What the best teachers think hurt students

Joseph Williams, Take Part -  Ask 1,000 education policy analysts why American students lag behind their global peers, and you’ll get at least 500 different answers—too much testing or not enough. Out-of-control homework levels or too little time hitting the books. Teachers who are either under constant administrative pressure or who have too much freedom at the chalkboard.

Ask 56 of the nation’s best classroom educators, however, and they’re pretty consistent: poverty, family stress, learning disabilities, and psychological problems students face outside the schoolhouse are keeping them from achievement inside it.

That’s the takeaway from a survey of the 2015 state Teachers of the Year winners,,,

Seventy-six percent of the teachers said students’ home lives kept them from doing their best in the classroom, while 63 percent identified poverty as the biggest factor. Learning and emotional difficulties came in as the third-highest impediment to student success at 52 percent...

Poverty, domestic stress, and learning and emotional problems far outpaced the other factors identified in the survey, including students’ language difficulties (24 percent), substance abuse (11 percent), and bullying (9 percent), as barriers to learning.