Raj Chetty: preference

Transcript context

…Some people I know, who studied the Finnish system and who also know the South Korean and Singaporean systems, claim that simply giving teachers a higher status, especially in smaller economies that may not have quite the opportunities that smart people would have in the United States, has a big value-added to K–12 education. What’s your opinion of that? Yeah, I think status seems incredibly important. My sense of the K–12 education system in the US is, unfortunately for many kids graduating from top colleges, teaching is not near the top of the list of professions that they’d consider. It’s partly because, in a sense, they can’t afford to be teachers because it entails such a pay cut. But also because they feel that it’s not the most prestigious career to pursue. One example of that, that I think illustrates that point, is take the Teach for America program. Teach for America is incredibly successful in getting very talented kids to go into teaching, at least for a short time. I think the issue with Teach for America is, those kids tend not to stay in teaching after a couple of years. Now, what I think is striking about Teach for America is, the reason it’s so effective in attracting top talent is precisely because it’s very difficult to get into Teach for America. I think kids at top institutions like to do things that are hard to do, basically. It’s like a Giffen good. It’s more of a signal then. Some European systems such as Germany, they have much more extreme forms of tracking than we do. So you get put on an on-college track. You are evaluated early. What’s your opinion of those systems?…

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