密歇根新闻广播 密歇根计划在十年内领跑美国教育

Across the state, many Michigan schools are struggling to keep pace with national averages. The U.S. as a whole is struggling to keep up with other advanced countries.

It's a major challenge, and in response, Michigan Superintendent¹ Brian Whiston has announced the Top 10 in 10 Years plan. He aims to make Michigan one of the top 10 states for education within the next decade.

The plan proposes focusing on teacher quality and research-proven methods to improve Michigan's public education.

Whiston tells us that before anything else, Michigan needs to develop a cohesive² education strategy.

"One of the problems in Michigan and in many states is, we constantly change direction and where we're heading," he says. "We created these guiding principles of being a coherent³, cohesive strategy, to have a student-directed learning process, to be driven by data and accountability, and to understand that poverty matters."

According to Whiston, Michigan ranked among the top education states in America as recently as 15 years ago. But as Michigan's poverty numbers rose, its educational performance sank to the bottom.

"We have to understand poverty not as an excuse, but that we have to do some things differently in our classrooms," he says.

Whiston believes that producing and maintaining high-quality teachers needs to be one of Michigan's main focuses in fixing its educational system.

"If you were a teacher 25 years ago, students I think acted and behaved and had backgrounds as such that you could teach a certain way, and today I think we're in a new world," he says. "We have a teaching cycle that needs to learn and adapt to the new students and how new students are learning."

Whiston wants to work towards a system that evaluates both teachers and students on an individual basis.

"The answer isn't always money. Sometimes it's just understanding where the students are performing and develop an individual plan for that student to be successful," Whiston says. "When students take ownership of their learning, they understand where they should be. It helps them go a long way towards addressing and solving those problems."

Brian Whiston tells us more about his Top 10 in 10 Years plan and how it could transform public education in Michigan in our conversation above.

1 superintendent   

n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长

参考例句：

• He was soon promoted to the post of superintendent of Foreign Trade.他很快就被擢升为对外贸易总监。
• He decided to call the superintendent of the building.他决定给楼房管理员打电话。

2 cohesive   

adj.有粘着力的；有结合力的；凝聚性的

参考例句：

• She sealed the parcel with cohesive tape.她用粘胶带把包裹封起来。
• The author skillfully fuses these fragments into a cohesive whole.作者将这些片断巧妙地结合成一个连贯的整体。

3 coherent   

adj.一致的，协调的，（话语）等条理清楚的

参考例句：

• These two paragraphs are not coherent enough.这两段文章不太接气。
• His interpretation is coherent and intelligible.他的翻译通顺易懂。