Truth on Teacher Quality

Nicholas Kristoff gets everything right in his Times column($) about teacher policy, which basically re-summarizes the findings and conclusions of Gordon, Kane, and Stager's widely-discussed Hamilton Project paper. Long-time Quick and ED readers know all about the report, of course, since we blogged about it on April 14th...of 2006. But better late than never, I say. To quote our post from last year:

"For decades researchers have been struggling to tease out bits of evidence pointing to the small impact of various traditional methods of categorizing teachers--certified, uncertified, alt-route, has a Master's degree, licensure exam scores, this disposition, that disposition, etc. etc. Some of these things matter a little, or somewhat; some (like having a Masters' degree) appear not to matter at all. The lack of definitive results has left plenty of room for people of different camps to comfortably keep various ideological arguments going ad infinitum, with little danger of actually resolving the issue and thus having to find something else to do.

But at the same time, research has also consistently found huge variations in teacher effectiveness within any category of teacher you care to name--old or young, certified or not, black or white, short or tall. Some teachers are just much, much better than others, regardless of external labels or credentials.

The Gordon paper simply takes these finding to their logical conclusion: instead of shaping teacher policy around things we know don't matter very much, let's shape teacher policy around things we know matter a lot. Instead of fighting a losing up-front battle to filter and sort prospective teachers based on qualities that may have a tenuous connection to success in the classroom, let's filter and sort them based on actual success in the classroom.

This would be a seismic change in the way teachers are prepared, hired, and treated as professionals. Really, an earth-spins-backward-on-its-axis, time-reverses-direction, Margot-Kidder-flies-up-out-of-a-ditch magnitude of change. It would mean taking seriously a fact that most educators know intuitively yet is largely absent from teacher policy: teaching is an extraordinarily complicated endeavor, and people find different ways to be good at it. You can train and test prospective teachers, give them knowledge and skill, and those things are important, but once they get into the classroom some teachers bring additional talents, work ethic, intelligence, drive, etc. to bear, and others don't. Those differences matter a lot to student learning.

This report has the courage to take seriously plain facts that many people know but are unwilling to act upon, because doing so would be a huge challenge to the status quo."

Also, along the same lines, see this Chart You Can Trust up on the EdSector home page today, focusing on how states have largely failed to hold teacher preparation programs accountable for preparing teachers to succeed in the classroom.