The Problem with America's Classrooms:
How Can We Measure Teacher Quality?
Perspectives
Instead of focusing on perfecting a recipe for creating high-quality teachers before they enter the profession, we need to pay much more attention to whether current teachers are actually effective in the classroom.
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Supporting education has always been a cornerstone of Koret’s mission. December’s education forum at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) brought together a dedicated, diverse group of people invested in this same mission.
Keynote speaker Congressman George Miller reminded us, “We have got to believe that far more children can succeed, given the opportunity and given the resources, than are succeeding today. There’s just too much evidence.”
In this issue of Perspectives, we hear the evidence from two of the forum participants. Eric Hanushek, a member of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, takes a hard look at the prevailing wisdom of education policy, and former Teach for America Vice President Abigail Smith describes an alternative for underserved students in public schools.
The ongoing research of scholars like Hanushek creates the tools we need to assess our progress in the field, and the ongoing advocacy of leaders like Smith helps foster a system of academic excellence for all students. We look forward to continuing this vital collaboration with all our education partners, and we thank SIEPR for its interest and work in this important field.
-- Tad Taube, President
Koret Foundation
Koret Fund
The characteristics commonly used to measure teacher quality—a teacher’s level of education, test scores, and classroom experience—turn out to be uncorrelated with the real measure of a good teacher, which is high-achieving students, according to education expert Eric Hanushek. But currently, student achievement data cannot be used to evaluate teacher performance. The unfortunate upshot is that we cannot regulate teacher quality effectively because we cannot measure it.
At an education policy conference presented by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Hanushek, the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, argued that as long as we stick to pay scales based on a teacher’s degree level and years of teaching experience, rather than tying teacher pay to student performance, we are unlikely to change the quality of the teaching force very much.
“It is really difficult to sit in Sacramento and write down the rules of what a good teacher will be,” he said.
Instead of focusing on perfecting a recipe for creating high-quality teachers before they enter the profession, therefore, we need to pay much more attention to whether current teachers are actually effective in the classroom. Strong accountability, as advocated by the Koret Task Force, would help education leaders recognize and reward high-performing teachers. Other Koret Task Force core values include transparency and school choice.
Nor can we assume, as many have argued, that overall salary increases will increase teacher quality. Hanushek reminded his audience, “Bad teachers like more money just as much as good teachers.”
Hanushek observed that the flight of teachers from disadvantaged schools to those in more affluent communities is less related to salary than to student achievement. While such moves are often lateral in terms of position and pay, it is apparent that when teachers leave disadvantaged schools, they move toward richer (and whiter) schools, where the job tends to be easier and where they typically get better support. Student achievement is higher, so job satisfaction is greater.
Rather than concentrate on salary, therefore, we must look at how to improve generalized working conditions so that quality teachers find job satisfaction in remaining at disadvantaged schools. While we should not neglect monetary rewards, we need to look more closely at school leadership, discipline, and other conditions that make these schools undesirable, and we must begin to fix them.
Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is also chairman of the executive committee for the Texas Schools Project at the University of Texas at Dallas, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. Since 2005, he has been on California's Governor's Advisory Committee on Education Excellence and is also a member of the National Board for Education Sciences.