When Smart People Get It Sooo Wrong: Malcolm Gladwell's Solutions for American Education

In his recent piece in the New Yorker ("Most Likely to Succeed," December 15), Malcolm Gladwell likens finding good teachers for America's schools to the "quarterback problem" that pro football teams have in predicting which star college player will make it in the NFL.

Yes, I know it seems a far-fetched premise, but here is what Gladwell has in mind: just like team officials don't really know what precise traits a good college quarterback must have to succeed in the NFL's much faster, tougher game, education managers and experts (school principals, district superintendents, academic researchers) can't identify a priori the qualities of a successful teacher. In both cases, the only way to find out who has the goods is to draft them, try them out, and maybe one in four will make the grade.

As Gladwell sees it, the two situations are alike in another respect. The stakes are high in both. Good quarterbacks make the difference between a mediocre and good football team; a good teacher makes the difference between mediocre and engaged, high performing students. According to Gladwell's source--a magical "back of the envelope" estimate by the Hoover Institution's Eric Hanushek--if we could only get rid of the "worst" 6 percent of American teachers and replace them with "average" ones, in a few short years American students would be reading and solving math problems as well as Canadians and Belgians.

Okay, it's a stretch. The fact that successful NFL quarterbacks are media idols and get salaries equal to the entire budget of a small school district might influence the number of people willing to invest years practicing to get a shot at the pros. The last time I looked there were no Pop Warner teacher leagues with twelve year-olds honing their math pedagogical skills.

But the piece is off the mark in other ways. First off, the assertion that we don't know what makes good teachers before trying them out for a few years while measuring their students' test gains is simply not true. For example, careful studies confirm what has long been suspected: how much math teachers know and how well they are trained to teach math affects their students' math gains. I'm certain Gladwell believes that raising students' test scores would have a major impact on their future job productivity. So wouldn't it make sense that teachers would be more productive if they scored high on subject matter tests?

There's more. In a huge study of North Carolina students, researchers from Duke's public policy center identified a number of teacher characteristics associated with greater student test score gains. One was how well teachers did on a licensure test. But years of experience and just having a regular teaching license made the biggest difference, followed by National Certification--a particularly demanding set of requirements for those teachers who want to be able to teach anywhere in the country. No one of these characteristics alone made a huge contribution, but together they added up to about one-fifth of the test score difference between pretty good students and mediocre ones.

So using the get-rid-of-the-worst-teachers dictum, in North Carolina you would want to get rid of the unlicensed, least experienced, lowest-scoring-on-the-licensure-test teachers. But don't forget, to increase student performance you would have to replace those with licensed, experienced, high scoring teachers. Where to get them is a question Gladwell and his informants haven't gotten around to yet.

Beyond that, as Gladwell himself points out, people who know about good teaching of reading or math can observe a teacher (or even a videotape of a teacher) and judge how good they are. In most cases, a skilled trainer can make a teacher much better. Of course, it takes practice and a good coach, but isn't that what most talented football players have had even before they get to college? And don't they get more of that once they get in the pros?

Gladwell also ignores that students in some U.S. states actually do as well as Canadians or Belgians on international tests. Minnesota made such large math gains on the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) in 1995-2007 that its students now do as well as the higher scoring countries in the world. Did Minnesota fire the worst performing 6 percent of its teachers? Did the state hire four young teachers for each one it kept? Not at all. Instead, with the help of Michigan State's William Schmidt, it improved its math curriculum and helped its teachers learn to teach it effectively.

Minnesota is obviously not Washington, D.C. or LA Unified. Almost all those who become teachers in Minnesota went to school there, and the state already had a good education system in 1995. So its potential teacher pool was pretty good to start with. Yet even Minnesota doesn't have four teacher candidates for each one they keep. When you get to the other end of the teacher supply chain in many DC or LA schools, you are often just trying to find any teacher--even untrained--to put in front of each classroom.

