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(ESTV - The Best Teachers in the World Clip 1)

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[Jeff Selingo] ....... in the book, between recruiting better teachers

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and better students to become teachers and training of teachers,

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and talking about quality instructors, what's more important?

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Is it recruiting the best person upfront or does training matter just as much or even more,

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in terms of that, in terms of that would-be teacher?

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[John Chubb] Well, the evidence - the evidence on what drives teachers' quality

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is essentially - and this is the first great part - is essentially

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that most of the skills that teachers demonstrate in the classroom tend to be learned in the classroom, right?

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So - so, selection matters, aptitude matters, certain affect of predisposition,

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emotional affective attributes matter.

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And there has been a lot of research on this, and there are screening tools

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that school districts can use to identify people who have a higher probability of success.

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But in the end, the dominant explanation of success is what teachers learn on the job, right?

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So - so training is critical - training is critical.

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Most of it right now is done pre-service and what's done in-service leaves a lot to be desired.

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And there's a tremendous amount of research on professional development,

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which I review in the book, and it's overwhelmingly negative.

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And in school districts, people who are responsible for professional development understand this,

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but there hasn't been a lot of improvement.

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But the evidence suggests that teachers do learn on the job, they learn differentially.

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So not - by the time teachers are four years on the job, some of them are unbelievably great

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and some of them really haven't made it. So -

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[Selingo] So then, why do we need training programs at all,

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I mean, why don't we just pick the best students from

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- in some ways, like Teach For America teach the best students?