There's another problem with this analogy: it implies that teaching is some mystical ability that only those endowed with magical powers can perform successfully. That's simply wrong. Teaching is a set of skills that can be taught and learned, and if we continue to believe that teachers are miracle workers we'll keep searching for some holy grail that doesn't exist. I'd put my money on trying to improve the skills of the mortals who are here on earth.

This is a great post. Of course this "miracle" language is very familiar because it is used, all the time, to excuse society's failure to pay for the real value of lots of services. Mothers, nurses, and caregivers are routinely described as performing "sacred" and miraculous deeds which, it is implied, couldn't be/wouldnt be performed for mere money--can't be rewarded by the market. This kind of status payment is explicitly offered in lieu of real money and real support. When caregivers of all kinds--whether mothers or foster parents, nurses or teachers--ask for real structural improvements, money, time, professional help to perform their oh so necessary and valued jobs they are viewed with extreme suspicion and we are warned that you can't "just throw money" at the issue or that you are trying to transform a sacred, ineffable relationship into a materialist one and there will be dire consequences.

aimai

Bob Somerby at Daily Howler hits on the issue identified in your post all the time. Measuring education "success" when it comes to socially disadvantaged students coming from economically stressed families is horrendously difficult. Some degree of humility in approaching this issue would be welcome, as opposed to some blithe "we can do it!" slogan. Given the variety of impediments to learning that these students face, I am not confident that one-size-fits-all solutions like "merit pay" or "national standards" are the magical thinking panacea to our problems in this area. It's more complex than that, and I thought as good liberals that we appreciated that complex problems require careful thinking and sometimes mixed or ambivalent solutions. Frankly, as your post concedes, I'm not even sure that we understand the dimensions or the nature of the problems here, and until that happens I'm skeptical of those who claim to have the problems licked.

I think the whole question of "outcomes" is expressed backwards, in a sense. It isn't surprising that sometimes, some kids from non english speaking backgrounds, children of recent immigrants, children from broken homes, children who are hungry, children without adequate health care, children with chronic asthma, diabetes, or weight challenges, children without eyeglasses, children who are homeless or inadequately housed sometimes do ok in school. Its surprising that *any of them do.*

We should be asking why the public pays for public schools that are underfunded with respect to all of children's needs in the first place. I've got two kids and its a full time job and a hefty income to insure that they get to school everyday prepared to learn, come home safely, get their medical checkups, etc...etc...etc...
all of that stuff that middle class families provide make it possible for upper class and good suburban schools to do their job on the cheap. If you take out all that parental investment you simply can't expect any school to make up the difference.

Instead of looking at teaching and schools as some place where, for a few hours, an overworked stranger tries to cram a little readin' ritin' etc... into the head of a stressed out, angry, hungry, kid we should grasp that schools in many places must be a full service, one stop, hospital, restaurant, dentist, clothing store as well as a full service cultural depot. We should be demanding that all the children who enter into public school emerge with the same goods and services that wealthy kids *go in with.*

That's not a teacher's job--its a combo professional job for doctors, housing specialists, nutritionists, podiatrists, dance teachers, art teachers, drama teachers, music teachers, dentists, eye doctors, etc...etc...etc...

aimai

Adlai Stevenson said it best, "I find Saint Paul appealing and Saint Peale appalling."

The popular culture, particularly the motion picture industry, has a dweeb/superhero dichotomy regarding teachers which is really really counterproductive.

Teaching isn't magic, it's hard work. Teachers and students make progress poco a poco, not through fantastical leaps.

For example: In real life, Jaime Escalante took a group of highly motivated students and helped raise their math scores over a period of several years. In the Hollywood version, James Edward Olmos single-handedly raised the scores of unmotivated students in a single school year.

But you don't have to take my word for it.

http://www.reason.com/news/printer/28479.html

Hillary Clinton, famously, said "It takes a village." Current wisdom, though -- from Barack Obama on down -- is that all it takes is an "incentivized" teacher. We've all seen what free market ideology has done for the economy, so why are we supposed to accept it as a panacea for our public schools?

Arne Duncan seems to place a lot of faith in "merit pay," but we've yet to see a merit pay program that makes even a bit of difference to students growing up in the most difficult circumstances. Teachers do their best -- but if any teacher's best should happen to be good enough to make statistically significant improvements in the performance any statistically significant number of our least advantaged students, that indeed would be a miracle.