Teacher Effectiveness

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Jonah E Rockoff - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • subjective and objective evaluations of Teacher Effectiveness evidence from new york city
    Labour Economics, 2011
    Co-Authors: Jonah E Rockoff, Cecilia Speroni
    Abstract:

    Abstract A substantial literature documents large variation in Teacher Effectiveness at raising student achievement, providing motivation to identify highly effective and ineffective Teachers early in their careers. Using data from New York City public schools, we estimate whether subjective evaluations of Teacher Effectiveness have predictive power for the achievement gains made by Teachers' future students. We find that these subjective evaluations have substantial power, comparable with and complementary to objective measures of Teacher Effectiveness taken from a Teacher's first year in the classroom.

  • searching for effective Teachers with imperfect information
    Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2010
    Co-Authors: Douglas O Staiger, Jonah E Rockoff
    Abstract:

    Over the past four decades, empirical researchers -- many of them economists -- have accumulated an impressive amount of evidence on Teachers. In this paper, we ask what the existing evidence implies for how school leaders might recruit, evaluate, and retain Teachers. We begin by summarizing the evidence on five key points, referring to existing work and to evidence we have accumulated from our research with the nation's two largest school districts: Los Angeles and New York City. First, Teachers display considerable heterogeneity in their effects on student achievement gains. Second, estimates of Teacher Effectiveness based on student achievement data are noisy measures. Third, Teachers' Effectiveness rises rapidly in the first year or two of their teaching careers but then quickly levels out. Fourth, the primary cost of Teacher turnover is not the direct cost of hiring and firing, but rather is the loss to students who will be taught by a novice Teacher rather than one with several years of experience. Fifth, it is difficult to identify at the time of hire those Teachers who will prove more effective. As a result, better Teachers can only be identified after some evidence on their actual job performance has accumulated. We then explore what these facts imply for how principals and school districts should act, using a simple model in which schools must search for Teachers using noisy signals of Teacher Effectiveness. The implications of our analysis are strikingly different from current practice. Rather than screening at the time of hire, the evidence on heterogeneity of Teacher performance suggests a better strategy would be identifying large differences between Teachers by observing the first few years of teaching performance and retaining only the highest-performing Teachers.

  • subjective and objective evaluations of Teacher Effectiveness
    The American Economic Review, 2010
    Co-Authors: Jonah E Rockoff, Cecilia Speroni
    Abstract:

    Research on the impact of Teachers on student achievement (e.g., Jonah E. Rockoff 2004; Steven G. Rivkin, Hanushek, and John Kain 2005) has established two stylized facts: (1) Teacher Effectiveness varies widely, and (2) outside of experience, qualifications that determine a Teacher’s certification and salary bear little relation to outcomes. This provides motivation to understand how to identify effective and ineffective Teachers, particularly early in their careers. Studies that examine how student achievement data can predict Teachers’ impacts on student outcomes in the future (e.g., Robert Gordon, Thomas J. Kane, and Douglas O. Staiger 2006; Dan Goldhaber and Michael Hansen 2010) conclude that using such data to selectively retain Teachers could yield large benefits. However, “value-added” measures of Effectiveness are noisy and can be biased if some Teachers are persistently given students that are difficult to teach in ways that are hard to observe. Thus, using other information may achieve more stability and accuracy in Teacher evaluations. There is also a literature on subjective teaching evaluations (i.e., evaluations by the school principal or evaluations based on classroom observation protocols or “rubrics”), which also finds significant relationships between evaluations and achievement gains. However, these studies typically investigate how evaluations predict the exam performance of current, not

  • subjective and objective evaluations of Teacher Effectiveness
    Social Science Research Network, 2010
    Co-Authors: Jonah E Rockoff
    Abstract:

    In this paper, we measure the extent to which subjective and objective evaluations of new Teachers in New York City can predict their future impacts on student achievement. Specifically, we examine evaluations of applicants to an alternative certification program, evaluations of new Teachers by mentors that work with them during their first year, and evaluations based on student achievement data from their first year of teaching. We use a large sample, relative to prior work, and, unlike other studies (with the exception of John H. Tyler et al. (2010)), we examine subjective evaluations made by professionals as part of their jobs, not survey responses.

