Teacher Quality

Do Teachers Really Come From The "Bottom Third" Of College Graduates?

** Also posted here on 'Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet' in the Washington Post

The conventional wisdom among many education commentators is that U.S. public school teachers “come from the bottom third” of their classes. Most recently, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took this talking point a step further, and asserted at a press conference last week that teachers are drawn from the bottom 20 percent of graduates.

All of this is supposed to imply that the U.S. has a serious problem with the “quality” of applicants to the profession.

Despite the ubiquity of the “bottom third” and similar arguments (which are sometimes phrased as massive generalizations, with no reference to actual proportions), it’s unclear how many of those who offer them know what specifically they refer to (e.g., GPA, SAT/ACT, college rank, etc.). This is especially important since so many of these measurable characteristics are not associated with future test-based effectiveness in the classroom, while those that are are only modestly so.

Still, given how often it is used, as well as the fact that it is always useful to understand and examine the characteristics of the teacher labor supply, it’s worth taking a quick look at where the “bottom third” claim comes from and what it might or might not mean.

What Value-Added Research Does And Does Not Show

Has Teacher Quality Declined Over Time?

** Also posted here on "Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet" in the Washington Post

One of the common assumptions lurking in the background of our education debates is that “quality” of the teaching workforce has declined a great deal over the past few decades (see here, here, here and here [slide 16]). There is a very plausible storyline supporting this assertion: Prior to the dramatic rise in female labor force participation since the 1960s, professional women were concentrated in a handful of female-dominated occupations, chief among them teaching. Since then, women’s options have changed, and many have moved into professions such as law and medicine instead of the classroom.

The result of this dynamic, so the story goes, is that the pool of candidates to the teaching profession has been “watered down." This in turn has generated a decline in the aggregate “quality” of U.S. teachers, and, it follows, a stagnation of student achievement growth. This portrayal is often used as a set-up for a preferred set of solutions – e.g., remaking teaching in the image of the other professions into which women are moving, largely by increasing risk and rewards.

Although the argument that “teacher quality” has declined substantially is sometimes taken for granted, its empirical backing is actually quite thin, and not as clear-cut as some might believe.

The Categorical Imperative In New Teacher Evaluations

There is a push among many individuals and groups advocating new teacher evaluations to predetermine the number of outcome categories – e.g., highly effective, effective, developing, ineffective, etc. - that these new systems will include. For instance, a "statement of principles" signed by 25 education advocacy organizations recommends that the reauthorized ESEA law require “four or more levels of teacher performance." The New Teacher Project’s primary report on redesigning evaluations made the same suggestion.* For their part, many states have followed suit, mandating new systems with a minimum of 4-5 categories.

The rationale here is pretty simple on the surface: Those pushing for a minimum number of outcome categories believe that teacher performance must be adequately differentiated, a goal on which prior systems, most of which relied on dichotomous satisfactory/unsatisfactory schemes, fell short. In other words, the categories in new evaluation systems must reflect the variation in teacher performance, and that cannot be accomplished when there are only a couple of categories.

It’s certainly true that the number of categories matters – it is an implicit statement as to the system’s ability to tease out the “true” variation in teacher performance. The number of categories a teacher evaluation system employs should depend on how on how well it can differentiate teachers with a reasonable degree of accuracy. If a system is unable to pick up this “true” variation, then using several categories may end up doing more harm than good, because it will be providing faulty information. And, at this early stage, despite the appearance of certainty among some advocates, it remains unclear whether all new teacher evaluation systems should require four or more levels of “effectiveness."

When The Legend Becomes Fact, Print The Fact Sheet

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) just released a "fact sheet" on value-added (VA) analysis. I’m all for efforts to clarify complex topics such as VA, and, without question, there is a great deal of misinformation floating around on this subject, both "pro-" and "anti-."

The fact sheet presents five sets of “myths and facts." Three of the “myths” seem somewhat unnecessary: that there’s no research behind VA; that teachers will be evaluated based solely on test scores; and that VA is useless because it’s not perfect. Almost nobody believes or makes these arguments (at least in my experience). But I guess it never hurts to clarify.

In contrast, the other two are very common arguments, but they are not myths. They are serious issues with concrete policy implications. If there are any myths, they're in the "facts" column.

Schedule Conflicts

As most people know, the majority of public school teachers are paid based on salary schedules. Most (but not all) contain a number of “steps” (years of experience) and “lanes” (education levels). Teachers are placed in one lane (based on their degree) and proceed up the steps as they accrue years on the job. Within most districts, these two factors determine the raises that teachers receive.

Salary schedules receive a great deal of attention in our education debates. One argument that has been making the rounds for some time is that we should attract and retain "talent" in the teaching profession by increasing starting salaries and/or the size of raises teachers receive during their first few years (when test-based productivity gains are largest). One common proposal (see here and here) for doing so is reallocating salary from the “top” of salary schedules (the salaries paid to more experienced teachers) down to the “bottom” (novice teachers’ salaries). As a highly simplified example, instead of paying starting teachers $40,000 and teachers with 15 years of experience $80,000, we could pay first-year teachers $50,000 and their experienced counterparts $70,000. This general idea is sometimes called “frontloading," as it concentrates salary expenditures at the “front” of schedules.

