Assessing the potential of using value-added estimates of teacher job performance for making tenure decisions*
01 Feb 2010-
TL;DR: This article explore the potential for using value-added models to estimate performance and inform tenure decisions, and find little evidence that the variation of teacher effects change over teacher careers, but strong evidence that prior year estimates of job performance predict student achievement, even when there is a multi-year lag between the two.
Abstract: Reforming teacher tenure is an idea that appears to be gaining traction with the underlying assumption being that one can infer to a reasonable degree how well a teacher will perform over her career based on estimates of her early-career effectiveness. Here we explore the potential for using value-added models to estimate performance and inform tenure decisions. We find little evidence that the variation of teacher effects change over teacher careers, but strong evidence that prior year estimates of job performance predict student achievement, even when there is a multi-year lag between the two.
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TL;DR: This paper found that teachers are more productive during the school year when they are being evaluated, but even more productive in the years after evaluation, and that a student taught by a teacher after that teacher has been through the Cincinnati evaluation will score about 10 percent of a standard deviation higher in math than a similar student teacher by the same teacher before the teacher was evaluated.
Abstract: observable teacher characteristics like graduate education and experience (beyond the first few years) are not typically correlated with increased productivity. Many researchers and policymakers have suggested that, under these conditions, the only way to adjust the teacher distribution for the better is to gather information on individual productivity through evaluation and then dismiss low performers. This paper offers evidence that evaluation can shift the teacher effectiveness distribution through a different mechanism: by improving teacher skill, effort, or both in ways that persist long-run. We study a sample of mid-career math teachers in the Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) who were assigned to evaluation in a manner that permits a quasi-experimental analysis. All teachers in our sample were evaluated by a year-long classroom observation–based program, the treatment, between 2003–2004 and 2009–2010; the timing of each teacher’s specific evaluation year was determined years earlier by a district planning process. To this setting we add measures of student achievement, which were not part of the evaluation, and use the within-teacher over-time variation to compare teacher performance before, during, and after their evaluation year. We find that teachers are more productive during the school year when they are being evaluated, but even more productive in the years after evaluation. A student taught by a teacher after that teacher has been through the Cincinnati evaluation will score about 10 percent of a standard deviation higher in math than a similar student taught by the same teacher before the teacher was evaluated. Under our identification strategy, these estimates may be biased by patterns of student assignment that favor previously evaluated teachers, or by preexisting positive
263 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe and analyze the components, processes, and consequences embedded in new teacher evaluation policies in all fifty states, the twenty-five largest school districts, and Washington, DC.
Abstract: In the past five years, teacher evaluation has become a preferred policy lever at the federal, state, and local levels. Revisions to teacher evaluation systems have made teachers individually accountable for student achievement to a greater extent than ever before. We describe and analyze the components, processes, and consequences embedded in new teacher evaluation policies in all fifty states, the twenty-five largest school districts, and Washington, DC. We contextualize these policies by basing our analysis in prior research on teacher evaluation, and examining key comparisons between state and district policies, including their treatment of teachers in tested and untested subjects with career and beginning teachers. We find notable differences in how states and the largest districts have structured evaluation policies for all teachers and, in particular, for early career teachers compared with their more veteran counterparts, and for teachers in nontested grades and subjects compared with thos...
153 citations
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TL;DR: This article clarified four areas of confusion about value-added methodology and its role in teacher evaluation: use of value added information, consequences for teachers versus those for students of classifying and misclassifying teachers as effective or ineffective, reliability of valueadded measures of teacher performance and standards for evaluations in other fields.
Abstract: This paper clarifies four areas of confusion about value-added methodology and its role in teacher evaluation: (1) use of value-added information; (2) consequences for teachers versus those for students of classifying and misclassifying teachers as effective or ineffective; (3) reliability of value-added measures of teacher performance and standards for evaluations in other fields; and (4) reliability of teacher evaluation systems that include value-added versus those that do not.
145 citations
TL;DR: The notion that some high stakes need to be attached to direct measures of teachers' class-room performance as a control for quality in the work force is gaining traction in public education.
Abstract: The notion that some high stakes need to be attached to direct measures of teachers’ class-room performance as a control for quality in the work force is an idea gaining traction in public education. One such proposal prescribes low-ering the barriers to entry into teaching while simultaneously being more selective about which teachers are retained when they become eligible for tenure (Robert Gordon, Thomas J. Kane, and Douglas O. Staiger 2006; Eric A. Hanushek 2009).
135 citations
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TL;DR: The authors disentangles the separate factors influencing achievement with special attention given to the role of teacher differences and other aspects of schools, and estimates educational production functions based on models of achievement growth with individual fixed effects.