  • what does certification tell us about Teacher Effectiveness evidence from new york city
    Economics of Education Review, 2008
    Co-Authors: Thomas J Kane, Jonah E Rockoff, Douglas O Staiger
    Abstract:

    Abstract We use six years of panel data on students and Teachers to evaluate the Effectiveness of recently hired Teachers in the New York City public schools. On average, the initial certification status of a Teacher has small impacts on student test performance. However, among those with the same experience and certification status, there are large and persistent differences in Teacher Effectiveness. Such evidence suggests that classroom performance during the first two years is a more reliable indicator of a Teacher's future Effectiveness. We also evaluate turnover among Teachers by initial certification status, and the implied impact on student achievement of hiring Teachers with predictably high turnover. Given modest estimates of the payoff to experience, even high turnover groups (such as Teach for America participants) would have to be only slightly more effective in each year to offset the negative effects of their high exit rates (I2, J24).

Dan Goldhaber - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • evaluating prospective Teachers testing the predictive validity of the edtpa
    Journal of Teacher Education, 2017
    Co-Authors: Dan Goldhaber, James Cowan, Roddy Theobald
    Abstract:

    We use longitudinal data from Washington State to provide estimates of the extent to which performance on the edTPA, a performance-based, subject-specific assessment of Teacher candidates, is predictive of the likelihood of employment in the Teacher workforce and value-added measures of Teacher Effectiveness. While edTPA scores are highly predictive of employment in the state’s public teaching workforce, evidence on the relationship between edTPA scores and teaching Effectiveness is more mixed. Specifically, continuous edTPA scores are a significant predictor of student mathematics achievement in some specifications, but when we consider that the edTPA is a binary screen of teaching Effectiveness (i.e., pass/fail), we find that passing the edTPA is significantly predictive of Teacher Effectiveness in reading but not in mathematics. We also find that Hispanic candidates in Washington were more than 3 times more likely to fail the edTPA after it became consequential in the state than non-Hispanic White cand...

  • on the distribution of worker productivity the case of Teacher Effectiveness and student achievement
    Statistics and Public Policy, 2017
    Co-Authors: Dan Goldhaber, Richard Startz
    Abstract:

    ABSTRACTIt is common to assume that worker productivity is normally distributed, but this assumption is rarely, if ever, tested. We estimate the distribution of worker productivity, where individual productivity is measured with error, using the productivity of Teachers as an example. We employ a nonparametric density estimator that explicitly accounts for measurement error using data from the Tennessee STAR experiment, and longitudinal data from North Carolina and Washington. Statistical tests show that the productivity distribution of Teachers is not Gaussian, but the differences from the normal distribution tend to be small. Our findings confirm the existing empirical evidence that the differences in the effects of individual Teachers on student achievement are large and the assumption that the differences in the upper and lower tails of the Teacher performance distribution are far larger than in the middle of the distribution. Specifically, a 10 percentile point movement for Teachers at the top (90th)...

  • does the match matter exploring whether student teaching experiences affect Teacher Effectiveness
    American Educational Research Journal, 2017
    Co-Authors: Dan Goldhaber, John M Krieg, Roddy Theobald
    Abstract:

    We use data from six Washington State Teacher education programs to investigate the relationship between Teacher candidates’ student teaching experiences and their later teaching Effectiveness. Our...

  • national board certification and Teacher Effectiveness evidence from washington state
    Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2016
    Co-Authors: James Cowan, Dan Goldhaber
    Abstract:

    ABSTRACTWe study the Effectiveness of Teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in Washington State, which has one of the largest populations of National Board-Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in the nation. Based on value-added models in math and reading, we find that NBPTS-certified Teachers are about 0.01–0.05 student standard deviations more effective than non-NBCTS with similar levels of experience. Certification effects vary by subject, grade level, and certification type, with greater effects for middle school math certificates. We find mixed evidence that Teachers who pass the assessment are more effective than those who fail, but that the underlying NBPTS assessment score predicts student achievement.

