To really improve teaching we must invest far more than we do now in generating and sharing knowledge about teaching. This is another sort of teaching gap . Compared with other countries, the United States clearly lacks a system for developing professional knowledge and for giving teachers the opportunity to learn about teaching. American teachers, compared with those in Japan, for example, have no means of contributing to the gradual improvement of teaching methods or of improving their own skills. American teachers are left alone, an action sometimes justified on grounds of freedom, independence, and professionalism. This is not good enough if we want excellent schools in the next century. (In Chapters 7, 8, and 9 we discuss the problem of how to improve teaching, and offer a proposal to make improving teaching the focus of our efforts to close the achievement gap. )
We opened this chapter by describing the opportunities that exist at present for improving education. In this positive environment, the challenge that awaits our nation is to find a way to improve classroom teaching so that our educational goals can be realized.