{"id":699,"date":"2019-04-28T16:07:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T16:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/?p=699"},"modified":"2019-04-28T16:07:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T16:07:02","slug":"what-do-teachers-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/2019\/04\/28\/what-do-teachers-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do Teachers Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do we need better teachers?<\/p>\n

The answer is absolutely, yes!<\/p>\n

The central role of teachers has a direct correlation to student achievement. While other factors such as, families, summer programs and communities are obviously very important factors in a student\u2019s development, it is the school and particularly the teachers and administrators that are given the public responsibility for the education of the children. There is a general consensus that improving the effectiveness of teachers is the key to narrowing the achievement gap.<\/p>\n

According to research<\/a> done by Eric Hanushek, a former professor at Yale University, students\u2019 lifetime incomes are directly affected by the quality of their teachers. In this research, Hanushek found that a teacher who raises the achievement of a student will tend, other things being equal, to raise earnings throughout that student\u2019s work life. \u201cUsing 2010 earnings, for example, a teacher in the seventy-fifth percentile would on average raise each student\u2019s lifetime income by somewhat more than $14,300 when compared to the average teacher. But, this is not fully what the seventy-fifth percentile teacher contributes, because each student in the class can expect the same enhanced income. Thus, with a class of twenty-five students, this teacher would add $358,000 in future income compared to an average teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Figure 1 shows the total contribution of teachers at the sixtieth, seventy-fifth, and ninetieth percentile of teacher effectiveness with varying class sizes. Excellent teachers add over $800,000 to the future incomes of students in a class of thirty. Even a teacher just above average at the sixtieth percentile would add over $100,000 to a class of twenty students.<\/p>\n

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Although making a lot of money is great, teachers do so much more for their students. It\u2019s interesting that so much talk surrounds the celebrities, athletes and even politicians serving as the\u00a0role models. The truth is, outside of their own home, one of the biggest role models in a young person\u2019s life is standing at the front of the classroom.\u00a0\u00a0Teachers are people to look up to and emulate. Nearly everyone has a teacher (in many cases, quite a few teachers) who they admired\u00a0and who provided them with an example of how to conduct themselves.\u00a0 It is not always easy to change a student\u2019s life, which is why it takes a great teacher to do so. Some just need an extra push like the student whose math grade is just a few points shy from the A that will give them a 4.0 GPA; others may be going through something troubling in their personal lives and need someone to talk to. Whatever the student needs to help them excel, a life-changing teacher will be there for them.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do we need better teachers? The answer is absolutely, yes! The central role of teachers has a direct correlation to student achievement. While other factors such as, families, summer programs and communities are obviously very important factors in a student\u2019s development, it is the school and particularly the teachers and administrators that are given the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8851,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[456499],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":701,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/achievementgap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}