makes some very valid points and has me rethinking the way our school district hires teachers. This book should be a MUST read for ALL Administrators in the education field be it Principals, Superintendents of School Districts, the Head of Human Resources or the people in HR who do the actual hiring. Teachers should read this book to see that there are alternatives to traditional public education and that while NCLB will change things for them, all is not lost. So even if you disagree with the theory Mr. Holland present, reading this book should open your mind to the different approaches to the public vs. private education debate.

Again, an insightful book that you should read if you are in the education field in any manner.

Kristi Hurd

REVIEW

To Build a Better Teacher
The Emergence of a Competitive Education Industry
By Robert Gray Holland

Written by J. E. Stone, Education Consumers ClearingHouse

Robert Gray Holland is a former columnist and editor for the Richmond Times- Dispatch. He has won the H. L. Menken Award for incisive writing on education.

His analysis of how teachers are trained and its relationship to public education's failings reflect that heritage. There is no better overview of the issue available today.

Holland's assessment revolves around what most people would find a surprising observation: Teachers and schools are substantially less effective than they might otherwise be because almost all teacher training programs advocate a teacher-as-facilitator approach to teaching. Practically every educational fad of the last eighty or so years has been a variant of this approach. It works, but only under ideal circumstances.

Teachers know that there is a problem. Despite their varied situations and backgrounds, the teachers Holland interviews see a disconnect between the training they receive and the realities they confront in the classroom. All recognize that classroom realities require them to manage student learning and behavior to a far greater extent than theory suggests.

Of particular importance to policymakers, Holland explains how schools of education, state and national accrediting bodies, and teacher licensure agencies effectively control access to the teaching profession and resist reform. As the system currently works, anyone who would become a teacher has to undergo indoctrination in teacher-as-facilitator theory.

Especially useful is his account of the battle between the forces of change and defenders of the status quo. Both call themselves reformers. Defenders of the status quo, however, want to improve the current system through greater centralization and control while those who want change seek decentralization and the emergence of alternatives to the teacher-as-facilitator orthodoxy. Holland compares the clash to the struggle for baseball supremacy between the NY Yankees and the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks.

Holland discusses policy alternatives as well as the advantages of training practices such as "mentoring" as a means of bringing new teachers online. Equally useful is his discussion of value-added assessment as a means of monitoring teacher performance. Unlike many proponents of teacher accountability, Holland recognizes the huge advantage of tracking the value-added achievement gains of individual students rather than simply comparing test score averages for comparable groups.

In the end, Holland suggests that teacher preparation and public school outcomes could be substantially improved by mixing New Jersey's teacher certification policies with Tennessee's value-added accountability system. Both are tried and proven.

Agree or disagree, Holland's case is well put and clearly worth a read.