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Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Teachers Who Can’t Teach

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine has a surprising conclusion. It finds that over the past decade, 1 percent of physicians accounted for 32 percent of malpractice claims. In other words, health care providers could eliminate one-third of malpractice and its associated health, legal and economic costs by removing the worst 1 percent of doctors.

It’s called the “law of the vital few” — better known as the 80/20 rule. It states that a disproportionate impact comes from a small input. Eighty-four percent of total income tax payments, for instance, are paid by 20 percent of earners. And more than two-thirds of all drunken-driving fatalities are caused by the tiny fraction of drivers with at least a 0.15 blood-alcohol level (the hard-core drunk drivers).

Perhaps nowhere is this rule more apparent than in the U.S. education system. Education economist Erik Hanushek has found that a small percentage of teachers are responsible for virtually all of the United States’ poor global education ranking. (U.S. students score worse on international tests than students from countries like Vietnam, Poland and Latvia.)

According to Mr. Hanushek, replacing the bottom 5-8 percent of teachers with average teachers could move the United States near the top of international education rankings. A 2013 study by a different group of researchers found that replacing the bottom 5 percent of teachers with average teachers would increases students’ lifetime income by approximately $250,000 per classroom per year. Getting rid of the worst teachers would improve productivity and economic output by trillions of dollars, says Mr. Hanushek.

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The problem is finding enough of those "average teachers" willing to put up with the little monsters!

Anonymous said...

Imagine if they did this study in WCBOE?

Anonymous said...

government/public system has so many uneducated teachers. this is just one of the problems this system is saddled with. such a shame parents are clueless to these problems. get your children out ASAP...

Anonymous said...

Here are the reasons education does not do well. Yes there are a certain number of poor teachers that are sometimes hard to remove. but I have seen said teachers removed. Here is another problem. there are 3,144 counties in the United States.Each one with their own ideas of how to provide public education.there are also over 98,000 public schools. The difficulty of getting all these counties to the same performance level is great. We can see how hard it can be with the disagreements over common core and the belief by many people that there needs to be no Department of Education let alone a national curriculum.

There is one more problem. The big one Educators can not chose who they educate. We try to educate everybody in this country. Unfortunately everybody is not equal in ability for many reasons. There are going to be many lead babies in Flint schools. Education is the one profession where you can not pick and choose who you will work with and who you will not. It is impossible to get equal results when your raw materials are not of equal quality.

Anonymous said...

Just like 5% of the population is responsible for 90% of the crime and violence.

Paladin said...

Lest we forget a former Superintendent of Schools in Wicomico County who, during an opening day activity gaffe, said "...and, N is for Knowledge..." (August, 2001 I believe)

....I'm afraid the issue is somewhat larger than just teachers, both locally and nationally in this regard...

Paladin

Steve said...

1:53, this is what I see as the problem. Your goal of educating all students to the same standard is not only totally impossible, and stifles real teaching.
Abolish the Dept of education, local BOE's, and let each school and their teachers teach their individual students to enhance each one's individual talents and capabilities. Promote each student on his/ her merits, not age.
Screw what the "Nation" needs as worker bees. Doing this will create a whole new nation of new talent making industry, which is what America was made great on in the first place!
Make America great again, VOTE TRUMP and 86 the BOE's!

Anonymous said...

They blame thug kids and under payments. Never once met a teacher who accepts responsibility for their short comings. Think tbugs are new? Greasers from the sixties to today's thugs and every decade between has had bad rowdy students. Nothing has changed except accountability and the length of the leash you dogs are given. Yes dogs. Or cats. However I say it.... Fed for free and does squat to show productivity. Dogs quit barking cats quit chasing mice and you quit teaching and become as lazy. Why? Cause your coddled spoiled brats that have been handed so much that they expect it with little to no results. Only you cops and politicians can consistently regress in productivity and get raises and 4 months of paid vacation. You could care less. Back in the day teachers still reached the thugs. They still learned. They were not teachers but teachers. But you teachers of today are to lazy to reach. Hell you don't even check homework. Have no idea if it was even completed. Just go over it in class. Yet you wonder why we say its your fault. Not the parent. Not the school board. It's yours!

Anonymous said...

10:33

Sounds like you have it all figured out. Step up to the plate and go teach and get a REAL education instead of the fantasy you've created in your mind.