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

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[Jeff Selingo] You talk a lot in the book (?) - uh - 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 affective 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 - 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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why don't we just pick the best students from

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

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put them through a short training program ..... to learn more on the job?

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[Chubb] Because what - well, what matters is how the experience -

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whether the experience on the job is structured or not, right?

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So, and I - sorry - one of the chapters in the book and one of the main recommendations

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is to take a look at leadership, right?

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I don't want to get ahead of the questioning

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but there is a huge variation in teacher improvement on the job.

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And it's very strongly associated with the kind of context

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that a school leader provides for teachers to lean it (?).

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So, does the school principal create a culture in which - a culture and structure

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in which teachers have an opportunity to work with one another, to learn with one another,

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is a reform of mentoring structure set up,

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is there a structure of teams ...... teachers that's effective,

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does the principal herself or himself really know what good instruction looks like,

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so that the principal can identify the right people to be the mentors,

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the right people, the right people to structure that,

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does the principal know what kind of training is really needed?

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It's not that external training and professional development is inherently bad.

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That's not - that's not it.

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It's that if it's applied across the board without sensitivity to what teachers need, when they need it,

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how it's going to be followed up upon, then it is a waste, you know,

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it's the so-called "drive by" professional development.

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Somebody comes in, does a workshop in the cafeteria, leaves,

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and then it's supposed to make a difference.

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Well how, you know, how could it?

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(This has been a production of EducationSector Independant Analysis. Innovative Ideas[br]www.educationsector.org)