My perspective is that of a non-teacher, please remind yourself of this as you read on! Marlow's article begins by immediately challenging one of my assumptions: the teacher's influence that is all-important in the school and classroom that my children find themselves in. According to Marlow, "a school's educational climate is a complex matter and not tied to one specific variable." Marlow, at least in this article, won't commit that the teacher is even a more important variable to the educational climate than are the other factors (these other factors are not actually identified).
While I agree with many of the points made in the article, I'm not sure I am convinced the teacher influence should be regarded equally as only one of a few, or one of many. Being a non-teacher, I can only refer to my personal experience. I remember a few awful teachers, a number of mediocre ones, and I remember the stars. Mostly I remember the stars, and I remember them often. Those years I had stars: they would have been wonderful years had those teachers been teaching in any circumstance that I can imagine. They loved to teach, they loved what they were teaching, and they made us feel like we were the most important thing in their life. I don't remember the schools (I was a military kid: I attended at least 8 schools), I don't remember the gymnasiums, the principals, the newness or oldness of our supplies. But I remember the teachers.