Public Accountability and Nudges: The Effect of an Information Intervention on the Responsiveness of Teacher Education Programs to External Ratings

Abstract

In the summer of 2013, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) issued public ratings of teacher education programs. We provide the first empirical examination of NCTQ ratings, beginning with a descriptive overview of the ratings and how they evolved from 2013–2016. We also report on results from an information experiment built around the initial ratings release. In the experiment we provided targeted information about specific programmatic changes that would improve the rating for a randomly selected sample of elementary teacher education programs. Average program ratings improved between 2013 and 2016, but we find no evidence that the information intervention increased program responsiveness to NCTQ’s rating effort. In fact, treated programs had lower ratings than the control group in 2016.

Keywords

information experiment institutional nudge NCTQ ratings teacher education university ratings

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

ACT. (2009, October). ACT-SAT concordance tables. Retrieved from http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/ACTCollegeBoardJointStatement.pdf

Alter

Reback

(2014). True for your school? How changing reputations alter demand for selective US colleges. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36, 346–370.

American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. (2012, May 25). Latest NCTQ report validates concerns over group’s flawed research and bias. Retrieved from https://aacte.org/news-room/press-releases-statements/129-latest-nctq-report-validates-concerns-over-groups-flawed-research-and-bias

American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. (2013, July 19). Setting the record straight: AACTE’s engagement on the National Council on Teacher Quality Teacher Prep Review. Retrieved from https://aacte.org/news-room/press-releases-statements/152-setting-the-record-straight-aactes-engagement-on-the-national-council-on-teacher-quality-teacher-prep-review

Ballou

Podgursky

(2000). Reforming teacher preparation and licensing: What is the evidence? Teachers College Record, 102(1), 5–27.

Barr

Turner

(2018). A letter and encouragement: Does information increase post-secondary enrollment of UI recipients? American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 10(3), 42–68.

Beshears

Choi

J. J.

Laibson

Madrian

B. C.

Milkman

K. L.

(2015). The effect of providing peer information on retirement savings decisions. The Journal of Finance 70(3), 1161–1201.

Bovens

(2005). The concept of public accountability. In Ferlie

Lynne

Pollitt

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of public management (p. 182). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press

Castleman

B. L.

Page

L. C.

(2015). Summer nudging: Can personalized text messages and peer mentor outreach increase college going among low-income high school graduates? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 115, 144–160. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.008

10.

Castleman

B. L.

Page

L. C.

(2016). Freshman year financial aid nudges: An experiment to increase FAFSA renewal and college persistence. Journal of Human Resources, 51, 389–415. doi:10.3368/jhr.51.2.0614-6458r

11.

Chetty

Friedman

J. N.

Rockoff

J. E.

(2014). Measuring the impacts of teachers II: Teacher value-added and student outcomes in adulthood. American Economic Review, 104, 2633–2679.

12.

Clark

R. L.

Maki

J. A.

Morrill

M. S.

(2014). Can simple informational nudges increase employee participation in a 401(k) plan? Southern Economic Journal, 80, 677–701.

13.

Cochran-Smith

Zeichner

K. M.

(2005). Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

14.

Crowe

(2010, July 9). Measuring what matters: A stronger accountability model for teacher education. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2010/07/29/8066/measuring-what-matters/

15.

Darling-Hammond

(2013, June 18). Why the NCTQ teacher prep ratings are nonsense. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/18/why-the-nctq-teacher-prep-ratings-are-nonsense/?utm_term=.5cbe8d0b0e53

16.

Darolia

Harper

(2018). Information use and attention deferment in college student loan decisions: Evidence from a debt letter experiment. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 40, 129–150. doi:10.3102/0162373717734368

17.

Dee

T. S.

Wyckoff

(2015). Incentives, selection, and teacher performance: Evidence from IMPACT. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 34, 267–297.

18.

Duncan

(2016, October 4). An open letter to America’s college presidents and education school deans. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/10/04/arne-duncan-letter-education-school-deans/

19.

