By Joel Klein
The Wall Street Journal
10/31/14
“Lots of research in the past decade underscores the importance of great teachers. Summarizing these studies, the distinguished Harvard economist Raj Chetty noted that good teachers aren’t only “effective at teaching to the test and raising students’ performance on tests”; they also have a long-term impact “on outcomes we ultimately care about from education,” such as encouraging students to avoid teen pregnancy and putting them on the path to college and middle-class earnings.
During my tenure as schools chancellor in New York City from 2002 to 2011, we found that, with proper recruitment, support and incentives, we could increase the numbers of teachers who were both temperamentally and intellectually equipped for the modern classroom. We accomplished this by making our schools exciting places to work, bringing in partners to aggressively recruit talented new teachers and significantly improving our compensation system.”