Beginners, There is a tendancy to give a beginners class to the least experienced teachers. This class should be taken by, or under the watchfull eye of possibly the most experienced. Whatever is learnt in that very beginning should be absolutely spot on. I am thinking more towards Latin and the Rumba in particular. Teach the correct turn out of the feet. No gap between the thighs on a forward or backward basic. High instep. Correct use of beat four and then the hip. Don't anybody say that can't be done with a beginner, because it can. But only in the hands of somebody who has a thorough understanding of their craft and can instantly see a fault if it occurs.

Seen it done for both latin and standard, and the fraction of the beginner class making real progress is drastically higher than usual.

But there's a big problem. The teachers willing to spend time teaching the real deal to a substantial number of beginners soon get a reputation as teachers of beginners, and soon after that as teachers of only beginners. The fickle majority of their students move on to those teachers who set themselves up as being too good to train mere beginners. The more advanced students are tempted away, the more it is only the other teachers who have advanced students to give the impression of a highly competitive studio.

I agree absolutely with Don's comments, and anon has made a very good point.
It's not only in dancing that this form of 'elitism' prevails. When it comes to university students, first and second year classes have none of the glamour of graduate classes and research groups. Fortunately, the more enlightened universities (which i hasten to add, this one is) recognise that the fundamentals are so important that they should be taught by an experienced person. Not only to teach the material well, but to point out which topics or approaches are really important, and to emphasise those.
Dancing is no different. Advanced topics build on basic topics and there's nothing worse or more frustrating than having to un-learn some things in order to progress

I am in the process of "unlearning" right now! The frustrating part is remembering the late nights I stayed up practicing, wanting to master those fundamentals. It turns out I would have been better off not committing the incorrect technique to muscle memory!