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How to develop a good teacher

Posted on December 10, 2009 by Staff

By Chris Fitzsimon

State lawmakers heard a mixed evaluation of the university system’s performance in training teachers Tuesday from the director of a massive study of teacher development and performance. The report also gave generally positive reviews to the National Board Certification, much to the chagrin of the anti-everything right that has been trying to abolish state support for national certification for years.

The study, presented by Gary Henry from UNC, considered almost half a million test scores from the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years, along with the backgrounds of the teachers, to reach conclusions about what works and what doesn’t in improving student performance, as judged by the test scores.

Even the summary of the findings was a blizzard of data, but Henry repeatedly stressed a few themes, some of which lawmakers have heard before.

Students with teachers teaching a subject out of their field did worse than students with in-field teachers. First-year teachers are less effective and even second- and third-year teachers are less effective in high school and the elementary grades.

The study found that the “equality of educational opportunity” is affected by the make-up of the class. Students do better if they are in a class with high-achieving classmates. Let’s hope the researchers send a copy of the study to the gang of five on the Wake County School Board.

Students with teachers with master’s degrees do better in middle school and the elementary grades than students with teachers with bachelor’s degrees. They do about the same in high school.

North Carolina rewards teachers who get master’s degrees with 10 percent higher pay. Teachers who complete the requirements for National Board Certification earn 12 percent more. Lawmakers did not give teachers a raise this session, a fact that seemed lost on at least one lawmaker, judging from his questions.

The lack of a pay raise was cited as one reason applications for the certification process are way up. Folks on the right have long disputed the effectiveness of the national certification, which involves as many as 400 hours of work outside the classroom, a demonstration of teaching technique and an evaluation of how well a teacher knows the subject he or she is teaching.

Those on the right continue to claim that certification is a meaningless waste of time and money that does nothing to make a teacher better. The study presented Tuesday found otherwise, that students in high school and the elementary grades did better with teachers with National Board Certification. Students in middle school performed the same.

But researchers found that helping kids improve in middle school is the biggest problem. The transition into middle school is where many of the problems begin, as the gains between the fifth and sixth grades are smaller than any other increases.

The study found that middle school students with a math teacher out of his or her field did much worse than students with a teacher trained in math. Henry said the effect was so significant that it was the equivalent of those students missing 40 days of instructional time.

The information presented Tuesday is just the first stage of the report. Lawmakers will have even more data to use as they consider how to help develop more teachers who will help more kids succeed.

There are plenty of things the study doesn’t address, of course; most notably, the dramatic effect of poverty on education, poverty made worse by the economic downturn and cuts to state safety-net services.

But it’s a useful look at how variables in a teacher’s background or education translate into student performance. And though the right doesn’t want to hear it, it also confirms that National Board Certification and diverse classes are important,too.

Chris Fitzsimon is executive director of N.C. Policy Watch.

1 thought on “How to develop a good teacher”

  1. Steve Peha says:
    December 10, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    “Those on the right continue to claim that certification is a meaningless waste of time and money that does nothing to make a teacher better. The study presented Tuesday found otherwise, that students in high school and the elementary grades did better with teachers with National Board Certification. Students in middle school performed the same.”

    The reason most studies find that students do better with National Board Certified Teachers is because better teachers are the ones most likely to apply for National Board Certification. It is unproven — in all known studies that I’m aware of — that there is a causal link between acquisition of National Board Certification and improved teacher quality. It’s simply the fact that poor teachers, or those who don’t think they’ll stay in teaching very long, don’t go through the process. What needs to be studied here to make the case is “effect size”. That is, there has to be a “before and after effect” measure for a large number of teachers going through and achieving National Board Certification. So, the jury is still out on this one and my hunch is that the effect size is too small to be statistically significant relative to other factors — and the relatively small number of teachers who go through certification even with the generous pay hike. The premium paid in North Carolina for National Certification is among the most generous in the nation. As a result, we have, I believe, the most board certified teachers per capita in the country. If the certification process was so valuable, it’s likely our state would stand out for it’s high quality test scores. Unfortunately, according to the NAEP this is not the case. It is possible that even though we have the most National Board Certified Teachers that we still do not have enough to make a difference. But then, why do we make the pay hike so large anyway if it doesn’t attract enough teachers to go for certification? The conservatives aren’t 100% right on this issue, but they’re not entirely wrong either. Insufficient research is the culprit — along with incorrectly drawn conclusions about existing research. But the middling performance of our students on the NAEP suggests that even the most aggressive attempts to certify more teachers do not produce significantly increased student achievement.

    “But researchers found that helping kids improve in middle school is the biggest problem. The transition into middle school is where many of the problems begin, as the gains between the fifth and sixth grades are smaller than any other increases.”

    This is not new. It has been known since the beginning of the middle school movement that kids did worse in middle school than in elementary or high school. And NAEP data bares this out for the last 20 years. The solution to the problem is simple: get rid of middle school. Many schools already use the K-8 model. It is widely recommended as an excellent alternative to middle school and is in broad use throughout our country. The reason middle school doesn’t work is because it doesn’t work to segregate large numbers of kids that age together in a big group. Kids at this particular age benefit greatly from being with kids who are younger which is why the K-8 model is so successful.

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