re: What We're Learning About the Austin Bomber

LINK

quote:

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In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, Chamberlain analyzed data from an unidentified large urban school district and found that middle-school teachers could have a small, but real influence on whether people attended college and how much they earned at age 28. His study doesn’t allow him to identify the factors that made one teacher better than another, but instead show that increasing teacher quality significantly, say from the 50th percentile to the 84th percentile, increases the likelihood a child will attend college by nearly one percentage point. Such an increase also adds to annual income by nearly $200 — an increase of about one percent.

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Most evidence of teachers making a big difference are anecdotal and limited to random individuals instead of across the spectrum. Probably differences are seen in one on one environments like spec ed.

Parents and home environment are far more predictive of success than teachers. If a child is going to be successful, the teacher they have isn't that important.