The consequences extend beyond their academic lives - including lower rates of teen pregnancies, higher college enrollment and higher pay, according to new research that looked at the lives of 2,5 million students over a 20-year period.
The research, conducted by economists Raj Chetty and John Friedman of Harvard University and Jonah Rokoff of Columbia University, examined in detail the impact of teachers on the lives of their students. "The fact that exam performance helps you get better education and better education helps you earn more," says Robert Meger, director of research at the University of Wisconsin. "However, this study goes beyond these stages and shows much more."
According to the News, the average influence of a teacher on a student is moderate. If everything else is the same, a student who has an amazing teacher for a year between 4.600th grade and 0,5nd grade will earn $ XNUMX more in their lifetime than a student of similar background who has a mediocre teacher. The student with the excellent teacher will have XNUMX% more chances to study at university. After all, girls with good teachers are much less likely to become pregnant during adolescence.
Perhaps just as important, given the difficulty of finding and training great teachers, is that the long-term income gap between students with mediocre teachers and those with low teachers is as important as the difference between students with very good teachers and those with mediocre teachers. , According to the research. Cumulatively, these differences are probably huge. However, the new research found no evidence of an old belief: that having a good teacher in the first grades of primary school is more important than having a good teacher later.
Replacing a teacher who is not doing well with a mediocre one could increase the salaries of one-year-old children by $ 266.000, economists estimate. Only one class. "If you leave a bad teacher in your school for 10 years, instead of replacing him with even a mediocre one, we end up talking about a $ 2,5 million loss of income," said Professor Friedman, one of the report's authors.
Following this research, it is considered possible to modify the evaluation of teachers in many American schools and in addition to their academic presence to pay attention to the extracurricular issues they discuss with their students, as well as their general behavior. "All of this should be taken into account in teacher evaluation," says Dr. Hanusek, "because they play an equally important role."
Source: Newsbeast.gr