The Quarterback Problem
I highly recommend an article in last week’s New Yorker magazine for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the challenges facing our education system. Or just for anyone who cares to read about how difficult it is for professional football scouts to predict which college quarterbacks will perform well in the National Football League. You’ll be surprised to see how the two topics are related.
Malcolm Gladwell, the bestselling author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference; Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking; and Outliers: The Story of Success, begins with a scout trying to determine whether Mizzou quarterback Chase Daniel has the tools to be a successful pro quarterback. Of course, the answer is that nobody knows, but despite this ignorance, NFL franchises guarantee tens of millions of dollars to untested signal callers in hopes that they have found the proverbial needle in the haystack.
How does this relate to education? It is just as impossible to predict which aspiring teachers will turn out to be effective in the classroom, yet public schools across the nation are similarly forced to make long-term commits to teachers before they have any idea of whether they have what it takes to help kids learn. As with the NFL, the stakes are very high because research has shown that the quality of a student’s teacher has an enormous influence on that student’s learning — far more than factors such as class size or facilities, or even a school’s overall reputation. But because of agreements struck with teachers’ unions, most public schools find it very difficult to terminate teachers that prove to be ineffective. Thus, a few poor hiring decisions can cripple a school’s efforts to teach its students.
Gladwell’s article offers amazing insight into these challenges, and even proposes a few novel solutions that might make it easier for our nation’s schools to identify and retain the talented teachers who are vital to our children’s educational success. You owe it to yourself to give this article a read.
Couldn’t disagree more. Most teacher prep programs now require in depth classroom experience before graduating teachers. Many universities now have 5 year teacher training programs where students are required to spend a year teaching in a real school with real kids before earning their teaching degree. During that year, they are evaluated intensely and more thoroughly than they will be once they are teaching. And those evaluations are available to school districts who interview teaching candidates.
So unless Chase Daniel actually has to play a year with an NFL team before being hired, your analogy doesn’t work. The only real similarity that comes to mind is that future teachers are also videotaped and those tapes are attached to their resume, just like game films of football players.
Also, extensive research over many years indicates that administrators have a far greater impact on student achievement than teachers. So the principal is a lot more important than the teacher. He/she hires the teachers, supplies their classrooms, places the students, manages a budget and keeps the school safe and orderly.
But I do realize it’s more fun to criticize the teachers.
Comment by MO teacher — December 16, 2008 @ 10:47 a.m.
MO Teacher,
In no way did I mean to disparage teachers! To the contrary, I was pointing out how vitally important and valuable good teachers are. But the fact of the matter is that some teachers are not especially effective, and that the current system makes it difficult to terminate those ineffective teachers. Additionally, the current system makes it all-but-impossible to pay exceptionally skilled teachers for the additional value they bring to a school. These are problems built into the system, and if we can address those problems it will greatly improve the system for parents, students, principals, and teachers alike.
If you read Gladwell’s article, he actually describes the process of reviewing videotapes of teachers in training. His point, which I believe to be both well-made and well-supported by research, is that a student teacher’s performance when they are being supervised does not necessarily translate into long-term effectiveness when, as you point out, the rigor of the evaluations tends to diminish. You can get glimpses of talent, just like Chase Daniel’s gamefilm, but those glimpses still only allow those in charge of hiring to make an educated guess. It usually takes several years’ worth of data to predict a teacher’s likely impact on the students in their classroom, and by that time the union rules make it difficult to remove those teachers who aren’t measuring up.
As to your point about the importance of principals and other administrators, I’ll be happy to review (and comment on) any studies you’d like to pass my way. Feel free to email them to me at dave.roland@showmeinstitute.org.
Comment by Dave Roland — December 16, 2008 @ 12:09 p.m.