Is America’s Education Problem Really Just a Teacher Problem? (Rebroadcast)

If U. S. schoolteachers are indeed "just a little bit below average," it's not really their fault. So what should be done about it?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. The best investments are the ones you make in yourself, and no one knows that better than Southern New Hampshire University. With more than 200 online degree programs, no set class times, and low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University is built to fit your life today and set you up for success tomorrow. Education is an investment. Why not make it a smart one? Apply for free at SNHU.edu/freakonomics. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds because switching your home and auto insurance is better than

• 0:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it, which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example?

• 1:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, PNC Bank did since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely not YOLO type. PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by ChatGPT. ChatGPT work is a new way to work in ChatGPT. ChatGPT work can pull info from across your apps and connect to your tools to help you create finished work.

• 2:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  You can even automate work in ChatGPT with the scheduled tasks feature, and the whole time, you stay in control. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode. Available on Plus and Pro plans.

• 2:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hello, my fellow freaks. This is Stephen Dubner. The episode you're about to hear is called, "Is America's education problem really just a teacher problem?" In my humble opinion, it's a really good episode, but you'll be the judge. It originally aired in November of 2014, but I think you'll find it very relevant to the increasingly intense conversation we're all having these days about education, not just in the US. Also, I wanted to give you a heads up on something else. As you may know, I host another non-Freakonomics podcast called Question of the Day with my friend James Altucher. And all this week, our special guest co-host is none other than, well, here.

• 3:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey, James, give me an M. M. Give me an A. A. Give me an N. N. Give me an Oosh. Oosh. Give me a Zamarodi. Manoush Zamarodi is joining us in the studio today. Hi, Manoush.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 3:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thanks for playing Question of the Day with us.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Oh, it's my pleasure.

• 3:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's right. It is Manoush Zamarodi, the host of WNYC Studios' hit podcast Note to Self. Note to Self is all about using technology in the most productive and purposeful ways you can. So when Manoush sits down with James and me on Question of the Day, we'll get into this stuff.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I have lots of ethical issues with Facebook. Why not?

• 3:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  Give me your top three. You'll also see just how much Note to Self and Question of the Day have in common.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  I've got to just completely disagree with you.

• 4:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  And we also talk about motherhood.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Then I went into the vortex of motherhood and was screwed so badly for years.

• 4:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, motherhood sucks.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 4:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  For what I could tell.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, those years where nobody's sleeping are really, really bad.

• 4:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  I just want to register my vote in favor of motherhood. So that's all this week on my other podcast, Question of the Day, featuring guest co-host Manoush Zamarodi from WNYC Studios' Note to Self. You can subscribe to Question of the Day and Note to Self at iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And now, from Freakonomics Radio, is America's education problem really just a teacher problem?

• 4:49Speaker 02

  I read somebody said it's hard to get into an ed school in Finland to get into MIT.

• 4:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Joel Klein. He knows a little bit about schools and education and education schools.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  And I'm now the CEO of Amplify, which is an education technology company started by News Corp. Before that, for a little over eight years, I was the schools chancellor in New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

• 5:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  Klein has rolled his education experience into a new book called Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools. That bit he mentioned about ed schools in Finland? He was citing Amanda Ripley, who wrote a book called The Smartest Kids in the World and how they got that way.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  To get into education college in Finland is like getting into MIT in the United States. And imagine what could follow if that were true here.

• 5:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  Imagine what could follow if that were true here.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  They created a set of expectations, brought people into the field, and there's nothing like self-fulfilling prophecy.

• 5:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  But it's not that hard to get into an education school in the US. Not that hard to become a school teacher. As a result, US teachers are, well...

• 5:59Speaker 04

  They're just a little bit below average.

• 6:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Dana Goldstein. She has written a book called The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  And that is unusual compared to a lot of the nations that we compare ourselves to, whether it's Japan or South Korea or Finland. We often hear in Finland as a comparison that the typical public school teacher graduated in the top 10% of their high school class.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  We're taking more and more people from the bottom half or even the bottom third of their college graduating class, and that's always seemed to me to be a big mistake.

• 6:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  We've all heard the depressing numbers. When compared to kids from other rich countries, US students are also a little bit below average, especially in math, even though we spend more money per student than most other countries. So is the problem here as simple as adding 2 plus 2 and getting 4? Is the problem here that our students aren't getting very bright in school simply because our teachers aren't very bright?

