We empirically test how l2th-grade students of teachers with probationary certification, emergency certification, private school certification, or no certification in their subject area compare relative to students of teachers who have standard certification in their subject area. We also determine whether specific state-by-state differences in teacher licensure requirements systematically affect student achievement. In mathematics, we find teachers who have a standard certification have a statistically significant positive impact on student test scores relative to teachers who either hold private school certification or are not certified in their subject area. Contrary to conventional wisdom, mathematics and science students who have teachers with emergency credentials do no worse than students whose teachers have standard teaching credentials.
Policymakers aiming to close the well-documented achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students have increasingly turned their attention to issues of teacher quality. A number of studies have demonstrated that teachers are inequitably distributed across student subgroups by input measures, like experience and qualifications, as well as output measures, like value-added estimates of teacher performance, but these tend to focus on either individual measures of teacher quality or particular school districts. In this study, we present a comprehensive, descriptive analysis of the inequitable distribution of both input and output measures of teacher quality across various indicators of student disadvantage across all school districts in Washington State. We demonstrate that in elementary school, middle school, and high school classrooms, virtually every measure of teacher quality we examine—experience, licensure exam scores, and value added—is inequitably distributed across every indicator of student disadvantage—free/reduced-price lunch status, underrepresented minority, and low prior academic performance. Finally, we decompose these inequities to the district, school, and classroom levels and find that patterns in teacher sorting at all three levels contribute to the overall teacher quality gaps.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of Wisconsin Press and The Board of Regents of the University of WisconsinSystem are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Human Resources. ABSTRACTUsing data drawn from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, which allows students to be linked to particular teachers and classes, we estimate the impact of observable and unobservable schooling characteristics on student outcomes. A variety of models show some schooling resources (in particular, teacher qualifications) to be significant in influencing tenth-grade mathematics test scores. Unobservable school, teacher, and class characteristics are important in explaining student achievement but do not appear to be correlated with observable variables in our sample. Thus, our results suggest that the omission of unobservables does not cause biased estimates in standard educational production functions.
Improving teacher evaluation is one of the most pressing but also contested areas of educational policy. Value-added measures have received much of the attention in new evaluation systems, but they can only be used to evaluate a fraction of teachers. Classroom observations are almost universally used to assess teachers, yet their statistical properties have received far less empirical scrutiny, in particular in consequential evaluation systems. In this essay, we highlight some conceptual and empirical challenges that are similar across these different measures of teacher quality. Based on a review of empirical research, we argue that we need much more research focused on observations as performance measures. We conclude by sketching out an agenda for future research in this area.Keywords: accountability; classroom research; educational policy; policy analysis; teacher assessment REVIEWS/ESSAySAUgUST/SEpTEMBER 2016 379Interestingly, given their prevalent use, we know surprisingly little about the statistical properties of classroom observations in consequential personnel decisions. Indeed, much of what we know is derived from extensive research of a large-scale research study-the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project (cf. Kane & Staiger, 2012)-and it is unclear how these findings might translate when evaluation reform is put into practice (Goldhaber, 2015). Will real-world classroom observations differentiate among teachers? Will they be reliable? Will teachers receive actionable feedback, leading them to seek and receive high-quality professional development? The answers to questions like these are key to understanding how the use of observational measures of performance will affect the quality of the teacher workforce.In this article, we highlight some conceptual and empirical challenges that are similar across different measures of teacher performance. We focus on the existing validity evidence around classroom observations as evaluation measures, much of which is derived from research studies as opposed to real-world evaluation systems. We highlight what we know about the stability of observational measures across raters and educational contexts. We speculate on the implications of the extant literature, and we ask what additional kinds of evidence we would need about observations to feel confident observations could be featured in fair and useful evaluation systems. We attempt to answer some of these questions while describing the conceptual issues that arise when measuring teachers' classroom performance based on observations. Based on a review of empirical research, we argue that we need more research focused on observations as performance measures, particularly from authentic settings where observational performance measures are used in consequential evaluation systems, and we sketch out an agenda for future research. Given space constraints, our goal is not to provide a comprehensive synthesis of the extant literature around classroom observations. Such a review would be helpful but goes beyond th...
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