The illogic of Bob Herbert's editorial on education

Someone wrote the following letter to the NY Times editor:

Bob Herbert is right when he calls for a transformation of the educational system, but not when he says that “first” the bad teachers must be weeded out.

There seems to be an implication that good teachers are born that way, but in fact good teachers are trained. Good school districts characteristically give their teachers good training.

So “first,” the country must make a fierce commitment to training all teachers to be good. That would be a step toward transformation.

Fred Musante

Shelton, Conn., Oct. 2, 2007

Fred Musante is wrong, I am sure that some people are indeed born to be better teachers than others. But at least he's consistent.

Bob Herbert's position, on the other hand, is quite contradictory and illogical. He says training has nothing to do with the quality of the teacher:

What is counterintuitive, but well documented, is that paper qualifications, such as teacher certification, have very little to do with whatever it is that makes good teachers effective.

Yet apparently he believes that with proper training (teaching), a dumb ghetto student unable to read at grade level can become college material:

A four-year college degree is now all but mandatory for building and sustaining a middle-class standard of living in the U.S.

And the preceding statement adds yet another level of illogic to the Bob Herbert position. On the one hand, certification has no impact on the quality of the teacher, but on the other hand he says that everyone needs the certification of a four-year college degree.

Going back to the Fred Musante position, it's actually surprising that, with so much concern on the quality of primary and secondary schools, this is the first time I've read anything proposing that we need to improve the quality of teacher education.

Comments

[GOP Lurker]

Perhaps not so illogical. The certificate is a necessary but insufficient condition, whether talking about teaching or middle class life.

I don't think anybody could argue that everybody with a BA is particularly smart or prepared for life.

[Peter]

Herbert is not necessarily being illogical. What I suspect he's trying to say is that a properly motivated college graduate can make a good teacher even if he or she doesn't have the specialized education courses and student-teaching experience and other certifications that most places require of all would-be teachers. In other words, he's not speaking of "the certification of a four-year college degree," but rather of things beyond that.

[SFG]

Right. The problem is that college degrees don't move people up the ladder so much as put them in line ahead of everyone else without one. Send everyone to college and college becomes useless (except for the academic industry getting a nice fat paycheck at the middle class's expense).

The problem, in my view, is that the economy no longer produces a good living for everyone. The GNP's humming along nicely, so in my view, it's a distribution problem. (Yes, redistribution will decrease the total value of the economic pie, but in terms of maximizing everyone's utility function you can still help more people than you hurt because the inequality is so marked. Trying to pull further redistribution off in, say, Sweden is counterproductive.)

[dizzy]

I disagree with your IQ postings because, from what I've seen, pretty much everything "smart" is just familiarity. I can write because I read a lot when I was little. I know what writing is supposed to be. On tests like the LSAT (I scored in the top 5 %( all one has to do is take a bunch of practice tests. The more you do it, the higher your scores. Law school was the same way. The people who were more familiar with the subject (usually because they had lawers in the family) did well. And those who had to start from scratch struggled.

It just hasn't been my experience that a "dumb kid in the ghetto" is incapable of learning some stupid trick invented by people who want to test his "smarts." All tests are is a game that everyone has to play so we can compare. They aren't really anything more, anyway.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Bob H's position isn't inconsistent at all. Anyone can learn the test. As long as he or she wants to. Not just anyone has what it takes to make the student want to learn. That's what makes a good teacher. And you can't test that, because, again, tests are just something they use to compare people. But not everything can be compared in that way.

[Scott]

Anyone can learn the test.

Just put "with Down's Syndrome" between "anyone" and "can learn the test" and see if the proposition still holds.

Test familiarity is real and has been studied. The test prep industry depends on it. But it rapidly reaches a point of diminishing returns.

[superdestroyer]

If you have ever read John McWhorter's "Losing the Race," one of the things that was unique to the book was that a black writer actually confess that blacks and whites think quite differently about education.

Black America views education much like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Ox. If you have a diploma that means that you educated. It does not really matter if you master any topic or actually learned anything.

That is why black america uses terms like hitting the books instead of learn the material. It is also why they do not see the irony of letting in poorly prepared black students into elite universities.

[dizzy]

Um. Yeah. You really *showed me* with the Downs Syndrome comment.

Downs syndrome is brain damage at a level where learning takes a long, long time. It still isn't impossible.

And the comments about "the blacks" don't prove anything but that many African-Americans are less familiar with the higher education system than, say, people who write books about the higher education system. That doesn't mean black people are dumber either.

And even if black people were less capable of learning as quickly as other races, (which I really, really don't think is true. I know too many un-bright white people) what would that mean? So black people take longer to learn a test? So black people are less familiar with educational system? Doesn't that sort of mean that affirmative action would be a good idea? That it would be a good idea to take extra efforts to familiarize them with the system so they can compete and contribute (in a system that, coincidentally, whites designed are more familir with, and also somehow are more successful in).