• 7:15Speaker 05

  From WNYC Studios, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 7:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, let's start with a few caveats. When we say that US students aren't doing very well and that US teachers aren't the best and brightest, let's remember that we're talking about averages. There are, of course, millions of American kids who get a great education in public school. There are, of course, many, many excellent teachers. We should also know that just because a future teacher finishes near the top of their high school or college class doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be a great classroom teacher. In any case, the subject of teacher skill has taken over the education debate.

• 8:15Speaker 06

  Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them or defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job and reward the best ones.

• 8:29Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's President Obama from his 2012 State of the Union speech, and this is John Friedman.

• 8:35Speaker 07

  Our article was first posted online right at the beginning of January 2012, which was actually two days after my first son was born.

• 8:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  Friedman is an economist who works on public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School. The article he's talking about is called "The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood."

• 8:57Speaker 07

  And our paper got a lot of attention, and I was juggling trying to help my wife care for a newborn and deal with various people who wanted to talk. And it was late one night, 9:45, we had put our son to bed, and I was running out to Babies R Us to pick up some diapers. And I flipped on the radio, and I heard the President on the State of the Union start to talk about education. And I said, "Well, you know, it's been getting a lot of attention. Maybe he'll mention it, maybe not, but, you know, probably not." And he just got closer and closer to the topic, and soon enough, there it was. Quarter of a million dollars for a better teacher. Just said it right there. It was a pretty amazing day.

• 9:36Speaker 06

  We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000.

• 9:45Speaker 06

  A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.

• 9:52Speaker 06

  Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives.

• 9:59Speaker 07

  You know, a lot of the time academics work to get their work published in academic journals, or to get their work cited by their colleagues, and to see policy-relevant work being cited by the president, it just gave me a real great feeling that people out there were listening to what we were working on.

• 10:24Stephen J. Dubner?

  Not only were people listening, the paper that Friedman wrote, along with co-authors Raj Chetty and Jonah Rockoff, became the chief topic of conversation in the never-ending debate about education reform. Friedman himself wound up working for several months as a White House adviser. Here is the paper's central argument.

• 10:44Speaker 07

  We find it useful to think about a really great teacher, a top 5% teacher, coming into a school and replacing a teacher who was average. Now, that substitution for just a single classroom will increase the future earnings of those students by nearly $1.5 million over the course of their careers. And of course, a lot of that money will come far in the future, so if you're worried about discounting, $1.5 million over their careers is the same thing as a quarter of a million dollars deposited in the bank that same year to accrue interest and let the students consume more over their lives. But it's not just that students earn higher wages, we also see that they're more likely

• 11:27Speaker 07

  to go to college, they're more likely to not just get high-paying jobs, but high-quality jobs, they're more likely to live in high-quality neighborhoods, and even for female students, we see that they're less likely to have children as teenagers.

• 11:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  That doesn't sound exactly revolutionary, does it? A great teacher is better than an average teacher? And furthermore, the gains of great teaching amplify over the course of a student's lifetime? Joel Klein, the former New York City Schools Chancellor, also sees this.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Well, I have no doubt that what matters most is the teacher in the classroom. The K to 12, kindergarten to 12th grade system in America is a system that's driven by teachers and the quality of teaching, which affects not only the sort of content and knowledge that a child acquires, the skills a child develops, but really at a human level, the confidence, the maturation, and so forth. So at the top of the heap for me would always be teachers.

• 12:26Speaker 08

  Teachers are the absolute most important people in our educational system.

• 12:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Dave Levin. He's a former teacher and co-founder of the KIPP schools. KIPP, K-I-P-P, it stands for Knowledge is Power program, began in 1994. It is now a national network of public schools, generally regarded as very high performing.

• 12:49Speaker 08

  And when you think about the most important people in a kid's life outside of their family, it starts with their teacher. I mean, for the obvious reason, right? You leave home, you go to school, and the teacher is the determinant of how that day goes. And even as the kids get older, when all the research says the peer effect is so essential, teachers have a huge impact on how peers interact in the classroom.

