Teacher Selection: Smart Selection vs. Dumb Selection
I had a twitter argument the other day about a blog posting that compared the current debate around “de-selection” of bad teachers to eugenics. It is perhaps a bit harsh to compare Hanushek (cited author of papers on de-selecting bad teachers) to Hitler, if that was indeed the intent. However, I did not take that as the intent of the posting by Cedar Riener. Offensive or not, I felt that the blog posting made 3 key points about errors of reasoning that apply to both eugenecists and to those promoting empirical de-selection of fixed shares of the teacher workforce. Here’s a quick summary of those three points:
- The first error is a deterministic view of a complex and uncertain process.
- The second common error becomes apparent once the need arises to concretely measure quality.
- The third error is a belief that important traits are fixed rather than changeable.
These are critically important, and help us to delineate between smart selection and, well, dumb selection.
More Flunkin’ out from Flunkout Nation (and junk graph of the week!)
Earlier today I stumbled across this brilliant post by RiShawn Biddle over at Dropout Nation.
Biddle boldly claims:
Despite the arguments (and the pretty charts) of such defenders as Rutgers’ Bruce Baker, there isno evidence that spending more on American public education will lead to better results for children.
Now, regarding the “no evidence” claim, I would recommend reading this article from Teachers College Record, this year, which summarizes a multitude of rigorous empirical studies of state school finance reforms finding