Over on Marginal Revolution Alex Tabarrok has a nifty observation entitled “Heroes are not Replicable.” He argues that the popular images of super teachers does a disservice because societies can’t clone those folks. Instead, he advocates teaching effectively!
What we need to save inner-city schools, and poor schools everywhere, is a method that works when the teachers aren’t heroes. Even better if the method works when teachers are ordinary people, poorly paid and ill-motivated – i.e. the system we have today.
In Super Crunchers, Ian Ayres argues that just such a method exists. Overall, Super Crunchers is a light but entertaining account of how large amounts of data and cheap computing power are improving forecasting and decision making in social science, government and business. I enjoyed the book. Chapter 7, however, was a real highlight.
I don’t want to give away Mr. Tabarrok’s whole post, so you’ll have to go read the rest of it yourselves. Follow this link to it.
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