Since there aren’t enough highly effective teachers to go around, schools should begin to use “remote teaching” and higher salaries so that an elite cadre of the nation’s best teachers can reach greater numbers of students.
That is one of the more radical recommendations contained in a new report released Wednesday by Public Impact, which calls for making access to excellent teachers a new “civil right.”
The report is titled “Giving Every Student Access to Excellent Teachers: A Vision for Focusing Federal Investments in Education.”
The report notes that students taught by the most effective teachers ― or those in the top 20 or 25 percent of their profession in terms of student growth ― make an average of three times as much progress as students taught by teachers in the bottom 20 or 25 percent.
“But the stark reality is only 25 percent of classrooms have teachers that are this strong,” said Bryan Hassel, co-director of Public Impact, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based organization that seeks to improve student learning outcomes.
“Increasing that percent dramatically should be a high priority for our country and federal policy,” Hassel said Wednesday during a panel discussion at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C.
“Achievement gaps can close if students get the chance to have excellent teachers consistently instead of one out of every four classes or once every four years,” Hassel said, citing research that suggests poor Black students who consistently get the best teachers for four years can catch up academically to their non-poor or White peers.
