Listen now (47 min) | Hello everybody - Last week I had the opportunity to catch up with Mark Woolway - a tech executive running for school board in the Acalanes Union High School District - a suburban area approximately 30 minutes east of San Francisco. Mark, a former colleague, included me in an email last month that caught my eye. He wrote, "I think there are serious issues facing our local schools… instead of just complaining, I decided to try to do something about it." Mark, a single dad, has four children in the school system. He has, as he explained, a "vested interest in making the high schools the best they can be."
Regarding "serious conversation about how to close the performance gaps that we see in these charts": don't bother. Gaps per se are not a problem. Bringing up everyone's performance to the level of their ability is all the system should attempt. Focusing on gaps is the wrong metric.
Regarding "serious conversation about how to close the performance gaps that we see in these charts": don't bother. Gaps per se are not a problem. Bringing up everyone's performance to the level of their ability is all the system should attempt. Focusing on gaps is the wrong metric.