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The Forum > Article Comments > Policymakers must do their homework > Comments

Policymakers must do their homework : Comments

By Andrew Leigh, published 20/5/2005

Andrew Leigh argues that the reason student standards have fallen while education expenditure has increased has to do with the quality of teachers.

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This looks like yet another "blame the teacher" article to me, and the suggestion that the deteriation in scores is due to fewer really good teachers is most certainly wrong.

Lets for instance assume that 10% of the best people who once entered teaching as a profession don't do it these days. If these people increase the scores of students in their classes a full 20%, then the overall difference in students scores is only going to be 2% (i.e., 20% of 10%). Such small differences clearly don't explain why scores of students have been dropping in Australia yet increasing in other countries.
Posted by conrad, Friday, 20 May 2005 10:30:01 AM
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The quality of people teaching can attract has probably fallen since the 70s, simply because bright women now have many more career options than they used to. But this is not a phenomenon unique to Australia, so does not explain our poorer performance compared to other, similar countries.
What is fairly unique in the developed world is our strange, hybrid education funding system and the rapid concentration of kids into ghettos of like with like, particularly ghettos of privilege and underprivilege. Half of the total drift from public to private schools (since recurrent funding in the 70s) has happened since 1996, that's fast. Maybe it doesn't do any of our kids much good to be so comprehensively seperated from one another. Maybe mixed ability schools (and mixed religious, socio-economic and ethnic background schools) weren't such a lousy idea after all. When you take all the bright kids out of a school, it is hardly surprising that the kids left behind start to underperform. The funny thing is, selective schools apparently don't add the value to most of their students that they are supposed to. Could this be part of the problem? Just a thought, we're rapidly going down a very radical path in education for a democracy, and we don't seem to know whether it has any actual value or not, other than ideological.
Posted by enaj, Friday, 20 May 2005 12:28:31 PM
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One of the big myths in this discussion is in reference to "attracting the best people into the teaching profession".

Teachers don't finish learning how to teach after they complete their degrees.

Good teachers will tell you that they never stop “learning how to teach”.

Yes, we need to attract bright young people, but this is not a guarantee that they will be good teachers.
Posted by Rainier, Friday, 20 May 2005 6:41:42 PM
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There has been substantial exploration of school and teacher performance, principally by education researchers. Leigh states that numeracy and literacy have declined. It is not a matter of disputing that but of finding why it might be so. That is where the problem is in Leigh’s statements.

Yes of course life outcomes are affected by performance at school. They are even more strongly influenced by early childhood care, as shown by the work of McCain and Mustard in Ontario.

One of the major problems with Leigh’s results is that the averages from all schools are aggregated. There is a correlation between socioeconomic background, school resourcing, including the quality and retention rate of teachers on the one hand and student performance on the other and this is obscured by aggregating the results.

Like many commentators, Leigh wonders about the quality of teachers and suggests testing teachers. But a great deal more than merely adjusting salaries is needed – not to suggest that salaries don’t need improvement. Why not consider respect for teachers and teacher’s feelings of self-efficacy? These are issues and undoubtedly factors in retention rates.

Allowing greater choice by families in choosing schools has been studied in detail in New Zealand. All it does is emphasize the socioeconomic differences which already exist.

A reading of the article Richard Rothstein’s article, “Must Schools Fail” (New York Review of Books Volume 51, Number 19 · December 2, 2004) reveals only too clearly the profound differences between middle class and less well off families and the way their children are supported in their learning.

The features that contribute positively and significantly to better teaching and learning is dealt with comprehensively by David Berliner of the State University of Arizona in Journal of Teacher Education Vol 51/5 December 2000, p 358-371.

Some economists have the tendency to believe that they are so much better equipped to find solutions to today’s problems than other professions. This is hardly a sustainable assertion to put it politely.
Posted by Des Griffin, Monday, 23 May 2005 12:26:03 PM
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School success is due largely to inate ability and family background and perhaps teacher quality (but I have read research the suggests the difference is "good" teachers are the ones with good students). School quality hardly rates a guernsey and yet commentators carry on about it so.

Literacy may have declined for all sorts of reasons but as "reading for pleasure" is up there (see OECD's PISA report)as a strongly corelated with literacy

I would suggest change of lifestye is a factor eg TV and like is a factor. I wish that commentators did not go off half cocked.

I would also, given the vast amount of evidence of the importance of home environment, that is area we have to address. By the time the kiddy winks are at school it probably too late. Kids benefit from a langauge rich environment at home.
Posted by Richard, Monday, 23 May 2005 3:54:24 PM
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Success in literacy and numeracy is about the family, not the teacher.

A high achieving student could do their schooling in a broom cupboard, and they'd still succeed.
Posted by Liz, Monday, 16 January 2006 1:56:52 AM
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