What Ever Happened to Socio-Economic Status?

by Clay Burell · 2009-03-21 10:01:00 UTC
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Member Jean Mitchell asks a great question in the "Are Good Teachers Really the Most Important Thing?" thread:

Does anyone know when the conventional "expert" wisdom switched from "teaching makes no significant difference--all the variance is due to socio-economic status" to "teaching is the largest single factor" in explaining differential student learning? Back in the '70s and '80s, people kept telling me that no matter what I did as a teacher, or what the schools did, it pretty much made no difference; now it's all on teachers. What changed? I mean, if once we made no difference, and now we make a huge difference--that would be progress, surely. But somehow I doubt that teaching has changed all that much. So what gives?

What gives indeed? Thoughts?

Photo by Leo Reynolds

Clay Burell
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