{"id":2730,"date":"2010-01-08T04:56:37","date_gmt":"2010-01-08T09:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2010-01-08T04:56:37","modified_gmt":"2010-01-08T09:56:37","slug":"repostwhat-makes-a-great-teacher-amanda-ripley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/08\/repostwhat-makes-a-great-teacher-amanda-ripley\/","title":{"rendered":"rePost::What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley"},"content":{"rendered":"

On August 25, <\/span>2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools<\/a> in Southeast<\/a> Washington, D.C.<\/a> Both boys were African American<\/a> fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level<\/a> in math.
\nOne walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor\u2019s math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked.
\nThe other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip<\/span> code in which almost a quarter<\/a> of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so.
\nAt the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test<\/a> given at all D.C. public schools\u2014not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it\u2019s worth noting, not a very hard one).
\nAfter a year in Mr. Taylor\u2019s class, the first little boy\u2019s scores went up\u2014way up. He had started below grade level and finished above. On average, his classmates\u2019 scores rose about 13 points\u2014which is almost 10 points more than fifth-graders with similar incoming test scores achieved in other low-income<\/a> D.C. schools that year. On that first day of school, only 40 percent of Mr. Taylor\u2019s students were doing math at grade level. By the end of the year, 90 percent were at or above grade level.
\nAs for the other boy? Well, he ended the year the same way he\u2019d started it\u2014below grade level. In fact, only a quarter of the fifth-graders at Plummer finished the year at grade level in math\u2014despite having started off at about the same level as Mr. Taylor\u2019s class down the road.
\nThis tale of two boys, and of the millions of kids just like them, embodies the most stunning finding to come out of education<\/a> research in the past decade: more than any other variable in education\u2014more than schools or curriculum\u2014teachers matter.<\/strong> Put concretely, if Mr. Taylor\u2019s student continued to learn at the same level for a few more years, his test scores would be no different from those of his more affluent peers in Northwest D.C. And if these two boys were to keep their respective teachers for three years, their lives would likely diverge forever. By high school<\/a>, the compounded effects of the strong teacher\u2014or the weak one\u2014would become too great.
\nvia The Atlantic Online | January\/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excellent Read!!!<\/p>\n

\"Reblog<\/a>