Recruit Teachers With True Grit to Significantly Improve Education Says Teach For America

by Mike Smith · 2010-01-06 17:59:00 UTC
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Perseverance matters most in finding great teachers. Perseverance with teaching methods and routines, perseverance in maintaining students' focus in class, and perseverance demonstrated through exhaustive lesson plans that are well communicated to students. Perseverance and grit as a natural habit. That's the conclusion of a Teach For America study that has tracked hundreds of thousands of students and teachers. An excellent Atlantic article recounts and ponders Teach for America's discoveries and findings.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is increasingly talking about teacher accountability instead of school accountability, so he may be inclined to agree with the study and feel like the Obama administration is on the right track with their reforms. In order to win Race to the Top funds, Arne Duncan is asking states to remove legal obstacles to linking student scores to teacher performance reviews, and if you trust the findings of the Teach For America study, they're right to do so. But what are Teach For America doing to make a difference?

Teach For America is implementing their findings, and having great success in improving test scores with teachers moving up 44% of their students at least one and a half years on average, up from only 24% the previous year. Increasingly, when students struggle to make the grade, it's not just the social situation, the parents, or the school and its resources being blamed, but also the teachers — after all, achieving good results is not beyond our control. So Teach For America is concentrating on replicating the success of their best teachers and focusing on recruiting teachers that show tremendous perseverance.

But can you measure a student's perseverance levels in percentage points? Sure, their Math and English scores may have risen due to an exceptional teacher, but you need to teach them how to persevere, pay attention and avoid distractions too — and this can't always be done in traditional subjects, or be measured so easily in tests. Children who are taught these skills perform substantial better in later life, just like their teachers. Getting the best teachers is crucial, but let's make sure all that perseverance and energy isn't directed only towards getting kids test-ready, and that students come out of school as well-rounded individuals as well as being book smart.

Photo credit: Bloomsberries

Mike Smith is associate editor at Change.org.
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