  • everyone s doing it but what does Teacher testing tell us about Teacher Effectiveness
    Journal of Human Resources, 2007
    Co-Authors: Dan Goldhaber
    Abstract:

    This paper explores the relationship between Teacher testing and Teacher Effectiveness using a unique data set that links Teachers to their individual students. The findings show a positive relationship between some Teacher licensure tests and student achievement. But, they also suggest that states face significant tradeoffs when they require particular performance levels as a precondition to becoming a Teacher. Some Teachers whom we might wish were not in the Teacher work force based on their contribution toward student achievement are eligible to teach based on their performance on the tests; other individuals who would be effective Teachers are ineligible. For example, the results suggest that upping the elementary Teacher licensure test standard from the one currently used in North Carolina to the higher standard used in Connecticut would lead to the exclusion of less than 0.5 percent of the Teacher work force estimated to be very ineffective Teachers, but would also result in the exclusion of 7 percent of the Teacher work force estimated to be effective Teachers.

Julian R Betts - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • does student sorting invalidate value added models of Teacher Effectiveness an extended analysis of the rothstein critique
    Education Finance and Policy, 2011
    Co-Authors: Cory Koedel, Julian R Betts
    Abstract:

    Value-added modeling continues to gain traction as a tool for measuring Teacher performance. However, recent research questions the validity of the value-added approach by showing that it does not mitigate student-Teacher sorting bias (its presumed primary benefit). Our study explores this critique in more detail. Although we find that estimated Teacher effects from some value-added models are severely biased, we also show that a sufficiently complex value-added model that evaluates Teachers over multiple years reduces the sorting bias problem to statistical insignificance. One implication of our findings is that data from the first year or two of classroom teaching for novice Teachers may be insufficient to make reliable judgments about quality. Overall, our results suggest that in some cases value-added modeling will continue to provide useful information about the Effectiveness of educational inputs. © 2011 Association for Education Finance and Policy

  • does student sorting invalidate value added models of Teacher Effectiveness an extended analysis of the rothstein critique
    Education Finance and Policy, 2011
    Co-Authors: Cory Koedel, Julian R Betts
    Abstract:

    Value-added modeling continues to gain traction as a tool for measuring Teacher performance. However, recent research questions the validity of the value-added approach by showing that it does not mitigate studentTeacher sorting bias (its presumed primary benefit). Our study explores this critique in more detail. Although we find that estimated Teacher effects from some valueadded models are severely biased, we also show that a sufficiently complex value-added model that evaluates Teachers over multiple years reduces the sorting bias problem to statistical insignificance. One implication of our findings is that data from the first year or two of classroom teaching for novice Teachers may be insufficient to make reliable judgments about quality. Overall, our results suggest that in some cases value-added modeling will continue to provide useful information about the Effectiveness of educational inputs.

  • does student sorting invalidate value added models of Teacher Effectiveness an extended analysis of the rothstein critique
    Research Papers in Economics, 2009
    Co-Authors: Cory Koedel, Julian R Betts
    Abstract:

    Value-added modeling continues to gain traction as a tool for measuring Teacher performance. However, recent research (Rothstein, 2009, forthcoming) questions the validity of the value-added approach by showing that it does not mitigate student-Teacher sorting bias (its presumed primary benefit). Our study explores this critique in more detail. Although we find that estimated Teacher effects from some value-added models are severely biased, we also show that a sufficiently complex value-added model that evaluates Teachers over multiple years reduces the sorting-bias problem to statistical insignificance. One implication of our findings is that data from the first year or two of classroom teaching for novice Teachers may be insufficient to make reliable judgments about quality. Overall, our results suggest that in some cases value-added modeling will continue to provide useful information about the Effectiveness of educational inputs.

James Wyckoff - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • policy implementation principal agency and strategic action improving teaching Effectiveness in new york city middle schools
    Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 2020
    Co-Authors: Julie Cohen, Susanna Loeb, Luke C Miller, James Wyckoff
    Abstract:

    Ten years ago, the reform of Teacher evaluation was touted as a mechanism to improve Teacher Effectiveness. In response, virtually every state redesigned its Teacher evaluation system. Recently, a ...

