Gee, what a shocker that ed schools not only don't bother to learn what's really working in the field, but when they DO learn, they reject it.  Jay Matthews is much too kind to ed schools here.

"No one wants someone just showing up at their home unannounced," he said. "Teachers must treat parents with respect."

He advised against requiring students to call teachers after school. "Teachers usually have class preparation and grading to do at home," he said. "Students should contact their teachers via Blackboard [a Web site] or e-mail." He also opposed Kamras's selective homework marking: "Teachers should be willing and able to grade all homework. If they are not, then they should not assign so much homework."

Fair enough. Not every strategy is for every teacher. And there is much that education schools teach that is worthwhile. But most ed school professors do not have as much urban classroom experience as Esquith, Feinberg, Levin or Kamras do. I think future teachers would benefit from hearing what they think works.

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Learning From the Masters

Some of the best lessons in teaching happen after ed school

By Jay Mathews

Sunday, August 6, 2006; Page W33

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080100820.html

Jason Kamras, the 2005 National Teacher of the Year, made regular visits to his students' homes in Southeast Washington, showing up unannounced if he couldn't reach a parent by phone. Rafe Esquith, a Disney national teacher of the year, developed a system for his low-income Los Angeles fifth-graders that pays them virtual dollars based on their work. Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg, award-winning creators of the Know-ledge Is Power Program (KIPP) for low-income fifth- through eighth-graders, require students to call their teachers' cellphones after school if they have questions about homework.

These practical, if unorthodox, teaching methods have helped produce some of the largest achievement gains in the country. Yet none was learned at an education school. Kamras, Esquith, Levin and Feinberg say their ed school classes primarily taught theory, and they had to develop their most powerful methods through trial and error or watching other teachers.

Why is that? Why can't university teacher training programs pass on more practical, field-tested ideas to help kids in our lowest-performing neighborhoods?