Improving Teacher Quality: Findings from Three New Studies

A Forum — February 23, 2001

It has long been assumed that teacher training and teacher quality have direct impact on student performance. In three recent studies, researchers at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) tested that assumption and attempted to determine what types of training methods produce the highest quality teachers. The ETS researchers checked these findings by examining which components of quality teaching and quality teacher training lead to the best results for students.

At the invitation of the American Youth Policy Forum, Drew Gitomer, Senior Vice-President at ETS, and Harold Wenglinsky, Research Scientist at ETS, spoke with policymakers about three reports:

• How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back into Discussions of Teacher Quality
• Teaching the Teachers: Different Settings, Different Results
• The Academic Quality of Prospective Teachers

In these reports, Gitomer and Wenglinsky analyzed the demographic and academic profiles of prospective teachers taking the Praxis II licensure examinations and student proficiency scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests. ETS administers the NAEP and Praxis tests to measure student performance and teacher preparedness respectively. The ETS reports demonstrate that teacher training and quality do indeed influence student achievement, however, they also reveal that the least common professional development strategies for teachers are the ones that have the greatest impact on instructional quality and student performance.

In How Teaching Matters, Harold Wenglinsky examined NAEP data for nearly 8000 students in eighth grade science and math classes and the Praxis II licensure test and survey data for their teachers. He was especially interested in learning out how a teacher’s education, professional development and classroom pedagogy influenced student achievement in their classes. About three-quarters of the teachers in the study had majored or minored as undergraduates in the subjects that they went on to teach. The NAEP data revealed that students of these teachers scored five points higher (about half a grade level of proficiency) in math and science than students in classes where the teacher had majored in a subject other than the one they taught. Regarding the impact of professional development, Wenglinsky found that training to help teachers work with diverse populations (ethnic and linguistic minorities as well as students with special needs) had a significant impact on student performance. Students in classrooms with teachers who had such training scored 13 points (or one grade level) higher on NAEP math tests. Finally, How Teaching Matters examined classroom practices that exemplify quality teaching and produce significant increases in student achievement. Wenglinsky reported that hands-on learning (lab work, manipulatives, etc.) increased student scores nine points on NAEP math tests and five points on science tests. Traditional forms of assessment such as testing and higher-order, problem-solving assignments had similar positive benefits. Wenglinsky concluded that teacher training and quality do have direct impact on student achievement, but that the most influential training strategies—hands-on learning, higher-order problem solving, majoring or minoring in the subject to be taught, and most importantly, working with diverse populations of students—were the rarest professional development experiences.

Teaching Teachers focused on the relative effectiveness of various teacher training programs as measured by pass rates on the Praxis II battery of licensure exams. In this study, Wenglinsky found that graduates of private post-secondary institutions do better than their peers from public colleges. University alumni do better than college alumni. Graduates of institutions with large number of minority faculty members have higher licensure rates than graduates of less diverse schools, and alumni of institutions with a majority of full-time students do better than alumni of part-time teacher training programs. While these findings may be expected given differences in student resources at these various types of institutions, the more surprising finding was that graduates of institutions with fewer education majors were more likely to pass licensure exams than alumni of institutions with an explicit focus on teacher training.

In the final presentation of the day, Drew Gitomer reported on a study of The Academic Quality of Prospective Teachers which analyzed the impact of admissions and licensure testing not only on teacher quality, but also on the diversity of the licensed teacher workforce. Voluntary surveys that accompanied the Praxis II licensure examinations showed that the vast majority of prospective teachers are white (75%) and female (85%). Seven percent of those who took the licensure tests (and filled out the survey) were African Americans and three percent were Latino. Licensure pass rates reflected a slight decline in minority proportions, with African Americans comprising six percent of those passing the tests and Latinos making up two percent of licensees. Given the fact that licensure standards on the battery of Praxis II tests vary from state to state and the political pressure on states to raise licensure standards, ETS researchers attempted to estimate the impact of raising standards on the diversity of the teacher pool. Gitomer indicated that raising standards for licensure does lead to a less diverse teacher workforce in terms of race and ethnicity. The teacher pool resulting from the highest standards was 90% white, 4% African American and 2% Latino. Given the goals of attaining both a highly qualified and diverse teacher workforce, ETS researchers suggested that raising the bar for teacher licensure must be accompanied by methods to ensure that all teacher candidates get improved training and education to meet the higher licensure standards.

Downloadable versions of these reports are available on line. Teaching the Teachers and How Teaching Matters can be found on www.ets.org/research/pic, and The Academic Quality of Prospective Teachers can be downloaded from www.teachingandlearning.org.

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