Yes, the stakes of having good teachers are high for the students in DC and LA, but who is going to pay the pro quarterback salaries to get the best trained and the brightest to teach in inner city schools? An urban district can turn to Teach for America for smart, cheap, inexperienced college graduates to spend a couple of years in a low-income school. But by the time they pick up the skills, they leave for greener pastures. Meanwhile, the poorest inner city kids are likely to get the lowest draft picks or young teachers who have never even played the game.

No, American schools don't have a quarterback problem. They can identify good teachers when they see them. What they have is a preparation problem. Right now, not enough colleges have programs producing good teachers, and many teacher preparation programs and schools don't have enough good young teaching recruits and teacher trainers to produce top-flight education graduates.

Imagine if the NFL had 100 teams instead of 32. Unless you cranked up the quality of the college game at Divisions II, the fifty worst teams in the NFL would not be very good. This is exactly what happens in education. The "best" school districts get the pick of the crop, and yes, they make mistakes, but still end up with a lot of good teachers because they know how to pick them. The least desirable districts get what's left. Eliminating certification is not going to solve this problem. It's like asking the NFL to go to local parks and find its players by scouting pick-up touch football games.

We just have to bite the bullet, Malcolm. If we want good quarterbacks we've got to make people want to be quarterbacks--and build the infrastructure to produce great ones. Learning to become a good teacher has to be as exciting and rewarding as becoming a good athlete. Someone--and maybe it should be the large urban school districts themselves--needs to develop the college-level and in-school teacher training systems to grow enough skilled players to make every school a good one.

Comments

[nomobull]

I went to a parent/teacher conference where the teacher told my child who was not doing his best that she didn't expect him to be the smartest but he could do better. My child was failing reading and this child who could help his brother with math had a low c in math. I told him not to compete with the other students but not to allow anyone not even the teacher to limit him. By the time of interim reports all his grades were up. He was doing what was expected not what he was capable of. With a little extra encouragement and effort he doing a lot better. Best of all he's doing it himself. And you should see the grin on his face when he shows me his school work and grades now.

[jkalember]

Spot on, but one piece needs to be highlighted. Many prospective teachers (and many of the new teacher before 5 yr casualties) simply don't want to deal with, er, "reluctant" students. This is especially true in Middle School. I am a middle school literacy coordinator at a Title 1 school (and formerly a 20yr public school board member in CA)--we have a lot of "problem" kids. "Classroom management" is the bane of new teachers, many vets, and many administrators. If you could give every teacher the option of "replacing" one or two students in each class, you would not only radically increase new teacher retention, but you would also enhance the effectiveness of ALL teachers. many kids just aren't connected to school, so we need to make it relevent for them. Not enable, but give them a "boot camp" program with the same standards, but in an entire different, coach-driven manner, emphasizing personal responsibility. A school within a school is a start, as are small leaning communities. Let's help our teachers and middle schoolers. Maybe we could help the 1 in 4 who drop in 9th gr. Maybe a tech/voc driven 2 yr HS Diploma with a paid apprenticeship? Let's show them the payoff and we will reach and teach--ALL students.

[Eos90]

Mr. Carnoy,
I was thinking about resources in addition to teachers, but of course you're right. Too bad politics has to play such a big part in everything. I have numerous retired neighbors and they complain about having to pay taxes to support schools when they no longer have children attending. People complain but aren't willing to do what it takes to fix the schools. Then, I guess that's true about every problem.

[SethBLiNK]

Gladwell is brilliant. His new book, Outliers is a joy to read and incredibly rich in thought.

But, to compare him to a legendary outlier, he's kind of like Mickey Mantle. When he swings for the fences and misses, he misses big.

The quest to fill our nation's school with great teachers is couldn't be more different than finding the 30 or 40 high school seniors who will quarterback Division 1 schools to glory and the half-dozen among them who will perform just as well in the pro ranks. There are so many quarterback skills that simply can't be tought and are nearly as hard to measure out of the context of appropriate competition. The ability to teach can be measured and to some extent taught. Our nation's educations system needs to all be on the same page.

