This article highlights that there can be vast differences in effectiveness from one teacher to another. (No surprise, it&#x27;s true in all professions.) I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s in-depth enough to draw a conclusion about how much of a child&#x27;s education is due to a quality teacher vs. parents&#x2F;family&#x2F;community.  In fact, I don&#x27;t think it is even effective in showing that the one teacher, whose students tended to do better, is a better teacher than the other one. The article just doesn&#x27;t go into enough detail about the communities around the schools, resources available, the families of the kids, etc.<p>We have three elementary schools within one mile of each other. The schools have similar profiles with a fairly high number kids on free&#x2F;reduced-price lunch. The teachers from the different schools train with one another. They come from the same education programs. Yet, my daughter&#x27;s school significantly outperforms the other schools.<p>One difference comes from the parents and the culture&#x2F;education opportunities they can provide outside the school. Parents regularly take their kids to plays, musicals, museums, historical sites, etc. They also read with their kids nightly.<p>Another important difference is the PTA. Ours is very active. We developed an after school program that offers introductory theater, music, visual arts, sports, marine biology, etc. Thanks to a state legislative grant, we can offer these classes for free to kids whose families can&#x27;t afford them . Our parents knew enough to look for grants when they started the program. Last year we developed a full theater program for kids who wanted more involved productions.<p>If you&#x27;re looking at economic classifications, the other two schools&#x27; communities can be described as working and lower middle class. Our community is working, lower and upper middle class.<p>Again, the stat on free&#x2F;reduced-price lunches is similar. The schools&#x27; budgets are roughly the same accounting for number of students and age of the buildings. We have kids classified as homeless in our school, as I&#x27;m sure the other schools have as well. Yet, our school performs significantly better. The difference is the learning that&#x27;s happening outside the school.<p>Last year I attended a talk by the president of the principals&#x27; association in my state. He cited a study that estimated 48% of a child&#x27;s education comes from outside the school. There is certainly room for improvement for some teachers. There is also room for modernization in teaching methodology. But, we won&#x27;t improve education for students as long as we&#x27;re only looking along one axis for improvement.<p>(Btw, I&#x27;m not an educator. I&#x27;m a software engineer who happens to be very involved in the PTA for my daughter&#x27;s school.)