Thinking Outside the Box to Boost Teacher Effectiveness

Martin J. Blank, in a Huffington Post article, writes about a rigorous study led by Raj Chetty, entitled ‘The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers.’ Blank explains:

“Chetty and his colleagues estimate that substituting a very poor teacher for an average one in one school year could increase each student’s age-28 earnings by nearly $200 per year. While that is a small improvement, the entire class could see gains of as much as $250,000 over their lifetimes.

Unfortunately, it is much harder to figure out how to make that teacher swap happen, and how to keep the good teachers once they have been recruited. As Chetty and his colleagues acknowledge, bonuses for excellent teachers have not proven effective...Great teachers consistently report that they are motivated largely by the pleasure they derive from the job, not bonuses. 

Unfortunately, the joy of teaching has taken some serious hits in recent years. Policies that focus on reading and math tests increasingly narrow curricula, neglecting important subjects and making instruction more rigid in core subjects. Emphasis on student test scores as a means of evaluating teacher performance, often with serious consequences for those teachers’ careers, punishes teachers who take on the very at-risk students we want them to work with. Those policies also fail to promote or reward team teaching and collaboration, factors shown to improve teacher effectiveness and morale.”

Source: “Thinking Outside the Box to Boost Teacher Effectiveness” by Martin J. Blank, The Huffington Post , February 16, 2012

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