The black box of teaching

I just sat through a very interesting presentation by Teach For America on the way they are using data to figure out which applicants have a better chance of success in the classroom. So this is being put to very good use.

It's remarkable how advanced they are in collecting, analyzing, and using this data (are most colleges of ed using regressions to measure the influence of college GPA, determination, leadership, etc.?) Also, in a room full of very smart academic types, the TFA team handled the questions with rigor and aplomb. Impressive lot.