Bill Gates on Education and Poverty: Blame the Poor

Bill Gates recently spoke to the National Urban League, arguing that it is a “myth that we have to solve poverty before we improve education.”

Teachers: Watch Your Language?

Interesting piece by Jonathan Zimmerman in the New York Times about the need for teachers to better police their remarks about students in the public sphere, whether in a coffee shop or online. He writes:

A similar sense of restraint is needed in class as well: although I would fully support a teacher’s right to voice an anti-war view, I would not want her to tell the class that it is the only appropriate view. That’s indoctrination, not education, and it inhibits the critical thinking skills that democracy demands.

Outside school, meanwhile, teachers must also avoid public language that mocks, demeans or disparages the children they instruct. Cruel blog posts about lazy or disobedient students echo the snarky smackdown culture of cable TV talk shows. And they’re anathema to a truly democratic dialogue.

Zimmerman’s argument really resonates with me. Surrounded by students and other teachers all day, it’s understandable that teachers spend time talking about their students—and at times, those conversations probably do become too personal and too specific. Moving forward, it’s certainly something I need to reflect on for myself.

While some commenters seemed upset, believing that Zimmerman was singling out teachers for criticism, his broad argument, that while the rights of teachers are under assault across the country we can’t afford clearly unprofessional speech and behavior is an important one.

Effective instruction depends on free discussion between teachers and students and to protect our rights in the classroom, we’d be well-advised to watch our discourse outside.

Today’s Obama Speech on Education

President Obama delivered a speech today that observers are framing as an attack on teachers unions and a refusal to back down. It will be unfortunate if teachers unions continue to criticize accountability demands as attacks, but there’s little evidence that position will change soon.

I agree with the President: teachers do need to be more accountable and more effective. School districts need to do a better job of hiring and retaining effective teachers. It’s hard to argue with his central point:

“Surely we can agree that even as we applaud teachers for their hard work, we need to make sure they’re delivering results in the classroom. If they’re not, let’s work with them to help them be more effective. And if that fails, let’s find the right teacher for that classroom.”

I’ll take it another step: well-written tests certainly can be a measure of teacher effectiveness over time. Certainly, teachers will face demographic challenges and even the occasional class that deviates from the norm, but well-written tests that measure student growth absolutely can measure teacher efficacy. While critics might argue that tests can’t measure the relationships teachers have with students, I’d argue that quality personal relationships are measured in test results. Students learn more and work more for teachers who care about them as individuals. Teaching is a combination of effectively engaging individuals to achieve and there’s no reason to believe that tests can’t measure those results.

It’s certainly better to evaluate individual teachers than to close entire schools or to evaluate teachers on the anecdotal insight offered by the occasional evaluation.

My concern is that the approach favored by the Secretary of Education seems to follow the unfortunate trend of the  cult of principal leadership. Far too many reformers seem to believe that schools will only improve if principals are given more power to fire and hire teachers, but I’ve never understood the claim. In the status quo, isn’t it principals who evaluate teachers as interchangeable widgets? Aren’t principals the ones who make hiring decisions in most districts?

One can certainly criticize seniority system that protect less effective teachers, but where is the evidence that, once empowered, principals and school leaders will make decisions that are any more effective than today?

For every student who succeeds, there is plenty of credit to share between teachers, parents, administrators, and communities. Let’s make sure that the failures don’t become the sole responsibility of teachers. There is plenty of blame to share there as well.

Fascinating Study About, Well, Studying

Keith O’Brien from the Boston Globe reports on a study by Philip Babcock  and Mindy Marks that suggests students in college across the country are studying much less than before:

The average student at a four-year college in 1961 studied about 24 hours a week. Today’s average student hits the books for just 14 hours.

The decline, Babcock and Marks found, infects students of all demographics. No matter the student’s major, gender, or race, no matter the size of the school or the quality of the SAT scores of the people enrolled there, the results are the same: Students of all ability levels are studying less.

It’s an interesting read, one that explores the roles of more active students and access to technology as possible explanations. While it seems that the level of activity will almost necessarily be somewhat subjective, technology would, on the surface, seem to reduce some of the time needed to work outside of class. I have vivid memories of writing research papers on my electric typewriter in my first year of college without the aid of the Internet or any electronic databases, memories that make me shudder still.

The study’s authors hit on another cause, a shared desire of students and professors to do less work:

One theory, offered by Babcock and Marks, suggests that the cause, or at least one of them, is a breakdown in the professor-student relationship. Instead of a dynamic where a professor sets standards and students try to meet them, the more common scenario these days, they suggest, is one in which both sides hope to do as little as possible.

“No one really has an incentive to make a demanding class,” Marks said. “To make a tough assignment, you have to write it, grade it. Kids come into office hours and want help on it. If you make it too hard, they complain. Other than the sheer love for knowledge and the desire to pass it on to the next generation, there is no incentive in the system to encourage effort.”

Breaking down this dynamic—shared desire for less effort—seems to be what needs to be at the center of educational reform efforts. When teachers and professors are effectively punished (by additional workloads relative to their peers) for having high standards, it seems inevitable that expectations and demands on students will slip.