• 13:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, so if the teacher's role is so important, and if a great teacher is so much more effective than a not great teacher, the solution's pretty easy, isn't it? Find more great teachers, or maybe do a better job of preparing teachers to be great. And while we're at it, maybe we should also raise teacher salaries? We're going to talk about all those ideas as we move forward, but let's begin by going back to the beginning of the teaching profession in the United States.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that in 1800, teaching in a public school in front of, say, mixed gender groups of children was considered a job that was really only appropriate for men.

• 14:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Dana Goldstein.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  And that changed over the course of the 19th century.

• 14:05Stephen J. Dubner?

  And why was that at the time?

• 14:06Speaker 04

  It was considered very public. You're very public, you're very out there, you're earning money in a public way, and you're in front of mixed gender groups of parents. Inappropriate. Inappropriate, especially for a middle-class white woman to do that type of work. And I write in the first chapter of the book about Catherine Beecher. She was Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister, and they came from this strong socially-committed abolitionist family. And the way she sort of conceived of teaching was that because women were natural-born mothers, they were biologically suited to spending time with children, that they would be wonderful teachers in the classroom as well. And she's interested in this because she decides that she's not going to get married, and she would like to have something interesting to do with her life

• 14:51Speaker 04

  other than kind of be an old maid, which is this horrible 19th-century stereotype of the single woman. So she would like single women to have a socially-useful role in the young American democratic experiment in the early 19th century. And she conceives of public school teaching as the way to do that. And policymakers, like Horace Mann, who's considered the founder of our public school system, this is very attractive to them.

• 15:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  On an economic level, yes?

• 15:18Speaker 04

  Yes, for pragmatic reasons. I mean, if you're going to make public schooling compulsory, which did not happen across all the states until the late 19th century, if you're going to do that, you need many more teachers. And while you can pay women 50% as much, so this feminine modesty, morality argument that Catherine...

• 15:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  Loses out to utilitarianism.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  Catherine Beecher makes this argument, and then male politicians, they love this because it sounds really good, but it's also cheap.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  I went to kindergarten through graduating from high school in public schools in Brooklyn and Queens.

• 15:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  Joel Klein again.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  That was from 1951 through 1963.

• 15:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  When I think of those years in New York City particularly, but in US public education generally, I think of them as a kind of golden era. Was that a golden era of public school education?

• 16:11Speaker 02

  On the one hand, we expected so much less from education in those days. And what I mean by that, it always struck me, when I started public school in New York City in 1951, Stephen, approximately 60% of America's workforce were high school dropouts. Today, that number is probably 5%, 6% and declining. So in some respects, what we expected from education was different. But I do think in other respects, it was a golden era in that during that period, certainly my experience and I think nationally the experience was, that teachers, particularly women teachers, not having the kind of opportunities they have today, you would draw really high-quality people into the field.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  That's not an argument for denying women opportunities, but the beneficiary of the sexism that was taking place were very high-quality, talented women who went to work.

• 17:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  This is the brain drain theory of US teaching. It argues that as well-educated women started having the opportunity to become lawyers and doctors and engineers, the talent pool for teachers got shallower. And relative to those other professions, teaching became a relatively low-paying profession.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  So the median income for the American public school teacher is about $54,000 per year. And actually, if you look at the median incomes for teachers in other nations, it's not that different. However, what economists have said about this is you can't just look at the salary itself, you have to look at the gaps between what college-educated workers in different fields make. So for example, in the United States, the difference between what an attorney makes and what a teacher makes is much larger than the difference between the typical attorney and the typical teacher in Finland or South Korea, or the typical teacher and the typical engineer. A much smaller difference in South Korea than the United States.

• 18:05Speaker 08

  So in general, KIP teachers will be making more. I mean, they're working longer hours, so they're making more money for that time.

• 18:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Dave Levin from KIP.

• 18:14Speaker 08

  And as a society, you know, we have to start thinking, yes, we have to start paying teachers more and recognizing there will be professions that pay more. What else can we do to make teaching as respected a profession as possible? I mean, and, you know, one of my favorite ideas is for teachers who continue to teach past their fifth year, that we consider some type of tax break and tax incentive for them, including the possibility that they don't pay income tax, recognizing that we won't always be able to pay teachers more, but there are ways that we can say to teachers, "Hey, you are a national treasure. You are essential to the future of the country." And I think if we got serious about that, it could really make a huge difference.

