The Kristof column from last Sunday has kicked up a furor around the edublogs. The line is basically that Kristof says anyone can teach, how ridiculous. But was he really saying that? He explicitly said that it takes more than brilliance. Seems more that he was saying there is no evidence that traditional teacher training systematically adds value right now and it does keep some people out. Those are empirical points and the evidence (pdf) is on Kristof’s side. Besides, when a bunch of TFA’ers fresh from college with just a few weeks of training (which I think is OK considering the problem in the communities TFA works but insufficient as an overall policy remedy) do as well or better than others, including veterans and traditionally certified teachers, that ought to get the ed school crowd out of their bunker and at work seriously changing things. Sooner or later policymakers are going to wake up to the enormous stranded costs in our teacher preparation system. Sure, the column was a little overheated, but so is much of the response.
Education News, Analysis, and Commentary