Role model shortage?

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A new study from the UK reveals little correlation between students' achievement and the gender of their teachers, leading the authors to conclude that policy initiatives designed to recruit more male teachers in order to provide role models for boys may be misguided. The more interesting finding they didn't full explore was that students of female teachers had significantly more positive attitudes about school, even though all those positive vibes didn't produce any higher student achievement. That finding could support a wide array of different ideological agendas: a) the Alfie Kohn school, that tests are clumsy indicators of school effectiveness because they fail to register how children feel; b) the postmodern school, that the instrument used to measure positive attitude is inherently biased towards a more "female" approach to learning; and c) the Checker Finn school, that students' feelings about schooling don't matter a heap if they're not learning. Use as you wish.