Is the most important school factor in student performance the effectiveness of classroom teachers?

[Karmadillo]

The Wisconsin article claims it is. The Huffington Post article claims it's the disparity of wealth and the persistence of racism. It's interesting we're basing educational reform on the former claim and ignoring the latter. If we're basing educational reform on incorrect fundamentals, how successful can we expect to be? Of course, if our real goal is kicking wealth redistribution down the road, I guess the success or failure of educational reform is somewhat irrelevant.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/112460034.html

Slipping state test scores demands fresh solutions

They called it the "Canada effect" - the phenomenon in which students from a string of states along the country's northern border regularly beat the rest of the nation on academic tests.

As recently as 1992, only three states - all from northern climates - had significantly higher average scores than Wisconsin in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math. No states scored significantly better than Wisconsin in fourth-grade math national assessments.

<edit>

With research showing the most important school factor in student performance is the effectiveness of classroom teachers, Wisconsin's political and education leaders have called louder than ever for improving the quality of the state's educators.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-nelson/education-reform-crashing_b_787303.html

Education Reform -- Crashing on the Bell Curve
Steve Nelson.
Head of the Calhoun School in Manhattan
Posted: November 24, 2010 06:30 PM

<edit>

The latest crumbs tossed at the problem come in the form of the so-called Race to the Top (as though learning is a race and everyone can stand together on the summit) which, like all sound bite reforms, is over-hyped and under-funded. The relatively meager funds don't even come close to compensating for the deterioration of state and local funding because of the ongoing recession. And the test-driven pedagogical practices demanded as conditions of this funding are nearly certain to further diminish the quality of the learning experience in American schools.

While it is disturbing and ironic that federal policy and funding are driving poor educational practice, there is a significantly larger elephant wandering through this thicket. If one takes a few steps back from the trees and looks at the forest, it is clear that the symptoms of educational decline in America have nothing to do with schools, teachers, pedagogy, standards or accountability. Decades of research indicate strongly that the decline in student achievement can be accounted for entirely by the dramatic increase in wealth disparity and the persistence of racism in America.

One such study, from the Institute for Research on Poverty, reported a nearly straight-line correlation between growth in the wealth "gap" and the increase in educational inequality. Countless other studies confirm this basic relationship. Whether in terms of college matriculation, test scores or drop out rates, the problems driving current misguided policies can be traced to an increasingly inequitable society.

But educational policy makers and social commentators, including the President and Education Secretary, blindly operate on the opposite cause and effect premise: that the increase in wealth disparity is somehow caused by the erosion of educational standards and if we only demand more of poor children, particularly children of color, social injustice will be cured. It is an educational version of the mean spirited "pull yourself up by your boot straps" attitudes that have inhibited social justice for many decades. As has always been the case, one can't pull up on boot straps when owning no shoes.

more...

[PassingFair]

1. In my experience....it's CLASS SIZE.

Also helps if the students are
progressing at the same level.

[Joe Fields]

13. class size was irrelevant in my educational experience.

believe it or not, most of the classes, when I went to school were between 35 and 45 students, packed like sardines in a classroom, with one teacher and no teachers helpers.

It wasn't a factor at all, concerning my education, or the education of most of the students who were in the same circumstance.

It was all about the quality of the teacher.

[adigal]

17. I don't know how old you are, but many of those kids

in huge classes either didn't finish high school, or were tracked into vocational ed. Nowadays, we expect everyone to graduate with a Regents academic diploma in NY.

[johnaries]

2. Correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

It is just as likely that the Education Gap is creating the growth in the wealth gap. Or that there is a third causal factor that is affecting both.

Or, it could be that they both affect each other and are causing a "feedback loop" - the education gap is driving the wealth gap which creates a larger education gap which creates a larger wealth gap....

Since a correlation has been established, it should be further researched; but we should be careful not to jump to conclusions.

[immoderate]

5. I challenge the phrase "just as likely..."

I think that there's some feedback loop here. Where do you break it? Using unproven strategies, driven by billionaires with no educational background, to corporatize the education system does not help the wealth disparity problem. Especially since the methods run counter to practices in the most successful education systems. That is creating a negative feedback. As schools fail, they get sent to charter school hell.

