What factors account for teacher effectiveness in terms of student achievement outcomes? To what extent, and in what ways, does the importance of these factors vary for the performance of different types of students?

For three of our states (North Carolina, Texas, and Florida) and for New York City we have data that allow us to investigate the effect of a wide range of teacher characteristics on student performance. The particular factors vary somewhat from dataset to dataset, but we typically have information on teacher education level, degree, undergraduate institution, and teacher test performance in addition to demographic characteristics.

In some datasets we additionally have teacher coursework in college, the characteristics of the teacher training program they completed, their hometown, and the amount of professional development they have received on the job.

Because we are able to link teachers with students in some of our databases1, we are able to identify characteristics and experiences of teachers that make a difference for student achievement. Perhaps most importantly, we are able to distinguish effects for students with different backgrounds, e.g., limited English, poverty, immigrant status, age level, achievement level, etc.

Other CALDER Research Questions:

• How do teacher policies affect the recruitment, retention and assignment of teachers at the district, school and classroom levels (who teaches what students) and student outcomes (student achievement and attainment)?
  
• How do governance policies, especially accountability policies, affect the recruitment, retention and assignment of teachers at the district, school and classroom levels (who teaches what students) and student outcomes (student achievement and attainment)?
  
• How are the dynamics of social and economic context related to policy, teacher recruitment, retention and assignment, and student outcomes?

Or, go back to the description of outcomes examined by CALDER research.

Notes from this section

1. New York City, North Carolina and Florida provide information on classroom assignment of teachers and students, and in Texas we can link teachers and students at the grade level within school.