Center for Education Policy Analysis - Federal and State Education Policy

Performance Screens for School Improvement: The Case of Teacher Tenure Reform in New York City

Hiep Ho — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 21:58:01 +0000

Author/s:

Susanna Loeb

Luke C. Miller

James Wyckoff

Year of Publication:

2015

Publication:

Educational Researcher

Volume/Issue:

44(4)

Pages:

199-212

Tenure is intended to protect teachers with demonstrated teaching skills against arbitrary or capricious dismissal. Critics of typical tenure processes argue that tenure assessments are superficial and rarely discern whether teachers in fact have the requisite teaching skills. A recent reform of the tenure process in New York City provides an unusual opportunity to learn about the role of tenure in teachers’ career outcomes. We find the reform led to many fewer teachers receiving tenure. Those not receiving tenure typically had their probationary periods extended to allow them an opportunity to demonstrate teaching effectiveness. These “extended” teachers were much more likely to leave their schools and be replaced by a teacher who was judged to be more effective.

Teacher tenure has been controversial since the first tenure provisions were enacted over a century ago. Proponents typically argue that tenure prevents teacher dismissal for political purposes or due to capricious decisions by administrators or politicians. Tenure could guard against dismissal of more experienced, higher paid teachers during periods of tight budgets when school leaders may be more focused on reducing costs while meeting class size requirements than they are on student learning. Tenure does not require schools or districts to retain ineffective teachers but instead provides a due process mechanism to dismiss tenured teachers for cause. Critics, however, argue that the cost of due process does, in practice, lead districts to retain ineffective teachers and as a result tenure not only allows poor teachers to stay in the classroom but also reduces the incentive for teachers to be as effective as they could be. They argue that the due process mechanisms for removing teachers with tenure are so burdensome that they rarely are pursued.

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Primary Research Area:

Teaching and Leadership Effectiveness

Secondary Research Area:

Federal and State Education Policy

Topic Areas:

Accountability, Education Governance, Teacher Quality

Education Level:

K-12

Project/s:

Teacher Policy Research

Teacher Turnover, Teacher Quality, and Student Achievement in DCPS

Hiep Ho — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 18:02:27 +0000

Author/s:

Melinda Adnot

Thomas Dee

Veronica Katz

James Wyckoff

Year of Publication:

2017

Publication:

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

Volume/Issue:

39(1)

Pages:

54-76

In practice, teacher turnover appears to have negative effects on school quality as measured by student performance. However, some simulations suggest that turnover can instead have large, positive effects under a policy regime in which low-performing teachers can be accurately identified and replaced with more effective teachers. This study examines this question by evaluating the effects of teacher turnover on student achievement under IMPACT, the unique performance-assessment and incentive system in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). Employing a quasi-experimental design based on data from the first year years of IMPACT, we find that, on average, DCPS replaced teachers who left with teachers who increased student achievement by 0.08 SD in math. When we isolate the effects of lower-performing teachers who were induced to leave DCPS for poor performance, we find that student achievement improves by larger and statistically significant amounts (i.e., 0.14 SD in reading and 0.21 SD in math). In contrast, the effect of exits by teachers not sanctioned under IMPACT is typically negative but not statistically significant.

Download 01/2016

Primary Research Area:

Teaching and Leadership Effectiveness

Topic Areas:

Student Success, Teacher Labor Markets, Teacher Quality

Education Level:

K-12

Teacher Workforce Developments: Recent Changes in Academic Competiveness and Job Satisfaction of New Teachers

Hiep Ho — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 22:17:52 +0000

Author/s:

Susanna Loeb

Benjamin Master

Min Sun

Year of Publication:

2015

The capacity of the nation’s public schools to recruit and retain highly skilled teachers is a perennial concern of policy makers and school leaders. Over the past two decades, major policy strategies including the federal No Child Left Behind Act and alternative pathways to teaching, as well as changes in the broader labor market, have altered the context in which academically skilled college graduates choose whether to enter teaching, and, if so, where to teach. Using data from 1993 to 2008, we find that schools nationwide are recruiting a greater share of highly skilled college graduates into teaching, and that increases in teachers’ academic skills are especially large in urban school districts that serve predominantly non-white students. On the other hand, the increase in the share of academically skilled teachers coincides with the lower likelihood of non-white teachers being hired. Once hired, non-white teachers report substantially lower job satisfaction than other teachers. The issue of how to recruit and support highly skilled and diverse teacher workforce remains pressing.

