>I have seen good teachers do wonders for 'problem' kids Exactly. If you have a 1h lesson and 30kids you have 2minutes per kid. Assuming there are no "fixed c

>I have seen good teachers do wonders for 'problem' kids Exactly. If you have a 1h lesson and 30kids you have 2minutes per kid. Assuming there are no "fixed costs" like registering them etc. So EITHER that teacher somehow changed a kids whole mindset in 2minutes per lesson (and that's what, 10min a week if you're lucky?). OR they neglected a big chunk of the kids that turned up already wanting to learn etc and gave those kids time to that 1 kid. This is the fundamental problem I am talking about: "good" teachers neglect 80% of the class to go after 1 kid who does not want to be there. Turning that one F grade into a C grade is given more attention than turning 20 other Cs into Bs and As. It makes a great Hallmark Moment, but it's terrible actual educational policy. Then people wonder why education has so little affect on outcomes. Let me be really clear here: I am not making a moral argument about leaving that one kid behind. Just purely a practical one: when you neglect the majority and focus most resources on the least productive cases you get very poor outcomes for the average person. And the outcome for the group is highly dependent on how many and how bad those worst cases are.