This study examines the relationship between two dominant measures of teacher quality, teacher qualification and teacher effectiveness (measured by value-added modeling), in terms of their influence on students’ short-term academic growth and long-term educational success (measured by bachelor’s degree attainment). As students are exposed to teachers of varying quality over the course of their schooling, this study computes cumulative teacher quality indices that are able to more precisely estimate the impact of teacher quality. Notably, this study found that students who had been taught by a succession of high-performing and qualified teachers tend to have a positive relationship with students’ short- and long-term educational success.
AaronsonD.BarrowL.SanderW. (2007). Teachers and student achievement in the Chicago public high schools. Journal of Labor Economics, 25, 95−135.
2.
AdelmanC. (2006). The toolbox revisited: Paths to degree completion from high school through college. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED490195.pdf
AudS.HussarW.PlantyM.SnyderT.BiancoK.FoxM. A.. . . DrakeL. (2010). The Condition of Education 2010 (NCES 2010-028). Washington DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010028.pdf
5.
BakerE. L.BartonP. E.Darling-HammondL.HaertelE.LaddH. F.LinnR. L.ShepardL. (2010). Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED516803.pdf
6.
BettsJ. R.ShkolnikJ. L. (2000). The effects of ability grouping on student achievement and resource allocation in secondary schools. Economics of Education Review, 19, 1–15.
7.
BettsJ. R.ZauA.RiceL. (2003). Determinants of student achievement: New evidence from San Diego. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institutes of California.
8.
BormanG. D.KimballS. M. (2005). Teacher quality and educational equality: Do teachers with higher standards-based evaluation ratings close student achievement gaps?The Elementary School Journal, 106, 3–20.
9.
BrophyJ.GoodT. L. (1986). Teacher Behavior and Student Achievement. In WittrockM. C. (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 328–375). London, England: Collier Macmillan.
10.
CarlinB. P.LouisT. A. (2000). Bayes and empirical Bayes methods for data analysis (2nd ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
11.
ChettyR.FriedmanJ. N.HilgerN.SaezE.SchanzenbachD. W.YaganD. (2010). How does your kindergarten classroom affect your earnings? Evidence from Project STAR (Working Paper No. 16381). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w16381.pdf
12.
ChettyR.FriedmanJ. N.RockoffJ. E. (2011). The long-term impacts of teachers: Teacher value-added and student outcomes in adulthood (Working Paper No. 17699). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w17699.pdf
13.
ChettyR.FriedmanJ. N.RockoffJ. E. (2013a). Measuring the impacts of teachers I: Evaluating bias in teacher value-added estimates (Working Paper No. 19423). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w19423.pdf
14.
ChettyR.FriedmanJ. N.RockoffJ. E. (2013b). Measuring the impacts of teachers II: Teacher value-added and student outcomes in adulthood (Working Paper No. 19424). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w19424.pdf
15.
ChingosM. M.PetersonP. E. (2011). It’s easier to pick a good teacher than to train one: Familiar and new results on the correlates of teacher effectiveness. Economics of Education Review, 30, 449–465.
16.
ClotfelterC.LaddH. F.VigdorJ.WheelerJ. (2006). High-poverty schools and the distribution of teachers and principals. North Carolina Law Review, 85, 1345–1379.
17.
ClotfelterC. T.LaddH. F.VigdorJ. L. (2007). Teacher credentials and student achievement: Longitudinal analysis with student fixed effects. Economics of Education Review, 26, 673–682.
18.
ColemanJ. S.CampbellE. Q.HobsonC. J.McPartlandJ.MoodA. M.WeinfeldF. D.YorkR. (1966). Equality of educational opportunity. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED012275.pdf
19.
CollinsC.Amrein-BeardsleyA. (2014). Putting growth and value-added models on the map: A national overview. Teachers College Record, 116(1), 1–32.
20.
CongerD. (2005). Within-school segregation in an urban school district. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 27, 225–244.
21.
CowanJ.GoldhaberD. (2016). National board certification and teacher effectiveness: Evidence from Washington State. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 9, 233–258.
22.
DeeT. S.CohodesS. R. (2008). Out-of-field teachers and student achievement evidence from matched-Pairs comparisons. Public Finance Review, 36, 7–32.
23.
DiPreteT. A.EirichG. M. (2006). Cumulative advantage as a mechanism for inequality: A review of theoretical and empirical developments. Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 271–297.
EhrenbergR. G.BrewerD. J.GamoranA.WillmsJ. D. (2001). Class size and student achievement. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2, 1–30.
26.
FeistritzerC. E.GriffinS.LinnajarviA. (2011). Profile of teachers in the U.S. 2011. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Information. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/media/pot2011final-blog.pdf
27.
GamoranA. (2002). Beyond curriculum wars: Content and understanding in mathematics. In LovelessT. (Ed.), The great curriculum debate: How should we teach reading and math? (pp. 134–162). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
28.
GeorgeR. (2003). Growth in students’ attitudes about the utility of science over the middle and high school years: Evidence from the longitudinal study of American youth. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 12, 439–448.
29.
GoeL. (2007). The link between teacher quality and student outcomes: A research synthesis. Washington, DC: National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED521219.pdf
30.