When I was in High School, my school had a disproportionate number of young male teachers. Some were good. Some seemed out of place. Ten years later, I ran into one of them who was no longer teaching and he explained it to me: In the early 70s, the only ways to stay out of Vietnam after college were to go to Medical School or teach. Not everybody could get into medical school.

My point is that all teachers now pass the first test of teaching... they have chosen it as their profession. From there, it shouldn't be that hard to turn them into people who are actually good at it.

[TopProf]

Thanks Martin. Your points are firmly backed in evidence. After I read Gladwell's article, particularly how he took as his authority Eric Hanushek, I nearly demanded my money back. How is it that these right wing think tank folks command such unquestioning media attention?

[Eos90]

I agree with the article as it refers to improving support for teachers, but michyh made the best point. The curriculum has to be relevant. Why should a teacher have to do this? Shouldn't the curriculum already be relevant? There needs to be a focus on moving our education system into the 21st century. A system designed to provide workers for an industial society doesn't work for a post-industrial nation.

More is know today about how children learn than ever before. Divide children up into classes based on learning style and teach to the childrens' strengths. Ex. My son (now 18) was always a good student but was bored to tears sitting at a desk doing worksheets. Lacking any viable alternative, I removed him from public school to homeschool him. We used a hands on, eclectic approach. His interest in learning soared and he moved quickly through everything I could get my hands on. He started college at age 16 and currently holds a 3.78 GPA.

My point here is that it doesn't matter how good a teacher is if a student isn't interested in learning. A great teacher can inspire, but don't ignore how children learn best.

One last point. A standardized curriculum for our mobile society and equity in school funding is essential. Pay for teachers isn't the only disparity facing inner city schools. Equal rights doesn't mean equal opportunity. Until this issue is addressed, we will be leaving out a large segment of our children.

[Martin Carnoy - Huffpost Blogger]

Just to add one important point, Eos90: equal pay for teachers in inner city schools is, unfortunately, not going to attract enough good teachers into those schools since they face much more challenging conditions than teachers in suburban schools. Inner city school districts would actually have to pay much higher salaries, and that means that states would have to allocate more money per student to poorer than to richer districts. Not an easy thing to swing politically.

MCarnoy

[andygaus]

There may be a lot of people who would consider teaching--not necessarily in the inner-city schools--if there were fewer barriers to making a start. I considered math teaching, but right at the outset, many school district required not just the names of three references but three written letters of recommendation. I would also have had to be registered in a program with, as you say it, all of those education courses. I think there may be many people who could make good teachers and increase the supply if you do three things: 1) make fewer barriers as to who may apply, 2) provide more mentoring and supervision for new teachers, and 3) rely more on evaluation after the fact to decide who came through and who did not. It takes will power to enforce such a program because it's easier and safer all round to rely on paper credentials as to who is admitted to a teacher training program and also as to who is now fully certified and qualified to teach. But good teachers are not the ones who come and leave with all the right paper. Good teachers are where you find them, and you increase the probability of finding them by making it easy for them to swim into your net and by knowing them when you have them.

[TopProf]

In principle I agree. But there are now so many alternate routes to certification that all those ed courses, as you say, are not the barrier they once were. And experience and evidence show that many people who "swim into" the nets this way don't last long. As soon as they confront the realities of the classroom with limited preparation, they leave. Furthermore, there is such a concept as pedagogical content knowledge that people who have regular content knowledge in subjects like math don't necessarily have. Being good in math doesn't mean you know how to teach math. The two are separate.

