IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v64y2018icp298-312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How much does teacher quality vary across teacher preparation programs? Reanalyses from six states

Author

Listed:
  • von Hippel, Paul T.
  • Bellows, Laura

Abstract

At least sixteen US states have taken steps toward holding teacher preparation programs (TPPs) accountable for teacher value-added to student test scores. Yet it is unclear whether teacher quality differences between TPPs are large enough to make an accountability system worthwhile. Several statistical practices can make differences between TPPs appear larger and more significant than they are. We reanalyze TPP evaluations from 6 states—New York, Louisiana, Missouri, Washington, Texas, and Florida—using appropriate methods implemented by our new caterpillar command for Stata. Our results show that teacher quality differences between most TPPs are negligible—.01–0.03 standard deviations in student test scores—even in states where larger differences were reported previously. While ranking all a state's TPPs is not useful, in some states and subjects we can find a single TPP whose teachers are significantly above or below average. Such exceptional TPPs may reward further study.

Suggested Citation

  • von Hippel, Paul T. & Bellows, Laura, 2018. "How much does teacher quality vary across teacher preparation programs? Reanalyses from six states," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 298-312.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:64:y:2018:i:c:p:298-312
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2018.01.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775717303771
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2018.01.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Goldhaber, Dan & Liddle, Stephanie & Theobald, Roddy, 2013. "The gateway to the profession: Assessing teacher preparation programs based on student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 29-44.
    2. Paul T. Decker & Daniel P. Mayer & Steven Glazerman, "undated". "The Effects of Teach For America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c8b5eb6d499c465c86a96bee4, Mathematica Policy Research.
    3. Kata Mihaly & Daniel McCaffrey & Tim R. Sass & J. R. Lockwood, 2013. "Where You Come From or Where You Go? Distinguishing Between School Quality and the Effectiveness of Teacher Preparation Program Graduates," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 459-493, October.
    4. John P. Conley & Ali Sina Onder, 2014. "The Research Productivity of New PhDs in Economics: The Surprisingly High Non-success of the Successful," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 205-216, Summer.
    5. von Hippel, Paul T. & Bellows, Laura & Osborne, Cynthia & Lincove, Jane Arnold & Mills, Nick, 2016. "Teacher quality differences between teacher preparation programs: How big? How reliable? Which programs are different?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 31-45.
    6. James G. MacKinnon & Matthew D. Webb, 2018. "The wild bootstrap for few (treated) clusters," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(2), pages 114-135, June.
    7. Koedel, Cory, 2008. "Teacher quality and dropout outcomes in a large, urban school district," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 560-572, November.
    8. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2633-2679, September.
    9. repec:mpr:mprres:7962 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:mpr:mprres:7890 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Daniel M. Koretz, 2002. "Limitations in the Use of Achievement Tests as Measures of Educators' Productivity," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 752-777.
    12. Cory Koedel & Eric Parsons & Michael Podgursky & Mark Ehlert, 2015. "Teacher Preparation Programs and Teacher Quality: Are There Real Differences Across Programs?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 10(4), pages 508-534, October.
    13. repec:tpr:journl:edfpol:v:10:y:2015:i:4:p:508-534 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Rumberger, Russell W. & Thomas, Scott L., 1993. "The economic returns to college major, quality and performance: A multilevel analysis of recent graduates," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, March.
    15. repec:mpr:mprres:4150 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Melissa Clark & Hanley Chiang & Sheena McConnell & Tim Silva & Kathy Sonnenfeld & Anastasia Erbe & Mike Puma, "undated". "The Effectiveness of Secondary Math Teachers from Teach For America and the Teaching Fellows Programs (Presentation)," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 32d4ed3f97b14a208a78435db, Mathematica Policy Research.
    17. Melissa A. Clark & Hanley S. Chiang & Tim Silva & Sheena McConnell & Kathy Sonnenfeld & Anastasia Erbe & Michael Puma, "undated". "The Effectiveness of Secondary Math Teachers from Teach For America and the Teaching Fellows Programs," Mathematica Policy Research Reports ad5192faecc9490288484de35, Mathematica Policy Research.
