Saturday, November 28, 2009

Why Efficacy?

In over three years working as an educator—first as a freelancer in the US and abroad, then as Teach for America corps member, and now as a charter school teacher—it is my firmly held believe that an ethos of efficacy could fundamentally transform our education system for the better. Whether we look at pedagogy, curriculum, assessments, school structure or the bureaucracy, glaring inefficiencies plague the system, at best producing mediocre results for the vast majority of our students.

Education Efficacy will contend that our education system fails to adopt and scale up learning from science, business and administration in order to transform and accelerate efficacious management and pedagogical reform. Moreover, the field of education lacks the pioneers who consistently and broadly shine light on new ideas and approaches that could more EFFECTIVELY deliver results (especially with limited resources). This blog will attempt each month to analyze various inefficiencies, bottlenecks and wrong-turns and suggest alternatives that would drive powerful gains in achievement, growth of the whole child, and a more sustainable and rewarding career path for educators.

The final purpose of Education Efficacy is personal—as a practitioner, I need a space to clarify, formalize and broadcast what I have come to believe after working as an educator for over three years and spending my whole life as a student. On a daily, indeed, hourly basis, I observe and discover ways to implement educational efficacy. This space will allow me to synthesize these learnings and share them with the world.