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Linda Perlstein's new blog aims to keep reporters honest, and she's off to a running start. Yesterday she took on the oft-repeated claim that teachers are the single most important factor in student success.

Not true, she writes.

Before people get their knickers in a twist, they should consider her larger argument. "Of the various factors inside school," she writes, "teacher quality has had more effect on student scores than any other that has been measured.... When you read that teachers are the most important school factor, you can’t drop the 'school' and pass it on."

Of course, that's exactly what happens. Reporters, commentators and politicians commonly drop the "school" and pass it on. In doing so they help sustain the tiresome pitched battles between "in-school" and "out-of school" factors that affect students' learning.

Teachers are awfully, awfully important. (How many teachers want to hear that they don't really make much of a difference?) But choosing between teachers and the supports students need outside of schools is like choosing between diet and exercise. When it comes to helping our most vulnerable children, we have to use all the tools at our disposal.

Stay tuned to Perlstein's blog for more corrections of the record. Up next? Her thoughts on "the good-teacher-several-years-in-a-row findings and the complications of translating all this into policy." These findings and their implications have occupied us, too. We look forward to hearing her take.