Harry wong

There Is Only One Way To

Improve Student Achievement
All You Want to Know About Student Achievement
A. Two hundred studies have shown that the only factor that can create student achievement is a knowledgeable, skillful teacher.1 B. A large scale study found that every additional dollar spent on raising teacher quality netted greater student achievement gains than did any other use of school resources.2 C. Researchers in the Dallas School District have shown that having a less effective teacher can significantly lower a student’s performance over time, even if the student gets more competent teachers later on.3

Harry K. Wong

Why Some Schools Are Successful
At a fraction of the cost and time, money spent on staff development is a much better investment than the pouring of untold millions of dollars into one continuing faddish program after another. Programs do not produce achievement; teachers produce student achievement. The major difference between successful and unsuccessful schools is that • Unsuccessful schools stress programs. They spend millions of dollars adopting programs, fads-of-the-year, in constant pursuit of the quick fix on the white horse. • Successful schools stress practices. They wisely invest in their teachers and the effectiveness of their teachers. They don’t teach programs; they teach basic, traditional academic content—and they work at improving the pedagogical practices of their teachers. People who adopt programs are more interested in the success of the program. People who are effective teachers are more interested in the success of the students. Forget programs unless you have effective teachers. Educational leaders know that what matters is whether schools can offer their neediest students good teachers trained in effective strategies to teach strong academic knowledge and skills.

The bottom line is that there is no way to create good schools without good teachers. It is the administrator who creates a good school. And it