Elizabeth Green has a long piece in The New York Times Magazine about different methods of improving teacher quality. The article is premised on the familiar idea that the quality of individual teachers greatly shapes a student's education (regardless of that student's race, class, family background or peer group), but that no one is sure how to improve teacher quality:
But what makes a good teacher? There have been many quests for the one essential trait, and they have all come up empty-handed. Among the factors that do not predict whether a teacher will succeed: a graduate-school degree, a high score on the SAT, an extroverted personality, politeness, confidence, warmth, enthusiasm and having passed the teacher-certification exam on the first try. When
Bill Gates announced recently that his foundation was investing millions in a project to improve teaching quality in the United States, he added a rueful caveat. “Unfortunately, it seems the field doesn’t have a clear view of what characterizes good teaching,” Gates said. “I’m personally very curious.”
It seems, then, that maybe macro-level education policy -- i.e. how Congress and the Obama administration decide to spend federal money -- shouldn't be advocating what Bill Gates is doing by investing millions in teacher quality projects. Yet, for some reason, the way policymakers think about teachers and education is totally different than how they view other social issues.