Educational Leadership - December 2010/January 2011

(Clotfelter, Ladd, & Vigdor, 2007).

Advanced degrees. In her survey of research, Rice (2003) found that several studies conducted since the 1970s “have found no discernible effect of teachers having a master’s degree or higher on student achievement” (p. 26). Indeed, some studies, including the North Carolina analysis mentioned earlier, found slightly negative correlations with teachers’ advanced degrees and student achievement (Clotfelter et al., 2007). One possible exception appears to be high school science and mathematics, where teachers with subject-specific master’s degrees are more effective than those without such degrees (Goldhaber & Brewer, 1998).

Extensive classroom experience. After comparing teacher characteristics to achievement results for more than 1. 3 million Texas students, a team of economists found that first-year teachers “and to a lesser extent second- and third-year teachers” were less effective than more experienced teachers (Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005, p. 447). However, they found little difference in teacher effectiveness after about five years of experience. Certainly, many teachers improve their skills throughout their careers. Yet on average, after a few years of teaching, added years of teaching experience appear to offer little guarantee of increased effectiveness.

The Intangibles

The attributes discussed to this point can be measured or quantified quite easily. Savvy principals, however, know that great teachers also possess many intangible attributes. Here are a few intangibles that research links to teacher effectiveness.

Belief that all students can learn. Since the famous Rosenthal experiment in the late 1960s, the Pygmalion effect—the observation that teachers’ expectations for their students affect how well students learn—has been well documented (Hattie, 2009).

Belief in their own abilities. A RAND study conducted more than 30 years

Great teachers
possess many
intangible attributes.

ago (Armor et al., 1976) found links between student achievement and teachers’ sense of efficacy—their belief in not just their students’ ability to succeed, but also their own ability as teachers to help those students succeed.

Ability to connect with students.

Cornelius-White (2007) conducted a meta-analysis of research on teacher-student relationships and found that teachers’ warmth, empathy, and “ non-directivity” strongly correlated to higher levels of student participation, motivation, and achievement.

Advice for Educators Few teacher candidates are likely to display all of these attributes when they first walk through the classroom door. School leaders must consider, then, which attributes they can augment and which they cannot. They may also need to reexamine the metrics, explicit or implicit, they use to select and compensate teachers. Being credentialed, being experienced, or holding an advanced degree is no guarantee of effectiveness. Leaders must look more deeply, examining whether teachers have adequate knowledge of their subjects and know how to teach them. At the same time, important intangibles, such as a teacher’s dispositions and attitudes, although more difficult to glean from a résumé, can still be teased out through interviews and observations of teachers delivering sample lessons.

A Lesson from the Major Leagues
Any analogy comparing baseball players
to teachers has its flaws. Baseball is, of
course, just a game; in the grand scheme
of things, it matters little who wins or
loses. For students, though, the quality
of their teachers can be the difference
between academic success and failure.
Schools would do well to put as much
careful analysis into selecting their
teachers as major league teams put into
scouting and drafting their players. EL

References

Armor, D., Conroy-Oseguera, P., Cox, M., King, N., McDonnell, L., Pascal, A., et al. (1976). Analysis of the school preferred reading programs in selected Los Angeles minority schools (Report No. R-2007- LAUSD). Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

Baumert, J., Kunter, M., Blum, W., Brunner, M., Voss, T., Jordan, A., et al. (2010). Teachers’ mathematical knowledge, cognitive activation in the classroom, and student progress. American Educational Research Journal, 47( 1), 133–180.

Clotfelter, C. T., Ladd, H. F., & Vigdor, J. L. (2007, January). How and why do teacher credentials matter for student achievement? (Working Paper 2). Washington, DC: National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

Cornelius-White, J. (2007). Learner-centered teacher-student relationships are effective: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 77( 1), 113–143.

Ferguson, R. F., & Ladd, H. F. (1996). How and why money matters: An analysis of Alabama schools. In H. F. Ladd. (Ed.), Holding schools accountable: Performance-based reform in education (pp. 265–298). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Goldhaber, D., & Brewer, D. (1998). When should we reward degrees for teachers? Phi Delta Kappan, 80( 2), 134–138.

Goldhaber, D., & Brewer, D. (2000). Does certification matter? High school teacher certification status and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22( 2), 129–145.