Publications
What
Studies Say About Teacher Effectiveness
EWA has published a research brief for journalists
on what studies tell us about topics that arise often in the debate over
teacher effectiveness. The paper examines such questions as whether teachers
are indeed the most important factor in student achievement; whether
value-added measures are reliable; whether advanced degrees or merit pay make a
difference; and how students are affected by having several effective—or
ineffective—teachers in a row. You can download
the whole paper.
The Elusive Talent Strategy
"The root cause of the nation’s
failing educational system is now widely recognized as the lack of
well-prepared, high-performing teachers, especially in high-poverty areas. This
is one area where federal policy, state policy, and public opinion coincide:
making sure that every student has a great teacher is everyone’s top
priority," wrote Carnegie Corporation of New York officials in a Boston
Globe op-ed. Carnegie issued a challenge calling for an excellent teacher for
every student in every school. Talia Milgrom-Elcott, Carnegie Corporation,
February 2011
Speaking of Salaries: What It Will Take to Get
Qualified, Effective Teachers in All Communities
The fact that well-qualified
teachers are inequitably distributed to students in the United States has
received growing public attention. By every measure of
qualifications—certification, subject matter background, pedagogical training,
selectivity of college attended, test scores, or experience—less-qualified
teachers tend to be found in schools serving greater numbers of low-income and
minority students. Frank Adamson ahd Linda Darling-Hammond, Center for American
Progress, May 20, 2011
President Obama’s path to performance pay
Obama and his team are caught in the
narrow channel between two important Democratic constituencies: establishment
organizations that are opposed to performance pay and the increasingly
prominent education-reform crowd that generally supports it. Andy Smarick,
Education Next, Winter 2011
Review of Learning About Teaching
The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation’s “Measures of Effective Teaching” (MET) Project seeks to validate
the use of a teacher’s estimated “value-added”—computed from the year-on-year
test score gains of her students—as a measure of teaching effectiveness. Jesse
Rothstein, National Education Policy Center, Jan. 16, 2011
Learning About Teaching: Initial Findings from
Measures of the Teacher Effectiveness Project
In most public school districts,
individual teachers receive little feedback on the work they do. Almost
everywhere, teacher evaluation is a perfunctory exercise. In too many schools
principals go through the motions of visiting classrooms, checklist in hand. In
the end, virtually all teachers receive the same “satisfactory” rating. Thomas
Kane, et al, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, January 2011
Value-Added Measures in Education: What Every
Educator Needs to Know
An economist and education
researcher takes on one of the most hotly debated topics in education. Douglas
N. Harris, Harvard Education Press, January 2011
The Economic Value of Higher Teacher Quality
Most analyses of teacher quality end
without any assessment of the economic value of altered teacher quality. This
paper combines information about teacher effectiveness with the economic impact
of higher achievement. Eric A. Hanushek, National Bureau of Economic Research,
December 2010
Math and Science Teachers Earn Less in Washington
State
The Center on Reinventing Public Education finds math and science teachers in
Washington earn less than other teachers in the state. CRPE's analysis finds
that math and science in the 25 largest school districts had fewer years of
teaching experience due to higher turnover. CRPE, Aug. 18, 2010
Teacher Layoffs: An Empirical Illustration of Seniority vs.
Measures of Effectiveness
The authors contend
that because teacher layoffs are based on seniority instead of teacher
effectiveness, it can harm students. For example, because less experienced
teachers are paid less, more must be laid off to compensate for the loss of
funding. Donald J. Boyd, Hamilton
Lankford, Susan Loeb, and James Wyckoff, CALDER Center, July 2010
Generalizations about Using Value-Added Measures
of Teacher Quality
The extensive investigation of the
contribution of teachers to student achievement produces two generally accepted
results. First, there is substantial variation in teacher quality as measured
by the value added to achievement or future academic attainment or earnings.
Second, variables often used to determine entry into the profession and
salaries including post-graduate schooling, experience, and licensing
examination scores appear to explain little of the variation in teacher quality
so measured with the exception of early experience. Eric A. Hanushek, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University, May 2010
The Implications of Teacher Selection and Teacher
Effects in Some Education Experiment
In some experimental evaluations of classroom or school-level interventions it
is not practically feasible to randomly assign teachers or schools to experimental
conditions. Michael J. Weiss, MDRC, April 30, 2010
Understanding Teachers Contracts
Read Education Sector's report on
Understanding Teachers Contracts an issue at the center of education reform
today. Andrew J. Rotherham, Education Sector, March 23, 2010
Don't Leave Accountability Behind: A Call for ESEA
Reauthorization
A new report argues that, despite the promise of education reform efforts such
as Race to the Top and the state-led common standards movement, improvement can
only be sustained if Congress and the Administration update and improve the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind
Act (NCLB). Alliance for Excellent Education and the Aspen Institute’s
Commission on No Child Left Behind, March 1, 2010
Teacher Compensation and
Teacher Quality
This report shows what happens when teachers are not included in planning a new
policy for pay and benefits. Committee for Economic Development, Oct. 2, 2009
The Schools Teachers Leave: Teacher Mobility in
Chicago Public Schools
This report reveals that about 100 Chicago schools suffer from chronically high
rates of teacher turnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff
every year, and many of these schools serve predominantly low-income African
American children. In the typical Chicago elementary school, 51 percent of the
teachers working in 2002 had left four years later, while the typical high
school had seen 54 percent leave by 2006. Elaine Allensworth, Stephen Ponisciak
and Christopher Mazzeo, Consortium on Chicago Public School Research at the
University of Chicago, June 2009
News Stories
Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain
Elementary- and middle-school teachers who help raise their students’
standardized-test scores seem to have a wide-ranging, lasting positive
effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower
teenage-pregnancy rates and greater college matriculation and adult
earnings, according to a new study that tracked 2.5 million students
over 20 years. Annie Lowrey, The New York Times, Jan. 6, 2012
Education Week: Joining Forces
This special report, "Joining Forces," examines the attempts by a small but growing number of districts and unions to work together to enhance the knowledge and skills of teachers and, in turn, improve the achievement of schoolchildren. Education Week, Nov. 15, 2011
Half of Florida District’s Teachers Leave in Five Years, Causing Huge Retraining Cost
Nearly half of the teachers hired by the Lee County School District leave their jobs within five years of starting them, costing the district millions of dollars. More costly, though, may be what students lose: teachers with added experience, who have a stronger role in student improvement. Bethany Shammas, Naples Daily News, Nov. 22, 2011
Pay-for-Performance Law a ‘Nightmare,’ Teachers Say
Lakeland, Fla., teachers say they are walking away from the classroom because of Florida’s new state law mandating pay-for-performance. Supporters of the new law say opponents are spreading misinformation. Merissa Green, The Ledger, Nov. 9, 2011
Are Teachers Paid Too Much? How Four Studies Answered One Big Question
The Atlantic Monthly looks at four studies that say teachers are paid too much or too little and evaluates the pros and cons of the studies’ methodologies and premises. Jordan Weissman, The Atlantic, Nov. 4, 2011
Wisconsin Teacher Retirements Double After Cuts To Benefits And Collective Bargaining
Documents obtained by The Associated Press under the state's open records law show that about twice as many public school teachers decided to hang it up in the first half of this year as in each of the past two full years, part of a mass exit of public employees. Scott Bauer, Associated Press, Aug. 31, 2011
Illinois Law On Teacher Tenure, Union Rights Touted As Model For Other States
The new Illinois law that overhauls teacher tenure, collective bargaining, layoff procedures, and the right to strike took the stage in the nation’s capital on Wednesday, with several key people behind the measure holding it up as a model for other states. Mark Walsh, Catalyst Chicago, July 13, 2011
Highly Rated Instructors Go Beyond Teaching to the Standardized Test
Some Southern California teachers are finding ways to keep creativity in the lesson plan even as they prepare their students for standardized tests. Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2011
Teachers From Low-Performing Schools Face Stigma On Job Search
In a bizarre game of musical chairs, nearly 1,000 Los Angeles teachers — who are guaranteed jobs somewhere in the school system — have been hunting for a school that wants them. And hundreds of them have to counter a stigma that they are undesirable castoffs, because they previously worked at low-performing schools that are being restructured. Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2011
