How can one evaluate who will be a great teacher? That’s the question posed by journalist Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point
Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. . . . your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. . . .
After years of worrying about issues like school funding levels, class size, and curriculum design, many reformers have come to the conclusion that nothing matters more than finding people with the potential to be great teachers. But there’s a hitch: no one knows what a person with the potential to be a great teacher looks like.
Gladwell then cites an impressive group of researchers who have found that teaching certifications and master’s degrees, while required in almost every district, don’t make a difference in the classroom. The only way to find good teachers? Watch them teach, then evaluate them. The implications, as Gladwell sees them?
[Teaching] needs an apprenticeship system that allows candidates to be rigorously evaluated. . . . Currently, the salary structure of the teaching profession is highly rigid, and that would also have to change in a world where we want to rate teachers on their actual performance. An apprentice should get apprentice wages. But if we find eighty-fifth-percentile teachers who can teach a year and a half’s material in one year, we’re going to have to pay them a lot—both because we want them to stay and because the only way to get people to try out for what will suddenly be a high-risk profession is to offer those who survive the winnowing a healthy reward.
I have to think there’s some truth in what he’s saying, but education is a complex topic. What do you think of Gladwell’s analysis? Are statistical averages meaningful? Is he overlooking any factors (like parental involvement)? Is his solution practical? Thoughts from educators in the audience (or anyone else)?
Thanks, Boing Boing.)
He’s talking about “merit pay,” which will be unpopular with teachers, for good reason. While it sounds like an obvious reward and retention scheme for good teachers, the problem is how to evaluate them. We already have problems evaluating students. Grading teachers meaningfully is even harder.
At the very least, master teachers should do the evaluation, rather than professional administrators. The average principal in my experience hasn’t taught a class for decades, if ever.
Of course I’d rather have a good teacher in a “bad” school than the reverse, but what are you supposed to do for the next year? Can parents steer their kids into particular teachers’ classes?
Theresa (went to underfunded but basically functional small-town public school K-12, and my mom and grandma were teachers)
I think this is a fabulous article, and I agree with so much of it. Matching people to the profession of teaching is like matching them up in a romantic relationship; first and foremost, there must be chemistry. This job has got to be something you really want to do. When the passion is there, good teaching usually follows.
Theresa makes a great point about merit pay. I teach an elective science (earth science) to HS juniors who take my class if they feel they can’t hack chemistry. About half of them go into the trades, the rest to community college. These are rough-and-tumble kids who are thrilled to get Cs. I have spent over a decade crafting creative, involved lessons, and I still feel like I’m about halfway there. I love my job to pieces, and last year I became Nationally Board Certified.
Across the hall, my colleague teaches a senior elective (anatomy), one that is mostly populated by well-behaved kids at the top of the class. Discipline issues in her class are rare. However, she complains constantly, and teaches out of the book.
If we were to receive merit pay based on our students’ performance (the current proposal), of course she’d be the one to get it. But although my kids are loath to put pen to paper, they listen to me, and I know they are learning. And they’re enjoying it. They tell me every year, and the letters I get from students are a testament to that.
I guess my point is this: it’s complicated. Very. It’s a big gray area because passion is impossible to quantify. I am also thrilled that he brings up the irrelevance of advanced degrees, because that is a position I have held strongly for years.
Reform needs to begin in universities, where teachers are prepared. My education classes in college were 90% worthless. If we could do something about parental involvement, obviously we would see a sea change in student achievement, but we have to focus on what we can control.
Finally, I will say this: In this economy, I am grateful to be underpaid on my rigid salary schedule, because at least it’s something.