Education Week - September 18, 2013 - 14

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EDUCATION WEEK
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SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 www.edweek.org
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Teaching Fellows’ Students Get No Extra Boost
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
ships between the characteristics
of the TFA teachers, such as college
selectivity or academic major, and
their students’ academic gains.
“The bottom line is that these
résumé-type characteristics don’t
explain why TFA teachers are more
effective,” said Hanley S. Chiang, a
senior researcher at Mathematica
Policy Research, which conducted
the study.
The findings are notable partly
for their implications for hot-button
debates about how best to prepare
effective teachers. TFA in particular
has been a policy lightning rod,
given its limited upfront training,
aggressive expansion during a
period of significant teacher layoffs,
and fees it charges to school
districts with which it contracts to
place teachers.
Still, the evidence of its teachers’
effects is among the most convincing
to date of TFA’s impact on secondary
math. It also stands in stark
contrast to the teacher-preparation
field at large: Most, if not all, programs
lack experimental evidence
of their impact.
Context and Concept
Alternative-route programs, generally
defined as those that allow
teachers to take much of their
coursework while serving as classroom
teachers, vary widely in terms
of programming and the types of
candidates they admit. A number
of analyses have essentially called
a draw on whether such programs
do better or worse overall than the
traditional, university-based programs
that prepare the bulk of the
nation’s teachers.
The study, financed by the U.S.
Department of Education, was
designed explicitly to examine
the effects of two highly selective
programs.
Both TFA and Teaching Fellows,
which is run by the New York Citybased
TNTP, recruit candidates with
strong academic backgrounds as
well as certain personal characteristics,
such as the ability to work
through obstacles. The programs
give their recruits condensed upfront
training, place them in lowperforming
or low-income schools,
and offer them intensive on-the-job
coaching.
For the study, researchers selected
middle and high schools
with at least two sections of the
same math course. Students were
randomly assigned to a classroom
taught by a teacher trained
through one of the selective programs,
or a control group taught
by a traditionally trained teacher
or a teacher from a nonselective
alternative route. At the end of
the year, the students were given
standardized exams, and the researchers
compared their achievement
growth.
Random-assignment studies
eliminate sources of bias caused
by differences in student or school
characteristics. The data show
that the two groups of students
had nearly indistinguishable background
characteristics and were
located in similar schools. In one of
the only disparities, charter schools
were slightly underrepresented
in the treatment schools because
many did not offer more than one
section of math at a time.
Overall, TFA teachers improved
student achievement by .07 of an
effect size more than other teachers.
That effect size translates to about
2½ months of additional learning,
according to the researchers.
No Harm Done?
The study is the first in nearly
a decade to use an experimental
method to study the TFA program.
With more than 32,000 alumni, it
has been put on the hot seat for
years about whether its teachers
pass the “do no harm” test in the
classroom.
A 2004 randomized experiment,
also by the Washington-based
Mathematica, found score boosts
among elementary students taught
by TFA teachers, too, but that study
was criticized in part because the
control group of teachers had lower
rates of certification, less formal
education preparation, and less experience
in student-teaching than a
national sample.
A handful of studies using less
rigorous methodologies have had
more mixed results, and the report
does not address English/language
arts. For nearly any classroom in-
EDUCATIONWEEK WEBINAR
tervention, student test scores in
that subject generally appear to be
less responsive overall, possibly because
of variations in home factors,
such as access to books.
Students taught by instructors
from the Teaching Fellows program,
meanwhile, did better than those
taught by teachers from nonselective
alternative routes. Their results
were indistinguishable from
students taught by traditionally
prepared teachers.
Teaching Fellows’ novices were
slightly less effective than experienced
teachers. But unlike TFA,
which expects candidates to fulfill
a two-year teaching commitment,
that program expects that its candidates
will remain classroom
teachers and continue to improve.
And generally, the data found that
teacher experience did yield better
outcomes for students.
In all, the sample of TFA teach-
ers and their counterparts studied
consisted of 135 math teachers in
45 schools across eight states. For
the Teaching Fellows program, the
study looked at 153 teachers in 44
schools across eight states.
The study does not compare TFA
teachers or Teaching Fellows with
each other.
Questions Remain
The study offers few clues about
what caused the TFA teachers to do
better. For instance, its teachers did
better than control teachers on a
math-content test linked to student
achievement, but not enough to explain
the performance gains.
The findings also don’t appear
to reflect “gaming” through an
overemphasis on test preparation:
At the high school level, the tests
given to students were not required
by the state and so were unfamiliar
to teachers and students.
Matt Kramer, TFA’s co-CEO, attributed
the gains partly to the
organization’s scrupulously tailored
selection metrics. He also
highlighted TFA’S support network
as a possible driver behind the
findings.
“There is unbelievable research
clarity that the length of preservice
does not matter that much,”
he said of the findings. “Time in
the classroom, lessons learned, and
mentorship do matter. We spend
much, much more than districts on
teacher induction.”
While those are legitimate hypotheses,
the study does not directly
answer such questions, said
Melissa A. Clark, a Mathematica
senior researcher who was the lead
researcher on the project.
For that reason, it is unclear
whether districts could produce the
same effects if they were to adopt
TFA’s hiring and mentoring techniques.

The organization currently
spends about $45,000 on training
and professional development over
three years for each of its teachers.
Scan this tag with your
smartphone for a link to
“Effectiveness of Teachers
From Teach For America
and the Teaching Fellows Programs,” at
www.edweek.org/links.
> www.edweek.org/go/webinars
LEADERSHIP COACHING:
Building Strong Leaders
For District and School
Improvement
Please join the American Institutes for
Research in learning about leadership
coaching and leadership academies as
part of the larger school turnaround effort.
This webinar will provide participants
information on effective leadership
academies, illustrate successful leadership
coaching relationships, and demonstrate
how district coaching can benefit both the
district and schools.
9-18-13 Leadership_half page.indd 1
GUESTS:
AARON BUTLER, senior turnaround consultant, District
and School Improvement Center, American Institutes for Research
DR. GARY JANSEN, principal, Hazelwood East Middle School,
Hazelwood school district, Hazelwood, Mo.
MODERATOR:
NANCY STICKSEL, senior turnaround consultant,
American Institutes for Research
Content
provided by:
REGISTRATION
IS FREE!
Wednesday,
Sept. 18, 2013
11 a.m. ET
www.edweek.org/go/
webinar/AIRLeadership
LIVE OR
ON-DEMAND
9/9/2013 9:52:47 AM
http://www.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/links http://www.edweek.org/go/webinars http://www.edweek.org/go/webinar/AIRLeadership http://www.edweek.org/go/webinar/AIRLeadership http://www.edweek.org/go/webinar/AIRLeadership
Education Week - September 18, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - September 18, 2013