  • is effective Teacher evaluation sustainable evidence from dcps
    Education Finance and Policy, 2019
    Co-Authors: Thomas S Dee, Jessalynn James, James Wyckoff
    Abstract:

    Ten years ago, many policy makers viewed the reform of Teacher evaluation as a highly promising mechanism to improve Teacher Effectiveness and student achievement. Recently, that enthusiasm has dim...

  • do first impressions matter predicting early career Teacher Effectiveness
    AERA Open, 2015
    Co-Authors: Allison Atteberry, Susanna Loeb, James Wyckoff
    Abstract:

    As educational policy makers seek strategies to improve the Teacher workforce, the early career period represents a unique opportunity to identify struggling Teachers, examine the likelihood of future improvement, and make strategic pretenure investments in development or dismissals. It is also a useful time to identify particularly promising Teachers for development and focus on high-needs areas. This article asks how much Teachers vary in performance improvement during their first 5 years of teaching and to what extent initial job performance predicts later performance. We find that, on average, initial performance is quite predictive of future performance, far more so than typically measured Teacher characteristics. This is particularly the case in math, while predictions about future English language arts (ELA) performance based on initial ELA value added are less precise. Predictions are most powerful at the extremes. We use these predictions to explore the likelihood that personnel actions based on ...

  • do first impressions matter improvement in early career Teacher Effectiveness
    Social Science Research Network, 2013
    Co-Authors: Allison Atteberry, Susanna Loeb, James Wyckoff
    Abstract:

    Educational policymakers struggle to find ways to improve the quality of the Teacher workforce. The early career period represents a unique opportunity to identify struggling Teachers, examine the likelihood of future improvement, and make strategic pre-tenure investments in improvement as well as dismissals to increase teaching quality. To date, only a little is known about the dynamics of Teacher performance in the first five years. This paper asks how much Teachers vary in performance improvement during their first five years of teaching and to what extent initial job performance predicts later performance. We find that, on average, initial performance is quite predictive of future performance, far more so than typically measured Teacher characteristics. Predictions are particularly powerful at the extremes. We employ these predictions to explore the likelihood of personnel actions that inappropriately distinguish performance when such predictions are mistaken as well as the much less discussed costs of failure to distinguish performance when meaningful differences exist. The results have important consequences for improving the quality of the Teacher workforce.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

  • measure for measure the relationship between measures of instructional practice in middle school english language arts and Teachers value added scores
    American Journal of Education, 2013
    Co-Authors: Pam Grossman, Susanna Loeb, Julia Cohen, James Wyckoff
    Abstract:

    Over the past 2 years, educational policy makers have focused much of their attention on issues related to Teacher Effectiveness. The Obama administration has made Teacher evaluation and Teacher quality a central feature of many of its educational policies, including Race to the Top (RTTT), Investing in Innovation (i3), and the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants. In response, many states and school districts are developing measures of Teacher Effectiveness to reward, tenure, support, and fire Teachers. In response to these policies, many observers are raising questions and concerns about the measures of Teacher Effectiveness that inform high-stakes personnel decisions. Unfortunately, we have little systematic knowledge regarding the properties of most of these measures. This article has two goals: to explore elements of instruction that may be associated with improved student achievement and to examine the domains of teaching skills that are identified in the literature as important to high-quality teach...

Douglas O Staiger - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • searching for effective Teachers with imperfect information
    Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2010
    Co-Authors: Douglas O Staiger, Jonah E Rockoff
    Abstract:

    Over the past four decades, empirical researchers -- many of them economists -- have accumulated an impressive amount of evidence on Teachers. In this paper, we ask what the existing evidence implies for how school leaders might recruit, evaluate, and retain Teachers. We begin by summarizing the evidence on five key points, referring to existing work and to evidence we have accumulated from our research with the nation's two largest school districts: Los Angeles and New York City. First, Teachers display considerable heterogeneity in their effects on student achievement gains. Second, estimates of Teacher Effectiveness based on student achievement data are noisy measures. Third, Teachers' Effectiveness rises rapidly in the first year or two of their teaching careers but then quickly levels out. Fourth, the primary cost of Teacher turnover is not the direct cost of hiring and firing, but rather is the loss to students who will be taught by a novice Teacher rather than one with several years of experience. Fifth, it is difficult to identify at the time of hire those Teachers who will prove more effective. As a result, better Teachers can only be identified after some evidence on their actual job performance has accumulated. We then explore what these facts imply for how principals and school districts should act, using a simple model in which schools must search for Teachers using noisy signals of Teacher Effectiveness. The implications of our analysis are strikingly different from current practice. Rather than screening at the time of hire, the evidence on heterogeneity of Teacher performance suggests a better strategy would be identifying large differences between Teachers by observing the first few years of teaching performance and retaining only the highest-performing Teachers.

