In the wake of last month's release of "Waiting for ‘Superman,'" a documentary focusing on the need for public education reform in the United States, the dearth of top U.S. college students choosing teaching as a profession has gained attention.
A recent study by global marketing and consulting firm McKinsey & Company compared teachers in countries with high-performing education systems to public school teachers in the United States.
The most striking difference between countries was the background of the teachers hired. The study found that in Singapore, Finland and South Korea, almost all hired teachers were in the top third of their graduating classes in college and post-graduate programs. The U.S. data pales in comparison; less than a quarter of new U.S. teachers are recruited from the top third of their class.
While it makes sense that parents want smart and resourceful teachers for their children, such qualities are not always accurately measured by grades, according to Steven Cohen, a lecturer in the Department of Education at Tufts.
"Sheer grade point average, I don't think is the mark of a teacher," Cohen said.
Still, without a consistent source churning out quality teachers, the U.S. education system has needed to become more creative in recruiting from universities. One well-known organization popular among Tufts alumni, Teach for America, places recent college graduates as educators in underperforming public schools.
Betsy Aronson (LA '09) is currently working in Roma, Texas, through Teach for America.
"What's interesting about where I teach is that simply finding any qualified college graduates is an issue," Aronson said. "My town sits right on the [Mexican] border. Fewer than seven percent of residents here hold a college degree. Here, we're not just talking about recruiting the best college graduates to teaching but actually how to create college graduates in the first place."
The educational situation in Roma is not unique. Since U.S. public schools are largely funded through property taxes, which are often higher in suburban areas, most of the United States' poorly performing schools are found in urban and rural areas.
This inequality is a crucial feature of the current U.S. educational landscape, as the performance of students correlates to resources and expectations for them. In places like Roma, funds are minimal and most students are on track to drop out of school because older figures in the community have followed the same path. No matter how smart the child, some educational environments are simply not conducive to learning and success, according to Cohen.
"It has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with social class and opportunity and access," he said.
Nina Schienman (LA '08), who works at a school in Brooklyn through Teach for America, emphasized that a difficult component of teaching is dealing with the complicated bureaucracy that exists in public schools.
"The fact that many public schools do not have a clear and established curriculum means that every new teacher has to ‘reinvent the wheel' in some way," she said. "There must be a reorganization of the educational system in which teachers have to navigate and work ... on a daily basis."
The idea of education reform presents many problems, and the country has been struggling to develop and approve policies to improve public education. Much of the legislature related to education, however, gets stuck in the chambers and offices of government officials. The issue is so complex that agreement between different political parties, politicians and voters is virtually non-existent, according to Cohen.
"There is too much finger pointing and not enough reform," Cohen said. "I don't even know what education reform means anymore."
Whitney Wiegand (LA '08), a current Teach for America participant in Chicago, believes that a shift in the perception of the profession will provide an incentive for high-performing college students to pursue teaching as a career.
"Teaching can be an incredibly challenging, fun and rewarding profession that should attract the highest achieving individuals from the top colleges in our country," Wiegand said. "This will never happen, though, until the profession can compete in terms of prestige, compensation and support with other top careers."
