About TERA Working Papers
This series features working papers completed by TERA staff and research collaborators. Working papers are preliminary versions meant for discussion purposes only in order to contribute to ongoing conversations about research and practice. Research papers have not undergone external peer review.
2024
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The Next Generation of Teachers: A Study of Interest in the Teaching Profession
The landscape of the teaching profession in the United States is transforming, marked by declining interest among high school students in pursuing careers in education. This brief examines interest in teaching careers among high school students and labor market trends among our newest teachers, with a specific focus on the southeastern United States. Through descriptive analyses of statewide administrative data and surveys, this study highlights how interest in a career in education has shifted in terms of high school students’ aspirations to pursue a career in teaching, as well as recent trends in preparation pathways among newly hired educators.
2023
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Policy-Assigned Teacher Observations, Their Implementation, and Student Discipline Outcomes
This study is the first to estimate main, mediated, and moderated relationships between policy-assigned observations and various student discipline outcomes (SDOs). We also examine the relationships between SDOs and observations conducted. The data suggest that the percentage of students who receive at least one SDO decreases as policy assigns schools an additional 25 observations and that in-school suspension reductions drive this relationship. Improvements in teachers' classroom management skills mediate some SDO reductions. We find that several relationships substantively depend on the degree of prior-year SDOs and the average teacher's years of experience. While policy may reduce SDOs, the data also suggest that schools implement observations in ways that may increase them.
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Exploring Whether and How Teacher Residencies Offer a Different Kind of Preparation
The past two decades have seen the rise of the residency model, another non-traditional pathway to certification that offers an intensive, practice-based, context-specific preparation designed to address shortages in hard-to-staff districts. Using a survey of the programmatic features that characterize the model administered to all programs across Tennessee, we find that residencies offer a unique pathway to teaching in some expected ways though not all. Specifically, residencies reported longer clinical placements, more financial support for residents, and higher rates of mentor training, though they mostly did not report unique practices of candidate recruitment, district partnership, mentor selection, or curricular design.
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Effect of Performance-based Compensation Systems on Principal Labor Markets
Prior research documented that the quality of school principals is inequitably distributed. Given the pivotal role that school principals play in improving student and school performance, this sorting pattern is a concern among policymakers. One possible way to address the problem may be to use performance-based compensation systems (PBCS) to influence principal labor markets. This study investigated the impact of PBCS on principal turnover and hiring in Tennessee, using longitudinal administrative data obtained from the Tennessee Department of Education and unique school- and district-level PBCS data from 2012 to 2020.
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Consistency and Variation in Learning Experiences Across the Early Grades
The personal and societal benefits of providing quality early education experiences are well supported by research. However, there remain open questions as to the features and experiences that define quality and effective early education classrooms, and if these features and experiences differ as a function of grade level. The current study aims to examine how key features of prekindergarten through 2nd grade U.S. classrooms vary (or remain consistent) across grade levels. Using a behavioral-based observation system, this study found that across the early school years, instruction tends to focus on basic skills and is provided in whole-class groupings and elicits passive participation from students. Across all grades, there was a predominant focus on language arts. These findings highlight the need to consider the appropriateness of pushing down the academic demands typical to 1st grade and above into prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms in the U.S.
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ACT Testing Policy in Tennessee: Effects on Test-Taking, Scores, and College Enrollment
Several states have implemented universal college entrance exams in which all high school juniors sit for the test on a school day. In 2016, Tennessee became the first universal exam state to expand the policy to include a free universal retake for all students in fall of senior year. Using longitudinal state administrative data, this study explores the impact of this Tennessee policy on retake rates, ACT scores, and postsecondary enrollment. Results indicate that the policy has substantially increased retaking rates and narrowed income-based gaps in access to the exams. However, the policy has done little to improve overall ACT scores, and therefore, has likely not impacted trends in college enrollment by way of higher ACT scores.
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Waived English Learners: The Understudied Intersection of English Learner and Special Education Status
This longitudinal study explores the likelihood and timing of SPED placement by English language support service waiver status. To address the growing, yet limited research at the intersection of EL and SPED status, we ask: How does the likelihood and timing of placement into overall SPED, SLD, and SLI differ between ever-Waived ELs and never-Waived ELs? Our results revealed that ELs’ timing and likelihood of SPED placement, and particularly specific learning disability (SLD) and speech-language impairment (SLI), varied by English language support service waiver status. This study extends current understandings at the important, yet understudied intersection of EL and SPED services and offers new insight into the understudied Waived EL subgroup in a new destination state context.
