MacArthur Genius Grant Goes to Educational Researcher Who Showed Economic Incentives Don't Work

Among this year's recipients of the so-called "genius grants" by the MacArthur Foundation, which give promising unconventional achievers in diverse fields $500,000 with no strings attached to apply to their work, is education economist Roland G. Fryer, Jr.  Fryer is the founder and director of Harvard University's Education Innovation Laboratory and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.  His work has concentrated on trying to explain and address the educational achievement gaps among minority students.

Clearly, that is an important topic worthy of funding.  And Fryer has been involved in many different studies.  But what I found really interesting about this grant is that Fryer's arguably most significant studies where two that showed that financial incentives (i.e., paying people for higher test scores) DID NOT WORK.  In the first study, they tried offering more money to teachers for higher test scores; in the second, they did the same thing for students.  In neither case, however, did the money do anything to improve educational achievement (as measured by test scores, at least).

Here is a great quote by Fryer in talking about how these studies have radically changed his ideas of trying to improve education by linking higher compensation to higher scores:

"Economists always assume people know how to produce something. Incentives work if you are lazy, not if you don't know how to do something.  So that's spawned some new theoretical ideas for me. What if people don't know how to produce something? What do optimal incentives look like in that environment?"

I just think this is a great point to hear in our recent environment of blaming educational problems on bad teacher and evil teacher unions.  As I've said often before, we need to stop trying to impose the business model on schools, because education is not the same as just trying to sell more widgets.  Outstanding education, particularly during a time when more than one child out of every five is living in poverty, is a complex and ever-changing business.  Tying teacher pay directly to test scores is only likely to exacerbate the situation, because it drives teachers who need the extra salary money to move from high poverty schools, where the test scores may depend on how many of the children taking the test even had enough food in the past day to be able to focus on the exam, to the schools they know kids are likely to perform better, just on their life circumstances alone.

In short, it is NOT that teachers are lazy (OK, maybe some are, but not most).  It's that nobody knows how to consistently improve the many different factors that can inhibit educational achievement.   Dangling financial carrots in front of them for higher test scores has been shown to be useless at best, and insulting, morale sapping, and counterproductive at worst.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out this is a failing policy.

What Are the 12 Qualities of a Good Teacher?

So before you read this blog post, take a few moments to answer that question for yourself. Maybe you don’t have 12, maybe you just have a couple of major ideas...but what comes to your mind when I ask “What makes a good teacher?”

I'll give you a minute...




This question was raised for me under the headline “The 12 Qualities of a Good Teacher,” which in turn was a link to a blog post in Chris Lehmann’s Practical Theory blog.  A week and a half ago, I wrote a blog post about Lehmann’s approach to entrepreneurship in education that I thought was really inspirational, so I expected his take on teacher excellence to be enlightening.

However, just as I asked you to do, I tried coming up with my own list of the 12 qualities of good teachers. Here is what popped up in my mind in the order that they occurred to me, with a little explanation what they mean:


Caring--Teachers have to care about the kids and about their education. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Compassionate--Compassion goes beyond caring about the kids, but being able to empathize with their issues, their struggles, their worries, etc., whether directly related to the topic or subject area or not.

Creative--This is a favorite of mine. I think teachers should fine new and interesting ways to convey old and often well-worn truths...and brand-new ones as well.

Competent--Teachers must have a certain level of expertise, both in the subject area and in teaching capacity.

Organized--As much as I hate it, I can’t teach effectively unless I plan, I keep records, I order books or supplies in time for them to arrive by the class on that topic, I can find the books or supplies I already own in time for the class, and I get the right papers and materials to the right classes.

Good Communicator--Teachers these days are being called upon to communicate in more and more ways....not just speaking and writing, but producing podcasts and videos and blogging and tweeting. So it’s tough, and getting tougher. But how are you going to teach if you can’t get your point across? And being a good communicator is not just a one-way thing; it means being a good listener as well.

Flexible--Teachers plan, yes....but when stuff that wasn’t in the plan shows up, as is going to happen with children (really, with humans of any age, but more so when they are younger humans), they have to be able to take it in stride and deal with it.

Committed--Let’s face it--teaching is not for the faint-hearted. It’s a lot of work, and usually the benefits are not immediately evident. As the Chinese say, “One generation plants the tree, and another gets the shade.” You have to be willing to plant and plant and plant, and trust the shade will show up in months or even years to come.

Lifelong Learner--Why would we expect children to be willing to do the work of learning something new if we aren’t willing to do so ourselves? Plus, I'm convinced that the best teachers are the ones who love learning themselves.

