Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of various types of education and training on the productivity of teachers in promoting student achievement were studied. But they did not find a consistent relationship between formal professional development training and teacher productivity, and they found no evidence that teachers' pre-service training or college entrance exam scores are related to productivity.
About: This article is published in Journal of Public Economics.The article was published on 2011-08-01. It has received 1263 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Professional development.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate inference using cluster bootstrap-t procedures that provide asymptotic refinement, including the example of Bertrand, Duflo, and Mullainathan.
Abstract: Researchers have increasingly realized the need to account for within-group dependence in estimating standard errors of regression parameter estimates. The usual solution is to calculate cluster-robust standard errors that permit heteroskedasticity and within-cluster error correlation, but presume that the number of clusters is large. Standard asymptotic tests can over-reject, however, with few (five to thirty) clusters. We investigate inference using cluster bootstrap-t procedures that provide asymptotic refinement. These procedures are evaluated using Monte Carlos, including the example of Bertrand, Duflo, and Mullainathan (2004). Rejection rates of 10% using standard methods can be reduced to the nominal size of 5% using our methods.
2,529 citations
01 Jan 2012
815 citations
Cites background from "Teacher training, teacher quality a..."
...However, some research has addressed this selection bias problem; and experience can have a large positive impact primarily in the first few years of teaching, although the benefits can continue beyond the first five years of a teacher’s career (Harris & Sass, 2011; Leigh, 2010)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the effects of features of teachers' preparation on teachers' value-added to student test score performance in math and English Language Arts were investigated. And they found that preparation directly linked to practice appears to benefit teachers in their first year.
Abstract: There are fierce debates over the best way to prepare teachers. Some argue that easing entry into teaching is necessary to attract strong candidates, while others argue that investing in high quality teacher preparation is the most promising approach. Most agree, however, that we lack a strong research basis for understanding how to prepare teachers. This paper is one of the first to estimate the effects of features of teachers' preparation on teachers' value-added to student test score performance in math and English Language Arts. Our results indicate variation across preparation programs in the average effectiveness of the teachers they are supplying to New York City schools. In particular, preparation directly linked to practice appears to benefit teachers in their first year.
624 citations
TL;DR: A strong base of research is needed to guide investments in teacher professional development (PD) and articulates a particular direction for future work as mentioned in this paper. But little is known about whether PD can have a positive impact on achievement when a program is delivered across a range of typical settings and when its delivery depends on multiple trainers.
Abstract: A strong base of research is needed to guide investments in teacher professional development (PD). This article considers the status of research on PD and articulates a particular direction for future work. Little is known about whether PD can have a positive impact on achievement when a program is delivered across a range of typical settings and when its delivery depends on multiple trainers. Despite a consensus in the literature on the features of effective PD, there is limited evidence on the specific features that make a difference for achievement. This article explains the benefits offered by experiments in addressing current research needs and—for those conducting and interpreting such studies—discusses the unique methodological issues encountered when experimental methods are applied to the study of PD.
582 citations
TL;DR: Teacher coaching has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional models of professional development as discussed by the authors, and the empirical literature on teacher coaching and conduct meta-analyses to estimate the effectiveness of teacher coaching.
Abstract: Teacher coaching has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional models of professional development. We review the empirical literature on teacher coaching and conduct meta-analyses to estima...
571 citations
Cites background from "Teacher training, teacher quality a..."
...…more often than not fail to produce systematic improvements in instructional practice or student achievement, especially when implemented at scale (Garet et al., 2008; Garet et al., 2011; Garet et al., 2016; Glazerman et al., 2010; Harris & Sass, 2011; Jacob & Lefgren, 2004; Randel et al., 2011)....
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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
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors point out that public and professional interest in education is likely to be short-lived, doomed to dissipate as frustration over the inability of policy to improve school practice sets in.
Abstract: N RECENT YEARS, public and professional interest in schools has been heightened by a spate of reports, many of them critical of current school policy.' These policy documents have added to persistent and long-standing concerns about the cost, effectiveness, and fairness of the current school structure, and have made schooling once again a serious public issue. As in the past, however, any renewed interest in education is likely to be short-lived, doomed to dissipate as frustration over the inability of policy to improve school practice sets in. This frustration about school policy relates directly to knowledge about the educational production process and in turn to underlying research on schools. Although the educational process has been extensively researched, clear policy prescriptions flowing from this research have been difficult to derive.2 There exists, however, a consistency to the research findings that does have an immediate application to school policy: Schools differ dramatically in "quality,"
3,102 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: It is found that teachers’ mathematical knowledge was significantly related to student achievement gains in both first and third grades after controlling for key student- and teacher-level covariates.
Abstract: This study explored whether and how teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching contributes to gains in students’ mathematics achievement. The authors used a linear mixed-model methodology in which first and third graders’ mathematical achievement gains over a year were nested within teachers, who in turn were nested within schools. They found that teachers’ mathematical knowledge was significantly related to student achievement gains in both first and third grades after controlling for key student- and teacher-level covariates. This result, while consonant with findings from the educational production function literature, was obtained via a measure focusing on the specialized mathematical knowledge and skills used in teaching mathematics. This finding provides support for policy initiatives designed to improve students’ mathematics achievement by improving teachers’ mathematical knowledge.
2,755 citations
TL;DR: The authors proposed a variance estimator for the OLS estimator as well as for nonlinear estimators such as logit, probit, and GMM that enables cluster-robust inference when there is two-way or multiway clustering that is nonnested.
Abstract: In this article we propose a variance estimator for the OLS estimator as well as for nonlinear estimators such as logit, probit, and GMM. This variance estimator enables cluster-robust inference when there is two-way or multiway clustering that is nonnested. The variance estimator extends the standard cluster-robust variance estimator or sandwich estimator for one-way clustering (e.g., Liang and Zeger 1986; Arellano 1987) and relies on similar relatively weak distributional assumptions. Our method is easily implemented in statistical packages, such as Stata and SAS, that already offer cluster-robust standard errors when there is one-way clustering. The method is demonstrated by a Monte Carlo analysis for a two-way random effects model; a Monte Carlo analysis of a placebo law that extends the state–year effects example of Bertrand, Duflo, and Mullainathan (2004) to two dimensions; and by application to studies in the empirical literature where two-way clustering is present.
2,542 citations