Lecture 17 - The Importance of Teacher Quality PDF

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Lecture 17 notes on the importance of teacher quality....

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Part 17: The Importance of Teacher Quality 

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The importance of teacher quality o Recent studies have demonstrated that high quality teachers have dramatic impacts on students future outcomes Logical Fallacy o Are these statements incongruous?  Most of the variability in student outcomes is explained by out-ofschool factors (e.g. socioeconomic status).  Policy reforms, for example, measures to raise the quality of teachers, are effective means of improving student outcomes. o They address two distinct concepts  Decomposition of variability  Policy impacts o Reading Startz So, how can we improve teacher quality o Keep in mind the limitations of our technology to assess teacher quality o What can we do to increase the supply of high quality teachers  Recruitment: increase supply of teachers  Pay  Alternate certification paths  Hiring: hire teachers likely to be high quality  Renewal, de-selection, tenure policies: keep high quality teachers, get rid of low  Professional development/training  Incentives Two questions are relevant relating to labor demand and labor supply o Labor supply: how many teachers of a particular quality are willing to work for a given wage? Higher wages should attract more, or better quality teachers to the profession o Labor demand: how much should we (society, a school, etc) be willing to pay for a teacher Determinants of labor supply of teachers o Benefits of teaching (higher benefits lead to higher LS)  Wages/salary  Benefits  Other amenities o Cost of becoming a teacher (higher cost leads to lower LS)  Direct costs, time and money for required education, credentials, and licensing  Opportunity costs: how does compensation compare to other occupations o Overall, supply of high quality teachers depends on  Relative financial compensation

Relative costs of becoming a teacher compared to other occupations  Relative working conditions o Various reforms may have unintended consequences by altering these parameters  Eg. Increasing pay levels may draw more people in, but eliminating tenure may push people out Traditional vs. alternative teacher certification o Most states traditionally required teachers to have a minimm number of credits taken in education related fields, and to pass a certification exam before entering the classroom o In the 1990s, school districts had trouble finding enough teachers-many hired large number of uncertified teachers o Lead to the growth of alternative certification programs  Teach for America  The new teacher project (TNTP  These programs are typically for BA holders with no background in education. Start teaching after passing a licensing exam, and take education classes while teaching  Dramatic increase in numbers after NCLB o Does the path to certification matter for students  The alternative routes to certification offer a clear benfit: they make it possible to recruit teachers who would not have entered the profession otherwise  AC programs especially attractive to male, non-white, older prospective teachers  But critics argue that AC programs are a band-aid that exposes students to lower quality t4eachers with more mariginal attachment to the profession  Recent evidence (at least the better quality research) suggests the concerns about quality are not well founded A closer look at teach for America (TFA) o Started by wendy knpp in 1990 based on her undergraduate thesis at Princeton to fight educational inequality by enlisting the nations best and brightest to teach in high-poverty schools TFA impact on students o In 2001-2003, Mathematica says TFA teachers do better than traditionally certified teachers o TFA novices do better than experienced traditional teachers Why is TFA relatively successful o Good screening/training o Applicants have a quality educational background What about attrition 

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o TFA Fellows tend not to stay in the classroom. The worry is that relying on TFA for teachers will mean that many teachers will be inexperienced and once their effectiveness improves, they will leave o This concern has merit  Tfa teachers get better with experience but then leave. This isn’t that big of a deal cuz theyre better than average Teacher Recruitment/Hiring o Staiger and Rockoff propose:  Lower entry requirements for teachers  Require minimum qualification (college degree, no criminal record)  Use early teacher quality measures (e.g. in year 2 of teaching) to aggressively weed out bad teachers o For example set a minimum standard for VAM to received tenure o Mistakes will be made due to low reliability of VAM estimates, but gains outweigh the costs  This is slightly controversial Professional Development o Reading: Taylor & Tyler o Professional Development program in Cincinnati increases student performance by 10% a standard deviation o Shows subjective evaluation can improve employee performance even after the evaluation period ends...