  • what does certification tell us about Teacher Effectiveness evidence from new york city
    Economics of Education Review, 2008
    Co-Authors: Thomas J Kane, Jonah E Rockoff, Douglas O Staiger
    Abstract:

    Abstract We use six years of panel data on students and Teachers to evaluate the Effectiveness of recently hired Teachers in the New York City public schools. On average, the initial certification status of a Teacher has small impacts on student test performance. However, among those with the same experience and certification status, there are large and persistent differences in Teacher Effectiveness. Such evidence suggests that classroom performance during the first two years is a more reliable indicator of a Teacher's future Effectiveness. We also evaluate turnover among Teachers by initial certification status, and the implied impact on student achievement of hiring Teachers with predictably high turnover. Given modest estimates of the payoff to experience, even high turnover groups (such as Teach for America participants) would have to be only slightly more effective in each year to offset the negative effects of their high exit rates (I2, J24).

  • national board certification and Teacher Effectiveness evidence from a random assignment experiment
    National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008
    Co-Authors: Steven Cantrell, Thomas J Kane, Douglas O Staiger, Jon Fullerton
    Abstract:

    The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) assesses teaching practice based on videos and essays submitted by Teachers. We compared the performance of classrooms of elementary students in Los Angeles randomly assigned to NBPTS applicants and to comparison Teachers. We used information on whether each applicant achieved certification, along with information on each applicant's NBPTS scaled score and subscores, to test whether the NBPTS score was related to Teacher impacts on student achievement. We found that students randomly assigned to highly-rated applicants performed better than students assigned to comparison Teachers, while students assigned to poorly-rated applicants performed worse. Estimates were similar using data on pairs of Teachers that were not randomly assigned. Our results suggest a number of changes that would improve the predictive power of the NBPTS process.

  • national board certification and Teacher Effectiveness evidence from a random assignment experiment
    National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008
    Co-Authors: Steven Cantrell, Thomas J Kane, Jon Fullerton, Douglas O Staiger
    Abstract:

    The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) assesses teaching practice based on videos and essays submitted by Teachers. We compared the performance of classrooms of elementary students in Los Angeles randomly assigned to NBPTS applicants and to comparison Teachers. We used information on whether each applicant achieved certification, along with information on each applicant's NBPTS scaled score and subscores, to test whether the NBPTS score was related to Teacher impacts on student achievement. We found that students randomly assigned to highly-rated applicants performed better than students assigned to comparison Teachers, while students assigned to poorly-rated applicants performed worse. Estimates were similar using data on pairs of Teachers that were not randomly assigned. Our results suggest a number of changes that would improve the predictive power of the NBPTS process.

  • what does certification tell us about Teacher Effectiveness evidence from new york city
    National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006
    Co-Authors: Thomas J Kane, Jonah E Rockoff, Douglas O Staiger
    Abstract:

    We use six years of data on student test performance to evaluate the Effectiveness of certified, uncertified, and alternatively certified Teachers in the New York City public schools. On average, the certification status of a Teacher has at most small impacts on student test performance. However, among those with the same certification status, there are large and persistent differences in Teacher Effectiveness. This evidence suggests that classroom performance during the first two years, rather than certification status, is a more reliable indicator of a Teacher's future Effectiveness. We also evaluate turnover among Teachers with different certification status, and the impact on student achievement of hiring Teachers with predictably high turnover. Given relatively modest estimates of experience differentials, even high turnover groups (such as Teach for America participants) would have to be only slightly more effective in their first year to offset the negative effects of their high exit rates.