1 post from January 2009

The overall top pick in the 1983 NFL draft, John Elway was the perfect quarterback prospect, and he turned out to be every bit as good as expected, if not better.  In the late 1980s Elway was so ridiculously good I could barely stand to watch him play; so dominant that he willed mediocre Broncos teams to the Super Bowl in 1987, 1988, and 1990. 

Although Elway’s heroics were enough to beat the weak AFC teams of that era, his best efforts fell far short against the Giants and Redskins and 49ers.  The Broncos lost each Super Bowl by a successively larger margin, and the 55-10 loss to the 49ers in 1990 remains the most lopsided Super Bowl ever played.  

By 1998 the Broncos had changed.  Other great players had joined the team, and the defense had improved along with the running game.  Finally given a chance to lead good teams instead of average teams, Elway won the Super Bowl in 1998 and 1999.

Was John Elway a better quarterback in the late 1990s just because he finally won the Super Bowl?  He definitely improved his decision-making ability over the years, but by the late 1990s he had slowed.  He no longer spent most of the game running all over the backfield evading defenders before throwing across his body, off his back foot to split two defensive backs 50 yards downfield and hit the receiver for a touchdown.  He changed with time, but I think he got different, not better or worse.

Malcolm Gladwell’s thoughtful article on teacher recruitment makes excellent points about the difficulty in knowing which teachers will cut it until teachers are in the classroom.  As a product of an alternate route program, I have no idea what it feels like to go through a traditional training before putting it to the test on day one of the first year.  But I suspect the traditionals struggle as much as the rest of us.  It’s a hard job.

Gladwell’s proposal to throw open the doors of the teaching profession is a tantalizing dream.  It would be great to let everyone in and retain only the most worthy by rewarding them according to their accomplishments.  One problem is that under our current system staying alive and not getting fired are the only compensable professional accomplishments, leaving us without a culture that relentlessly demands the very best, as is found in professional sports or financial management.  Imagine a professional football coach giving roster positions, even on the practice squad, to his friends and relatives, just because they need a job.  In football that would be the end of a career; in education, with its pervasive nepotism, that’s business as usual.

Even if K-12 education could overcome its strong penchant for inefficiency and petty corruption, I’m not sure how accomplishment could be measured on a large scale.  I’ll buy Gladwell’s assertions about a “value added” approach, and I’m even willing to assume that an excellent teacher in a bad school makes a bigger difference than a mediocre teacher in a good school.  No problem.

But I don’t think he’s got the entire picture.  Gladwell omits any discussion of how much it matters where a person teaches, and that is not a small point.

Let’s say an excellent teacher in a bad school pulls a rabbit out the hat, like John Elway breaking Cleveland’s heart, by getting all of her students to pass a state test at the basic level.  Let’s say this teacher has high school kids who can’t read and can’t sleep at night and haven’t trusted an adult since early in the first grade.  She’s brilliant and she gets them all, every last one, by loving them with all her heart and demanding excellence every day.

Then there’s an excellent teacher at a very good school.  He’s new to the school so he gets the regular group, not the honors or AP kids.  But he’s so inspiring and innovative and demanding of excellence every day that his regular kids who usually score in the middle of the pack on the state test are surpassing the honors and AP kids, pushing the top of the advanced range.  By any measure this is a teaching champion.

To me, these teachers, if they exist, would be about equal in accomplishment.  If I had to choose, I would give the slightest nod to the teacher in the bad school, just based on my experiences.  But numbers being what they are, the teacher in the very good school would be in the paper and getting the bonuses (assuming those come along) and shaking the governor’s hand as teacher of the year. 

Even the best NFL quarterbacks do not win the Super Bowl without a ground game and a shut-down defense.