Disadvantaged school finds it difficult to bring in the best teachers
Good, experienced teachers are crucial to prevent learning disadvantage in primary education, especially for children with a socio-economic disadvantage. That is a problem, because disadvantaged schools in particular have difficulty attracting good teachers.
Image: Flickr Elementary School Ark123.
That is the conclusion of the Central Planning Bureau (CPB) published last week note 'Effective interventions for learning disadvantages in education'. According to the CPB, there are major qualitative differences between teachers, so great that good teachers and their students score an entire educational level higher than weak teachers.
Where a good teacher - belonging to the best 25 percent - brings a pupil to HAVO level in front of the class, the same pupil with a less good teacher - belonging to the least 25 percent - achieves the level of VMBO theoretical learning path.
Problematic
This is problematic for combating disadvantage, because research shows that it is precisely disadvantaged schools that have difficulty attracting good teachers. According to the CPB, quality differences between teachers can best be explained by their experience: research shows that teachers perform significantly better every successive school year in the first three years of their career. Intensive coaching of novice teachers accelerates this learning process.
Added value
To measure the quality of teachers, the CPB uses a controversial criterion: so-called VA scores. VA stands for Value Added, or added value: the contribution a teacher makes to improving the performance of his students. In a study into the use of this criterion, the Education Council stated in 2014 that schools can learn from measuring added value, but that the criterion is not suitable for assessing the quality of a school.
In addition to good teachers, extra teaching time, the commitment of parents and teaching assistants, small classes, setting high standards and catching up in the summer (summer schools, reading during the holidays) are also effective interventions for improving the learning performance of students, according to the CPB study. children with educational disadvantage. Foreign studies show that 'spectacular results' are also possible with early childhood education. These results are not yet available in the Netherlands.