Investigation into Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Finds Unethical Behavior Across Every Level
Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes.Special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served. Heather Vogell, Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 6, 2011
From One Struggling School to Another
More than half of the teachers pushed out of seven underperforming schools in Boston last year now work at other low-achieving schools across the city that are also under pressure to improve, according to a Boston Globe analysis. James Vaznis, Boston Globe, July 5, 2011
Teachers Speed-Date For Jobs In Rhode Island
Earlier this year, the city of Providence, R.I., fired all of its nearly 2,000 teachers, shut down five schools and consolidated some programs. Most of the fired teachers were rehired, but when the dust settled, 400 teachers were left without jobs. To give them a chance to apply for 270 positions elsewhere the district, Providence officials are using an unusual device. Elisabeth Harrison, NPR, June 12, 2011
New Force in Illinois Quickly Pushes State Toward School Reform
In short order, Stand for Children tapped into a network of the city's rich and powerful — including billionaires with names like Pritzker, Crown and Zell — to raise millions of dollars. The stockpile of money is geared toward influencing elections and paying an all-star lineup of lobbyists across the political spectrum to prod lawmakers to act on issues that previously failed or were thought to be undoable. Ray Long, Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2011
In North Jersey, Teacher Tenure is No Sure Thing
Districts throughout North Jersey are denying the prize of tenure to some educators who, school officials say, aren't performing up to standards, based on interviews with the leaders of more than a dozen North Jersey districts. Leslie Brody, North Jersey Record, May 22, 2011
Singled-out L.A. Unified Teacher Shares Skills With Colleagues
Miguel Aguilar was cited as among L.A. Unified's most effective in an L.A. Times article on the 'value-added' evaluation method. Since then, many at his Pacoima school have adopted his methods. But budget cuts threaten his job. Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2011
Tested: Covering Schools in the Age of the Micro-Measurement
Supporters of value-added measurements argue that teacher evaluations require objective rigor, calculated with statistics. Weak teachers, they argue, should not hide behind a subjective, protective system that undermines children’s futures. Critics counter that the calculations are incomplete, misleading, and often wrong. LynNell Hancock, Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2011.
Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn?
Around the country, many teachers see demands to cut their income, benefits and say in how schools are run through collective bargaining as attacks not just on their livelihoods, but on their value to society. Trip Gabriel, New York Times, March 2, 2011
Whistle-Blowing Teachers Targeted
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviewed reports of Atlanta Public Schools internal investigations and spoke with more than a dozen current and former Atlanta educators. The documents and the interviews describe a culture that punishes employees who report wrongdoing and rewards those who keep silent. Some whistle-blowers end up under scrutiny themselves. Others are subjected to questions about their mental health. Some lose their jobs. Alan Judd and Heather Vogell, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 23, 2011
Hurdles Emerge in Rising Effort to Rate Teachers
It is becoming common practice nationally to rank teachers for their effectiveness, or value added, a measure that is defined as how much a teacher contributes to student progress on standardized tests. But the experience in New York City shows just how difficult it can be to come up with a system that gains acceptance as being fair and accurate. Sharon Otterman, The New York Times, Dec. 26, 2010
Poll: Most want easier way to fire bad teachers
An overwhelming majority of Americans are frustrated that it's too difficult to get rid of bad teachers, while most also believe that teachers aren't paid enough, a new poll shows. Associated Press, Dec. 14, 2010
Study Backs 'Value-Added' Analysis of Teacher Effectiveness
Teachers' effectiveness can be reliably estimated by gauging their students' progress on standardized tests, according to the preliminary findings of a large-scale study released Friday by leading education researchers. Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 11, 2010
States push to pay teachers based on performance
For parents and politicians hungry for better schools, the idea of paying teachers more if their students perform better can seem as basic as adding two and two or spelling "cat." Yet just a handful of schools and districts around the country use such strategies. In some states, the idea is effectively illegal. That could all be changing as the federal government wields billions of dollars in grants to lure states and school districts to try the idea. Dorie Turner, Associated Press, April 8, 2010
