They Say: Bad Teachers Don’t Matter

A new Australian study has cast doubts over the new trend of ranking teachers and schools, with data showing that differences between teachers play only a minor role in how well a child will learn.

The study, conducted by the University of New England over 10 years and multiple countries, monitored 500 pairs of identical twins during their first three years of school.

By assuming that the children had the same basic genetic makeup and family situation, researchers found that the ‘teacher effect’ on the aquisition of literacy skills was no more than 8%.

In more good news for the Australian school system, not much variance was found in the quality of literacy instruction among teachers, and differences between schools were also shown to have a negligible effect on a child’s literacy levels.