2022
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Cultivating Coaching in Clinical Mentors: An Experimental Evaluation of the Mentors Matter Professional Development Initiative
Despite their critical role in the preparation of pre-service teachers, very little research has explored the impacts of offering mentors professional development around how to coach and support their candidates. We conduct an evaluation of a professional development opportunity offered by the state of Tennessee to randomly assigned mentors at six different programs over the course of three years, investigating its impacts on the perceptions and practices of both the mentors themselves and their candidates. We find that professional development increases mentors' frequency of coaching and mentors' own instructional effectiveness, particularly in emphasized areas, as well as candidates' employment rates, highlighting the potential of mentor professional development to improve the clinical placement experience as a whole.
2021
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Teacher Preparation Programs and Graduates' Growth in Instructional Effectiveness
Many prior studies have examined whether there are average differencesin levels of teaching effectiveness among graduates fromdifferentteacher preparation programs (TPPs); other studies have investigated whichfeatures of preparation predict graduates' average levels of teaching effectiveness.This is the first study to examinewhether there are average differences between TPPsin terms of graduates' average growth, rather than levels, in teaching effectiveness, and to consider which features predict this growth. Examining all graduates from Tennessee TPPs from 2010 to 2018, we find meaningful differences between TPPs in terms of both levels and growth in teaching effectiveness. We also find that different TPP features, including areas of endorsement, program type, clinical placement type and length, program size, and faculty composition explain part of these differences. Yet, the features that predict initial teaching effectiveness are not the same features that predict growth.
2020
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District-led School Turnaround: Aiming for Ambitious and Equitable Instruction in Shelby County's iZone
This report presents the findings of a multi-year research project that sought to understand the iZone's underlying strategy and the dynamics of implementation as teachers and leaders attempted to maintain growth, expand to more schools, and at the same time, move toward more ambitious practices. Our research focused predominantly on math instruction and included a combination of surveys as well as interviews, observations, and focus groups in five case study schools (three elementary and two high schools). The results are particularly germane because, despite the national attention given to experiments like the ASD, the likeliest path to reforming most of the country's most under-performing schools goes through traditional urban districts like Shelby County. For this reason, our analysis has implications not just for the iZone, but also for policymakers, educators, and reformers across the country seeking to tackle similar challenges
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Examining the Human Capital of Formal Teacher Leaders
A growing body of work finds that instructional coaches (ICs) and teacher peer observers (POs) improve student learning, implying that policy might leverage these formal teacher leaders for student benefit. However, little is known about the observable characteristics of ICs and POs. Using unique statewide panel data from Tennessee, we describe the human capital (i.e., teaching experience, education level, effectiveness, and observation scores) of ICs and POs and the district and school settings where these formal teacher leaders work. We find that ICs and POs possess more human capital than other classroom teachers, and that these positive differences grow in magnitude as the concentration of economically disadvantaged students in a school rises. The evidence also suggests that ICs are more likely to work in districts with lowerperforming teachers while working in schools with higher-performing teachers. Where POs work is mostly a function of district characteristics.
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Workforce Outcomes of Program Completers in High-needs Areas
For decades, federal and state agencies have identified teacher shortages in high-needs areas (HNAs), including science, mathematics, and special education, as a critical problem. Many states implemented policies and practices to recruit HNA-endorsed teachers, but little is known about how their workforce outcomes compare with other teachers. Leveraging statewide longitudinal data in Tennessee, we observe that the number of teachers who receive HNA endorsements has increased over time as the overall number of teachers prepared in the state has declined. HNA teachers are employed at higher rates and retained at similar rates as other teachers. HNA teachers have similar student achievement gains as non-HNA teachers. Though HNA and nonHNA teachers also have similar first year observation ratings, STEM and special education teachers improve at slower rates subsequently. Overall, findings suggest that efforts in Tennessee to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers with HNA endorsements have mostly been successful.