• 18:57Speaker 08

  Even little things like, you know, I know it sounds little, but, you know, we have armed forces board airplanes first. Well, why not have armed forces and teachers board airplanes first? You know, I just think there are lots of ways we could think about valuing the teaching profession more.

• 19:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  Coming up on Freakonomics Radio, let's not pretend that boosting teachers' salaries would automatically fix everything.

• 19:36Speaker 08

  So I think, yes, the way we train teachers is fundamentally broken in this country.

• 19:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  And is it really fair to blame only the teachers?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  I mean, we often used to jokingly say, you know, "Parents give us the best kids that they have for us to educate." And by the same token, kids come with the best parents they're going to get, and we have to take them where they are.

• 20:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio, sponsored by Granola. You know that moment when a meeting ends and someone says, let's circle back on this next week, and everyone nods, but no one writes it down? Then next week rolls around and it's radio silence? That's why Granola exists. Granola is an AI-powered notepad built for the way real people actually meet. You take rough notes like you normally would, and in the background, Granola securely transcribes the meeting. Then it turns everything into clean, structured, actually useful notes when the meeting ends. And the best part? Granola works through your device's audio, which means it integrates seamlessly into the video conferencing tools you already use. No setup, no awkward bots. It's just your normal meeting with superpowers. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free.

• 21:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Just head to granola.ai/freakonomics. That's granola.ai/freakonomics to get your time back. Try it for free at granola.ai/freakonomics.

• 21:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. The best investments are the ones you make in yourself, and no one knows that better than Southern New Hampshire University. With more than 200 online degree programs, no set class times, and low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University is built to fit your life today and set you up for success tomorrow. Education is an investment. Why not make it a smart one? Apply for free at snhu.edu/freakonomics.

• 21:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds, because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 22:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  We've been talking about teacher's skill in the US and how important that is.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  If you look back through all the different education reforms we've tried in American history, they've almost always been motivated by our fears of the worst teachers.

• 22:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Dana Goldstein, author of The Teacher Wars.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  So we start from the assumption that our teachers are failing, and we know they're often not doing as well as we want them to. And then we decide we would like to get them out, so find ways to weaken their job security to get them out of the classroom, and also to bring a new cadre of teachers in who are going to do better. And what I've found is that this pair of solutions, driving people out, bringing new people in, it's not enough, because the demand for teachers is so high, we do need 100,000 new teachers every year to satisfy the labor market. So what I suggest is, instead of starting with our fear of bad teaching, we look at teachers who are excellent at what they do, right here in the United States, and we ask about how to create systems where we can replicate their best practices.

• 23:34Speaker 08

  Yeah, I mean, I think there are a tremendous number of amazing teachers everywhere in the country.

• 23:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Dave Levin from the KIPP schools.

• 23:45Speaker 08

  And the success of KIPP from the beginning has been able to recruit them to come work with us, to help them grow and become even better, and then to have them stay with us over time, and all of which we've worked really hard at. And I think there are a couple of key aspects to what makes our teachers successful. One is this combination of head and heart. What I mean by that is the ability to simultaneously deliver rigorous content, consider that the head part, while also simultaneously motivating and engaging kids to care deeply about themselves, their future, and the content that's been delivered, consider that the heart piece. I mean, it's that real combination of rigor with joy that I think

• 24:27Speaker 08

  KIPP teachers are exceptional at, and we spend a lot of time working on. And in addition to that, I think there's this recognition at KIPP that character and academic Are interwoven in every minute of every day with everything that happens. And so there's an old James Baldwin quote, children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but have never failed to imitate them. And I think our, our teachers take that incredibly seriously. And so if we're expecting our kids to work hard and be nice, our teachers believe that they need to do the same. If we're expecting our kids to, to love math and reading, then teachers need to show the same love of math and reading.

• 25:05Stephen J. Dubner?

  Talk to me for just a minute about how teaching is taught generally in the country. I'd especially like if you could talk about it in light of the, the kind of common thought experiment, I'm sure you've heard it, you know, if, if you went to sleep 120, 130 years ago and woke up today, almost everything in the world would have changed, except for the classroom where there's one teacher up in front of 20 or 30 kids with a chalkboard and so on. And I'm curious what you think about how teaching is generally taught in this country and if it's found lacking, which I assume you'll say it is, whether that's because it's stuck in the past, or maybe because it's a lot harder problem than we think.

