Technology Could Close Public Education Gaps by Extending Best Teachers' Reach
Money and time in class aren't the problems. Finding ways to share the best teachers is
By far the largest and most important task performed by government in America is public education. Yet teachers, parents, the president, and his secretary of education are all intuitively aware that our system is, by and large, a failure.
The problem is not money. We're spending 700 percent more per pupil than we were 50 years ago—and that's in inflation-adjusted dollars! Twelfth graders' scores in math, science, and reading have been flat for 30 years, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and large gaps persist between whites and African-Americans and whites and Hispanics.
It's not time spent in school. The longer children stay in our schools, the worse they seem to perform when compared with similar pupils in rich countries.
It's not teacher pay. Teachers are not severely underpaid when you take into account that they work only nine months a year; certainly they're not short-changed at all when compared with workers of similar skill levels and similar professions. Indeed, the people drawn into teaching tend to be those who have performed in the bottom third of their college classes. High performers tend to stay away from teaching, in part because they think there is no merit pay: In other jobs, they can earn more money through better performance or by voluntarily putting in longer hours.
How can we break the history of failure? Americans at every level want to. They understand that a good high school education is critical to a college degree and that a college degree is the single most important factor affecting a young person's chances of success.
Research indicates one big answer: better teachers. It is not the color of the students' skin or where they come from; it's not the size or ethnicity of their classes or the level of parental participation; it is the teacher who is the defining factor of great education. It all happens in the classroom. There is only half as much variation in students' achievement between schools as there is across classrooms in the same school, a manifestation of differences in the quality of teaching. Children with a very good teacher will learn, on average, one and a half years of material in a school year; those with a bad teacher will learn only half a year's worth of material. It is better to have a good teacher in a bad school than a bad teacher in a good school.
What makes a great teacher? We have no conclusive understanding. Some of the characteristics are intangible. But we are going to have to recognize the good ones when we see them, and we are also going to have to find a way to help average teachers become great teachers.
Technology holds promise. Through the electronic miracles of the Internet and video, we can have the best teachers in each subject teaching in different schools but within the same school system. I have just witnessed this experiment in New York City in a school where lectures by great teachers were beamed in from another school. They are able to inspire the remote students to respond on subjects as varied as immunology, public health, and geometry. The technology is not just a destroyer of distance. It is force multiplier of talent: More pupils will learn more, more students will do well and maybe come back to teach, and more teachers will see how it is done. (After all, this is the way surgeons are taught: by observing the experts at work.)
Technology is starting to demonstrate the power to change teaching. We are slowly developing the software to put great teaching online and on DVDs. The Kauffman Foundation is nearly ready to launch an innovative interactive teaching course for colleges (the subject, fittingly, is the very innovations that gave us our modern world). As we develop more teaching software, hundreds of thousands of students can be with a great historian on an explanatory walk through the sites of the Battles of Gettysburg and Waterloo, or watch an aeronautics engineer use a wind tunnel to calculate the best shapes for the wings of a new aircraft.
Online learning has other advantages. Students can replay materials they have just been taught, enabling them to proceed at their own pace. Teachers can organize supplements to their lectures with visuals that make the material much easier for students to retain. Finally, technology will enable school systems to reduce the number of teachers by as much as a quarter, freeing up funds to pay teachers more. Then, more good teachers can interact with more students across the school system and, indeed, across the nation.
Face-to-face teaching and hands-on collaboration cannot be replaced. But the technology I've described, now at our fingertips, is an important supplement in providing a new form of blended learning, a powerful assistance to the teacher in the classroom. We are on the verge of a what could, if properly managed, be a huge educational breakthrough.
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Reader Comments
Ohio education
Ohio has just made economic education necessary in primary and secondary schools! Finally, and I hope other states will follow if they have not done this sooner.