Ehrenberg

(2003). Reaching for the brass ring: The US News & World Report rankings and competition. Review of Higher Education, 26, 145–162.

20.

ERIC. (1986a). A nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st century (The Report of the Task Force on Teaching as a Profession). New York, NY: Carnegie Corp.

21.

ERIC. (1986b). Tomorrow’s teachers. Lansing, MI: Holmes Group. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED270454.pdf

22.

Ferraro

P. J.

Price

M. K.

(2013). Using nonpecuniary strategies to influence behavior: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment. Review of Economics and Statistics, 95, 64–73.

23.

Fullan

Galluzzo

Morris

Watson

(1998). The rise and stall of teacher education reform. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

24.

Fuller

E. J.

(2014). Shaky methods, shaky motives: A critique of the National Council of Teacher Quality’s review of teacher preparation programs. Journal of Teacher Education, 65, 63–77.

25.

Goldhaber

Brewer

Anderson

(1999). A three-way error components analysis of educational productivity. Education Economics, 7, 199–208.

26.

Goldhaber

Krieg

Theobald

(2014). Knocking on the door to the teaching profession? Modeling the entry of prospective teachers into the workforce. Economics of Education Review, 43, 106–124.

27.

Goldhaber

Liddle

Theobald

(2013). The gateway to the profession: Assessing teacher preparation programs based on student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 34, 29–44.

28.

Greenberg

Walsh

Mckee

(2013). Teacher prep review: A review of the nation’s teacher preparation programs. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality. Retrieved from https://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Teacher_Prep_Review_2013_Report

29.

Guyton

Manoli

D. S.

Schafer

Sebastiani

(2016). Reminders and recidivism: Evidence from tax filing and EITC participation among low-income nonfilers (No. w21904). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. doi:10.3386/w21904

30.

Hanushek

E. A.

Rivkin

(2010). Generalizations about using value-added measures of teacher quality. American Economic Review, 100, 267–271.

31.

Heller

D. E.

(2014, November 14). “Easy A’s” gets an F. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Easy-A-s-Gets-an-F/150025

32.

Henry

G. T.

Bastian

K. C.

(2015). Measuring up: The National Council on Teacher Quality’s ratings of teacher preparation programs and measures of teacher performance. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, College of Arts and Sciences, Education Policy Initiative.

33.

Hippel

P. T.

von, Bellows

Osborne

Lincove

J. A.

Mills

(2016). Teacher quality differences between teacher preparation programs: How big? How reliable? Which programs are different? Economics of Education Review, 53, 31–45.

34.

Hoxby

Turner

(2013). Expanding opportunities for high-achieving, low-income students (Working Paper No. 12-014). Stanford, CA: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Retrieved from http://siepr.stanford.edu/publicationsprofile/2555

35.

Jackson

C. K.

(2016). What do test scores miss? The importance of teacher effects on non-test-score outcomes (NBER Working Paper Series No. 22226). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w22226.pdf

36.

Kellerman

Rice

(2016, April 25). Med school leaders: Why we’re not participating in the U.S. News rankings anymore. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/04/25/med-school-leaders-why-were-not-participating-in-the-u-s-news-rankings-any-more/?utm_term=.544e7a211364

37.

Killeen

Loeb

Williams

(2015). A double draw of proximity: The importance of geography in teacher application and hiring decisions. Stanford, CA: Center for Education Policy Analysis.

38.

Koedel

Parsons

Podgursky

Ehlert

(2015). Teacher preparation programs and teacher quality: Are there real differences across programs? Education Finance and Policy, 10, 508–534.

39.

Kraft

M. A.

(2017). Teacher effects on complex cognitive skills and social-emotional competencies. Journal of Human Resources. Advance online publication. doi:10.3368/jhr.54.1.0916.8265r3

40.

Levine

(2006). Educating school teachers (Education Schools Project). Retrieved from http://edschools.org/pdf/Educating_Teachers_Report.pdf

41.

Luca

Smith

(2013). Salience in quality disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. News college rankings. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 22, 58–77.

