[Vision2020] The Value of Teachers

Thu Jan 12 09:02:57 PST 2012

Thanks for this AD. Tough times for education, so we need all the support
we can get! Joe

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com>wrote:

>  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>
>  Reprints<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/opinion/kristof-the-value-of-teachers.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212&pagewanted=print#>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> January 11, 2012
> The Value of Teachers By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholasdkristof/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
>
> Suppose your child is about to enter the fourth grade and has been
> assigned to an excellent teacher. Then the teacher decides to quit. What
> should you do?
>
> The correct answer? Panic!
>
> Well, not exactly. But a landmark new research paper<http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/value_added.html>underscores that the difference between a strong teacher and a weak teacher
> lasts a lifetime. Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25
> percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25
> percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each of the students
> will go on as an adult to earn, on average, $25,000 more over a lifetime —
> or about $700,000 in gains for an average size class — all attributable to
> that ace teacher back in the fourth grade. That’s right: A great teacher is
> worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to each year’s students, just in the
> extra income they will earn.
>
> The study, by economists at Harvard and Columbia universities, finds that
> if a great teacher is leaving, parents should hold bake sales or pass the
> hat around in hopes of collectively offering the teacher as much as a
> $100,000 bonus to stay for an extra year. Sure, that’s implausible  — but
> their children would gain a benefit that far exceeds even that sum.
>
> Conversely, a very poor teacher has the same effect as a pupil missing 40
> percent of the school year. We don’t allow that kind of truancy, so it’s
> not clear why we should put up with such poor teaching. In fact, the study
> shows that parents should pay a bad teacher $100,000 to retire (assuming
> the replacement is of average quality) because a weak teacher holds
> children back so much.
>
> Our faltering education system may be the most important long-term threat
> to America’s economy and national well-being, so it’s frustrating that the
> presidential campaign is mostly ignoring the issue. Candidates are
> bloviating about all kinds of imaginary or exaggerated threats, while
> ignoring the most crucial one.
>
> Mitt Romney<http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney?inline=nyt-per>,
> who after his victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday seems increasingly likely
> to be the Republican nominee, refers to education only in passing on his
> Web site. The topic receives no substantive discussion in his 160-page
> “Believe in America” economic plan<http://mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2011/09/believe-america-mitt-romneys-plan-jobs-and-economic-growth>.
>
>
> This latest study should elevate the issue on the national agenda, because
> it not only underscores the importance of education but also illuminates
> how we might improve schools.
>
> An essential answer: more good teachers. Or, to put it another way, fewer
> bad teachers. The obvious policy solution is more pay for good teachers,
> more dismissals for weak teachers.
>
> One of the paradoxes of the school reform debate is that teachers’ unions
> have resisted a focus on teacher quality; instead, they emphasize that the
> home is the foremost influence and that teachers can only do so much.
>
> That’s all true, and (as I’ve often written<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-poverty-solution-that-starts-with-a-hug.html>)
> we need an array of other antipoverty measures as well, especially early
> childhood programs. But the evidence is now overwhelming that even in a
> grim high-poverty school, some teachers have far more impact on their
> students than those in the classroom next door. Three consecutive years of
> data from student tests — the “value added” between student scores at the
> beginning and end of each year — reveal a great deal about whether a
> teacher is working out, the researchers found.
>
> This study, by Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard University and
> Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia University, was influential because it
> involved a huge database of one million students followed from fourth grade
> to adulthood.
>
> The blog of the Albert Shanker Institute <http://shankerblog.org/?p=4708>,
> endowed by the American Federation of Teachers <http://www.aft.org/>,
> praised the study as “one of the most dense, important and interesting
> analyses on this topic in a very long time” — although it cautioned against
> policy conclusions (of the kind that I’m reaching).
>
> What shone through the study was the variation among teachers. Great
> teachers not only raised test scores significantly — an effect that mostly
> faded within a few years — but also left their students with better life
> outcomes. A great teacher (defined as one better than 84 percent of peers)
> for a single year between fourth and eighth grades resulted in students
> earning almost 1 percent more at age 28.
>
> Suppose that the bottom 5 percent of teachers could be replaced by
> teachers of average quality. The three economists found that each student
> in the classroom would have extra cumulative lifetime earnings of more than
> $52,000. That’s more than $1.4 million in gains for the classroom.
>
> Some Republicans worry that a federal role in education smacks of
> socialism. On the contrary, schools represent a tough-minded business
> investment in our economic future. And, increasingly, we’re getting solid
> evidence of what reforms may help: teacher evaluations based on student
> performance, higher pay and prestige for good teachers, dismissals for weak
> teachers.
>
> That, and not most of the fireworks that passes for politics these days,
> is the debate we should be having on a national stage.
>
> •
>
> I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground<http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground>.
> Please also join me on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/kristof> and
> Google+ <https://plus.google.com/102839963139173448834/posts?hl=en>,
> watch my YouTube videos <http://www.youtube.com/nicholaskristof> and
> follow me on Twitter <http://twitter.com/nickkristof>.
>
>  [image: DCSIMG]
>
>
> --
> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>
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