• 25:49Speaker 08

  So I think, yes, the way we train teachers is fundamentally broken in this country. And I think that's true on three levels. So one, it's disproportionately theory-based. And so you'll learn about theories of child development, you'll learn about theories of math instruction, or theories of reading instruction. And all of that's actually important. It's just, I'm not sure of like what good the theory of math instruction is if you don't actually know how to deliver a lesson on math as well. Number two, we have two problems with the way we approach content in this country. There is no doubt that content is queen and king.

• 26:34Speaker 08

  So the importance of content mastery in the classroom is absolutely essential. Having said that, sometimes the best math teachers weren't necessarily the best math students because, you know, you often teach better what you weren't so good at because you actually had to work to learn it. And yet. Very often, you have to have a certain number of college credits in math in order to be a math teacher. There is truth to that, for sure, when you get to the more complicated and higher levels. At K8 level, however, you need to be able to deliver the content. You need to have a mastery over that. And that isn't necessarily meaning you have a math degree in order to be able to teach fractions.

• 27:18Speaker 08

  You just need to be able to actually understand the nuances behind fractions. And right now, we're assuming that if you have a math degree, you can teach math as opposed to, you know, being taught the content. Now, the third problem with the way teachers are trained is that we are not training teachers right now to meet the challenges of our kids today, right? So, to this extent, we are sort of still training teachers for classrooms of the past. So, we're not teaching teachers well enough how to effectively differentiate for the vast range of skills that kids have. We're not teaching teachers effectively enough how to use technology to further teaching. And we're not teaching teachers how to make school relevant for what kids are really needing

• 28:03Speaker 08

  to succeed in the colleges they may go to or the careers they may pursue, you know, 20 years from now.

• 28:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  So, when you say that the way we teach teachers is fundamentally broken, and then you describe these dimensions on which it's not working, I guess my next question is a very obvious one, which is why? I mean, you know, in most areas of higher ed, the curriculum and methodology and pedagogy adapts over time. I mean, the way computer science is taught now is really different than it was taught 30 years ago. And the failings that you describe, they sound maybe hard to address, but not complicated. So, why hasn't the teaching of teachers evolved?

• 28:45Speaker 08

  So, why hasn't this changed? One interesting metaphor there is like the bar exam, where people study and cram for the bar exam because they need to pass it to get their credential. But it doesn't necessarily reflect what they do then when they go to practice it. But education's even worse because you get your masters, then you go practice, and there's no reverse accountability. And if you think about computer science, the example you gave, if you have coders who aren't up on the recent code, those people aren't going to get hired. And so, there's a feedback loop there, right? Or if doctors aren't trained on the current medicines... People aren't going to go to those doctors. And so there's a feedback loop there. But in education, that feedback loop doesn't exist. Teachers go into the classroom.

• 29:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  And why? Is that, I mean, is it partly because, I mean, are we seeing kind of the backside of the fact that teaching is, you know, a public institution, a government institution? Governments just have different ways of verifying and qualifying people than does private practice?

• 29:41Speaker 08

  So why is that? I mean, I think there are a couple of reasons. It has been historically very, very hard to evaluate and remove ineffective teachers. How you're trained and your future performance have been very, very disconnected. Now, there's been a big push recently around teacher evaluation and teacher accountability, but people still aren't really connecting the entire cycle between the recruiting, developing, and retaining of teachers. Teaching is arguably one of the most important professions in our country, and it's still a divided conversation, right? So we talk about developing teachers, but if you listen to the public conversation,

• 30:25Speaker 08

  it's mainly about teacher evaluation and retention, not recognizing that who you bring in and how you train them leads to their future performance. And so that disconnect, I think, remains like a huge, huge problem. And there's no incentive for schools of ed to change.

• 30:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  And that's why Levin decided to help start a new kind of graduate school to educate teachers.

• 30:52Speaker 08

  The Relay Graduate School of Education, I was one of the co-founders along with Norman Atkins and Deshito. Norman Atkins from Uncommon Schools and Deshito from Achievement First. And we basically felt that there was a disconnect between the way our teachers were getting trained in the graduate schools around New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut and their performance in the classroom. And so what we thought is that you could create a more productive union between theory and practice, and that you could have people who are teaching teachers who are Still connected to students, either as teachers or as principals.

