You articulate very well the depressingly narrow conception of a good teacher that many administrators have: high-energy, youthful, cool, super-organized, a team-player. Eccentric nerds not welcome (the kids won’t bond with them). Crusty old folks not welcome (gruffness has no place in our shiny, happy schools). Teaching faculties are becoming ecosystems that contain but one bland species. Which makes them about as lovable and interesting as the tidy, single-crop, chemically-treated, fields that fill the Central Valley where I teach.

Now, what makes a passable teacher in Connotton Valley, OH may not be enough for a kid growing up in the urban precinct described above. The 23yr veteran interviewed might neither harm nor inspire kids biding time in her class in rural OH; the same teacher kept in place in urban DC consigns these kids to another generation of missed opportunity.

Teaching as Leadership, the book from which the article rises, won’t claim that a model will solve all problems. It addresses one of many vectors. But look at how it breaks from the past:

Ed Schools have never been much interested in leadership. The instructors at ed schools are researchers. Research is primarily what they pass on to their charges. Not good. Contrast this with US Army and USMC officer training, which focus like a laser on leadership.

Leadership won’t help if your objective is wrong; as plenty of curricula are. Yet one problem at a time.

The problem addressed in the article is getting the right teacher candidates into these slots so critical to urban youth. (Race To the Top has another problem to address: getting the wrong people out of those slots.) If you have two B- students from Kent State, which do you select to entrust with these kids?

Back to the nature of Ed schools. If you’re an ed student who has problems with the coursework, at least your tenacity will be tested. Yet a more intellectually ready ed student will remain unchallenged. How then to measure that candidate’s tenacity?

What TFA is looking for is to assure that the most highly adaptive and determined candidates end up in front of the kids with the most need. Stepping beyond just state certification is a good measure.

Having myself come to this from the improve-the-curriculum side, I’m with you on that part of the solution.

Toward that end, getting curious, demanding, practical teachers into the classroom is one requirement for implementing a great curriculum.