Good Teachers Matter

109 Replies to “Good Teachers Matter”

1. Seems almost impossible to control for non-teacher-controlled variables in calculating the value-added scores. The fact that Teacher A — over several classes or over several years — has higher value-added scores than Teacher B might mean that Teacher A is a more effective teacher or it might mean that one or more of the non-teacher-controlled variables consistently favors Teacher A over Teacher B — i.e., Teacher B has a reputation as being particularly good at classroom management and the principal accordingly assigns more of the disruptive students to Teacher B, or Teacher B speaks passable Spanish, so the principal assigns more of the students from Spanish-speaking homes to Teacher B, or Teacher A has a reputation as an excellent teacher so the concerned/functional parents specifically request Teacher A for their children (who will be more motivated/functional than the average child).

   The reliability of high-stakes-testing/teacher-discharge are questionable. The disadvantages are definite — teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculm, cheating, teacher competition instead of cooperation, discouraging good teachers from teaching problem students or in low SES schools, and, at least occasionally, discharging excellent teachers.

   If student test scores play any role in teacher evaluation, they should be limited to serving as a signal that Teacher X might be an incompetent and/or goof-off teacher who requires closer management examination/monitoring. Any adverse action must be based exclusively on that closer management examination/monitoring, not on the student test scores.

2. Mr. Elligers: Good points. I agree with your examples as to the different types of non-controlled variables present in a typical school. Unlike a scientific study, most (if not all) schools do NOT use random-control methods for assigning students, determining class sizes, assigning subjects, etc…

   It’s usually within the principal’s authority to (for example) assign disruptive students to a particular teacher and to assign the courses that each teacher will teach. For example, one teacher may have two periods with mainstreamed special education students, and another teacher may have no special education students.

   These differences can easily confound any attempt to judge teacher quality by student test scores. In light of the above, I agree with you that test scores should not be used to compare teachers in real schools, where countless variables (such as those mentioned above) will render any comparison meaningless.

3. John,

   All of the non-teacher-controlled variables you mention should be controlled for in an appropriate model:

   * Disruptive students sent to Teacher B will already include value-added estimates of test score gains lower than a control group

   * Assuming you meant that there is a difference in the average achievement for students from Spanish-speaking homes, this group, too, would lower/raise (depending on your assumption) the value-added estimates for yearly gains

   * If Teacher B’s reputation nets him or her an influx of students from more “functional” families, the value-added estimates would then increase relative to the average

   For all the talk on how “inaccurate” VAM is, or for how it’s purely “theoretical”, I enjoyed reading this:

   But controlling for numerous factors, including students’ backgrounds, the researchers found that the value-added scores consistently identified some teachers as better than others, even if individual teachers’ value-added scores varied from year to year.

   After identifying excellent, average and poor teachers, the economists then set out to look at their students over the long term, analyzing information on earnings, college matriculation rates, the age they had children, and where they ended up living.

   […]

   Students with top teachers are less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, more likely to enroll in college, and more likely to earn more money as adults, the study found.

4. That is amusing, Chris, especially because the effects are so minute as to be negligible. Perhaps the “study” was not as rigorous as you assume.

5. “Replacing a poor teacher with an average one would raise a single classroom’s lifetime earnings by about $266,000…” Seems like a pretty big effect.

   And honestly, longitudinal data on 2.5 million subjects over 20 years and all the control and long term outcome variables you could want, if this isn’t a scare-quoteless study, there aren’t many.

6. the effects are so minute as to be negligible

   and

   Teachers’ impacts on students are substantial. Replacing a teacher whose true VA is in the bottom 5% with a teacher of average quality would generate lifetime earnings gains worth more than $250,000 for the average classroom.

   Pick one.

7. “$266,000–let’s see, a class of 26-27 would net an additional $10,000 each over a 40 year career…$250 a year per student over a lifetime of work. Hey, that’s over $20 a month! Great news for Netflix.”

   From the NYT comments http://timespeople.nytimes.com/view/user/41414128/activities.html

8. Here’s another, specifically for Chris, it seems:

   “I must say the results don’t seem to support the wildly sensational conclusion that more disruption in the schoolhouse is justified. A “value added’ teacher’s minion earned an additional thousand dollars after 10 years over a toad who had a bad teacher that couldn’t be fired on a whim. The rate enrolled at college was only 1.4% more for the VA students (38.2%) and 36.8% for the Brand X students. And the teen pregnancy rate, excluding pregnancies caused by certified teachers, was 8.1% for the hopeless girls but 7.6% for our shining stars, a difference of 0.5%.”

9. Remember that seemingly small effects can have large impacts over the 50 million kids in the public schools. For example, using the authors’ estimates, “deselecting” the poorest five percent of 3.2 million public school teachers would add 40 billion dollars to students’ lifetime earnings, assuming one class per teacher and effects of the same magnitude over all teachers.

