There is an innate part of being a great teacher, but most of it's learned. You have to grade the homework sometimes and give them feedback every night. And that means that you're going to give up something at home. If you don't give people the incentive to do that, then you can only do it with attracting the kind of people who will do it out of love.
The good news about educational reform, says Harvard economist Roland Fryer, is that we know what it takes to turn a school around. The bad news is that it's hard work--and implementing it won't win you any popularity contests. Listen as the MacArthur Genius Award Winner and John Bates Clark medalist speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how pizza parties revealed the potential of incentives to improve students' test scores, and why he's far more concerned about closing the racial achievement gap than keeping the love of learning pure. He also discusses the five best practices of successful schools, and why it's his failures far more than his successes that keep him in this fight.