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The text reviews reform cycles since A Nation at Risk, highlighting structural approaches that avoided grade-by-grade curriculum specifics. It contrasts incoherent U.S. schooling with more cumulative systems, emphasizing cooperation, coherence, and cumulativeness to strengthen both individual and collective teaching.",{"@graph":69,"@context":114},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/in-defense-of-educators-the-problem-of-idea-quality-not-teacher-quality/590585/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/in-defense-of-educators-the-problem-of-idea-quality-not-teacher-quality/590585.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Stanley","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-06","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":81},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"How does the essay compare the U.S. system with Japan?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It states that Japan’s coherent and cumulative curriculum lets teachers build on prior work, while the U.S. lacks coherence and faces larger discrepancies in students’ preparation.","Answer","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":116,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":118,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":120,"site_id":62},590585,1792981746,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":123},{"doc_id":120,"user_id":124,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":125,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":126,"file_id":127,"file_url":128,"file_type":129,"file_size":130,"view_count":81,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":19,"language":131,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":132,"faqs":133,"seo_title":134,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":135,"read_time":52,"preview_page_count":4},2336477405376,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0","In Defense of Educators  \nThe Problem of Idea Quality, Not “Teacher Quality”  \nILLUSTRAT IONS BY PAUL ZWOLAK  \nBy E. D. Hirsch, Jr.  \nP  \neople who emphasize teaching quality and the central importance of teachers are right to do so. Where some go wrong isin thinking that teacher quality is an innate characteristic. The effectiveness of a teacher isnot some inher-  \nent competence, as the phrase teacher quality suggests. Teacher effectiveness is contextual. I have witnessed over and over that in a  \ncoherent school most teachers can become highly effective.*  \nWhy has the topic of teacher quality suddenly reached such a crescendo? Education reform has been on the national  \nE. D. Hirsch, Jr., is a professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and the author of many articles and books, including the bestsellers Cultural Literacy and The Schools We Need. He is a fellow of the American AcademyofArts and Sciences and the founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation. Excerpted with permission from E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories (Harvard Education Press, 2016), [www.hepg. org/hep-home/books/](www.hepg. org/hep-home/books/)[ ](www.hepg. org/hep-home/books/)[why-knowledge-matters](why-knowledge-matters).  \nagenda since 1983, the year of A Nation at Risk. Only in the last few years has the teacher quality issue risen to the top. I think it maybe reform fatigue, possibly desperation. We are blaming teachers because of our disappointments with the results of our reforms.  \nA History of Misguided Reforms  \nThe “back-to-basics” and “whole-school reform” strategies disappointed. The state standards movement and the No Child Left Behind law have left high school students just about as far behind as they were before the law was instituted. Charter schools, despite their laudable triumphs, are highly uneven in quality.1 Their overall results are not much better than those of regular schools.2 When favored educational ideas do not pan out  \n*My defense of teachers does not extend to nonperforming ones. Children and the community come first. Most teachers agree. As American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has said: “If someone can’t teach after being prepared and supported, he or she shouldn’t be in our profession.”  \n30 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | WINTER 2016–2017  \nas hoped, reformers understandably think: “The flaw is not in my theory; it must lie in poor implementation (i.e., it must bethe fault of the teachers) .”  \nBut the most likely cause of disappointing results from the various reforms is that they have been primarily structural in character. They have not systematically grappled with the gradeby-grade specifics and coherence of the elementary school curriculum. Educational success is defined by what students learn—the received curriculum. Not to focus on the particulars of the very thing itself has been an evasion that is not of the teachers’ doing. The underlying theory of the reforms (reflected in state reading standards) has been that schools are teaching skills that can be developed by any suitable content. That mistaken theory has allowed the problem of grade-by-grade content to be evaded. It was that fundamental mistake about skills that has allowed teachers to be blamed for fundamental failures—the failures of guiding ideas, not of teachers.  \nElementary school teachers are people who for the most part love children, who want to devote their lives to children’s education, but many find themselves stymied and frustrated in the classroom. They apply the notions received in their training, and do what they are told to do by their administrators, under the everpresent threat of reading tests that do not actually test the content that is being taught. Under these extremely unfavorable conditions of work, it’s no wonder that teacher unions have pushed back. When the classroom, which should be a daily reward, becomes a purgatory, one turns to contract stipulati","cbCaihqJLo26rugE","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihqJLo26rugE","pdf",249468,"English","# A Defense of Educators\n## The Problem of Idea Quality, Not \"Teacher Quality\"\n## A History of Misguided Reforms","[{\"question\":\"How does the essay compare the U.S. system with Japan?\",\"answer\":\"It states that Japan’s coherent and cumulative curriculum lets teachers build on prior work, while the U.S. lacks coherence and faces larger discrepancies in students’ preparation.\"}]","In Defense of Educators - The Problem of Idea Quality, Not “Teacher Quality” | PDF",1792069961]