Correcting the wealth disparity is the answer. This is only one of the symptoms of that problem.

--imm

[madrchsod]

3. it`s duncan/ obama clueless idea`s that saving education is...

getting rid of unions and turning education over to those who wish to destroy our foundation of public education.

it`s the changing of our society from "full employment" to a permanent underclass of 10%+ unemployed, temp workers and low wage class workers that is destroying education. it`s the uncertainly of the parent/parents of the children that contribute to the problem. those jobs that fueled this countries educational system are gone and those jobs are never coming back. where is a high school student or a college student going to find work when they graduate?

[sense]

4. childcare is the problem

That's what school amounts to for so many students, now that it's been so thoroughly dumbed down. Failing to teach the students, not just the planned curriculum ensures that many will simply "check out" in order to save their sanity. Having to sit hour after hour, day after day, month after month listening to the teacher endlessly go over subjects with mind numbing repetition, in a superficial way only teaches that you must endure stupefying boredom endlessly if you want to learn anything at all. School in so many instances really is only intended to produce mindless drones that will not protest no matter what they're subjected to. We could do so much better. This is not what we need: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm

We need to move into this century like most other industries have and the teacher's union needs to remember there are children involved when they're advocating for teachers. If they can't wrap their minds around that then they need to be abolished so those who actually care about children and real education, not just about employment for adults, can re-work our school system into something useful.

[glinda]

6. It's a combination of lack of hope for the future, parents having to work too hard to make ends meet

not allowing great teachers to just teach and interference from Right Wingers agendas.

[hobbit709]

7. If there's no push for learning at home

then pretty much anything in the classroom is ineffective. I learned to read long before I started school. By the time I started first grade in Vienna I was reading in both modern and Gothic German script and in English.
Of course I was surrounded by books-my grandfather had at least a thousand in his personal library.

[pacalo]

8. I agree. Children are more likely to be more interested in learning when

they are pushed at home.

But for the unfortunate kids whose homes are disfunctional to the point schoolwork is secondary to simply surviving a harsh reality, it helps to have a teacher who inspires students to learn & enjoy it.

Teacher pay should be in the $90k+ range in order to attract the best minds. Shaping young, thinking minds should be our top priority.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Under Montessori theory, the teacher's contribution is minimal and the child/student

is responsible for teaching him/herself. The teacher makes the learning materials available and models them, but the child learns by doing and not because of the teacher imparting the information.

[Karmadillo]

14. A mass of independent learners? No way. They might resist taking their place in the hierarchy.

nt

[adigal]

10. It's parents, hands down

I have taught in Catholic school, and in public school, and the first time in public school a kid told me he didn't have his homework, I asked him if someone in his house had died. Seriously. I never had a Catholic school kid just tell me that he/she didn't do it. Period. They usually did it, and when they didn't, they either had a good excuse, or make one up. :) But really - the parents pay, so they care. Many public school parents care, but not all, and that is the difference.

[Earth_First]

11. Ummm, my wife and I are both athiests;

very involved in the education of our daughter.

To suggest that religion is a common denominator in regards to student performance in a two-parent family is very, very telling...

[adigal]

16. What is it telling of?? Huh???!

What are you talking about? My experience was in Catholic school, I did NOT say that only religiously educated kids were advanced, I said that if parents were involved, which they are in Catholic school, then the kids have a better chance.

You need to please read more carefully.

[SheilaT]

12. It is not just one thing.

If a kid comes from a dysfunctional family, small class size and dedicated teachers can make up for that. Or, if a kid has parents who push for good education and see to it that the kid does homework, it may not matter so much if the kid attends a not very good school.

In an ideal world, there are two parents in the household, and even if both work outside the home, they are involved in their kids' lives, always attend parent/teacher meetings, make sure homework is done, and so on and so on. But even with the best of all possible circumstances, the child's own individual personality will come into play.

[roody]

15. Please keep in mind that the words

"achievement" and "performance" refer only to the scores on a battery of tests given in a span of one or two weeks, which involve no writing, only filling in the bubble.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Thank you