Does our past determine our future?
In a recent post , in response to a study that found New Zealand has one of the most unequal education systems in the world , NZ Initiative Research Fellow Jenesa Jeram says this focus on inequality in relation to educational achievement can obscure the real gains and improvements some schools and students are making. To more clearly measure any gains in learning in schools, she has in conjunction with t he New Zealand Initiative developed a model that controls for a student’s socioeconomic background (and other factors that might contribute to education outcomes) to estimate the value a school adds to its students. This is an age-old problem in education. If a chemistry class all gets excellences, is that down to the school, the individual Chemistry teacher, the English teacher who taught them how to construct written arguments or the pupils themselves? This does not even consider the influence of parents and the general community. The ...