42.

Marx

B. M.

Turner

L. J.

(in press). Student loan nudges: Experimental evidence on borrowing and educational attainment. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

43.

McDonough

P. M.

Lising

Walpole

A. M.

Perez

L. X.

(1998). College rankings: Democratized college knowledge for whom? Research in Higher Education, 39, 513–537.

44.

McLendon

M. K.

(2003). State governance reform of higher education: Patterns, trends, and theories of the public policy process. In Paulsen

M. B.

Perna

L. W.

(Series Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 57–143). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.

45.

Meredith

(2004). Why do universities compete in the ratings game? An empirical analysis of the effects of the US News & World Report college rankings. Research in Higher Education, 45, 443–461.

46.

Meyer

A. G.

Hanson

A. R.

Hickman

D. C.

(2017). Perceptions of institutional quality: Evidence of limited attention to higher education rankings. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 142, 241–258.

47.

Monks

Ehrenberg

R. G.

(1999). The impact of U.S. News & World Report college rankings on admissions outcomes and pricing policies at selective private institutions (CHERI Working Paper No. 1). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=cheri

48.

Nye

Konstantopoulos

Hedges

L. V.

(2004). How large are teacher effects? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26, 237–257.

49.

Nelson

(2014, September 9). The US News rankings are terrible for students. Why don’t colleges stop them? Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2014/9/5/6106807/college-rankings-us-news-boston-clemson-problems

50.

Peck

C. A.

McDonald

(2013). Creating “cultures of evidence” in teacher education: Context, policy, and practice in three high-data-use programs. The New Educator, 9, 12–28.

51.

Ranson

(2003). Public accountability in the age of neo-liberal governance. Journal of Education Policy, 18, 459–480.

52.

Rapoport

N. B.

(1999). Ratings, not rankings: Why US News & World Report shouldn’t want to be compared to Time and Newsweek—or The New Yorker. Ohio State Law Journal, 60(3), 1097–1101.

53.

Reininger

(2012). Hometown disadvantage? It depends on where you’re from: Teachers’ location preferences and the implications for staffing schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 34, 127–145.

54.

Resmovits

(2013, June 18). Teacher preparation program rankings make U.S. News debut. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/18/teacher-preparation-program-rankings_n_3456389.html

55.

Romzek

B. S.

(2000). Dynamics of public sector accountability in an era of reform. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 66, 21–44.

56.

Ronfeldt

Campbell

S. L.

(2016). Evaluating teacher preparation using graduates’ observational ratings. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38, 603–625.

57.

Sauder

Lancaster

(2006). Do rankings matter? The effects of U.S. News & World Report rankings on the admissions process of law schools. Law & Society Review, 40, 105–134.

58.

Startz

(2016, December 8). Teacher prep ratings: 2016 edition. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/12/08/teacher-prep-ratings-2016-edition/

59.

Strauss

(2018, September 12). The problem with the 2018 U.S. News rankings: Junk in, junk out. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/09/12/the-problem-with-the-2018-u-s-news-rankings-junk-in-junk-out/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8829c0e7279d

60.

Thaler

R. H.

Sunstein

C. R.

(2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

61.

Tierney

(2013, September 10). Your annual reminder to ignore the U.S News & World Report college rankings. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/your-annual-reminder-to-ignore-the-em-us-news-world-report-em-college-rankings/279103/

62.

U.S. Department of Education. (2009, October 22). US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says colleges of education must improve for reforms to succeed. Retrieved from https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-secretary-education-arne-duncan-says-colleges-education-must-improve-reforms-succeed

63.

Vergari

Hess

(2002). The accreditation game: Can accreditation ensure quality teacher training? Education Next, 2(3). Retrieved from https://www.educationnext.org/the-accreditation-game/

64.

Zumeta

Kinne

(2011). Accountability policies: Directions old and new. In Heller

D. E.

(Ed.), The states and public higher education policy: Affordability, access, and accountability (pp. 173–199). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.03 MB

0.02 MB

0.03 MB