Should teacher quality be so important?
Let’s make teacher quality less important, writes Dan Willingham on The Answer Sheet. “Teacher quality is the most important in-school factor that influences kids’ schooling,” he writes.”That’s important because it’s pretty hard to change characteristics of the child, the family or the neighborhood, whereas educators and politicians can more readily change characteristics of schools.”
We could try to hire better and better teachers to replace those who are unsatisfactory. That’s expensive.
Willingham prefers to make teaching more consistent so the “characteristics of individual teachers wouldn’t matter so much.”
For example, we might try to make teaching more consistent by improving teacher preparation.Right now, teacher preparation just doesn’t matter very much. Most teachers say that it didn’t help them, and there is scant evidence that the type of training teachers receive has much impact on
What’s a credit worth?
What’s a credit worth? Traditionally, professors decide how much credit to award. The U.S. Education Department’s definition of the credit hour is “misguided,” argues