> the impact of both poor and excellent teachers is way overestimated, and the impact of poor and excellent administrations (both the school principal and the district leadership) is tremendously underestimated.
Why do you think this happens?
I'll speculate: most people form their opinion about what's important in a school by reflecting on their experience as a student.
Most students attend only one school of each kind (e.g. elementary, junior, and high school), so they don't have a great frame of reference about the results of different school administrations.
But everyone experiences many different teachers, and as a student, you really perceive the differences between the better ones and the worse ones.
I bet if you reflect on your own experience as a student, leaving aside the context of your spouse's experience as a teacher, you will have much more vivid memories and opinions about teachers than administrators.
I totally agree that it's likely to be much more effective to try to create environments that help all teachers do their jobs more effectively than it is to try to change who we're hiring. I wonder what the best way is to make people "feel" the difference between good administrators and bad ones like they "feel" the difference between their favorite teachers and their least favorite ones.
> the impact of both poor and excellent teachers is way overestimated, and the impact of poor and excellent administrations (both the school principal and the district leadership) is tremendously underestimated.
Why do you think this happens?
I'll speculate: most people form their opinion about what's important in a school by reflecting on their experience as a student.
Most students attend only one school of each kind (e.g. elementary, junior, and high school), so they don't have a great frame of reference about the results of different school administrations.
But everyone experiences many different teachers, and as a student, you really perceive the differences between the better ones and the worse ones.
I bet if you reflect on your own experience as a student, leaving aside the context of your spouse's experience as a teacher, you will have much more vivid memories and opinions about teachers than administrators.
I totally agree that it's likely to be much more effective to try to create environments that help all teachers do their jobs more effectively than it is to try to change who we're hiring. I wonder what the best way is to make people "feel" the difference between good administrators and bad ones like they "feel" the difference between their favorite teachers and their least favorite ones.