Slashdot Mirror
What Works In Education: Scientific Evidence Gets Ignored
nbauman writes "According to Gina Kolata in the New York Times, The Institute of Education Sciences in the Department of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, has supported 175 randomized controlled studies, like the studies used in medicine, to find out what works and doesn't work, which are reported in the What Works Clearinghouse. Surprisingly, the choice of instructional materials — textbooks, curriculum guides, homework, quizzes — can affect achievement as much as teachers; poor materials have as much effect as a bad teacher, and good materials can offset a bad teacher's deficiencies. One popular math textbook was superior to 3 competitors. A popular computer-assisted math program had no benefit. Most educators, including principals and superintendents, don't know the data exists. 42% of school districts had never heard of the clearinghouse. Up to 90% of programs that seemed promising in small studies had no effect or made achievement scores worse. For example a program to increase 7th-grade math teachers' understanding of math increased their understanding but had no effect on student achievement. Upward Bound had no effect."
But there is a wonderfully effective way to use computers in education. You look at student's marks. You then look at the pattern of the marks as the student's pass through various teachers.
What?!!! That would allow you to actually truly measure teacher performance and effectiveness. It would make bad teachers absolutely impossible to miss.
WE CAN'T HAVE THAT NOW CAN WE???
Maybe.
There was a study about 10 years ago that showed zero correlation between teacher pay, teacher effectiveness, and academic results between states.
Probably what is more important is teacher requirement, training, and management. If you increased teacher pay today without changing the above you would increasing pay to those who are already teachers or are likely to become teachers.
I have issues with how teacher’s pay is structured. The initial pay is low and most of the benefits are at the backend so it encourages marginal teachers to become entrenched and discourages middle aged people from making a career switch into the profession. (I think there is a rich vein of potential people who hold masters in math, science, or engineering who would make great teachers but don’t want to deal with the initial low pay and would not qualify for some of the bigger retirement packages.)
Obligatory XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/1201/
For those not sure why this is appropriate: the hypothetical teacher explains the rule, but not how to apply the rule or what use it is. We have all had professors like this. It is why teaching is a whole separate skill from the trade itself.