Kudos to Jay Mathews for writing this:
When fixing schools, beware of miracle cures. Every week people send me ideas they say will change the future of education and lead all humanity to enlightenment. So, when management expert William G. Ouchi let me look at his new work on the surprising power of total student loads per teacher, or TSL, I was skeptical.??
As you should be, Jay, as you should be. But on to the meat of the article: TSL, Ouchi's newest addition to the alphabet soup of acronyms. Yes, that's William Ouchi of the widely read Making Schools Work, which rightly espouses the idea of weighted student funding, or (alphabet soup!) WSF. We've written on this topic too and we think it a darn good idea--but, like its reform-minded brethren, not a panacea. At first read, TSL sounds like an interesting concept. Ouchi does his homework, too, which makes me much more likely to read this forthcoming book (when it is published--unclear when that will be) with an open mind.??
Here's the problem, though. Ouchi (according to Mathews, who it must be noted is the only one, it seems, who has read this elusive "chapter" of the forthcoming book he alludes to) seems to be advocating hiring teachers across the board. Teacher quality? Nah.
Could other factors, such as increasing teacher quality, explain the test score gains??? Ouchi and his researchers analyzed three years of student performance. They looked at the effect of class size, teacher experience, teacher credentials, professional development, time devoted to math and reading instruction, and a few dozen other factors. "Among these, only TSL had a noticeable effect on student performance in every district, and that effect was large," Ouchi says.??
Hmmm. Not buying it. After introducing his column so promisingly (standing up against "miracle cures" and the like), I'm surprised Mathews doesn't call Ouchi out for this. You can't tell me that hiring lousy teachers just to reduce TSL is going to improve student achievement. Having 5-7 classes a day and student loads of 170 (New York City) to 225 (Los Angeles) students is stressful, sure, but you still have to teach them something while you've got them in the desks!??More promising? Ouchi (and Mathews) see the connection between WSF and TSL:??
"One school, for example, may not need or want security guards or professional-development staff, while another may not want attendance clerks or registrars," [Ouchi] says. Principals, unlike central office managers, know which jobs have been rendered obsolete by new technology and which jobs exist simply because they have always existed.??
Absolutely, as long as they're hiring good teachers instead.
