<story><title>High-quality schools can increase academic achievement among the poor (2010)</title><url>https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/are-high-quality-schools-enough-increase-achievement-among-poor-evidence-harlem-c</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sonnyblarney</author><text>I didn&amp;#x27;t say it was easy, or that it wasn&amp;#x27;t hard work, or that I didn&amp;#x27;t value it.&lt;p&gt;Teaching is &amp;#x27;hard work&amp;#x27;, it requires educated, dedicated people, and it&amp;#x27;s very important work.&lt;p&gt;But it&amp;#x27;s not rocket science. Doing it is not risky - especially if you&amp;#x27;re teaching something that&amp;#x27;s been taught a million times before. Most well educated people I think could teach at least one subject, though they may not have the wherewithal or stamina to stick it out, or may not have the empathy&amp;#x2F;social skills to do it well.</text></item><item><author>andy_ppp</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; but teaching is not rocket science&lt;p&gt;I actually think teaching children is a really difficult and important part of society but I think many people don&amp;#x27;t value the contribution incredible teaching can make to individual students lives.&lt;p&gt;A great school and teacher obviously can change the lives of children in poverty but it&amp;#x27;s astonishingly difficult and requires immense talent to achieve. Not commenting on the quality of this study however.</text></item><item><author>sonnyblarney</author><text>Essentially this.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not really the schools or teachers - they are generally decent. Some better than others ... but teaching is not rocket science. Basic education is not some magical, mysterious thing. It&amp;#x27;s mostly straightforward, and a little mundane.&lt;p&gt;If you have decent students, prepared to learn a bit - which mostly comes from a reasonably positive and stable home - then all you need is &lt;i&gt;basic&lt;/i&gt; things to get them to a decent level of literacy.&lt;p&gt;Surely some systems are better than others but I think it&amp;#x27;s far more about homes and communities than it is dumping &amp;#x27;bad teachers&amp;#x27; and certainly not about making teaching &amp;#x27;competitive&amp;#x27;.</text></item><item><author>silvestrov</author><text>The kids were a self-selected group because attending the school required that the parents had to do something active to get their kids into this school.&lt;p&gt;They try to control for this by comparing those kids to kids who lost in the lottery.  But this only tells us about kids who have engaged parents.  You cannot generalise to kids who have non-engaged parents.&lt;p&gt;Having engaged parents is the single most important condition for getting a good education.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, not having disruptive kids in class.&lt;p&gt;And only thirdly are quality of teachers.&lt;p&gt;If &amp;quot;free dental, medical, and mental health services&amp;quot; were all it took, then no school in Scandinavia should have any problem with poor kids.  But we do have problems because some parents don&amp;#x27;t care at all about their kids education.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Angostura</author><text>&amp;gt; Doing it is not risky - especially if you&amp;#x27;re teaching something that&amp;#x27;s been taught a million times before. Most well educated people I think could teach at least one subject&lt;p&gt;I think this is something that many well educated people think, right up until they are placed alone in a class-room of 30 children who aren&amp;#x27;t desperately interested in what they have to say.</text></comment>
<story><title>High-quality schools can increase academic achievement among the poor (2010)</title><url>https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/are-high-quality-schools-enough-increase-achievement-among-poor-evidence-harlem-c</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sonnyblarney</author><text>I didn&amp;#x27;t say it was easy, or that it wasn&amp;#x27;t hard work, or that I didn&amp;#x27;t value it.&lt;p&gt;Teaching is &amp;#x27;hard work&amp;#x27;, it requires educated, dedicated people, and it&amp;#x27;s very important work.&lt;p&gt;But it&amp;#x27;s not rocket science. Doing it is not risky - especially if you&amp;#x27;re teaching something that&amp;#x27;s been taught a million times before. Most well educated people I think could teach at least one subject, though they may not have the wherewithal or stamina to stick it out, or may not have the empathy&amp;#x2F;social skills to do it well.</text></item><item><author>andy_ppp</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; but teaching is not rocket science&lt;p&gt;I actually think teaching children is a really difficult and important part of society but I think many people don&amp;#x27;t value the contribution incredible teaching can make to individual students lives.&lt;p&gt;A great school and teacher obviously can change the lives of children in poverty but it&amp;#x27;s astonishingly difficult and requires immense talent to achieve. Not commenting on the quality of this study however.</text></item><item><author>sonnyblarney</author><text>Essentially this.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not really the schools or teachers - they are generally decent. Some better than others ... but teaching is not rocket science. Basic education is not some magical, mysterious thing. It&amp;#x27;s mostly straightforward, and a little mundane.&lt;p&gt;If you have decent students, prepared to learn a bit - which mostly comes from a reasonably positive and stable home - then all you need is &lt;i&gt;basic&lt;/i&gt; things to get them to a decent level of literacy.&lt;p&gt;Surely some systems are better than others but I think it&amp;#x27;s far more about homes and communities than it is dumping &amp;#x27;bad teachers&amp;#x27; and certainly not about making teaching &amp;#x27;competitive&amp;#x27;.</text></item><item><author>silvestrov</author><text>The kids were a self-selected group because attending the school required that the parents had to do something active to get their kids into this school.&lt;p&gt;They try to control for this by comparing those kids to kids who lost in the lottery.  But this only tells us about kids who have engaged parents.  You cannot generalise to kids who have non-engaged parents.&lt;p&gt;Having engaged parents is the single most important condition for getting a good education.&lt;p&gt;Secondly, not having disruptive kids in class.&lt;p&gt;And only thirdly are quality of teachers.&lt;p&gt;If &amp;quot;free dental, medical, and mental health services&amp;quot; were all it took, then no school in Scandinavia should have any problem with poor kids.  But we do have problems because some parents don&amp;#x27;t care at all about their kids education.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dhimes</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Most well educated people I think could teach at least one subject&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;And in essence you have hit on the problem.  Everybody thinks they can be a teacher.  And for some value of $teacher they can, but it&amp;#x27;s hard to be really good.&lt;p&gt;You might watch LeBron James play basketball and think &amp;quot;I can do that,&amp;quot; go out on the court and take a few shots, and think you&amp;#x27;re pretty good.  But you&amp;#x27;re likely not.&lt;p&gt;This is why assessing teachers is soooooo important.  We need reliable, verifiable ways to separate the good from the bad.</text></comment>