Open minded--Personally, I think if teachers think they’ve got all the answers, or they’ve got everything figured out, or they are right all the time, then they are doomed.

Fair and respectful between and to students--Teachers need to respect students’ ideas and wishes and ways of doing things. They can’t always be accommodated, but they should not be dismissed out of hand.  No matter how young they are, they have a level of control of their own lives that no one can--or should--overrule.  And, of course, to the best of their abilities, they should not treat students differently in a way that disadvantages some compared to others.

Curious--Ideally, teachers never lose that urge to ask “Why?” or “Why not?” or “What if?”

Correct Priorities--This is one of my biggest gripes about modern institutionalized education. We are so busy measuring the tangible that we have no time to make the ineffable blossom. But it is those ineffable things--our loves, our passions, our beliefs, our unique personalities, our creativity, our faiths--that determine the success of humanity. Teachers must teach the tangible, but shouldn’t lose sight of bigger picture of making their students happy, fulfilled people.

After I came up with my list, I reviewed Lehmann’s top 12 qualities, which in his own words are:

So what makes a great teacher?
1) Passion for teaching.

2) Love of kids. 

3) Love of their subject.

4) Understand of the role of a school in a child's life.

5) A willingness to change. ... If you expect kids to be changed by their interaction with you, it's got to be a two-way street. 

6) A work-ethic that doesn't quit.

7) A willingness to reflect.

8) Organization.

9) Understanding that being a "great teacher" is a constant struggle to always improve.

10) Enough ego to survive the hard days.

11) Enough humility to remember it's not about you. It's about the kids.

12) A willingness to work collaboratively.

To see the actual blog post, where he explains these in more detail, read his blog post.

I see a lot of similarities in our lists, and can trace of lot of differences to the disparate settings in which we teach. My perspective is that of a homeschooling mom, while Lehnmann runs an innovative high school, The Science Leadership Academy http://www.scienceleadership.org/, which is partnership effort between the Philadelphia school system and the Franklin Institute.

Finally, I thought I should get a student’s view of all this, so I asked my son for his list. These were his top qualities for a good teacher:

• Know how to deal with kids
  
• Being a mom
  
• Being nice and kind to people
  
• Being experienced in teaching and in the subject
  
• Has loose discipline, but not too loose
  
• Is overcompetent and overachieving (Note:  he explained that this means putting a lot of work into lesson planning and preparation...more work than he thinks he would be willing to do.)
  
• Can improvise
  
• Follows students ideas, interests, passions, and skills
  
• Teaches each kid differently (individualizes instruction)
  
• Cares about kids

Again, it is interesting to notice the overlaps and gaps between his list and ours.

How about you? Did you have some desired qualities that we left off our list? Please share your top teaching qualities lists or characteristics in the comments below.

Are Middle Schools Hotbeds of Stress and Violence?

Are middle schools hotbeds of stress and violence?  The grant makers at the Institute of Educational Studies seems to think so.  They have just completed one study on trying to reduce violence in middle schools, and are starting two new studies examining middle school stress and the impact on student achievement.

In explaining the first study, IES gives statistics that say that more violence and bullying take place in middle schools than any other segment of education.  In the latest year of data (2006-07 school year), when 4.3% of secondary students reported being victims of a crime at school, the rate of nonfatal violent crimes for students 12-14 was 67 incidents per 1,000 students, compared to 49 incidents per 1,000 students aged 15-18.   There were also 41 incidents per 1,000 middle school students of experiencing a violent event, compared to high school (22 per 1,000) and elementary school (26 per 1,000).

Even scarier were the numbers related to school bullying.  A daunting 44% of middle schools reported at least weekly, if not more frequent, incidents of bullying.  That figure is double the statistics for both high schools (22%) and elementary (21%).  

These are issues that just don't come up in homeschooling, or else occur rarely and are quickly dealt with by the parents.  So maybe I'm naive, but it seems incredible to me that close to half of our middle schools are dealing with bullying on a weekly (or more) basis, and that isn't particularly a big topic for debate in educational policy.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things will be improving soon, at least according to the IES study.  The grant was testing the effectiveness of two different approaches to reducing school violence and bullying--addressing the issues through curriculum and through a whole school atmosphere approach--but neither technique produced significantly different results in violence and bullying statistics compared to the control schools.

