Deskilling Teaching

Curiously, in a chain of schools that are in a former British colony, the instruction method is much more in line with the centralized approach of the French education system in the industrial age. 

The education minister was once said to have looked at his watch and told an interviewer that "every 4th grader in France is now singing 'The Bluebird'" or something to that effect.

But, it is hard to argue with success, even if it makes the job of being a teacher less delightful and creative, and while it isn't widely know, the quality of education in less developed countries notoriously awful.

We examine the impact of enrolling in schools that employ a highly-standardized approach to education, using random variation from a large nationwide scholarship program. Bridge International Academies not only delivers highly detailed lesson guides to teachers using tablet computers, it also standardizes systems for daily teacher monitoring and feedback, school construction, and financial management. At the time of the study, Bridge operated over 400 private schools serving more than 100,000 pupils. It hired teachers with less formal education and experience than public school teachers, paid them less, and had more working hours per week. Enrolling at Bridge for two years increased test scores by 0.89 additional equivalent years of schooling (EYS) for primary school pupils and by 1.48 EYS for pre-primary pupils. These effects are in the 99th percentile of effects found for at-scale programs studied in a recent survey. Enrolling at Bridge reduced both dispersion in test scores and grade repetition. Test score results do not seem to be driven by rote memorization or by income effects of the scholarship.

From here.