The False Specter of Teacher Quality

School reformers have been banging the “teacher quality” drum for a number of years. Their endless wailing over the topic will fail to bring the change they are hoping for. Teacher quality is widely held to be one of the largest determinants of student success. However, the term is hopeless confused. A teacher’s quality of instruction results from a complex interplay of factors internal and external to the teacher including talent, skills, school climate, resource availability, class size, and most significantly, leadership.

The school reformers ignore the external determinants of teacher quality and purport that a teacher’s quality is largely within their own control. While the days of a one-room schoolhouse with the teacher acting as the principal, secretary, and social worker are gone, reformers trumpeting “teacher quality” conceptualize the teacher’s classroom as an island, disconnected from the complex organization characteristic of modern schools.

A quick search in Education Week confirms the focus on teacher quality over principal quality. The phrase “teacher quality” appears over seven times as often as “principal quality (216 articles vs 14). Many influential leaders in education, including Michelle Rhee, the Superintendent of DC Public Schools embrace this narrow, inaccurate perspective on teacher quality. She has pledged to “purge incompetent teachers by any means necessary” (Ripley, 2008). Perhaps what’s most misguided about Rhee’s approach is her behaviorism-like understanding of teacher competence. Oddly, by her own admission, she started off teaching doing a very poor job. She became competent. A teacher’s abilities in the classroom are not fixed.

Teachers can also appear more competent when they’re external environment is conducive to success. In a school beset by behavioral problems, poor organization, abysmal communication, and a dearth of an instructional vision, how can a teacher’s competence be evaluated? There are too many negative, external factors affecting that teacher’s success to blame students’ low achievement on the teacher alone.

A far more important contributing factor to student achievement is strong school based leadership. Reformers need to begin campaigning for better leadership within schools. Good leaders recruit good teachers, improve mediocre teachers, and work to fire the hopelessly underperforming teachers. They also tend to the external factors that contribute to teacher success. By directing their efforts towards school based leadership, reformers would be helping to increase student achievement.