Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement

Contents:

Author Info

  • Harris, Douglas N.
  • Sass, Tim R.

Abstract

We study the effects of various types of education and training on the productivity of teachers in promoting student achievement. Previous studies on the subject have been hampered by inadequate measures of teacher training and difficulties in addressing the non-random selection of teachers to students and of teachers to training. We address these issues by estimating models that include detailed measures of pre-service and in-service training, a rich set of time-varying covariates, and student, teacher, and school fixed effects. We find that elementary and middle school teacher productivity increases with experience (informal on-the-job training). The largest gains from experience occur in the first few years, but we find continuing gains beyond the first five years of a teacher's career. In contrast, we do not find a consistent relationship between formal professional development training and teacher productivity. However, this may be partly driven by estimation issues as we find more significant positive effects of formal training in the subject-grade combination where estimates should be most precise (middle school math). There is no evidence that teachers' pre-service (undergraduate) training or college entrance exam scores are related to productivity.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V76-51JF815-1/2/c21949c5d70efc7c2c5258f92626c1dd
Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Public Economics.

Volume (Year): 95 (2011)
Issue (Month): 7-8 (August)
Pages: 798-812

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:7-8:p:798-812

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578

Related research

Keywords: Student achievement Teacher quality Teacher training;

Other versions of this item:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Cameron, A. Colin & Miller, Douglas & Gelbach, Jonah B., 2006. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," Working Papers 06-21, University of California at Davis, Department of Economics.
  2. Thomas S. Dee, 2001. "Teachers, Race and Student Achievement in a Randomized Experiment," NBER Working Papers 8432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 1998. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," NBER Working Papers 6691, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Martyn Andrews & Thorsten Schank & Richard Upward, 2006. "Practical fixed-effects estimation methods for the three-way error-components model," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 6(4), pages 461-481, December.
  5. Jepsen, Christopher, 2005. "Teacher characteristics and student achievement: evidence from teacher surveys," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 302-319, March.
  6. Alan B. Krueger, 2000. "Economic Considerations and class size," Working Papers 975, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
  7. Donald Boyd & Pamela Grossman & Hamilton Lankford & Susanna Loeb & James Wyckoff, 2006. "How Changes in Entry Requirements Alter the Teacher Workforce and Affect Student Achievement," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 1(2), pages 176-216, April.
  8. Jonah E. Rockoff, 2004. "The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 247-252, May.
  9. Douglas N. Harris & Tim R. Sass, 2009. "The effects of NBPTS-certified teachers on student achievement," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 55-80.
  10. Li Feng, 2009. "Opportunity Wages, Classroom Characteristics, and Teacher Mobility," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 1165-1190, April.
  11. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2002. "The Impact of Teacher Training on Student Achievement: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from School Reform Efforts in Chicago," NBER Working Papers 8916, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Cory Koedel & Julian R. Betts, 2011. "Does Student Sorting Invalidate Value-Added Models of Teacher Effectiveness? An Extended Analysis of the Rothstein Critique," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 18-42, January.
  13. Daniel Aaronson & Lisa Barrow & William Sander, 2002. "Teachers and student achievement in the Chicago public high schools," Working Paper Series WP-02-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  14. Cory Koedel, 2008. "An Empirical Analysis of Teacher Spillover Effects in Secondary School," Working Papers 0808, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
  15. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2007. "Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School: A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects," NBER Working Papers 13617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  16. Andrew J. Houtenville & Karen Smith Conway, 2008. "Parental Effort, School Resources, and Student Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(2), pages 437-453.
  17. Petra E. Todd & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2003. "On The Specification and Estimation of The Production Function for Cognitive Achievement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages F3-F33, February.
  18. Monk, David H., 1994. "Subject area preparation of secondary mathematics and science teachers and student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 125-145, June.
  19. Bonesronning, Hans, 2004. "The determinants of parental effort in education production: do parents respond to changes in class size?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-9, February.
  20. Dan Goldhaber & Emily Anthony, 2007. "Can Teacher Quality Be Effectively Assessed? National Board Certification as a Signal of Effective Teaching," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 134-150, February.
  21. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-77, September.
  22. Tim R. Sass, 2006. "Charter Schools and Student Achievement in Florida," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 91-122, January.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. ¿Sabemos cómo mejorar la calidad de la educación?
    by Rosangela Bando in Hacia el desarrollo efectivo on 2011-10-31 20:07:39
  2. ¿Sabemos cómo mejorar la calidad de la educación?
    by Rosangela Bando in Hacia el desarrollo efectivo on 2011-10-31 20:07:39
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Mason, Patrick L., 2010. "Examining FAMU’s supply of teachers: a value-added analysis of college of preparation on pupil academic achievement," MPRA Paper 27904, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  2. Christian E. Weller, 2011. "What Does the Literature Tell Us About the Possible Effect of Changing Retirement Benefits on Public Employee Effectiveness?," Working Papers wp270, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
  3. Cory Koedel & Mark Ehlert & Michael Podgursky & Eric Parsons, 2012. "Teacher Preparation Programs and Teacher Quality: Are There Real Differences Across Programs?," Working Papers 1204, Department of Economics, University of Missouri, revised 13 Jul 2012.
  4. Matthew M. Chingos & Martin R. West, 2010. "Do More Effective Teachers Earn More Outside of the Classroom?," CESifo Working Paper Series 2996, CESifo Group Munich.
  5. Jesús Duarte & María Soledad Bos & Martín Moreno, 2010. "Los docentes, las escuelas y los aprendizajes escolares en América Latina: Un estudio regional usando la base de datos del SERCE," IDB Publications 8555, Inter-American Development Bank.
  6. Mason, Patrick L., 2010. "Assessing difference: examining Florida’s initial teacher preparation programs and exploring alternative specifications of value-added models," MPRA Paper 27903, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  7. Scott E. Carrell & James E. West, 2008. "Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors," NBER Working Papers 14081, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:7-8:p:798-812

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wendy Shamier).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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