Standard theories don’t explain this meager progress. Too few teachers? Not really. From 1970 to 2008, the student population increased 8 percent and the number of teachers 61 percent. The student-teacher ratio has fallen sharply, from 27-to-1 in 1955 to 15-to-1 in 2007. Are teachers paid too little? Perhaps, but that’s not obvious. In 2008, the average teacher earned $53,230; two full-time teachers married to each other and making average pay would belong in the richest 20 percent of households (2008 qualifying income: $100,240). Maybe more preschool would help. Yet, the share of 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool has rocketed from 11 percent in 1965 to 53 percent in 2008.
“Reforms” have disappointed for two reasons. First, no one has yet discovered transformative changes in curriculum or pedagogy, especially for inner-city schools, that are (in business lingo) “scalable” — easily transferable to other schools, where they would predictably produce achievement gains. Efforts in New York City and Washington, D.C., to raise educational standards involve contentious and precarious school-by-school campaigns to purge “ineffective” teachers and principals. Charter schools might break this pattern, though there are grounds for skepticism. In 2009, the 4,700 charter schools enrolled about 3 percent of students and did not uniformly show achievement gains.
The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation. Students, after all, have to do the work. If they aren’t motivated, even capable teachers may fail.
[blockquote] From 1970 to 2008, the student population increased 8 percent and the number of teachers 61 percent. The student-teacher ratio has fallen sharply, from 27-to-1 in 1955 to 15-to-1 in 2007. [/blockquote]
Interesting numbers. I’d be curious how this breaks down in general education of 1 teacher to x students vs. special education classes of 2 or more to x, y, or z students.
[b]The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation. [/b]
Actually, the cause that is “unmentionable” is the parents. The problem can’t be addressed because the voter is the parent in question. So the elected officials dodge the target again and again.
Apparently, Robert Samuelson hasn’t heard of the voucher program. He needs to read about New Orleans and Washington D.C.
[blockquote]The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation. Students, after all, have to do the work. If they aren’t motivated, even capable teachers may fail.[/blockquote]
I agree that is a huge elephant in the room that school systems are loathe to talk about, particularly in the inner city. Students pride themselves in a having a loser culture, or at the least a culture where its cool to be ignorant. When smart kids risk getting beat up or worse, what incentive is there to excel? Until something can be done to combat that prevailing view in students, little progress is going to be made.
Students have to want to learn, much like an alcoholic has to want to change. The stick and carrot pedagogy that largely prevails just doesn’t work in a culture like this. Gangs have bigger sticks, and the allure of drugs and sex and all that are bigger carrots. The school system can’t compete on that basis alone.
This is an excellent article; I had already sent it to several colleagues (before it appeared here). As a longtime educator (30+ years in higher education), I agree: motivation is a key to success, and the history of school “reforms” over the last several decades has not been impressive.
Now THIS is the kind of article that faculty should talk about at their meetings and retreats–but generally never get a chance to.
Archer_of the_Forest (#4.) said,
“I agree that is a huge elephant in the room that school systems are loathe to talk about, particularly in the inner city. Students pride themselves in a having a loser culture, or at the least a culture where its cool to be ignorant. When smart kids risk getting beat up or worse, what incentive is there to excel? Until something can be done to combat that prevailing view in students, little progress is going to be made.”
Whether its the “inner city” or one of the other demographics in our country where apathy or antagonism towards self-improvement through education exists and has the overall effect of severely diminishing educational achievement,
its not a problem that those living outside that particular demographic can resolve.
An outside solution imposed on a demographic will not work. It will usually provoke resistance from within a demographic.
We have thrown a lot of money at the underachieving demographics and they just keep on underachieving. We are facing cultural resistance toward academic achievement that is of major proprtions.
Breaking this log jam requires an educational missionary effort of heroic proportions. And the missonaries cannot be strangers within the demographic in which they are proselytizing. They must share an ethnic/racial kinship with those whom they are proselytizing.
So let’s stop coming up with utopian ‘monolitic’ and ‘top down’ solutions and programs to solve this problem.
Let’s start recruiting and traning the prosyletizers who can then be sent into these demographics to bring about the necessary shift/change toward cultural attitudes that respect and encourage academic achievement.
Bunk. Not all school reform fails. Massachusetts is a case in point. But special interests of one kind or another can adversely affect reform.
It’s also important to factor in the impact–the positive effect–in many cases of good teachers. For nine years I went to a school where education courses and teaching certification were not required; the teachers were superb and had a major influence on my life. I kept in touch with several of my former teachers for decades, in fact until they died. I still teach books they introduced me to (All the King’s Men); I publish on work they first took me through (The Sound and the Fury).
A motivated student and an inspiring teacher are the best possible combination. The spark goes back and forth and becomes a steady flame.
Of course, I learned to read before the Age of Electronic Distractions. I often wonder why schools spend so much time and money on computer-science curricula instead of on reading, thinking, and writing. Students, I’ve found, learn about computers on their own. But most do not learn to think and write well without careful guidance.
To add to the mix above; Students can be motivated by a good teacher – that should be one of their primary jobs. But how can a student be motivated when he sees the the current graduate and says to himself, “It’s not going to be worth it…”
I note the things that continue to stand in the way of education; improper use of computers and other tools, teacher unions, managment that seeks the lowest level (least amount of trouble), curriculum that is always new but rarely top quality, too much demand for teacher quantity (small class size), etc. . If these things stand in the way why should anyone be surprised that throwing more money at the problem produces little result??
That, in itself, indicates that modern teaching is unable to produce a culture who are able to address real problems.
Don
Certainly I would agree that motivated teachers certainly are important. A teacher that doesn’t care is a leader of a classroom that largely fails. Good teachers can spark learning interest in individual students, but therein is the crux. Some students just will not want to learn, regardless of what song and dance the teachers try. Good teachers only go so far.
Which brings up another element that no one wants to discuss. What qualifies as a “good” teacher? I think a lot of times, “good” teachers are described as the teachers that engage students. That, in itself, is not bad. However, if to “engage” students, the teacher has to entertain students, then there is a major pedagogical problem. A magician or MTV can entertain students for an hour. Education isn’t simply about being entertained for X amount of time in a class everyday.
Not bunk at all.
This is why assessing teachers on test scores is a disaster. Broadly, student motivation has failed and has been failing for two generations – since the sixties. Teachers may be able to stimulate students but they cannot motivate them. Sure there are successful schools – but the broad run are failing, and the root cause is that students see no need to work, and they also see that they can get by doing just enough light lifting to meet the lowest standards. Larry