subject: What, Then, of Best Practices? [print this page] Perhaps the current corollary to that dispute concerns the ways in which the federal No Child Left Behind Act has instituted research-based teaching methods as the "best practice" for improving reading test scores. And the research base upon which they draw is limited to only one method, the experimental design that uses statistical tests of significance to determine an experimental group's degree of effectiveness. But many question the idea that reading scores are the best indicators of reading improvement, that reading "understanding" or "comprehension" is precisely definable or measurable in any way, that experimental designs are the best and only research method available to identify effective teaching practices, that scripted lessons designed to raise test scores comprise good teaching, or that good teachers would want to remain in a profession in which their good judgment is trumped by the imperative Omega Speedmaster Replica Watches to stick to the script that someone else has written to guide their teaching. I think that the splendid teaching narratives provided by Cynthia Ballenger, Karen Gallas, Karen Hale Hankins, Greg Michie, and many others reveal that quality teaching requires a greater sensitivity to students than any scripted lessons can afford.
