Dynamic Effects of Teacher Turnover on the Quality of Instruction

Abstract

It is widely believed that teacher turnover adversely affects the quality of instruction in urban schools serving predominantly disadvantaged children, and a growing body of research investigates various components of turnover effects. The evidence at first seems contradictory, as the quality of instruction appears to decline following turnover despite the fact that most work shows higher attrition for less effective teachers. This raises concerns that confounding factors bias estimates of transition differences in teacher effectiveness, the adverse effects of turnover or both. After taking more extensive steps to account for nonrandom sorting of students into classrooms and endogenous teacher exits and grade-switching, we replicate existing findings of adverse selection out of schools and negative effects of turnover in lower-achievement schools. But we find that these turnover effects can be fully accounted for by the resulting loss in experience and productivity loss following the reallocation of some incumbent teachers to different grades.

The Compositional Effect of Rigorous Teacher Evaluation on Workforce Quality

“…Further supporting the validity of our quality measures, these align closely with the average jackknifed effectiveness measures for each group, which are -0.132, 0.012, and 0.175, respectively (converted to student standard deviation units). The estimated coefficient on the change in turnover implies that there is a disruption effect (Hanushek, Rivkin and Schiman, 2016;Ronfeldt, Loeb, and Wyckoff, 2013), which we estimate to be 0.088 student-level standard deviations for a school-by-grade cell that experiences 100 percent turnover. If we attribute all of the observed increase in turnover to the reform, student achievement would be predicted to fall by 0.012 standard deviations through this channel.…”

The association between teaching students with disabilities and teacher turnover.

“…Turnover contributes to inequities in the distribution of effective teachers across schools as teachers move from low-to high-resource schools (Clotfelter, Ladd, & Vigdor, 2006;Feng & Sass, 2017;Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002;Mason-Williams, 2015;Mason-Williams & Gagnon, 2017), and creates a financial burden for schools and districts who must recruit new teachers to fill vacant positions (Milanowski & Odden, 2007). Turnover negatively affects student academic outcomes by disrupting instructional cohesion (Ronfeldt et al, 2013;Hanushek, Rivkin, & Schiman, 2016) and poses a significant challenge to the continuous implementation of effective educational programs (McLeskey & Billingsley, 2008). Leaving teaching, one aspect of turnover, has implications for understanding teacher shortages, but total turnover, both moving and leaving, has immediate consequences for schools and their students.…”

“…First, higher general education teacher turnover in inclusive settings could result in SWDs' exposure to a revolving door of general education teachers resulting in lower instructional cohesion and student achievement (Hanushek et al, 2016;Ronfeldt et al, 2013). Second, general education teachers may not only be making different career decisions when they instruct more SWDs, they may also change the instruction they deliver in undesirable ways.…”

El acceso a la formación docente inicial en Europa: políticas e investigación

“…Aunque no es sencillo cuantificar el efecto de los docentes, se ha estimado que el profesorado explica aproximadamente el 30 % de la varianza del rendimiento de los alumnos (Hattie, 2008). Algunos estudios afirman que la diferencia entre un buen y un mal profesor puede llegar a ser de un año de aprendizaje para sus alumnos en un solo curso académico (Hanushek, 2011;Hanushek, Rivkin y Schiman, 2016). En la misma línea, hay expertos que indican que tener maestros de alta calidad durante la escuela primaria puede compensar, o incluso eliminar, la desventaja inicial de los alumnos con un bajo nivel socioeconómico de procedencia (Rivkin, Hanushek y Kain, 2005).…”