Instruction: High-Quality Teaching and Learning
At the heart of the quest for educational equity and excellence is the classroom: the relationship among students, teachers, and content. By addressing the needs of every student and raising standards for all, schools can do much to ensure equity and excellence.
Unfortunately, evidence suggests widespread inequities in instruction. Disparities abound in teacher quality, the quality and rigor of coursework, and instructional supports such as materials, individualized learning plans, and appropriate assessments. While almost every school can point to the one classroom where high-quality instruction is happening, the issue of excellence and equity requires good instruction at scale. To achieve these results, schools and other learning environments must, themselves, behave as learning organizations to promote teacher professional development, careful diagnoses of student learning needs, and curricular materials that permit multiple points of entry to subject-matter learning.
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Research Perspective: An interview with Carol Lee
Carol D. Lee is Co-coordinator of the Spencer Research Training Program at the School of Education and Social Policy and professor of African American Studies and of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University.
"I am convinced that the discussion about the achievement gap is correctly situated in issues of political discussions around questions of equity and opportunity to learn. At the same time, I think that understanding the problems with this achievement gap also reflects fundamental questions about how humans learn. I’m interested in trying to link these two discussions. Just because we have scientific grounding for the work isn’t going to make it happen; it’s politics that will make it happen. And cognitive science in education does not take cultural differences into account."
Read a transcript of the interview:
Equity and Excellence at Scale: An Eco-Cultural Perspective on Change. [PDF: 12 pages]
Audio clips of the interview:
Clip 1
Understanding the achievement gap involves considering both political issues of equity and scientific evidence about cognition, taking into account cultural differences in learning pathways.
Clip 2
Helping young people learn involves taking into account what they already know and believe, which is different for different cultures. The knowledge and experience of poor, non-White children should be looked on as a learning resource, not a deficit.
Clip 3
An eco-cultural framework calls for thinking about the whole child in terms of social, emotional, and cognitive needs and resources – and understanding that those extend beyond the walls of a classroom or a school.
Clip 4
Charter schools are the best thing that happened to the Black community. We were able to take our successful African-centered independent model and provide it to kids without charging tuition and with higher teacher compensation.
Clip 5
Our biggest debates were around the decision to go charter, because there were a lot of people who feared that we would not be able to sustain an Afro-centered focus with public money.
