Focus on teacher quality the single best thing we could do for education


  • April 13, 2015
  • /   Rick Harper
  • /   education
Great teachers change students’ lives for the better. Almost all of us know someone who can tell the tale of a student inspired, and a life changed, by a great teacher. But it is more than just a good story. It is a result that is supported by a substantial body of scholarly work. Eric Hanushek’s life work has been in using the tools of economics and statistics to figure out what works in education. As Hanushek puts it when talking about teacher quality, “No other measured aspect of schools is nearly as important in determining student achievement.” Statistical analysis finds that teacher quality is also a reliable predictor of subsequent student earnings in the labor market. However, research has also shown that it isn’t easy to predict beforehand who will turn out to have that special mix of skills necessary be a great teacher. Studies find that having a master’s degree isn’t consistently correlated with student achievement. Nor is years of experience in the classroom, once the first several years of teaching are out of the way. Coming from a Teach for America background, or another alternative route into teaching, appears to make little difference relative to traditional teacher training. Unfortunately, even additional teacher training after the start of a teaching career appears to make little difference when the measure of success is student learning. Yet, great teachers consistently get students to learn much more than mere average teachers. Hanushek and others use statistical analysis to calculate that the students of great teachers tend to learn a year and a half’s worth of information during the school year. The skills of great teachers include thorough mastery of the subject material and also the ability to connect with and fully engage the learner in an appreciation and understanding of that material. Programs of teacher preparation that produce consistently well-regarded teachers undoubtedly focus on building the skills to reach that level of student engagement. While measuring the value added by an individual teacher to student learning is a tough analytic task, it is the thing that matters. Maybe it's not possible for principals and school districts to recruit only great teachers. But Hanushek’s research suggests that replacing a modest number of less effective teachers would generate dramatic differences in learning outcomes. Using his statistical estimates of the student-learning differential between good and not so good teachers, and the impact of that learning differential on subsequent wages, one can calculate the value to the economy of good teaching. As Hanushek put it in a 2010 paper published by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, “…replacing the bottom 5-8 percent of teachers with average teachers could move the U.S. to the top of international math and science rankings…” Alternatively, on a per teacher basis, a teacher in the 16th percentile generates $400,000 more in student earnings per year (discounted to present money value) versus a teacher in the 50th percentile. Replacing low-performing teachers with better ones would bump up overall U.S. attainment substantially. While assessing and rewarding teacher quality is complex, getting it right is the single most important thing we could do for education and thus for the economy. Dr. Rick Harper serves as director of the Studer Community Institute, a Pensacola, Florida-based organization that seeks citizen-powered solutions to challenges the community faces. He also directs the University of West Florida’s Office of Economic Development and Engagement in Pensacola.
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