• 31:37Speaker 08

  And what started in New York has now grown to New Jersey and New Orleans and Houston. It is a two-years master's program where the enrolled teachers need to show student proficiency in order to earn their masters.

• 31:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  Give me some specifics on that, Dave. What kind of proficiency do they need to show and how does it differ from the standard ed school?

• 32:00Speaker 08

  So in the standard ed school, you don't need to show any proficiency by and large. Your master's defense might include writing a paper or delivering a project. Now, this is actually changing in real time. So there are places now where to get a master's, you do need to start demonstrating the applicability of that in a classroom. But for us, it is a variety of measures that teachers can use. So some of it, if you teach 3rd through 8th grade in New York, for example, you can use the state test and you can use your value added to demonstrate that kids have made a year's worth of progress. If you teach K2, you could use the STEP assessment or Fanta's and Pennell. But either way, there has to be some demonstratable way that you've shown student growth.

• 32:42Speaker 08

  And for folks who teach other subjects such as the humanities or the sciences, part of what they do is they outline how they're going to show that growth at the beginning of their second year and then that progress is measured. And that doesn't, you know, how's that different? The very existence is the difference.

• 33:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  The role of education schools also came up when I asked Joel Klein, the former New York Schools Chancellor, about building a better teacher.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  They've got to have demanding criteria. They've got to support rigorous entry requirements into the profession, whether it's the equivalent of some form of national exam or state-by-state exam. But that really tests people on the range of skills and talents they need.

• 33:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  But Klein sees other flaws in the teacher system besides the ed schools.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  We then got to move away from a trade union model, which has built on these three pillars of life tenure, seniority, and lockstep pay toward a professional model that rewards excellence and supports greatness. And the third thing I would say, Stephen, in terms of a solution, and this kind of maybe is a good tie with my old antitrust days, and that is, I think, the more choices we give families, the better it's going to be, whether it was charter school choices or traditional public school choices. And what I mean by that is, everybody that you know, and I suspect most people listening today, have exercised choice of schools for their kids. They've moved to a neighborhood if they want to live there where there's a good public school. Some of them have gone to private schools.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  But they haven't just simply said, "Well, whatever the neighborhood school is, I'm going to go there." What they've done is basically said, "I'm going to move or go to a private school in order to get a good education for my child." The kids with the least resources in America are the kids who are not getting any choices. It's one and done for them. And it seems to me, if we could create the kind of choices you now see, for example, in Harlem, which we created under Mayor Bloomberg's leadership, where now, basically, there are lots and lots of options, and parents have increasingly become informed consumers.

• 34:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  Those old antitrust days that Klein mentioned? He used to work for the Department of Justice. He was the lead prosecutor in United States versus Microsoft Corporation. Now, Bill Gates was not very fond of you at the time, was he?

• 35:17Speaker 02

  I think that's fair to say.

• 35:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  You were not on his Christmas card list at the time?

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Not on his Christmas card list, and not a lot of invites to Seattle, Washington, to meet with.

• 35:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  And you guys, however, did kiss and make up at some point?

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Well, Bill gets all the credit for it. Before I started as chancellor in New York, he had given a $10 million philanthropic contribution to help establish new small high schools for highly dysfunctional, large high schools in high-poverty communities. And the question was whether he would stick in after I was appointed. And thankfully, he did and became the largest contributor to New York City schools in terms of literally well over a hundred million dollars over the course of my tenure. A lot of which went into this new small schools initiative, which were breaking down these large failing schools in high poverty communities that have two, three thousand

• 36:14Speaker 02

  kids, replacing them with four, five, six smaller schools with a lot of community support and partnerships and much more demanding requirements. And the results of that have been just phenomenal.

• 36:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Did you ever talk to him what it was like for him to learn that, you know, here he was with the Gates Foundation, giving money to a lot of different schools and school systems, including New York, and then to find out that you, his bete noir, was the guy who was coming in to run the New York City schools? Did you have that conversation with him ever?

• 36:48Speaker 02

  I never did. I was just so grateful that he was willing to support us. The jury was out on this. And then we had an event. I'll never forget this event because I hadn't seen or spoken to Bill since after the case. This was about a three-year hiatus. And he came to the Bronx to a school, Morris High School up there, where we were opening these new small schools. And he and I spent the day together. I didn't know what it would be like. And it was a very warm, engaging day. We went to classrooms together. And then we did a public appearance with Mayor Bloomberg. And in it, Bill made some glancing jokes about the antitrust suit and so forth, and happy to be on the same team. And when it was all finished, I just was so relieved that it had gone so well. And as I walked

• 37:33Speaker 02

  off the podium, the principal came up to me and said, you know, Chancellor, Bill Gates gave you fifty-one million dollars today. That's a nice day's work, he says, but just think what he would have given you if you hadn't sued him.

• 37:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  But let's be honest, all the Gates Foundation grants in the world, all the school reform and teacher reform in the world, won't necessarily solve the problem. There is a mountain of recent evidence suggesting, in fact, that teacher's skill has less influence on a student's performance than a completely different set of factors, like how much kids have learned from their parents, how hard they work at home, and whether the parents have instilled an appetite for education. In other words, you can reform the supply side of the school's equation all you want. What about the demand side? Students and their families.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  If you come from a family that inspires a kid to learn, that's demanding about a child's homework, that's enormously helpful and valuable. But I always like to hold those things somewhat constant because the people in the education business are not going to be able to change those things. I mean, we often used to jokingly say, you know, parents give us the best kids that they have for us to educate. And by the same token, kids come with the best parents they're going to get, and we have to take them where they are.

• 39:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Think about it. A school has your kid for only seven hours a day, 180 days a year, or about 22% of the kid's waking hours. Nor is all that time devoted to learning once you account for socializing and eating and getting to and from class. And for many kids, the first three or four years of life is all parents and no school. But when serious people talk about education reform, they rarely talk about the family's role in preparing children to succeed. That may be because the very words "education reform" indicate that the underlying question is, what's wrong with our schools? Which, these days, inevitably leads to, what's wrong with our teachers? Which is a relevant question,

• 39:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  but plainly not the only question. And so, we're going to keep this conversation going on our next episode. It's about a program in Toronto called Pathways to Education. The Pathways program has four pillars. Those are counselling, academic, social, and financial. In other words, it's a program that helps students succeed in school by helping them with everything that a family is supposed to be helping them with. But way too often isn't. That's next time on Freakonomics Radio. Thanks for listening.

• 40:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. Today's episode was produced by Susie Lechtenberg and David Herman with help from Joel Werner. The rest of our staff includes, but is not limited to, Irvah Gunja, Jake Howitt, Merritt Jacob, Christopher Worth, Greg Rosalsky, Kasia Mahalovich, Alison Hockenberry, and Caroline English. You can find all our episodes at Freakonomics.com. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 41:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Ozempic. Innovation happens through rethinking what's possible. And when it comes to GLP-1s, Ozempic pill does just that. Learn more about Ozempic semaglutide tablets, 4 and 9 milligrams, by calling 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit Ozempic.com to view the medication guide and ask your doctor what's possible with FDA-approved Ozempic pill.

• 41:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern Company. The world and its energy needs are always changing. Southern Company's commitment to meeting this demand stays the same. That's because Southern Company believes energy is more than a utility. It's what powers possibilities. So they are looking ahead and investing $80 billion in infrastructure upgrades and are committed to fueling growth in ways that benefit all customers so that reliable and affordable energy is accessible for generations to come. Go to SouthernCompany.com to learn more. Southern Company, building the future of energy.

• 42:26Speaker 09

  This episode is brought to you by SoFi, the everything app for smarter money. Everything in one place to move your money forward. Banking, investing, borrowing, and more. Make your first move with SoFi Checking and Savings, competitive APY, no account fees, and a direct deposit bonus. Terms apply. Get started today at sofi.com/smartmoney. SoFi, get your money right. SoFi Checking and Savings is offered through SoFi Bank, N A Member FDIC.

• 42:54Speaker 10

  This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Is there a right time to sell a stock? Are you taking the right risks with your portfolio? Financial decisions can be tricky, and often your own cognitive and emotional biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help. Join host Mark Reapy as he offers practical solutions to help overcome the cognitive and emotional biases that may affect your investing decisions. Listen at schwab.com/financialdecoder.