GoldhaberD. D. (2007). Everyone’s doing it, but what does teacher testing tell us about teacher effectiveness?Journal of Human Resources, 42, 765–794.
31.
GoldhaberD. D.BrewerD. J. (1996). Evaluating the effect of teacher degree level on educational performance. In FowlerW. J. (Ed.), Developments in school finance (pp. 197–210). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education.
32.
GoldhaberD. D.BrewerD. J. (1997). Why don’t schools and teachers seem to matter? Assessing the impact of unobservables on educational productivity. Journal of Human Resources, 32, 505–523.
33.
GoldhaberD. D.BrewerD. J. (2000). Does teacher certification matter? High school teacher certification status and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22, 129–145.
34.
GoldhaberD. D.QuinceV.TheobaldR. (2018). Has it always been this way? Tracing the evolution of teacher quality gaps in U.S. public schools. American Educational Research Journal, 55, 171–201.
35.
GoldhaberD. D.WalchJ.GabeleB. (2014). Does the model matter? Exploring the relationship between different student achievement-based teacher assessments. Statistics and Public Policy, 1, 28–39.
36.
GrahamJ. W.HoferS. M.DonaldsonS. I.MacKinnonD. P.SchaferJ. L. (1997). Analysis with missing data in prevention research. In BryantK. J.WindleM.WestS. G. (Eds.), The science of prevention: Methodological advances from alcohol and substance abuse research (pp. 325−366). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
37.
GrissmerD. W.FlanaganA.KawataJ. H.WilliamsonS.LaTourretteT. (2000). Improving student achievement: What state NAEP test scores tell us. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
38.
GrissomJ. A.KalogridesD.LoebS. (2015). Using student test scores to measure principal performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37, 3–28.
39.
GuarinoC. M.MaxfieldM.ReckaseM. D.ThompsonP. N.WooldridgeJ. M. (2015). An evaluation of empirical Bayes’s estimation of value-added teacher performance measures. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 40, 190–222.
40.
HanushekE. A.KainJ. F.O’BrienD. M.RivkinS. G. (2005). The market for teacher quality (Working Paper No. 11154). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w11154.pdf
41.
HanushekE. A.RivkinS. G. (2006). Teacher quality. In HanushekE. A.WelchF. (Eds.), Handbook of the economics of education (Vol. 2, pp. 1051–1078). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North Holland.
42.
HarrisD. N. (2011). Value-added measures in education: What every educator needs to know. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
43.
HarrisD. N.SassT. R. (2011). Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement. Journal of Public Economics, 95, 798–812.
44.
HaycockK. (1998). Good teaching matters: How well-qualified teachers can close the gap. Thinking K-16, 3(2), 1–17.
HongS. (2010). The reciprocal relationship between parental involvement and mathematics achievement: Autoregressive cross-lagged modeling. Journal of Experimental Education, 78, 419–439.
47.
HoxbyC. (2000). Peer effects in the classroom: Learning from gender and race variation (Working Paper No. 7867). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w7867
48.
IngersollR. M. (2003). Why schools have difficulty staffing their classrooms with qualified teachers?Educational Leadership, 60(8), 30–33.
49.
JacksonC. K. (2012). Non-cognitive ability, test scores, and teacher quality: Evidence from 9th grade teachers in North Carolina (Working Paper No. 18624). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w18624.pdf
50.
JacobB. A.LefgrenL.SimsD. (2008). The persistence of teacher-induced learning gains (Working Paper No. 14065). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w14065.pdf
51.
JacobB. A.RockoffJ. E.TaylorE. S.LindyB.RosenR. (2016). Teacher applicant hiring and teacher performance: Evidence from DC public schools (Working Paper No. 22054). Retrieved from http://http://www.nber.org/papers/w22054
52.
KalogridesD.LoebS. (2013). Different teachers, different peers the magnitude of student sorting within schools. Educational Researcher, 42, 304–316.
53.
KaneM. T. (2017). Measurement error and bias in value-added models (ETS Research Report Series No. 17–25). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Services. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/ets2.12153
54.
KaneT. J.CantrellS. (2013). Ensuring fair and reliable measures of effective teaching: Culminating findings from the MET Project’s three-year study. Seattle, WA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED540958.pdf
55.
KaneT. J.StaigerD. O. (2008). Estimating teacher impacts on student achievement: An experimental evaluation (Working Paper No. 14607). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w14607
56.
KoretzD. M. (2008). Measuring up: What educational testing really tells us. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
57.
LaddH. F. (2008). Teacher effects: What do we know? In DuncanG.SpillaneJ. (Eds.), Teacher quality: Broadening and deepening the debate (pp. 3–26). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University. Retrieved from http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/docs/teacher-quality.pdf
58.
LaddH. F.SorensenL. C. (2015). Do master’s degrees matter? Advanced degrees, career paths, and the effectiveness of teachers. Washington, DC: National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. Retrieved from https://caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/WP%20136_0.pdf
59.
LankfordH.LoebS.WyckoffJ. (2002). Teacher sorting and the plight of urban schools: A descriptive analysis. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24, 37–62.