    18. repec:mpr:mprres:4012 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dan Goldhaber & John Krieg & Natsumi Naito & Roddy Theobald, 2020. "Making the Most of Student Teaching: The Importance of Mentors and Scope for Change," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(3), pages 581-591, Summer.
    2. Carrie Conaway & Dan Goldhaber, 2020. "Appropriate Standards of Evidence for Education Policy Decision Making," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(2), pages 383-396, Spring.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Backes, Ben & Goldhaber, Dan & Cade, Whitney & Sullivan, Kate & Dodson, Melissa, 2018. "Can UTeach? Assessing the relative effectiveness of STEM teachers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 184-198.
    2. von Hippel, Paul T. & Bellows, Laura & Osborne, Cynthia & Lincove, Jane Arnold & Mills, Nick, 2016. "Teacher quality differences between teacher preparation programs: How big? How reliable? Which programs are different?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 31-45.
    3. Koedel, Cory & Mihaly, Kata & Rockoff, Jonah E., 2015. "Value-added modeling: A review," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-195.
    4. Blazar, David, 2015. "Effective teaching in elementary mathematics: Identifying classroom practices that support student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 16-29.
    5. Goldhaber, Dan & Krieg, John & Theobald, Roddy, 2020. "Effective like me? Does having a more productive mentor improve the productivity of mentees?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2016. "The Production of Human Capital in Developed Countries: Evidence from 196 Randomized Field Experiments," NBER Working Papers 22130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Antecol, Heather & Eren, Ozkan & Ozbeklik, Serkan, 2013. "The effect of Teach for America on the distribution of student achievement in primary school: Evidence from a randomized experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 113-125.
    8. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    9. Bouguen, Adrien, 2016. "Adjusting content to individual student needs: Further evidence from an in-service teacher training program," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 90-112.
    10. Cory Koedel & Eric Parsons & Michael Podgursky & Mark Ehlert, 2015. "Teacher Preparation Programs and Teacher Quality: Are There Real Differences Across Programs?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 10(4), pages 508-534, October.
    11. David Blazar & Matthew A. Kraft, 2015. "Teacher and Teaching Effects on Students' Academic Behaviors and Mindsets," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c1c4216bd08f408fb6bdf16a3, Mathematica Policy Research.
    12. Lisa Dragoset & Jaime Thomas & Mariesa Herrmann & John Deke & Susanne James-Burdumy & Cheryl Graczewski & Andrea Boyle & Rachel Upton & Courtney Tanenbaum & Jessica Giffin, "undated". "School Improvement Grants: Implementation and Effectiveness (Final Report)," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 76bce3f4bb0944f29a481fae0, Mathematica Policy Research.
    13. Gershenson, Seth, 2021. "Identifying and Producing Effective Teachers," IZA Discussion Papers 14096, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Lisa Dragoset & Jaime Thomas & Mariesa Herrmann & John Deke & Susanne James-Burdumy & Cheryl Graczewski & Andrea Boyle & Courtney Tanenbaum & Jessica Giffin & Rachel Upton, "undated". "Race to the Top: Implementation and Relationship to Student Outcomes," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 4169441544e144b08777d967e, Mathematica Policy Research.
    15. Tim Kautz & Peter Z. Schochet & Charles Tilley, "undated". "Comparing Impact Findings from Design-Based and Model-Based Methods: An Empirical Investigation," Mathematica Policy Research Reports b7656ddce20f4007b71836e99, Mathematica Policy Research.
    16. Kane, Thomas J. & Rockoff, Jonah E. & Staiger, Douglas O., 2008. "What does certification tell us about teacher effectiveness? Evidence from New York City," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 615-631, December.
    17. James G. MacKinnon, 2019. "How cluster‐robust inference is changing applied econometrics," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 851-881, August.
    18. Burgess, Simon & Metcalfe, Robert & Sadoff, Sally, 2021. "Understanding the response to financial and non-financial incentives in education: Field experimental evidence using high-stakes assessments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    19. Justus J. Randolph & Anaya Bryson & Lakshmi Menon & Stephen Michaels & Debra Leigh Walls Rosenstein & Warren McPherson, 2016. "PROTOCOL: Montessori Education for Improving Academic and Social/Behavioral Outcomes for Elementary Students," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 1-32.
    20. Dante Contreras & Jorge Rodríguez & Sergio Urzúa, 2019. "The Return to Private Education: Evidence from School-to-Work Transitions," Working Papers wp479, University of Chile, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Accountability; Heterogeneity; Teacher training;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:64:y:2018:i:c:p:298-312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.