[liz]

I think I would be a good lawyer, but there are too many barriers to getting a job as a lawyer, like having to take that awful LSAT, and go to law school, and pass the bar examinations. We should just let people practice law and then decide if they are OK at it.
I watched a special report on TV about a month ago on young idealistic college graduates teaaching in New Orleans. Some were OK at it, but others were doing what their prep school teachers did at the front of the class while the students "did their own thing."
Teaching, like any highly skilled activity, requires native ability and training. We need to identify and encourage those with ability, and give them the best possible training and professional support. Maybe now the days are over anyone "smart" went to business school, and only not so bright do-gooders became teachers. Maybe the culture will value teaching as it did 50 years ago. As in many areas, the needed changes come from the grassroots level, not from above.

[luziannagirl]

Until the 1950's and 60's, workplace gender discrimination kept the majority of high-achieving, bright women out of the highest-paid, most prestigious white-collar professions, so most of them went into nursing and teaching. Now, those same bright women who used to fill the K-12 classrooms and hospital nurses' stations are corporate CEO's, accountants, lawyers, doctors, and engineers.

To get that same caliber of teacher some of us actually remember, first order of business is to raise the pay to the levels of those professions which have "stolen" them away.

In Louisiana, the average starting pay for a bachelor's degreed public school high school math teacher is in the low 30's, with a lifetime range to the 50's. A beginning bachelor's degreed engineer starts in the 50's, with a top range into the 150's.

You do the math.

[Martin Carnoy - Huffpost Blogger]

Luziannagirl, Thanks for your great comments. Raising salaries to draw the best and the brightest into teaching is important, but we also need to raise the standards in the training of teachers, and we need to provide young starting teachers with much better mentoring in the first two years.
MCarnoy

[caphillprof]

And we would be much more likely to raise training standards and offer mentoring if we had a greater investment in teaching like . . . paying them more say $50,000 to $150,000

[michyh]

I have been a teacher for over 25 years and now consult with famiies, train teachers and work at making curriculum relevant. While no doubt there a few good points here and I have no doubt the sincerity of the intention of the post, however....
Education is not about producing high test scores, fact filled/stuffed beings... that's what SCHOOL is.
Read education facilitates knowledge and destiny and meaning. School has little to do with that.
REducing education and likening it to a score producing buinsess really sort of illustrates the problem, perhaps without meaning to do so.

[Martin Carnoy - Huffpost Blogger]

Of course, you are right, Michyh, about using test scores as the sole measure of how much kids are learning. But I think that some of the things I said about knowing who the good teachers are when we see them holds even more true when we go beyond testing. A good teacher makes kids want to learn the material, and makes the material understandable so they find themselves learning it.

MCarnoy

[lonestarleroy]

Excellent post. I have over 10 years experience, a masters and teach in a field that has less than one half of the people teaching it that are certified. (Texas that means math and science).I keep hearing and now seeing all these wonderful people that are going to jump into teaching and stay if they just did not have to complete those old nasty education courses as well as the courses in their subject area.

Until teachers control their profession, like Dr.'s, lawyers, nurses, police officers, CPA's and others do then we will get what we get. Let me put it this way, cannot get a Dr. in your rural area lets emergency certificate a nurse. Not going to happen.

To support those inner city tough school is not going to cost a few dollars, but a lot of $$$. Come walk a mile in my shoes after you put in the time and money to get the certification. You did hit the nail on the head though. The ones you quoted don't need actual data they just need a cause. Just like you said the problem is not that we cannot find good teachers, we just cannot keep them. I also wanted to note that the great DC queen is all about how we need people with this great love and that they are not in it for the money. Lets cap NFL QB salaries at 50K and look for people who love the game.

[shoutingatmytv]

Leroy, I think I understand what you're getting at, and you're probably right, but with due respect and for the sake of your students, I hope your math is better than your writing.

[Martin Carnoy - Huffpost Blogger]

Leroy, I hope you don't mind, but I would like to use (with attribution) your last comment about capping NFL quarterback salaries at 50K. It sums it all up.

MCarnoy