60.
LeeS. W.MinS.MamerowG. P. (2015). Pygmalion in the classroom and the home: Expectation’s role in the pipeline to STEMM. Teachers College Record, 117(9), 1–40.
61.
LewisL.ParsadB.CareyN.BartfaiN.FarrisE.SmerdonB. (1999). Teacher quality: A report on the preparation and qualifications of public school teachers. Washington, DC: National Centre for Educational Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999080.pdf
62.
LittleR. J. (1988). A test of missing completely at random for multivariate data with missing values. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 83, 1198–1202.
63.
LittleR. J.RubinD. B. (1989). The analysis of social science data with missing values. Sociological Methods & Research, 18, 292–326.
64.
LongM. C.IatarolaP.CongerD. (2009). Explaining gaps in readiness for college-level math: The role of high school courses. Education Finance and Policy, 4, 1–33.
65.
LucasS. R.BerendsM. (2002). Sociodemographic diversity, correlated achievement, and de facto tracking. Sociology of Education, 75, 328–348.
66.
MaX. (2001). Participation in advanced mathematics: Do expectation and influence of students, peers, teachers, and parents matter?Contemporary Educational Psychology, 26, 132–146.
67.
MaX.XuJ. (2004). Determining the causal ordering between attitude toward mathematics and achievement in mathematics. American Journal of Education, 110, 256–280.
68.
McCaffreyD. F.LockwoodJ. R.KoretzD.LouisT. A.HamiltonL. (2004). Models for value-added modeling of teacher effects. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 29, 67–101.
McEwanP. J. (2003). Peer effects on student achievement: Evidence from Chile. Economics of Education Review, 22, 131–141.
71.
MillerJ. D.KimmelL.HofferT. B.NelsonC. (2000). Longitudinal study of American youth: User’s manual. Chicago, IL: International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy, Northwestern University.
72.
MillerR.RozaM. (2012). The sheepskin effect and student achievement: De-emphasizing the role of master’s degrees in teacher compensation. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED535593.pdf
73.
NewtonX. A.Darling-HammondL.HaertelE.ThomasE. (2010). Value-added modeling of teacher effectiveness: An exploration of stability across models and contexts. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 18(23), 1–23.
74.
NyeB.KonstantopoulosS.HedgesL. V. (2004). How large are teacher effects?Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26, 237–257.
75.
PapayJ. P. (2011). Different tests, different answers the stability of teacher value-added estimates across outcome measures. American Educational Research Journal, 48, 163–193.
76.
PapayJ. P.KraftM. A. (2015). Productivity returns to experience in the teacher labor market: Methodological challenges and new evidence on long-term career improvement. Journal of Public Economics, 130, 105–119.
77.
PotterD.MorrisD. S. (2017). Family and schooling experiences in racial/ethnic academic achievement gaps: A cumulative perspective. Sociological Perspectives, 60, 132–167.
78.
PotterD.RoksaJ. (2013). Accumulating advantages over time: Family experiences and social class inequality in academic achievement. Social Science Research, 42, 1018–1032.
79.
RiceJ. K. (2003). Teacher quality: Understanding the effectiveness of teacher attributes. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
80.
RivkinS. G.HanushekE. A.KainJ. F. (2005). Teachers, schools, and academic achievement. Econometrica, 73, 417–458.
81.
RockoffJ. E. (2004). The impact of individual teachers on student achievement: Evidence from panel data. American Economic Review, 94, 247–252.
82.
RothsteinJ. (2009). Student sorting and bias in value-added estimation: Selection on observables and unobservables. Education Finance and Policy, 4, 537–571.
83.
RothsteinJ. (2017). Measuring the impacts of teachers: Comment. American Economic Review, 107, 1656–1684.
84.
RoystonP. (2005). Multiple imputation of missing values: Update of ice. Stata Journal, 5, 527–536.
85.
RubinD. B. (1987). Multiple imputation for nonresponse in surveys. New York, NY: John Wiley.
SchaferJ. L.GrahamJ. W. (2002). Missing data: Our view of the state of the art. Psychological Methods, 7, 147–177.
88.
ShettleC.RoeyS.MordicaJ.PerkinsR.NordC.TeodorovicJ.. . . KastbergD. (2007). The nation’s report card: America’s high school graduates (NCES 2007–467). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED495682.pdf
89.
von HippelP. T. (2007). Regression with missing Ys: An improved strategy for analyzing multiply imputed data. Sociological Methodology, 37, 83–117.
90.
WangJ.WildmanL. (1996). The relationship between parental influences and student achievement in seventh grade mathematics. School Science and Mathematics, 96, 395–400.
91.
WeisbergD.SextonS.MulhernJ.KeelingD. (2009). The widget effect: Our national failure to acknowledge and act on differences in teacher effectiveness. Brooklyn, NY: New Teacher Project. Retrieved from https://tntp.org/assets/documents/TheWidgetEffect_2nd_ed.pdf
92.
WillsonA. E.ShueyK. M.ElderG. H.Jr. (2007). Cumulative advantage processes as mechanisms of inequality in life course health. American Journal of Sociology, 112, 1886–1924.
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.