Abstract: Considerable controversy surrounds the impact of schools and teachers on the achievement of students. This paper disentangles the separate factors influencing achievement with special attention given to the role of teacher differences and other aspects of schools. Unique matched panel data from the Harvard/UTD Texas Schools Project permit distinguishing between total effects and the impact of specific, measured components of teachers and schools. While schools are seen to have powerful effects on achievement differences, these effects appear to derive most importantly from variations in teacher quality. A lower bound suggests that variations in teacher quality account for at least 7« percent of the total variation in student achievement, and there are reasons to believe that the true percentage is considerably larger. The subsequent analysis estimates educational production functions based on models of achievement growth with individual fixed effects. It identifies a few systematic factors a negative impact of initial years of teaching and a positive effect of smaller class sizes for low income children in earlier grades but these effects are very small relative to the effects of overall teacher quality differences.
3,882 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors disentangle the impact of schools and teachers in influencing achievement with special attention given to the potential problems of omitted or mismeasured variables and of student and school selection.
Abstract: This paper disentangles the impact of schools and teachers in influencing achievement with special attention given to the potential problems of omitted or mismeasured variables and of student and school selection. Unique matched panel data from the UTD Texas Schools Project permit the identification of teacher quality based on student performance along with the impact of specific, measured components of teachers and schools. Semiparametric lower bound estimates of the variance in teacher quality based entirely on within-school heterogeneity indicate that teachers have powerful effects on reading and mathematics achievement, though little of the variation in teacher quality is explained by observable characteristics such as education or experience. The results suggest that the effects of a costly ten student reduction in class size are smaller than the benefit of moving one standard deviation up the teacher quality distribution, highlighting the importance of teacher effectiveness in the determination of school quality.
3,076 citations
TL;DR: This paper found large and statistically significant differences among teachers: a one standard deviation increase in teacher quality raises reading and math test scores by approximately.20 and.24 standard deviations, respectively, on a nationally standardized scale.
Abstract: Teacher quality is widely believed to be important for education, despite little evidence that teachers' credentials matter for student achievement. To accurately measure variation in achievement due to teachers' characteristics-both observable and unobservable-it is essential to identify teacher fixed effects. Unlike previous studies, I use panel data to estimate teacher fixed effects while controlling for fixed student characteristics and classroom specific variables. I find large and statistically significant differences among teachers: a one standard deviation increase in teacher quality raises reading and math test scores by approximately .20 and .24 standard deviations, respectively, on a nationally standardized scale. In addition, teaching experience has statistically significant positive effects on reading test scores, controlling for fixed teacher quality.
2,513 citations
"Assessing the potential of using va..." refers background in this paper
...And, consistent with the literature, the average teacher effect increases by statistically significant levels early on in a teacher’s career ((Clotfelter et al., 2006; Hanushek et al., 2005; Rockoff, 2004), and this is true for all types (overall, within, district, and within school) of experience....
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...For example, Rivkin et al. (2005) and Rockoff (2004) estimate that a one standard deviation increase in teacher quality raises student achievement in reading and math by about 10 percent of a standard deviation – an achievement effect that is on the same order of magnitude as lowering class size by…...
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...There is, for instance, good evidence that the acquisition of classroom management or other skills leads teachers to become more productive as they initially gain classroom experience (Clotfelter et al., 2006; Hanushek et al., 2005; Rockoff, 2004)....
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...…quality over the workforce (e.g. Hanushek et al. 2005; Aaronsen et al. 2007) and have investigated how mean performance changes with a teacher’s experience in teaching (e.g. Rockoff 2004); however, no study has investigated how the variation in estimated teacher quality changes with experience....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a comprehensive survey of the economics of education from an international perspective, which includes new chapters on educational costs and benefits, teacher's salaries and educational finance.
Abstract: The main aim of the book is to present a comprehensive survey of the economics of education from an international perspective. This revised volume includes new chapters on educational costs and benefits, teacher's salaries and educational finance.
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TL;DR: The free-rider effects would seem to choke off the free-riders in organizations of any significant size as mentioned in this paper, which is why cooperation and profit sharing are often claimed to motivate workers by giving them a share of the pie.
Abstract: Partnerships and profit sharing are often claimed to motivate workers by giving them a share of the pie. But in organizations of any significant size, the free-rider effects would seem to choke off...
1,805 citations
"Assessing the potential of using va..." refers background in this paper
...11 Furthermore, one might imagine that teachers, as they settle into a particular setting, tend to adopt the practices of that setting (see Zevin, 1974), or adjust their effort to converge to the average effort level of their peers (Kandel and Lazear, 1992)....
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