The New Yorker has published a piece by Malcolm Gladwell that delves into the murky world of determining who is and who isn't effective as a teacher called "Most Likely to Succeed." Gladwell compares predicting who will be an excellent teacher with determining who will succeed as an NFL quarterback. He notes that NFL scouts have failed more often than not when trying project NFL success onto a college quarterback (Jim Druckenmiller anyone?). So it is with projecting the success of teachers.
Gladwell also looks at some pioneering research being done at UVA's Curry School that is trying to identify what is excellent teaching. He takes that research a step further and suggests that what we sorely need is an open enrollment of teachers, credentials aren't important. Enrollees would need to complete a rigorous apprenticeship where they must prove themselves effective by raising test scores by a significant amount or be released. Those who make it through the apprenticeship successfully would be richly compensated.
I remember when I was teaching in Albemarle County back in the late 1980's, the school board decided to do something about "bad" teachers, so they imposed a merit pay scheme. Turns out that so many teachers proved themselves meritorious that the school board was forced to pay out rewards to a whole lot more people than they anticipated. After a couple of years of providing a "healthy reward" to so many teachers, the school board abandoned the whole plan and went back to a more traditional teacher pay scale.
Merit pay schemes have always seemed like empty ideas to me. While the research going on at UVA is intriguing, do experts really know enough about what makes a great teacher to confidently identify it so that those teachers can be rewarded? What's with this idea of teaching a year and a half's material in one year? Doesn't the author realize that we teach rigidly prescribed amounts of material every year...no more, no less. Are we really going to base a reward system on what are arguably flawed tests. It's already sad enough that we place so much emphasis on them; is more emphasis a good thing?
These are all questions that came to my mind as I read Gladwell's piece. I would certainly reccommend you read the piece and form your own opinions. Feel free to deposit your comments here.
Gladwell also looks at some pioneering research being done at UVA's Curry School that is trying to identify what is excellent teaching. He takes that research a step further and suggests that what we sorely need is an open enrollment of teachers, credentials aren't important. Enrollees would need to complete a rigorous apprenticeship where they must prove themselves effective by raising test scores by a significant amount or be released. Those who make it through the apprenticeship successfully would be richly compensated.
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 remember when I was teaching in Albemarle County back in the late 1980's, the school board decided to do something about "bad" teachers, so they imposed a merit pay scheme. Turns out that so many teachers proved themselves meritorious that the school board was forced to pay out rewards to a whole lot more people than they anticipated. After a couple of years of providing a "healthy reward" to so many teachers, the school board abandoned the whole plan and went back to a more traditional teacher pay scale.
Merit pay schemes have always seemed like empty ideas to me. While the research going on at UVA is intriguing, do experts really know enough about what makes a great teacher to confidently identify it so that those teachers can be rewarded? What's with this idea of teaching a year and a half's material in one year? Doesn't the author realize that we teach rigidly prescribed amounts of material every year...no more, no less. Are we really going to base a reward system on what are arguably flawed tests. It's already sad enough that we place so much emphasis on them; is more emphasis a good thing?
These are all questions that came to my mind as I read Gladwell's piece. I would certainly reccommend you read the piece and form your own opinions. Feel free to deposit your comments here.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=7
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