Great interview with Paul Vallas, chief of the Philadelphia school system, posted at CSMonitor.

“It’s not that the schools got bad,” argues Vallas. “It’s that things changed around them. We’re preparing children for the economy of the future in the schools of yesterday.”

Politicians and education policy planners simply haven’t kept up, he says.

“You’ve got pregnant teens, more kids in foster care, more latchkey kids, less support at home, kids being exposed to far more violent images than 25 to 30 years ago, and more ready access to firearms.”

Add to that a changing economy that in recent decades has lured many women and minorities out of the classroom and into better-paying jobs.

The result, Vallas says, is a need to invest time, effort, and creativity into rethinking the way schools operate and how they hire teachers.

He also believes firmly in character education as a means of compensating for less parental support at home.

I like the plan to eliminate Philly’s middle schools. He’s made me a believer.