Now, there is a case for changes to salary schedules in many places – bargained and approved by teachers – including, perhaps, some degree of gradual frontloading (though the research in this area is underdeveloped at best). But there is a vocal group of advocates who assume an all-too-casual attitude about these changes. They seem to be operating on the mistaken assumption that salary schedules can be easily overhauled – just like that. We can drastically restructure them or just “move the money around” without problem or risk, if only unions and "bureaucrats" would get out of the way.**

A Few Other Principles Worth Stating

Last week, a group of around 25 education advocacy organizations, including influential players such as Democrats for Education Reform and The Education Trust, released a "statement of principles" on the role of teacher quality in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The statement, which is addressed to the chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House committees handling the reauthorization, lays out some guidelines for teacher-focused policy in ESEA (a draft of the full legislation was released this week; summary here).

Most of the statement is the standard fare from proponents of market-based reform, some of which I agree with in theory if not practice. What struck me as remarkable was the framing argument presented in the statement's second sentence:

Research shows overwhelmingly that the only way to close achievement gaps – both gaps between U.S. students and those in higher-achieving countries and gaps within the U.S. between poor and minority students and those more advantaged – and transform public education is to recruit, develop and retain great teachers and principals.

This assertion is false.

The Cutting Edge Of Teacher Quality

The State of Michigan is currently considering a bill that would limit collective bargaining rights among teachers. Under the proposal, paying dues would be optional. This legislation, like other so-called “right to work” laws, represents an attempt to defund and create divisions within labor unions, which severely weakens teachers' ability to bargain fair contracts, as well as the capacity of their unions to advocate on behalf of of public schools and workers in general.

Last month, Michigan State Senate Majority Floor Leader Arlan Meekoff (R- West Olive) was asked whether he thought the bill would pass. He responded in the affirmative, and added:

It's an opportunity to let teachers get farther away from union goons. That should give them a better chance to break away from the mediocrity. That should make things better for our schools and our children.

Well, there you have it, folks. We’ve been wasting our time by designing rigorous standards and overhauling teacher evaluations. The key to improving teacher quality is not training, compensation or professional development.

It’s goon proximity.

For Many Teachers, Reform Means Higher Risk, Lower Rewards

** Also posted here on “Valerie Strauss’ Answer Sheet” in the Washington Post

One of the central policy ideas of market-based education reform is to increase both the risk and rewards of the teaching profession. The basic idea is to offer teachers additional compensation (increased rewards), but, in exchange, make employment and pay more contingent upon performance by implementing merit pay and weakening job protections such as tenure and seniority (increased risk). This trade-off, according to advocates, will not only force out low performers by paying them less and making them easier to fire, but it will also attract a “different type” of candidate to teaching – high-achievers who thrive in a high-stakes, high-reward system.

As I’ve said before, I’m skeptical as to whether less risk-averse individuals necessarily make better teachers, as I haven’t seen any evidence that this is the case. I’m also not convinced that personnel policies are necessarily the most effective lever when it comes to “attracting talent," and I’m concerned that the sheer size of the teaching profession makes doing so a unique challenge. That said, I’m certainly receptive to trying new compensation/employment structures, and the “higher risk, higher reward” idea, though unproven in education, is not without its potential if done correctly. After all, teacher pay continues to lose ground to that offered by other professions, and the penalty teachers pay increases the longer they remain in the profession. At the same time, there is certainly a case for attracting more and better candidates through higher pay, and nobody would disagree that accountability mechanisms such as evaluations and tenure procedures could use improvement in many places, even if we disagree sharply on the details of what should be done.

There’s only one problem: States and districts all over the nation are increasing risk, but not rewards. In fact, in some places, risk is going up while compensation is being cut, sometimes due to the same legislation.

Revisiting The Merits Of Merit Pay

Al Shanker was very concerned about the need to identify and replace incompetent teachers. The first time he wrote a column about it, his wife was one of the many people who warned him that the union’s teachers would be up in arms (see here). Shanker wasn’t worried, replying that "All of my members will read that, and they’ll all agree, because not one of them will think that they are one of the bad teachers that I’m talking about."

He was right. Most of the members were very supportive, probably for a variety of reasons. First, most teachers take their responsibilities as teachers very seriously, thus favoring the establishment and enforcement of high standards of professional practice. Second, teachers who don’t believe themselves to be effective are more likely to leave the profession – see here. And third, we know from research that most of us just believe that we are simply better than most other people. Psychologists describe this "illusory superiority" or "above average" effect as the tendency to make self-serving comparisons between oneself and others, with the consequence that an overwhelming majority of people judge themselves to be "better than average" on a variety of traits, skills, and socially desirable dimensions ( here and here).

Nevertheless, there are many teachers who support the idea of performance pay, even if they're wary of the details of how "merit" is defined (specifically, whether or not it includes test scores).

Now, it’s no secret that I think merit pay for teachers is of limited practical utility. Nevertheless, it’s important to understand why, evidence aside, some people (including teachers) might find the policy to be attractive. These are my thoughts on the issue: