Thank you, Mrs. Loll
I just want to say thank you to my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Loll. An article in the New York Times reported on a study that followed students from fourth grade into adulthood. It gives solid proof that good (or bad) teachers make a difference. The study shows that having a good teacher in the fourth grade increases by 1.25% the likelihood that a student will go to college and decreases the chance that as a teenager a female student will get pregnant.
Now right off, I admit my bias. I am the son of a public school teacher, the father of a high school teacher and a college professor, the husband of an elementary school principal and the son-in-law of a public school board member who tried to promote year-round school more than 30 years ago. I am the product of a small town public school and I work for a denomination which has historically been committed to the education of all of our children, not just some of our children and not just our own children. I live in a nation that was built around the concept that all children needed to learn and that only a learned population could really make a democracy work. Unfortunately today it seems our commitment to the common good and the need to invest in the education of all of our children seems to be at risk. Even though everyone knows improving the quality of education is one of the best things we could do for our nation's economic future, and even though we all know that the resale value of our houses rise and fall with the quality of our schools, it seems few people want to make the investment. It's more popular to blame teachers than to praise them and to cut the funding for schools rather than to raise it.
Good fourth grade teachers make a difference, so I just want to thank Mrs. Loll. Thank you Mrs. Elliott, my third grade teachers and Mrs. McElry my firth grade teacher, and Miss Corbett my second grade teacher (the one I had a crush on). Thank you Mrs. Purdy, who is now my grandson's kindergarten teacher. Thanks for making a difference in my life and my grandson's life.
How about thanking a teacher today?
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