The two new IES grants are four-year programs to record the incidences of stress--one among the teachers, and one among the students.   The student one is targeted to a new intervention program for middle school students experiencing trauma--I guess all those students who are victimized, as well as students with bad life events outside of school.  The goal is to help them deal with these issues and thus perform better in school, as well in general life skills such as self confidence, dealing with depression, etc.  The teacher study seeks to document the generally-posited idea that teaching in middle schools is the most stressful educational occupation.  This study will follow teachers for three years to see if teacher stress results in worse student behavior and test scores.

So the main things these studies tell me is that I'm glad that neither my son nor I are dealing with an institutionalized middle school education.  However, I hope they come up with some valuable data about the effects on students' educational scores of life factors that teachers can't control, and help loosen the reliance on test scores as the sole determination of educational quality.  I also really hope they come up with some better coping skills for these poor bullied and stressed-out students and teachers.

Teaching and Parenting Lessons from Peter Jackson and Martin Luther

Recently, I had one of those times where I had to prepare to teach a class on a topic that I knew I could find an already-written lesson plan on the Internet, download it, read it, and be done in 15 minute, 30 minutes tops.  But that's not what I did.  I looked at a couple of existing lesson plans, but then I started to research the topic myself.  I found some interesting leads, and followed them for a while, and then got an idea for something I thought would be a great way to present it.  But that idea required props, which required a trip to a couple of different stores the next day.  Props, alas, don't make themselves, so once I got my materials, I started downloading graphics and such, but I didn't like the first set, nor the second set....let's try a different search term...oooh, that's better....needs a little manipulation...then printing and cutting out, then some crafting, and of course I have to make enough for the entire class.....  Needless to say, several hours later, when everyone else in the house had gone to bed and I'm still working on this project, I think to myself, "Is it worth it?"

I know that every teacher and every parent has been there.  Whether it is staying up late preparing a lesson for the next day, or driving our children here and there to lessons and sports and scouts and theater, or even if it is a single parent working two jobs who is up at midnight debating whether to spend the time to prepare the children's school lunches for tomorrow or just let them buy them at the cafeteria, we all wonder if we need to be spending this time on our children or students or if it matter if we just give it up and take the easier, less time consuming path.

In my case, at least in this example, the answer popped into my head from an unusual education source:  Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings movies.   Everyone in our house LOVES those movies, so we have the super-extended-Directors-special editions of the DVDs that not only have the movies in their 4 or 5 hour forms with all the stuff Peter Jackson REALLY didn't want to cut, but an additional 24 hours or so of special features, Director's comments, actors' comments, background videos, etc. etc. etc.

I remembered one of those background videos we watched when we first got the movie (which was a while ago, so the following specifics may be wrong, but it is the gist that matters).  Anyway, there was one bit about some of the music that was playing behind a fight scene or something like that.  It turns out that it was an original song composed for a poem that Tolkien had written in the original books.  However, before writing the music, someone with the movies translated into Elvish or Dwarf language or something...which took some doing, since I'm not sure how much of that language has ever been, well, let's call it "discovered."  Then Peter Jackson had this notion that he wanted it sung by a big, all make, all Polynesian choir.  Nothing like that existed, so they had to advertise, audience, choose, teach, rehearse, and record this big group of Polynesian men singing this song.  All for something like 30 seconds of background music for one scene in this multi-hour epic.

Did that matter?  Was it worth all that effort for just that one little addition to that scene?  Maybe, maybe not.  What does matter, though, is having that level of commitment and attention to detail and creativity and--here's my big word--PASSION for this project.  Someone who cares that much--someone who would do all that for just one blip in his entire project--is someone who is going to make a fantastic rendition of this beloved tale.  So while that one detail may not have been "worth it," that level of passion elevates the film from the ordinary to an exemplary piece of movie-making.

The same is true for me.  I could have taken an existing lesson plan and the class I taught would certainly have been fine, and probably would even have been good (given the years of experience I have in teaching).  But I would never have had the passion for that lesson than I have for the one I developed.  Would the students tell the difference?  Again, maybe, maybe not.  But over the long haul, I know that having a teacher (or a parent) that is passionate enough to spend the time doing things that outsiders might consider excessive or rediculous or "a waste of time" is going to make more of an impact on children that one who always takes the path of least effort.

Now, before parents and teachers start freaking out about the incredible bar I've set--I'm not saying we ALWAYS have to make this choice or expend this level of time, energy, or commitment.  There are times when that just isn't possible.  Earlier in the semester, when I was teaching more classes simultaneously and had writing commitments and all this stuff going on, I had to be better at budgeting my time.  And there were times in my life, such as the last year of my mother's life when she was going downhill rapidly and we were spending lots of time just taking care of her, when my teaching has been bare bones.  So I'm not saying AT ALL that our students or children have a RIGHT to expect this level of work on each and every lesson, activity, celebration, sports event, or whatever.

