Can teacher quality be effectively assessed?: (723242011-001)

Abstract

Education research has failed to reach a consensus over which, if any, readily identifiable teacher characteristics are associated with students ’ learning gains, and it remains an open question whether it is even possible to judge teachers ’ effectiveness outside of direct observations of their teaching. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) was established in 1987 to help address these issues through the creation of a voluntary certification process whereby teachers who are considered highly effective can demonstrate, and gain recognition for, their knowledge and teaching skills. Yet despite considerable interest and financial investment in the NBPTS model, and the fact that a significant number of teachers have gone through the certification process, there is little quantitative evidence on whether NBPTS is successfully accomplishing its stated mission: to advance the quality of teaching and learning by establishing standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do. In this paper, we describe the results of a study, based on a unique data set from North Carolina, assessing the relationship between NBPTS certification of teachers and elementary level student achievement. More specifically, we estimate student-level value-added models and test whether the value added by teachers certified by NBPTS differs from that of unsuccessful NBPTS applicants and nonapplicant teachers. Our findings indicate that NBPTS-certified teachers, based on student achievement gains, appear to be more effective than their noncertified counterparts, and that NBPTS is successfully identifying the more effective teachers among NBPTS applicants. The statistical significance and magnitude of the “NBPTS effect, ” however, differs significantly by grade level and student type. Acknowledgements