10. TFT,

    First, these estimates are statistically significant over an N of over 2.5 million students, meaning they are nearly guaranteed to be real. You sneeringly referred to them a few times now so I’ll assume you agree with this. Realize that these data are then clear evidence that VAM — even as a single measure — is powerful enough to discern teacher effectiveness, despite its level of imprecision.

    Second, detracting from these results shows you don’t analyze numbers very well. A teen pregnancy percentage change of 0.5% (still real, remember) means that *thousands* of students will have different life trajectories. An additional $10,000 in each student’s lifetime translates into *millions* (and billions, thanks Art) in added productivity. An increase in college attendance rates by 4.7% for half of these students is encouraging, and more so when you consider that it may lead to underestimating the measured gains in yearly earnings.

    Third, realize that these long-term results are the measured impacts of just ONE good teacher. Imagine how much larger the gains could be for students who had relatively great teachers throughout all of the early grades.

11. Of the many disputes that have frozen contract talks between City Hall and the teachers union, one of the bitterest is merit pay — rewarding individual teachers not for seniority, but for what they achieve in the classroom. Mayor Giuliani has demanded that merit pay be part of any deal, but the teachers resist. The mayor is right to stick to his guns.

12. The good news: All sides seem to be coming to the agreement that excellent teachers matter. I remember reading this many times during my long career. It’s just common sense. Once about thirty years ago I read of a study that said a first grade teacher has a profound effect on a student’s life chances. Since I was a first grade teacher I prayed that I was a very positive influence on my students’ lives.

    For many years it was common knowledge that “anyone” could be a teacher. If you just went to your nearest big city, you could get a job without a credential, advanced training or an advanced degree. This only applied to “inner-cities” as the suburbs usually hired only experienced teachers, or young people who had graduated from their own schools and did student teaching there.

    Teachers have long insisted on hiring only fully credentialed teachers with PROVEN RECORDS OF SUCCESS, especially for the most challenging schools and the most disadvantaged children. Let’s stop the shameful practice of placing the least experienced teachers in the lowest performing schools. With our bad economy we have the opportunity to place experienced people in urban schools. Let’s do it!

13. Who is responsible for the kid’s grades? The kids or the teachers? Or the parents? Or the summer enrichment program the kid attended? Of the car the kid lives in?

    Merit pay is the stupidest idea in the reform movement; it’s been tried and it did nothing. It also makes absolutely no sense to claim that I, a teacher, am responsible for Johnny’s grades. He is, along with his parents.

    Maybe we should give merit pay to good parents?

14. Chris, we don’t even know which districts the data came from. Maybe they came from DC where the cheating scandal has yet to be completely understood. And they use circular logic, claiming students do well due to good teachers, and good teachers clearly make students do well.

    Watch, it will not be accepted into a real peer reviewed journal. They won’t accept it because it’s crap.

15. TFT, can you respond to the arguments I gave above? Your newest comments are only offering different complaints. They aren’t novel questions, however.

    In response to the causal factors question, the study summarizes:

    We then directly test for selection on unobservables using an approach analogous to Kane and Staiger (2008), but exploiting quasi-experimental variation in lieu of a randomized experiment. Like Kane and Staiger, we find no evidence of selection on unobservables. We therefore conclude that our value-added measures provide unbiased estimates of teachers’ causal impacts on test scores despite the grouping of students on lagged gains documented by Rothstein.

    In response to the merit pay assertion, the study concludes:

    While these calculations show that good teachers have great value, they do not by themselves have implications for optimal teacher salaries or merit pay policies. The most important lesson of this study is that finding policies to raise the quality of teaching — whether via the use of value-added measures, changes in salary structure, or teacher training — is likely to have substantial economic and social benefits in the long run.

    In response to the weird insinuation that the 2.5 million children were actually all DCPS students:

    We address these two issues by analyzing school district data from grades 3-8 for 2.5 million children linked to tax records on parent characteristics and adult outcomes. […] An important limitation of our analysis is that teachers were not incentivized based on test scores in the school district and time period we study.

    I’ll let you have the peer-reviewed swipe for the moment (hopefully without the notion that NBER is just an empty label), but since you haven’t been able to say much against the study yourself, I think I’ll have to side with the authors, professors at Harvard and Columbia.

16. “And they use circular logic, claiming students do well due to good teachers, and good teachers clearly make students do well.”

    This claim is not circular – both clauses assert the same relationship and are testable in the same way.

    With 2.5 million children in the analytic sample, it’s not likely that the study is based on DC (enrollment 45,000).

    Nothing in this study or in the other studies of teacher effects that I am aware of assumes that teachers are the whole and sole causes of children’s achievement. Instead they say that differences among teachers are substantial enough to pay attention to, after controlling for students’ prior achievement and background characteristics such as FRL status and ELL status.

    Finally, Linda commented that it is common sense that excellent teachers matter. But clearly not all educators accept that because we not infrequently see them arguing that the Coleman Report proves that students’ background wholly determines their achievement and schools can’t make a difference (the Coleman Report shows no such thing). We need well-done studies of teacher effects to refute that and to put bounds around how much difference teachers can make, or we risk expecting too little from poor children and minority children and perhaps too much from teachers.

17. Chris —

    Re using a value-added model to control for non-teacher-controlled variables —

    As I understand the VAM concept, the school system looks at Student A’s test scores in earlier grades, compares these test scores to some sort of benchmark, and then predicts how Student A would do in the next grade based on how Student A’s earlier grades compared to the benchmark.

    However, this model requires that the school system have test scores for Student A in earlier grades. In many cases, this will not be true — either Student A was in a different school in the earlier grades or did not take standardized tests in the earlier grades.

    More importantly, this model would not capture the effect of bright but disruptive students or of slow but conscientious students on classroom behavior/teacher workload. If Student X is a bright high-scoring student who constantly disrupts instruction, the VAM would over-estimate the positive effect of adding Student X to a class. Conversely, if Student Y is a slow student who usually scores low on standardized tests but is a conscientious student who never disrupts instruction, the VAM would over-estimate the negative effect of adding Student Y to a class. This is not just a theoretical argument. Veteran teachers often comment that adding a few bright but disruptive students — strong but negative role models — to a class can make an otherwise ordinary class a living hell to teach.

    There are probably many other situations where a student’s prior test scores do not accurately predict the effect on teacher workload of adding that student to a class.

    And, even assuming that a VAM could perfectly predict impact on teacher workload, the VAM would still not take into account non-student variables impacting teacher performance — i.e., the teacher’s total student load, number of classes, number of separate preps, whether the teacher taught the class before, extent of administration support (class aides, central office discipline support).

    Too many complicating variables to use student test scores for anything more than a red flag that something might be wrong and might warrant closer management review.

18. Art,

    I have never in my life met a teacher that believes a student’s background determines his level of achievement. Why would a person even become a teacher if he believed that? Also, it goes completely against common sense. Is there a person alive who hasn’t seen an individual make a huge success of himself despite a very disadvantaged background?

    The Coleman report concluded that a student’s standardized test results correlated with the socioeconomics of his family. It did NOT mean that the teacher doesn’t count. Who would stay such a thing! Certainly not a teacher!!!

    Teachers have long advocated for excellence in the profession but so many people in our society continue to believe that “anyone” can teach children (but not adults). This is why people without experience or advanced training are still hired to fill “inner-city” classrooms.

    Whether or not this study under question is valid or not, I am not qualified to say. However, common sense should tell us that there are too many variables to be controlled and so the results may or may not give us information we can use. Still, it should go without saying that a teacher “touches the future.” Her influence, like the influence of the parent, goes beyond measure.

    There is one “easy” way to improve teacher quality. Support teachers and their associations’ plan to place a FULLY qualified teacher in every classroom. One way to improve the quality immediately would be to select carefully.

    As to the evaluation of a teacher, it can be done, but obviously not with a ten-dollar group test. You don’t have to be a Harvard professor to understand that.

19. Another reason why “they cheated!” is an unlikely explanation:

    Finally, in our baseline specifications, we exclude classrooms taught by teachers whose estimated VA falls in the top two percent for their subject (above 0.21 in math and 0.13 in English) because these teachers’ impacts on test scores appear suspiciously consistent with testing irregularities indicative of cheating.

    John,

    The paper addresses how additional years of test data for students increases the discerning power of VAM. There’s also a lot more to VAM than just previous test scores. The paper methodology would answer a lot of your questions, basically all of section 4.

20. First and perhaps most importantly, just because teacher VA scores in a massive data set show variance does not mean that we can identify with any level of precision or accuracy, which individual teachers (plucking single points from a massive scatterplot) are “good” and which are “bad.” Therein exists one of the major fallacies of moving from large scale econometric analysis to micro level human resource management.

    Second, much of the spin has been on the implications of this study for immediate personnel actions. Here, two of the authors of the study bear some responsibility for feeding the media misguided interpretations. As one of the study’s authors noted:
    “The message is to fire people sooner rather than later,” Professor Friedman said. (NY Times)
    This statement is not justified from what this study actually tested/evaluated and ultimately found. Why? Because this study did not test whether adopting a sweeping policy of statistically based “teacher deselection” would actually lead to increased likelihood of students going to college (a half of one percent increase) or increased lifelong earnings. Rather, this study showed retrospectively that students who happened to be in classrooms that gained more, seemed to have a slightly higher likelihood of going to college and slightly higher annual earnings. From that finding, the authors extrapolate that if we were to simply replace bad teachers with average ones, the lifetime earnings of a classroom full of students would increase by $266k in 2010 dollars. This extrapolation may inform policy or future research, but should not be viewed as an absolute determinant of best immediate policy action.
    This statement is equally unjustified:
    Professor Chetty acknowledged, “Of course there are going to be mistakes — teachers who get fired who do not deserve to get fired.” But he said that using value-added scores would lead to fewer mistakes, not more. (NY Times)
    It is unjustified because the measurement of “fewer mistakes” is not compared against a legitimate, established counterfactual – an actual alternative policy. Fewer mistakes than by what method? Is Chetty arguing that if you measure teacher performance by value-added and then dismiss on the basis of low value-added that you will have selected on the basis of value-added. Really? No kidding! That is, you will have dumped more low value-added teachers than you would have (since you selected on that basis) if you had randomly dumped teachers? That’s not a particularly useful insight if the value-added measures weren’t a good indicator of true teacher effectiveness to begin with. And we don’t know, from this study, if other measures of teacher effectiveness might have been equally correlated with reduced pregnancy, college attendance or earnings.
    These two quotes by authors of the study were unnecessary and inappropriate. Perhaps it’s just how NYT spun it… or simply what the reporter latched on to. I’ve been there. But these quotes in my view undermine a study that has a lot of interesting stuff and cool data embedded within.

    http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/fire-first-ask-questions-later-comments-on-recent-teacher-effectiveness-studies/#comment-1663

21. Having worked as a teacher in a number of different classrooms, I simply have little faith in the idea that teachers are inherently “good” or “bad” absent any control for the myriad variables that influence their teaching experiences, many of which are subjective and not possible to “control” for in any realistic way.

    To give a few examples of these influential variables: (1) One very disruptive student (including a student w/ emotional or learning disabilities) can negatively influence the learning/scores of the entire class. However, a VAM model would expect the class scores to mirror those of the students in prior grades, and would not account for the impact of a disruptive student. (2) One teacher may be assigned three different subjects to prepare each day (for example, 9th grade history, 10th grade history, and geography) while another teacher may only have one subject (for example, only 10th grade history). Guess which teacher will have an advantage in preparing lessons and organizing the classroom, and teaching more effectively?

    My point is simply that without a controlled, random assignment of all students, random assignment of subjects, random assignment of special needs/ELL students, equal support from administrators, front office staff, parents, etc., there is no way that the VAM scores can even approach a true evaluation of the competence of any given teacher; Even with random assignment, there will still be major differences from year to year (for example, one third grade teacher might randomly get the three most disruptive students that particular year). Based on the above, I think it’s ludicrous to start a program of firing teachers based heavily on the test scores of their students that year.

22. “edconsume”, that was an interesting read. Which part would you like me to correct for you?

    AttorneyDC, you are needlessly moving the goal posts. What do you find incorrect about the study itself? Here is a relevant sentence from section four, something that ought to be compulsory reading before opining on what the methodology got wrong:

    Importantly, because we analyze the data at the school-grade level, we do not exploit information on classroom assignment for this test, eliminating any bias due to non-random assignment of students across classrooms.

23. Eliminating bias is not the same as eliminating or controlling for confounding variables, which VAM is incapable of doing.

    This “study” is mostly nonsense, telling us things we know, and not useful unless you are a spinmeister like Chris.

24. Specifically what are your qualms with the paper, TFT? And do you have counterarguments for the last bunch of flawed criticisms you leveled?

25. The problem with the paper is that it tells us very little about how we make good teachers and substantiates the fact that poverty is the largest concern when looking for reasons why low SES kids do poorly.

    It also was not peer reviewed before going public, probably because one of the researchers is someone’s tool.

    We can use very little of the information in the study, because nothing school-side is going to be of much significance when it comes to ameliorating the effects poverty has on families.

    This study is another in a long line of studies that claim teachers are all important and families should just be ignored because in America, we don’t give a shit about reality.

    And Matt speaks to these issues: http://shankerblog.org/?p=4708

26. In other words, you’re faulting the study for irrelevant topics it did not address, like “how we make good teachers”. Fascinating.

    Look up NBER and get a clue as to why it wasn’t officially peer-reviewed before publication. Hint: it’s not because the study is a “study”.

27. No, I am faulting guys like you who use this study to make giant leaps of logic.

    The study helps nobody with anything.

28. Lot’s of excuses why this working paper is useless–it’s not a study, it didn’t intend to address anything meaningful, it’s out of NBER so peers need not look at it, blah blah.

    What did you learn from it, Chris? That good teachers matter? Wow! And that VAM is a dubious way to measure the effectiveness of individual teachers? Wow again. A huge data set does not impress me when the confounding variables weren’t dealt with, because they cant be.

    Poverty is our problem. This paper continues the nonsense that it’s not, but rather it’s teachers who make the big difference, except the study doesn’t show that.

    Like I said, the paper/study/whatever is basically useless in terms of helping struggling students.

    But that wasn’t its purpose, was it?

29. Lot’s [sic] of excuses why this working paper is useless

    None of which you can adequately argue, as you’ve already shown. Yes, the study effectively ruled out cheating. Yes, the study ruled out classroom assignment bias. No, there are too many students for the data to be based in DC. Yes, it’s an NBER working paper, meaning it was absolutely intended for discussion with their peers (NBER is kind of a big deal, by the way). Even the obligatory link to another blog you presented above agrees that the paper is good at what it sought to analyze.

    What did you learn from it, Chris?

    “Lot’s”! Here are a few takeaways:

    * The results give strong evidence that VAM — even as a single measure — is powerful enough to discern teacher effectiveness. It’s a proof of principle that VAM is accurate both at forecasting average impacts on test scores and long-term benefits to students.

    * We can discuss outliers, but realize that the aggregate results from onward of a million testing data points show that VAM accurately pinpoints differences in average college attendance, earnings, and even rates of teen pregnancy. That there are instances where VAM will be in error does not imply that this happens predominantly, or even often. The data they’ve presented suggests the error due to bias from many outside factors (including family income) is minimal.

    * On that note, the authors openly address the caveats to their results, such as if teachers game the system to inflate test scores. This is one of the reasons that VAM should not be the sole determinant in staffing decisions.

    * If you read deeply into the paper, you’ll learn all about their extensive controls for both observables and unobservables. Their quasi-experimental test is brilliant. Learn how to appreciate good science.

    * Teachers matter! I have no idea why you and others are going soft on this point. There has always been a reoccurring objection to ever (ever!) expect teachers to make student gains in tough placements, that poverty and other cruel societal problems needed to be fixed at once before teachers could matter, as the end of your comment touches on once more. Then a paper like this one comes along and finds that just ONE good teacher will have a lifelong impact in the lives of students. There are numerous roads to take regarding education and socioeconomic reform, but teacher quality is one that we should feel compelled to travel given these data and the relatively easy policy changes that could result in stronger schools.

30. Chris, I really don’t think you understand what some of us are saying: Of course, a great teacher matters, of course a great teacher influences a child’s life, of course student test scores might tell us something about the teacher’s abilities. However, it is time to look at the whole landscape of research. There’s a mountain of it that tells us:

    The parent’s influence on the child exceeds that of his teachers, even the best ones;

    Schools with many disadvantaged children usually have more inexperienced teachers than schools with advantaged children;

    Healthy children usually do better in school than unhealthy children.

    Based on what we know, teachers have long advocated for healthcare for all children, well-qualified and successful teachers for low-income schools and out-of-school services for poor students.

    What I’ve said is much easier to understand if you look at specific situations:

    Antonio’s parents are unemployed. When he gets asthma, his parents often keep him at home because they can’t get him to the doctor and cannot afford the medication. Because of this, Antonio misses at least a week of school each month. How can we help Antonio, who is struggling with academics?

    a) Give him an excellent teacher
    b) Provide him with healthcare
    c) Offer him a tutor so he can catch up
    d) All of the above

    Yesterday I received an email from my ten- year -old granddaughter telling me that she got 99% on her geography test, the highest grade in the class.

    Sophia received the high geograpy score because

    a) she has an excellent teacher
    b) she is very interested in travel and is always asking questions about other states and countries
    c) her parents love to travel and have taken Sophia all over the world
    d) all of the above.

    No one is disputing the importance of the teacher. All we are saying is that the research tells us of the tremendous importance of the student himself, as well as the family. If we really want to improve education for the most disadvantaged children, we’ll have to provide him with medical and social supports. This is what successful nations have done, and we can do it too.

    I didn’t give the answers to the above questions because they are obvious. It’s time to accept what we know about education.

31. If we really want to improve education for the most disadvantaged children, we’ll have to provide him with medical and social supports. This is what successful nations have done, and we can do it too.

    See, this is a great example of what I referenced above: education can’t “really” be improved unless we fix everything else that’s wrong with our society. No, that’s not at all what was shown in the paper. Without giving anything extra to these kids and their families, there was a net positive effect on their lives from one effective teacher. DESPITE the obstacles that are most unfair, a good teacher helped their kids succeed.

    I like the sentiment you offer on this subject, Linda. I think most would agree. There are two big issues with the sentiment, as I’ve continually voiced, however, and they are:

    1) There is no single set of policies that will provide all of the social supports that disadvantaged students lack, and even if there were one already drawn up it is likely not a foreseeable political reality in the near future.

    2) We can choose to pursue school reform regardless of our success in implementing socioeconomic reform, and we have evidence like this paper suggesting school reform could have large net benefits for students

32. Chris, your last post (12:57 pm) is a great example of what you do in these discussions. You take what some of us say and then accuse us of saying something else. I can’t decide if you misunderstand, or choose to twist our words rather than agree with them.

    I stated “If we really want to improve education for the most disadvantaged students, we’ll have to provide [them] with medical and social supports. This is what successful nations have done, and we can do it too.”

    To this you responded, “See, this is a great example of what I referenced above: education can’t ‘really’ be improved UNLESS WE FIX EVERYTHING ELSE THAT IS WRONG WITH OUR SOCIETY.”

    Do you really think that is what I said? I think not, but I’m not sure. I will try to state things as clearly as I can:

    It is not reasonable to fix everything that is wrong in a society. No one of normal intelligence would suggest such a thing.

    If we placed an effective teacher in EVERY classroom, that would certainly have a positive impact on the students. Do we need a research paper to tell us that? This is why teachers are advocating for improved training for new teachers. Almost all teachers agree that their first few years were the worst. I know they were for me. By far.

    Teachers are concerned about the achievement of ALL students, even the ones who go to Mexico for three months and the ones who can’t see or hear well. We know we can’t solve all the problems of society, but we can offer supports such as medical care, community schools and parenting classes. There are parents who don’t realize that shaking a baby or exposing him to lead can cause permanent learning problems. Offering these supports are actions that we can take NOW.

    A good teacher IS very important. For many years now, the least experienced teachers have been placed in our most challenging schools. This is something that can be corrected today and without much expenditure. Let’s stop the shameful tradition of placing the least experienced teachers in the most challenging schools.

    In conclusion I want to say:

    Yes, an effective teacher CAN raise the level of achievement for her students. That’s what teachers do!!!!! That said, we can get even better results by providing a good teacher AND the basics (food, medical care, glasses and hearing aides) for our poorest children. Frankly I can’t comprehend why anyone would disagree with this. Other countries similar to us have done it and so can we. Money spent now on children is likely to save billions later on. (I just had a houseguest who has several members of her family who were brought up in abject poverty and little support when they were children. Without exception, every one of these individuals, now adults, is totally dependent on the government for support.)

    In conclusion: I agree that a good teacher can improve student learning but a good teacher plus medical and social supports can do even better. I also believe that it is in our national interest to offer the best possible education to ALL our children.

    I hope you will answer this question: Do you realize that you misinterpreted what I said? Please explain. Thanks.

33. I misinterpreted nothing, Linda. Recall TFT’s response to the study’s work on identifying a strategy to measure teacher effects: “poverty is our problem.” So no, I’m not twisting anyone’s words; the words are fairly knotted up already. The false dilemma that education can’t be improved until we address poverty is continually implied and asserted.

    Also, there is no effective difference between “fixing everything that is wrong with society” and “providing social and medical supports [that disadvantaged students lack]”. This is because you want supports the likes of which would either not be enough to matter (like parenting classes to suggest not shaking one’s baby) or that are so far removed from political possibility that it would be years before we’d see anything resembling it (providing adequate food, medical care, glasses and hearing aides, along with personal tutors, to every disadvantaged student).

    Yes, that all would be fantastic. Would it be strictly enough to fix all of our educational woes? Maybe and maybe not, but I doubt it (there’s more to the problems than just those listed items). Is it possible to get at least those things going sometime relatively soon? Good question, but doubt it. If, at some point, you want to take the next step and discuss pragmatic ways to achieve these idealistic notions, then do so. It’s a more entrenched problem than I think you give it credit for, however.

    Regardless of the above, my two points in the last comment remain relevant and unaddressed.

    1) There is no single set of policies that will provide all of the social supports that disadvantaged students lack, and even if there were one already drawn up it is likely not a foreseeable political reality in the near future.

    2) We can choose to pursue school reform regardless of our success in implementing socioeconomic reform, and since we have evidence like this paper suggesting school reform could have large net benefits for students, we should feel compelled to do so.

34. Linda/RetiredTeacher Says:
    January 10th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
    Chris, your last post (12:57 pm) is a great example of what you do in these discussions. You take what some of us say and then accuse us of saying something else. I can’t decide if you misunderstand, or choose to twist our words rather than agree with them.

    Linda, by now I’d think you know that Chris does not misunderstand.