2019
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Push or Pull: School-Level Factors That Influence Teacher Mobility in Turnaround Schools
Recruiting and retaining teachers can be challenging for many schools, especially in low-performing urban schools in which teachers turn over at higher rates. In this study, we examine three types of school-level attributes that may influence teachers' decisions to enter or transfer schools: malleable school processes, structural features of employment, and school characteristics. Using adaptive conjoint analysis survey design with a sample of teachers from low-performing urban, turnaround schools in Tennessee, we find that five of the seven most highly valued features of schools are malleable processes: consistent administrative support, consistent enforcement of discipline, school safety, small class sizes, and availability of high-quality professional development. In particular, teachers rated as effective are more likely to prefer performance-based pay than teachers rated ineffective. We validate our results using administrative data from Tennessee on teachers' actual mobility patterns.
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Improving Student Teachers' Feelings of Preparedness to Teach Through Recruitment of Instructionally Effective and Experienced Cooperating Teachers
Prior work suggests that recent graduates from teacher education programs feel better prepared to teach and are more instructionally effective when they learned to teach with more instructionally effective cooperating teachers. However, we do not know if these relationships are causal. Even if they are, we do not know if it is possible to recruit cooperating teachers who are, on average, significantly more effective than those currently serving. This paper describes an innovative strategy to use historical administrative data on teachers to recommend the most instructionally effective and experienced teachers in various districts and subject areas to serve as cooperating teachers. In collaboration with a large teacher education program, partnering districts were randomized to receive either recommendation lists or use business-as-usual approaches. Those districts that received recommendations recruited significantly and meaningfully more effective and experienced cooperating teachers. Additionally, preservice student teachers who learned to teach in these same districts felt significantly better prepared to teach. This study offers an innovative and low-cost strategy for recruiting effective and experienced cooperating teachers and presents some of the first evidence that learning to teach with instructionally effective cooperating teachers has a causal impact on feelings of preparedness to teach.
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Will Mentoring a Student Teacher Harm My Evaluation Scores? Effects of Serving as a Cooperating Teacher on Evaluation Metrics
Growing evidence suggests that preservice candidates receive better coaching and are more instructionally effective when they are mentored by more instructionally effective cooperating teachers(CTs).Yet, teacher education program leaders indicate it is difficult to recruit instructionally effective teachers to serve as CTs, in part because they worry that serving may negatively impact district evaluation scores. Using a unique dataset on over 4,500 CTs, we compare evaluation scores during years these teachers served as CTs to years they did not.In years they served as CTs, teachers had significantly better observation ratings and somewhat better achievement gains, though not always at significant levels. These results suggest that concerns over lowered evaluations should not prevent teachers from serving as CTs.
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Principal Sorting and the Distribution of Principal Quality
TBD
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The Unintended Effects of PolicyAssigned Teacher Observations Examining the Validity of Observation Scores
Several state policies link high-stakes consequences to teacher evaluation scores, which tend to be heavily weighted by observation scores. However, research has only recently investigated the validity of these scores in modern teacher evaluation systems. I contribute to this body of work by examining the sensitivity of observation scores to a novel source of bias: the differentiated assignment of observation by state policy. Several states differentiate the number of observations assigned to teachers. Although the receipt of observations should influence observation scores, the differentiated assignment of observations to teachers should not. I apply a two-stage least squares regression discontinuity design to teacher panel data, exploiting discontinuities in Tennessee's differentiated assignment of observations, and find strong evidence of substantially negative bias. Multiple sensitivity tests strongly suggest that the assignment of observations by state policy is the source of assimilation bias, but this suggestion is not definitive.
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The Effects of More Frequent Observations on Student Achievement Scores A Regression Discontinuity Design Using Evidence from Tennessee
In the early 2010s, Tennessee adopted a new teacher evaluation system. Recent research finds Tennessee teacher effectiveness substantially and rapidly improved after this reform. However, there is little empirical research exploring which components of the reformed system might have contributed to this growth. Using longitudinal data, I apply a local regression discontinuity design to identify the effects of more frequent classroom observations, a cornerstone of Tennessee evaluation reform, on average student achievement scores. Much of the identifying variation is associated with an increase from one to two policy-assigned observations per year, potentially limiting the generalizability of results. However, most Tennessee teachers are assigned one or two observations by state policy, making this a margin of primary interest in the Tennessee context. Among teachers included in the research design, there is no evidence the receipt of an additional observation per year improved teacher effectiveness. Descriptive analyses suggest weak implementation of observational processes may explain the absence of positive effects.