Proof You Shouldn’t Blame Teachers For The Achievement Gap

[LWolf]

Which teachers have been saying all along.

If teacher effectiveness is not contributing to the achievement gap, Isenberg said, researchers should look at what other factors are affecting children.

“I think the conventional wisdom is where you have a school with lower test scores, it must be the school or teachers,” he said. “It might be surprising that when we actually measure this, it’s not that the teachers is are actually less effective. Something else must be happening.”

“Things going on at home or in those early years before kids enter school and inequality between different types of families” could be playing a role, he said. Indeed, there is already an achievement gap by the time students enter kindergarten.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teacher-effectiveness_us_5818e277e4b00f11fc5c1e1d?

So does this mean we can leave the standards and accountability movement behind and invest in supporting communities and families birth to kindergarten and beyond?