35. Linda: I appreciate your comments, even if some people don’t seem to get them 🙂 Keep up your advocating for children and their teachers!

36. Chris, I was referring to MY post, not someone else’s!!!!! Here it is again in the most simple English:

    Education can be improved for the impoverished child by schools alone, but we will do much better if we provide that child with medical care and some social supports.

    Phillip: Yes. I should have known better.

37. Read my 2nd paragraph above, Linda, for a direct response to your silly semantics game. The first paragraph was another example of why I initially brought up the trend I see played out here constantly. Attorney DC did it perpetually in a few past threads as well, so it’s great to see him drop in now, as if on cue!

    Also: “Education can be improved for the impoverished child by schools alone” is vastly different from “If we really want to improve education for the most disadvantaged children, we’ll have to provide him with medical and social supports.” Do you understand why? As the paper suggests, we didn’t have to provide these supports to see a good teacher make a difference. And since you have never had a good response to the above points I’ve made concerning your penchant for proposing wishes as policy, the difference is even clearer.

38. Chris,

    Now I understand why you want some of us banned from this blog. We are WAY over your head! You have no idea what we are saying, possibly because you are inexperienced. As for my “policies,” haven’t you heard of traveling nurses for newborns, parent ed classes, school clinics, preschool and summer camp? These programs are spreading across the nation as more and more citizens understand the importance of supporting our neediest children.

    (Hint: In the poorest of classrooms, many, if not most, of the children are well-cared-for by their parents. Perhaps three or four out of twenty are in desperate need of medical and social supports. Every teacher knows that we wouldn’t have to help “every disadvantaged student.” In every post, you tell us that you don’t even know the basics. )

39. Linda,

    None of those examples have all that much to do with, paraphrasing, “providing adequate food, medical care, glasses and hearing aides, along with personal tutors, to *every* disadvantaged student who needs it.” For example, you are arguing in an alternate version of reality if you think parent ed classes will do much of anything to fix dysfunctional families. And of all the many varied hardships that poverty forces on a child, I’m shocked that summer camp was on the list of empowering social supports that I wouldn’t understand, being “inexperienced” and all. How many traveling nurses should we train again to reach every disadvantaged newborn? You’ve also never bothered to discuss how politically possible it is to fund all of these things for every disadvantaged child and family who needs it.

    I didn’t think it possible, but this part was even sillier:

    “Every teacher knows that we wouldn’t have to help every disadvantaged student. Perhaps three or four out of twenty are in desperate need of medical and social supports.”

    Well that totally factual statistic makes everything *so* much easier, as it will cut your nonexistent estimates for funding and (wo)manpower by 3/20ths! Of course, by definition, every disadvantaged youth requires a share of these supports (like summer camp!) to share a true equality of opportunity for a good education with that of our more advantaged students, but definitions are likely not included in these basics you reference.

    Now that I’ve humored you with this incredibly productive conversation on socioeconomic reform, will you or will you not directly address the points I’ve raised in the past 3 comments? I’ll even rewrite the two main ones again:

    1) There is no single set of policies that will provide *all* of the social supports that disadvantaged students lack, and *even if* there were one already drawn up it, enacting and funding these policies is likely not a foreseeable political reality in the near future.

    2) We can choose to pursue school reform regardless of our success in implementing socioeconomic reform, and since we have evidence like this paper suggesting school reform could have large net benefits for students, we should feel compelled to do so. (You already recently wrote that “education can be improved for the impoverished child by schools alone,” but I’d just like a simple answer in the affirmative to clarify, for future reference of course.)

40. and since we’re being super focused on correct numbers here, I should have wrote “down to 3/20ths of the nonexistent estimates” rather than “by 3/20ths”

41. 1. I never said anything about providing ALL the social supports a disadvantaged student might lack. Your response is just another example of your style of arguing. The more frustrated you become, the more you make up points that we’ve supposedly written.

    2. Research has consistently informed us that while schools alone can improve the education of the impoverished child to a limited extent, the improvements are often negligible and far below that of the privileged child. There is some indication that the poorest of the poor are often left out of these efforts at reform and don’t improve at all. This is not acceptable to many of us.

    When you are a parent you will discover that your child learns a great deal out of school. Activities such as summer camp and science workshops at the local museum are powerful learning experiences and very likely among the many reasons why advantaged children do so much better in school. The very fact that you would scoff at “summer camp” speaks volumes.

    Please join teachers and other concerned citizens in demanding educational equity for American children.

