Seattle Times story on teaching quality - in a good way

For all of the talk about "Teacher Quality", there's very little talk about quality teaching. A story in today's Seattle Times, Classroom Tours Aim to Find Great Teaching, explores that gap.

It's interesting in how it re-focuses the attention where it should be.

Two quotes of note from the story:

Stephen Fink, executive director of the University of Washington's Center for Educational Leadership gave this indirect quote:

Too much of the conversation about improving schools, Fink says later, centers on how to get rid of ineffective teachers or reward great ones. The reality, he says, is that few teachers are truly ineffective — or completely effective. The vast majority, he says, are working hard to the best of their ability.

and this direct quote:

"Our entire mental model ... still assumes that this thing called teaching is doable by the vast majority of people with a limited amount of training. Nothing could be further from the truth."

The first quote de-bunks the bulk of Ed Reform talk and the second quote makes Teach for America laughable.