Teachers' Expectations Predict Student Success Rate
By Dr. Marciene Mattleman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A new study from the Center for American Progress focuses on the Pygmalion Effect, the theory that high expectations of a person leads to higher performance and low expectations have the opposite effect, especially for poorer students and those of color.
Statistical analysis found that students whose high school teachers had high expectations of them graduated from college at three times the rate of those whose teachers had low expectations of them.
Teachers turned out to be more predictive of students' futures than motivation or effort and were able to predict a student's college success more accurately than parents or even students themselves.
The study also revealed that secondary teachers viewed high-poverty students as 53% less likely to graduate from college than their wealthier classmates and students of color less likely to graduate than their white classmates.
Read more in Education Week.
