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On Apr 2, 7:15 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


You can't design an education system, any more than a business
organization,
on the premise that you'll hire Superman.

--
Ed Huntress

You can design a business organization on the promise that you will
hire only people that are way above average. The funny thing is that
it does not cost that much more in salaries. Hewlett Packard did that
back in the '60's. And because their employees were above average,
they attracted above average applicants. Makes a hell of a difference
in the work environment. Google, Microsoft, and Cisco do that now.

I suspect that the same thing applies to education systems too. The
Ivy league colleges hire the best and brightest. Seems to work out
for them. Because they have the best professors, they get the
brightest students. And because they get the brightest students, they
have the brightest alumnae. Who contribute to the colleges, so the
colleges have the biggest endowments and hire the best and brightest.

Yeah, well, it's nice and good to say we should hire better teachers. My
wife is a teacher. I can assure you that, unless you get an unusual
individual who is just devoted to the idea of teaching, there is little
about our educational system that is going to attract the "best and the
brightest."

We slander teachers all the time; relative to comparably difficult jobs in
business and industry, they're paid pretty sadly (my wife made a little more
than half of what I made as an editor, when I was full-time, and her job was
harder). My wife is dedicated and teaches special ed. Sometimes I wonder
why.

Unlike Princeton and Harvard grads, they have no hope of getting a trading
job on Wall Street and making 8-figure bonuses.

--
Ed Huntress


Dan