To improve U.S. education, it’s time to treat teachers as professionals
This piece is part of a leadership roundtable on the right way to approach teacher incentives — with opinion pieces by Duke University behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Howard Gardner, and Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein.
“What are the right incentives to have in place for teachers?” The very question itself is jarring. It implies that teachers don’t want to perform well and that they need incentives, which in today’s parlance translates into rewards (money) and reprimands (fear of loss of benefits or position).