Download 11/2015

Primary Research Area:

Teaching and Leadership Effectiveness

Topic Areas:

Educational Equity, Societal Context, Teacher Labor Markets, Teacher Quality

Education Level:

K-12

Will public pre-K really close achievement gaps? Gaps in prekindergarten quality between students and across states

Hiep Ho — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 19:02:46 +0000

Author/s:

Rachel A. Valentino

Year of Publication:

2017

Publication:

American Educational Research Journal

Volume/Issue:

55(1)

Publicly funded pre-K is often touted as a means to narrow achievement gaps, but this goal is less likely to be achieved if poor/minority children do not, at a minimum, attend equal quality pre-K as their non-poor/non-minority peers. In this paper I find large “quality gaps” in public pre-K between poor/minority students and non-poor/non-minority students, ranging from 0.3 to 0.7 SD on a range of classroom observational measures. I also find that even after adjusting for several classroom characteristics, significant and sizable quality gaps remain. Finally, I find much between-state variation in gap magnitudes, and that state-level quality gaps are related to state-level residential segregation. These findings are particularly troubling if a goal of public pre-K is to minimize inequality.

Download 08/2017

Primary Research Area:

Poverty and Inequality

Topic Areas:

Educational Equity, School Effectiveness, Societal Context, Student Success

Education Level:

Early Childhood

What Levels of Racial Diversity can be Achieved with Socioeconomic-Based Affirmative Action? Evidence from a Simulation Model

Hiep Ho — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 22:52:04 +0000

Author/s:

Year of Publication:

2018

Publication:

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management

Volume/Issue:

37(3)

Pages:

630-657

URL:

https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22056

This paper investigates to what extent socioeconomic status (SES)-based affirmative action in college admissions can produce racial diversity. Using simulation models, we investigate the racial and socioeconomic distribution of students among colleges under the use of race- or SES-based affirmative action policies, and/or targeted, race-based recruitment policies. We find, first, that neither SES-based affirmative action nor race-targeted recruiting on their own produce levels of racial diversity achieved by race-based affirmative action. However, the two policies in combination, although likely expensive, may yield racial diversity comparable to race-based affirmative action. Second, the use of affirmative action policies by some colleges reduces the diversity of similar-quality colleges without such policies. Third, the combination of SES-based affirmative action and race recruiting results in fewer academically-overmatched Black and Hispanic students than under race-based affirmative action, but the schools that use both also see a reduction in the academic achievement of enrolled students.

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Primary Research Area:

Poverty and Inequality

Topic Areas:

Educational Equity, Societal Context, Student Success

Education Level:

Higher Education

Teachers' Preferences to Teach Underserved Students

Hiep Ho — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 02:08:40 +0000

Author/s:

Matthew Ronfeldt

Andrew Kwok

Michelle Reininger

Year of Publication:

2014

Publication:

Urban Education

URL:

http://uex.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/10/20/0042085914553676

To increase the supply of teachers into underserved schools, teacher educators and policymakers commonly use two approaches: (a) recruit individuals who already report strong preferences to work in underserved schools or (b) design pre-service preparation to increase preferences. Using survey and administrative data on more than 1,000 teachers in a large, urban district, this study provides some of the first district-level evidence for both approaches. Individuals with stronger underserved preferences and teachers of color were more likely to enter underserved schools. Underserved preferences also increased across pre-service student teaching, although increases were mostly unrelated to working with underserved student populations.

Primary Research Area:

Teaching and Leadership Effectiveness

Secondary Research Area:

Federal and State Education Policy

Topic Areas:

Educational Equity, Educator Preparation and Development, Teacher Quality

Education Level:

K-12

Who Loses Out? Registration Order, Course Availability, and Student Behaviors in Community College

Hiep Ho — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 21:48:29 +0000

Author/s:

Oded Gurantz

Year of Publication:

2015

Publication:

Journal of Higher Education

Volume/Issue:

86(4)

Pages:

524-563

URL:

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/v086/86.4.gurantz.html

In California, the combination of budget cuts and high unemployment from the Great Recession has resulted in "overcrowded" conditions, with more students attempting to enroll in fewer available classes. State-level policy recommendations have focused on altering registration priorities to mitigate the impact of overcrowding, but it is unclear whether these changes will impact enrollment as little is known about student behavior within these systems. Present-biased individuals who must engage in immediate efforts to obtain delayed rewards may procrastinate before beginning a task and vary in how intensely they engage in a task once they begin, and registration is found to be no exception. Varying levels of delay and intensity were found to be predictive of students' course-taking patterns, even after controlling for a wide range of background characteristics, including previous registration delay and intensity. As a result, many courses that met graduation or transfer requirements had seat availability during the registration process and only closed near the beginning of the semester, which is in contrast to common narratives of overcrowding. Student registration is an understudied part of the college process, but suboptimal registration behaviors are shown to have significant consequences on the likelihood of college enrollment and retention.

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Primary Research Area:

Poverty and Inequality

Secondary Research Area:

Federal and State Education Policy

Topic Areas:

Educational Equity, Information Provision and Use

Education Level:

Higher Education

Spending More of the School Day in Math Class: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity in Middle School

Hiep Ho — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:29:36 +0000

Author/s:

Eric S. Taylor

Year of Publication:

2014

Publication:

Journal of Public Economics

Volume/Issue:

117

Pages:

162-181

For students whose math skills lag expectations, public schools often increase the fraction of the school day spent on math instruction. Studying middle-school students and using regression discontinuity methods, I estimate the causal effect of requiring two math classes—one remedial, one regular—instead of just one class. Math achievement grows much faster under the requirement, 0.16-0.18 student standard deviations. Yet, one year after returning to a regular one-class schedule, the initial gains decay by as much as half, and two years later just one-third of the initial treatment effect remains. This pattern of decaying effects over time mirrors other educational interventions—assignment to a more skilled teacher, reducing class size, retaining students—but spending more time on math carries different costs. One cost is notable, more time in math crowds out instruction in other subjects.

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Primary Research Area:

Teaching and Leadership Effectiveness

Secondary Research Area:

Federal and State Education Policy

Topic Areas:

Curriculum and Instruction, Student Success

Education Level:

K-12

Left Behind? The Effect of No Child Left Behind on Academic Achievement Gaps

Hiep Ho — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 17:34:02 +0000

Author/s:

Year of Publication:

2013

One of the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; 20 U.S.C. § 6301) was to close racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps. Over a decade has passed since NCLB went into effect. In this paper we investigate whether the Act has been successful at narrowing racial achievement gaps. Overall, our analyses provide no support for the hypothesis that No Child Left Behind has led, on average, to a narrowing of racial achievement gaps. We find that within-state achievement gaps were closing slowly, on average, prior to the passage of the NCLB legislation, and that this trend did not change significantly after the introduction of NCLB. However, we do find evidence indicating that the policy’s impact varies systematically across states in ways that are consistent with NCLB’s subgroup-specific accountability features. In states facing more subgroup-specific accountability pressure, more between-school segregation, and larger gaps prior to the implementation of the policy, NCLB appears to have narrowed white-black and white-Hispanic achievement gaps; in states facing less pressure, less segregation, and smaller pre-existing gaps, NCLB appears to have led to a widening of white-black and white-Hispanic achievement gaps. We conclude with a discussion of potential explanations for these findings.

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Primary Research Area:

Poverty and Inequality

Secondary Research Area:

Federal and State Education Policy

Topic Areas:

Education Governance, Educational Equity, Student Success

Education Level:

K-12

The Impact of a Senior High School Tuition Relief Program on Poor Junior High School Students in Rural China

Hiep Ho — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 19:45:39 +0000

Author/s:

Xinxin Chen

Yaojiang Shi

Hongmei Yi

Linxiu Zhang

Di Mo

James Chu

Prashant Loyalka

Scott Rozelle

Year of Publication:

2013

Publication:

China World and Economy

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of LICOS, K.U. Leuven. We also thank Jade Chien, a supporter/advisor of the Rural Education Action Project, and her family. The project could not have been done without the collaboration of the Ningshan County, Shiquan County and Hanying County bureaus of education. We thank Jiang Jun, the former head of Education Bureau of Ningshan, for support during the project. The students from Northwest University of Xi’an, especially Fan Li and Huan Wang, carried out the survey work. We thank each and every one of them.

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Primary Research Area:

Poverty and Inequality

Secondary Research Area:

Federal and State Education Policy

Topic Areas:

Educational Equity, Finance

Education Level:

K-12