What is the payoff to you if black people are less intelligent? Why are you so insistent on it? I assume you'll say it's "a search for truth" or "standards" or something. But there are plenty of thigns you're NOT at all concerned with. (I have yet to see angry, sarcastic comments about child hunger on here). So why blacks-are-dumb? What is that doing for you?

I'm just curious.

[dizzy]

And I have never heard a black or latino person say, "Hitting the books." That's white, middle class slang.

dizzy,

I never said that blacks were less intelligent. And every graduate from and HBU with children I have ever worked with used the term "Hitting the books." Whites would use the single word "study." Asians would look at it of doing the work to succeed.

Also, I take it you have not read the book "Losing the Race" by a black professor who actually attend public schools or have heard John McWhoster speak.

Black culture (not generics or innate ability) is the reason that black perform so poorly in education. John McWhoster wrote about how that culture affects blacks students at top tier universities.

Remember, the children of blacks families where the parents went to graduate school is , on average, less than that of white students whose parents attended high school. There is more to is than blacks not knowing the system. If anything, the children of upper middle class blacks should be performing at a much higher level than lower middle class whites.

[Scott]

Um. Yeah. You really *showed me* with the Downs Syndrome comment.

Wat's with the holsility?

Downs syndrome is brain damage at a level where learning takes a long, long time. It still isn't impossible.

Please point to an example of someone with Down's and perfect boards, and I will gladly eat my words.

Test familiarity is real, but it rapidly reaches a point of diminishing returns, even for people without Down's. It's just easier to see at the left tail of the distribution.

[Peter]

Black America views education much like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Ox. If you have a diploma that means that you educated. It does not really matter if you master any topic or actually learned anything.

Thinking of that sort is hardly unique to blacks.

[Pondering Postdoc]

There are plenty of problems with the educational system - the credentials arms race, confusion of quality and quantity and rejection of any variation in innate abilities probably being the most important - but I think it will all be taken care of once large numbers of students and parents recognize that education doesn't pay off the way it used to. What if college graduates used to enjoy comfortable lifestyles simply because they used to represent the most well-connected, wealthy and intelligent (in that order?) few percent of the population, rather than because they learned critical skills in demand on the job market? With half the population in college and de facto quotas in place for challenged groups, an employer can not even look at a jobseeker "BA in Not Exactly Customer Service" diploma and say "Well, at least he can't be outright stupid and lazy if he got a degree".

As far as getting better (K-12) teachers, I think that the main problem is teacher's unions, who fail to recognize that it is possible that a kid can come straight from college with no teaching credential and be a better teacher than an experienced teacher with all certificates in place, and that this should then also be reflected in the salary. I think everybody - students, teacher-wannabes, public at large - quickly picks up on this and recognizes that this is a profession where mediocrity is the norm. I'm sure that the idealized idea of teaching - nurturing hungry little minds and watch them grow - is appealing to a large number of very competent people who are put off by realities when it comes to disconnect between work and reward, student motivation, bureaucracy etc. I think there is some hopeful movement - charter schools, alternative teacher certification, NCLB etc - but it will take a long time to turn things around.

[Dragon Horse]

Half Sigma should look at this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2007/10/06/
AR2007100601165.html

[Turambar]

Musante's position is essentially lets not do anything about bad teachers but send them to cushy training classes with catered lunches. Which the school district will pay for will paying the teachers salary and paying for the sub for their classroom. Only after years of "fiercely" paying for these classes can we assume that they are a bad teacher.

Is it too much to hope that teachers have paid for some of their own training before being hired into the profession? Sure everyone has ongoing education, but lawyers, engineers, and IT dudes have paid for their own training and certifications before being hired.

Here is the irony:
A four-year college degree is now all but mandatory for building and sustaining a middle-class standard of living in the U.S.
In a lot of states you can be a teacher without a four year degree.

[Jim Beam]

What if your "four-year degree" is in English Lit or Art History? And your debt accumulation is over $40,000?

How do you expect to build a "middle-class standard of living" with those lackluster credentials?

[beowulf]

"Black America views education much like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Ox. If you have a diploma that means that you educated. It does not really matter if you master any topic or actually learned anything."

Blacks tend to be more cynical about such things than whites are, and frankly a lot of times they have a more realistic picture of how the world really works. Having the right credential is how you get a job. The smartest, hardest working candidate isn't even considered if his resume doesn't have the required diploma.

Intelligence is confused with knowledge. Knowledge is what you know, intelligence is how fast it takes you to learn. Just because someone has a lower IQ (the mentally impaired excepted) doesn't mean you aren't capable of learning any amount of knowledge, it just means it takes them longer to reach it. I've often thought schools should move to Computer Aided Instruction, so each kid could move at his own pace. A high IQ student may master the high school curriculum in 2 years, a low IQ student may require 4 years plus summer school to reach the same level.

In the meantime, schools should switch to the best teaching method, Direct Instruction.
Since teachers are reading from the script, even below average teachers can't screw up the recipe too badly.
http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml