Working Paper: NBER ID: w14314
Authors: Donald Boyd; Pamela Grossman; Hamilton Lankford; Susanna Loeb; James Wyckoff
Abstract: There are fierce debates over the best way to prepare teachers. Some argue that easing entry into teaching is necessary to attract strong candidates, while others argue that investing in high quality teacher preparation is the most promising approach. Most agree, however, that we lack a strong research basis for understanding how to prepare teachers. This paper is one of the first to estimate the effects of features of teachers' preparation on teachers' value-added to student test score performance in math and English Language Arts. Our results indicate variation across preparation programs in the average effectiveness of the teachers they are supplying to New York City schools. In particular, preparation directly linked to practice appears to benefit teachers in their first year.
Keywords: Teacher preparation; Student achievement; Education policy
JEL Codes: I20; I21; I28; J24; J45
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Variation across teacher preparation programs (A21) | average effectiveness of teachers (A21) |
| teacher preparation emphasizing practical classroom work (A21) | greater effectiveness in first year of teaching (A21) |
| oversight of student teaching experiences (A22) | teacher effectiveness (A21) |
| requirement of a capstone project (Y40) | teacher effectiveness (A21) |
| opportunities to learn about NYC curriculum (A21) | student test score gains (I24) |
| learning about student learning strategies (I25) | teacher effectiveness (A21) |