So here is my balancing mentor--a Reformation era priest by the name of Martin Luther (at least I seek guidance from all sorts of sources!).  My favorite Martin Luther quote (at least as it was taught to me--researching it, there seems to be all sorts of divergent translations, since I guess he was writing in German at the time) is "Sin and Sin Boldly."  I think Luther's point was no matter how bad we were, God would forgive us and redeem us, but I don't bring it up as a religious statement.  

I think Luther's thrust was that we are human, so we aren't always perfect.  My interpretation is that whatever we do, we should embrace it.  If we are going to spend time and energy and money to do something that other people think is an incredible waste of time like...well, I'm not going to specify the many examples I have in my own life, but I'm sure you've got your own....don't worry about, just do it and be proud of your passion.  But if you are going to do something that you think is "wrong" or not-good or sub-par, well, embrace that as well.  If you are going to do it, do it with verve and PASSION!

So, for example, every now and then when I can't seem to deal with normal life, my son and I may have ice cream for lunch (ONLY ice cream, I mean) or spend the entire day in our pajamas reading.  Or, as I said, we had a year where our focus was on my mother's care and not our educational achievements.   But when we have these events, we make them special and kind of celebrate them as a departure from our routine.  What is the point of doing what we know we shouldn't do--whether it is is eating what we shouldn't eat, or slacking off from our work, or teaching a class without being prepared, or taking the easy way out in a class when we know there is a better way--if we are just going to feel guilty about it?  I believe in being passionate about what we are doing--hopefully, most of the time for positive things, but those few times when we are "breaking the rules,"well, let's enjoy them as well.  (Of course, I'm just referring to those things that can seem like a BIG DEAL to us at the time, but are not huge issues in the long run--I'm not advocating abandoning our moral or breaking civic and moral laws or anything along those lines.)  Likewise, we shouldn't spend lots of time working on a lesson or project for our children if, instead of feeling proud and excited, all we feel is tired and resentful.

So tonight I give my thanks to two very diverse men--Peter Jackson and Martin Luther.  The lesson I have gotten from them is that it doesn't matter whether I stay up half the night working on some obscure aspect of a class or activity I'm doing for my students or child, or whether I spend 15 minutes on someone else's lesson plan and go to bed early.  What really matters is the kind of energy I get from my choice and the energy I then convey to my students or children.  If it depletes my psychic energy (not necessarily my physical energy), then don't do it.  But if it makes a difference to the passion I bring to the subject, even if nobody else seems to notice or to care--well, then, indeed, to me at least, it is "worth it."

Gates Teacher Effectiveness Study Links Good Teaching with Gains in Test Scores

Some preliminary results were published today from the $45 million Measures of Effective Teaching study being conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The goal of this research, which is examining 3,000 teachers from seven urban school districts, including the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system here in North Carolina, is to develop a fair and comprehensive way to assess a teacher's overall role on student achievement beyond simply how their students do in high-stakes testing (which is called "value-added"measurement).

The headline among most of the educational journals about these results is that individual teachers' "value-added" histories (how much their students have raised their test scores in the past) strongly predict how they will do in the future, even if they have changed schools or classes.  So, those teachers whose students have increased their scores significantly in previous years usually continue to teach classes with strong test score increases at the end of the year.  These factors were linked regardless of subject matter or grade level.

Less highlighted in the study reviews, however, is the fact that the teachers who did a good job in raising student scores also were consistently rated high by their students on good teaching practices, such as giving clear explanations, explaining the same thing in several different ways, and showing care and concern for their students.  The teachers with the biggest gains were also highly and consistently rated by students from all their different classes for their classroom management skills as well as for their tendency to present challenging academic content.  So, basically, what this study says to me is that good teaching lead to good test scores.

This is, perhaps, not a revolutionary concept.  But what I think it does indicate is that the teachers who are most effective in raising student scores due so NOT by focusing on the ends--the tests--but by the means--the process of instruction.  The researchers emphasize that these are preliminary results of a multi-year project, so we aren't supposed to be drawing hard and fast conclusions yet.  However, I think it supports the notion that "teaching to the test" doesn't work to raise test scores; good teaching does.  And I think any research that helps lead us away from focusing on the test so much and concentrating on identifying, sharing, and rewarding good teaching IN AND OF ITSELF is a good thing.