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Home/ T531 Summer 2012/ Contents contributed and discussions participated by Jordan Perry

Contents contributed and discussions participated by Jordan Perry

Jordan Perry

Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain - NYTimes.com - 2 views

  • Elementary- and middle-school teachers who help raise their students’ standardized-test scores seem to have a wide-ranging, lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates and greater college matriculation and adult earnings,
  • “That test scores help you get more education, and that more education has an earnings effect
  • metrics hold teachers accountable and can help improve the educational outcomes of millions of children.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Critics particularly point to the high margin of error with many value-added ratings, noting that they tend to bounce around for a given teacher from year to year and class to class. But looking at an individual’s value-added score for three or four classes, the researchers found that some consistently outperformed their peers.
  • a student with one excellent teacher for one year between fourth and eighth grade would gain $4,600 in lifetime income
  • The student with the excellent teacher would also be 0.5 percent more likely to attend college.
  • Replacing a poor teacher with an average one would raise a single classroom’s lifetime earnings by about $266,000
  • 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.
  • the effect of a good teacher mostly fades after three or four years. But the broader view showed that the students still benefit for years to come.
  • “The message is to fire people sooner rather than later,”
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    This article discusses how teachers who work to improve students test scores are leaving a lasting impression on their students. The more education they are getting by "good teachers" increases the students chances of succeeding. Teachers are working to improve these students test scores and while they are doing this the students are learning more than just what is needed to pass the tests. Schools need better teachers to help students in the long run.
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