Vision Circle

Take her interview for example. The interviewer asks her whether she thinks teachers should be paid more--perhaps money is part of the problem. Thernstrom acknowledges that people who tend to go into teaching are--with some exceptions--usually not the brightest or most powerful of students. However, she then argues that the reason this is the case is NOT because they are underpaid, but rather because of all the paperwork that education schools foster upon students. Her solution is twofold: increase the pay differential between good teachers and bad teachers, open up teaching to people without education degrees.

I don't know about you, but this argument doesn't quite cohere well. It seems to me that the reason why the best and the brightest now tend to pursue law and business degrees is at least partially because of a combination of interest, and the monetary incentive structure embedded in higher education. The best and the brightest tend to turn away from education not because most of them are uninterested in being teachers, but because of the monetary DISINCENTIVES that turn them away from being educators. Compared to the fundamental question of loot, I think paperwork is a distant second.

While I can understand the second solution--the educational bureaucracy is stifling change so we need to bring in change agents from the outside--I'm not sure I buy this either. Even if it were possible, would you want a lawyer without a license representing you? A doctor without an MD? How would opening up the teaching profession to people who have never stepped into a classroom actually raise performance levels?

The methodological flaws are serious, and severe. In order to properly model the racial achievement gap, you have to account for all significant theoretical variables. For example we know that the education of the mother has a strong impact on the achievement of the child. We also know that material resources are also meaningful. We know that region has an impact (living in the south as opposed to the rest of the country), that urban/suburban distinctions are important, that ethics of care are also crucial.

But with one exception, all of the Thernstrom's tables simply compare educational achievement by race. Now I'm not actually sure whether the Thernstroms actually KNOW multivariate regression, nor do they appear to know the literature on race in education. Finally they don't appear to really understand black culture. In the interview, Thernstrom notes that some people are simply "culturally lucky." Black people just don't happen to be lucky in that way.

When Thernstrom thinks of black culture what exactly does she think of? Even taking the concept of "oppositional culture" there is a strength there that is highly portable and beneficial for blacks (and Americans) of all backgrounds. Like I said before, I have my PhD BECAUSE OF (not in spite of) the knuckleheads.

So while this work is an important one to grapple with for those of us interested in old school solutions to higher education, it is in many ways a work of ignorance. And while I can understand why they might be ignorant about black life, black culture, and the literature on educational outcomes ignorance is NO EXCUSE.

Posted by at November 26, 2003 09:13 AM | TrackBack