It's the Teachers that Make the Difference

In an odd move for such a far left-wing democrat, Political activist Al Sharpton recently wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal supporting the improvement of the education system through increased accountability. According to Mr. Sharpton teachers that perform well should receive pay raises, and against the grain, teachers that perform poorly should be called to task. He also supports increased funding for charter schools.

The education system in America is not working as well as it should be. Although the focus of the article is the disparity between the performance of white students and minority students, and it is quite the gap, the fact remains that most educational programs are failing to educate. In Arizona, one out of every three students doesn’t graduate from high school, this is both according to the US Department of Education and an independent study. For some areas, like Detroit, slightly more than one out of three black students graduate from high school.

Education fails for a number of reasons in the US. But the key to reforming such a broken system, in the eyes of Mr. Sharpton, is hiring and training good teachers. I couldn’t agree more. That’s why, at Bios, we are committed to hiring only excellent teachers, because the teachers make the difference. As our next president has said, “It’s not who their parents are or how much money the have – it’s who their teacher is.”