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Degree of caring and motivation of the teacher

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You have to think about what teachers working conditions are like. How can you teach writing with a class size of 50+? How can teachers GRADE that much material, give individual feedback and support to that many young students?

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Evaluating the quality of home life of students. The worst teachers will do brilliantly in a school with students that have involved parents and stable home lives.

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Pay them decently and give them a decent place to work.

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The fact is if you must meet the needs of EVERY student, and children must not be left behind, one must differentiate instructional materials, content and the manner one imparts instruction. The teacher must be able to sit with students in order to assess and correct learning problems or misconceptions with the student. It is absolutely impossible to meet these students needs with huge class size. Do private schools have huge class sizes?

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Class-size, class-size, class-size. The mayor is wrong, scares the heck out of me. Thank god I retired when I did. Few teachers would tolerate the mayors proposals. A strike would immediately ensue---if he repeated this a few more times. I would consider a few years of volunteer work/Peace Corp before retiring teachers.

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While we may all want great teachers for our children, I am not sure that it is necessary for a good education. I am a product of the NY city public schools and I never had a "great" teacher. Yet I went on to CUNY and then graduated from the Columbia School of Social Work. Of course I wished I had "great teachers", but I don't think this is the problem in NYC. IF WE LOOK AT POVERTY AND LINK IT TO CHILDREN NOT AT THE LEVEL THEY SHOULD BE AT WE WOULD BE ABLE TO BEGIN TO ADDRESS THE MULTIPLE PROBLEMS THESE STUDENTS ENCOUNTER. GREAT TEACHERS ALONE WILL NOT BE ENOUGH TO MAKE A MARKED DIFFERENCE. WE NEED A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO HELP THE MOST NEEDY CHILDREN.

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Increased parental engagement is needed. Period.

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I don't care how good a teacher is, a huge class will severely limit the amount of time that teacher can spend with each student and probably won't result in the best education for the student. To me that is common sense. If we could pay public schools teachers like we pay congressman then would we see better teachers and better performing students. I can't imagine who should deserve higher salaries than those who teach our children.

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It's an enormously human endevour, so there will always be a need for in-person evaluation to ensure that teachers are actively responding to the needs of the different kids in front of them.
Also, no system will work without being consistently reviewed and overhauled in light of new research on best practices.

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Great principals! There are very few principals who are great motivators, who support the teachers and who foster greater community involvement. I used to be a NYC school teacher and without a doubt, the single biggest factor in my decision to quit teaching was the terrible principal who took over the school.

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