We do not live to be 1000, we only have the ability to educate these kids for a few years. So DON'T make them study advanced math, chemistry, and biology for hundreds of precious hours! Most of us, probably 80-90%, will NOT USE this highly technical and specialized information! Let those going into these fields have smaller and much better classes! Most of us can get what we need from Popular Science or similar sites on the internet.
Let the rest of us spend much more time on economics and relevant issues. From credit scores, mortgages, investing [and avoiding Madoff type scams], to other practical things like how to take care of a house or car.
And my girl's did very well at Walnut Hills High School, which is featured in the last US News ranking. But they had to take many hours of Latin, a DEAD language! Sure it will help a little here or there, but the public school could be taking that money and teaching Russian, which they had 7 years of but forgot over time. Or Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc.; it amazes me that our better schools rarely offer these important languages.
Best Teachers?
Parents. Parental expectations guide the educational process from the beginning. Parents not only facilitate the process from the preschool level through graduate school, they also serve to reinforce the critical notion that education is prerequisite to success. I know it may seem elementary but, it's a classic case of leading by example.
Children have a way of modeling parental behavior. I've seen this in all of my five children and in some cases, it can be embarrassing. However, in most instances, those behaviors reinforce my behavior and actually help me in my quest to perform at an acceptable level. These modeled behaviors may be academic, social, philosophical, or moral.
Serious outcomes tend to develop when children are impressed by non-parents that hold a particular sway with them and influence them in matters not consistent with parental expectations. These "non-parents" may be relatives, TV performers, friends, or, even, teachers. I've never felt the compulsion to send my children to private school or, for that matter, home school. I do, however, take the necessary steps to assure that my childs' teachers and I are on the same page academically and share an appreciation of certain social diversity realities. They have a notion of my expectations and an appreciation of them. If we can't come together, I will actively seek out an alternative teacher.
Assuming the teacher, my child, and I are "OK", one of the most important qualities a teacher must possess is that of salesmanship. A successful salesman has that innate ability to seize ones' attention, present a product, service, or concept, and assure that the consumer has an understanding. If that understanding is present, the good salesperson closes the sale meaning that the concept has been understood and accepted. I understand that the concept of distributing lectures and even lesson plans is already being implemented by a number of home school and private educational firms. I can see the advantages of having a world class salesperson delivering lectures on virtually any topic imaginable and, that information being well received. We should seriously consider the technology, most of which is already in place, that would allow such lectures to occur.
When all is said and done, however, it's the reception that child receives when he or she walks in the door after school that reinforces everything that child has experienced since the left in the morning. Do care? Do we show them that we are truly concerned about what their day was like. I'd like for you to show me what you did in school today and teach me what you've learned and then we can have a snack or a treat. This decompressing process only takes five to ten minutes of my day but, its usually the most fun time!
Best Teachers?
As a current math teacher with a math degree, graduate degree and National Board certification, I personally take offense to the audacity of someone not involved in the educational system assuming that I am teaching because I am not smart enough to do anything else. I teach because I love to see kids succeed. I have taught students who, with my help and others like me, have the training to be a doctor, lawyer or other jobs that apparently according to you, are so much more valuable than teaching.
Interested in a way to cut costs? Merit pay. Teachers who's subjects are tested deserve to be paid more, assuming the kids make adequate gains. I am not implying that PE teachers or Art teachers are less important to a student's education, but everyone knows the pressure is on math and reading teachers. Bonuses are given to all teachers in a school if students perform well on math and reading tests. Why? It is the math and reading teachers (and science and history also) that regularly work 10 or more hours per day, not including the grading papers and creating lessons that takes place at home.
And only working 9 months??? Who does that anymore? All of the teachers I know are forced to work in the summer to pay for expenses like daycare and health insurance during those months.
Mr. Zuckerman, please come to my school and see how hard my colleagues and myself work and then tell us that we are only teaching because we aren't qualified to do anything better. I would be willing to trade places with you for a day and see how you handle 30 teenage students in a classroom in a tiny trailer (excuse me... learning cottage). Call me.
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