42. I grew up in the 7th Ward of New Orleans in the 1950s, and the success that my fifth grade class had throughout the members’ lifetimes is astounding – our class included:

    9 future teachers and administrators;
    a future LA State Legislator;
    2future judges;
    and a future Secretary of Louisiana Department of Health and Human Services/Deputy Medical Director for the City of New Orleans

    to name a few. I think that our fifth grade teacher, who was very inspiring to me, influenced our success, but so did our parents, principles, and so many others. Our community heavily impacted our schools, and vice versa. There are just so many factors that go into success.

43. 1) No, you just want to provide them with ones that wouldn’t much matter, like summer camp. And not to *all* the disadvantaged children, surely, as they are not disadvantaged enough! However, it seems you agree with this point as I wrote it down above, so let’s move on.

    2) See, here it crops up again:

    the improvements are often negligible and far below that of the privileged child. There is some indication that the poorest of the poor are often left out of these efforts at reform and don’t improve at all.

    This is again different in meaning from what you just previously wrote out, that “education can be improved for the impoverished child by schools alone.” The results the study found, for example, were absolutely not negligible. TFT tried to argue this upthread but quickly changed his tune: small percentages and numbers mean a helluva lot when you bring them to scale. Also, however far below they were a certain point may be offset by the fact that they only calculated the effect of *one* good teacher. And there was NO evidence that they left out “the poorest of the poor” in their data set of 2.5 million students.

    Really, I don’t care at this point to talk about poverty further with you. Yes, I want it to go away, and yes I want disadvantaged students to have access to more social services than they do currently. BESIDES THE POINT, specifically the two main points I’ve made above, both of which you somewhat agree with but won’t say directly.

    Please join teachers and other concerned citizens in demanding realistic and evidence-based educational reform for all American children.

44. We agree! It’s time for the educational community and all citizens to demand realistic and evidence-based educational reform for all American children.

    We’ve known for over fifty years that the effects of poverty (not poverty itself) have a huge impact on learning. The recent PISA scores reinforce tons of research on this topic. In regard to PISA, American children of privilege outscored their foreign counterparts, even in the very successful nations such as Finland and Canada. However, children of poverty in our country scored quite low, emphasizing the huge achievement gap that exists in the United States. This is what we know.

    Are you a middle income American? If so, look at your relatives, friends and neighbors. Do their children attend MIT, UC Berkeley and Brown? Do they become educators, physicians, attorneys and businessmen? Can most of these middle class kids compete with anyone in the world? Now look at the children of the neighborhood gardeners and cleaning ladies. How about their kids? Can you see the difference for yourself? Yes, it’s very obvious for those who take a moment to look.

    We know the research. Once we act on it, we’ll see some real improvements in the educational achievement of our poorest students. Other countries have made a huge difference for their impoverished children, and so can we. Yes, “schools alone” can help (That’s what schools do!) but we can do better. Please join social context educational reform.

45. Chris Smyr Says:
    January 8th, 2012 at 11:59 pm
    “edconsume”, that was an interesting read. Which part would you like me to correct for you?
    “Chris Smyr” how about all of it?

    I realize how hard it is to suffer fools here, but I hope you don’t carry the chip on your shoulder outside this forum.

46. The problem (one of the many) is that your prescribed vision of education reform must include an idealistic component of poverty reform, evidenced by your admission that you agreed with what I said, demanding education reform, and then proceeded to blather on incessantly about poverty again. This is all notwithstanding the painfully real criticisms that can be leveled at your notions, as I’ve done too much of already.

    Education reform can happen, should happen, and will likely have net positive benefits for all students, regardless of how we actually choose to ameliorate the effects of poverty. My main points 1 and 2 above, I reference again, are critical for understanding this.

47. edconsume’ [sic?],

    i will gladly if you are interested in responding. many of the points can be currently found in this thread, but you didn’t seem interested to respond then.

48. I didn’t change my tune, Chris. The results are useless when trying to decide how best to help our most impoverished kids, the ones who score low on tests, and the impetus for all this reform nonsense.

    The paper tells us nothing we don’t already know. And yes, until we deal with poverty, nothing you try will help because it is poverty that must be overcome, not a lack of time spent in class and not all those crappy teachers that are presumably responsible for the blight of generational poverty, or something.

49. You implied the study’s results were negligible, and you were corrected. That was what I was referencing.

    And thank you for reiterating the “education can’t be fixed until we fix poverty!” refrain. Linda seemed to think before that such an argument is never made here, except for my “twisting words” and what not.

50. Chris, the effects of poverty show up most vividly in children, who, in America, can be found most days in schools in the care of their teachers.

    You choose to believe the low test scores are due to the schools/teachers, but you’d be wrong; it’s the stifling effects of poverty that does it.

    The findings are negligible, given they don’t control for the myriad confounding variables that can never be controlled for.

    You, with your limited experience and silver spoon, have no idea about reality, much like the “researchers” who wrote the paper.