Teachers are not to blame
excerpt:
"This view—that the right incentives (positive or negative) will produce the necessary changes in teaching—may be a very common one, but there is no data to back it up. Indeed, a close look at MCAS results shows there is surprisingly little difference between the quality of teaching in so-called 'good' schools (wealthy, suburban schools with high MCAS scores)and 'bad' schools (inner-city schools with low scores) when the results are averaged across all teachers in the district and disaggregated by student demographics, specifically race and poverty. Put another way, a low-income white student in a 'good' suburban school tests essentially the same as a low-income white student in a 'bad' inner-city school."
