alt Hacker NewsNo. Actually the elephant in the room is the dismal quality of most teachers. But teachers are kind of a sacred cow of discourse, and nobody can state the screaming obvious.
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throwaway85825 • yesterday at 10:34 PM
The quality of the teacher is less predictive than the quality of the student by far. A teachable student will be more successful with a mediocre teacher than a bad student with an excellent teacher.
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9x39 • yesterday at 10:43 PM
On top of teacher quality - we hire the cheapest, not the best - what students know when they enter school appears to be one of the better predictors of future behavior[1].
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-common-core-failed/
Teacher quality really does suck. The average school teacher may have a credential from an "Education" department but isn't even close to having the equivalent of an undergrad degree in the actual subject they're supposed to teach. We can hardly expect teachers to provide a good education when they don't even know their subject to a reasonable standard.