I was listening to a webinar last week discussing the benefit of effective teachers in the classroom and was blown away by what was being shared. The average effect of one teacher on a single student is modest. All else the same, a student with one excellent teacher for one year between fourth and eighth grade would gain about $4,600 in lifetime income. The student with the excellent teacher would also be 0.5 percent more likely to attend college.
That’s not too shocking, right?
What about this? Replacing a poor teacher with an average one would raise a single classroom’s lifetime earnings by about $266,000. Multiply that by a career’s worth of classrooms.
Students with top teachers are less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, more likely to enroll in college, and more likely to earn more money as adults, the study found.
How can you ever doubt the importance of what you do, every single day?
The webinar really solidified for me that teachers are the most important part of a child’s education. Not a program, a strategy, or a test. Great teachers make a great difference; poor teachers hurt a child’s life chances. LIFE chances.
You. Matter.
Remindingly,
Amber
