Mark Ehlert

TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS AND TEACHER QUALITY: ARE THERE REAL DIFFERENCES ACROSS PROGRAMS?

We compare teacher preparation programs in Missouri based on the effectiveness of their graduates in the classroom. The differences in effectiveness between teachers from different preparation programs are much smaller than has been suggested in previous work. In fact, virtually all of the variation in teacher effectiveness comes from within-program differences between teachers. Prior research has overstated differences in teacher performance across preparation programs by failing to properly account for teacher sampling.

The Sensitivity of Value-Added Estimates to Specification Adjustments: Evidence From School- and Teacher-Level Models in Missouri

We provide a side-by-side comparison of school and teacher growth measures estimated from different value-added models (VAMs). We compare VAMs that differ in terms of which student and school-level (or teacher-level) control variables are included and how these controls are included. Our richest specification includes 3 years of prior test scores for students and the standard demographic controls; our sparsest specification conditions only on a single prior test score. For both schools and teachers, the correlations between VAM estimates across the different models are high by conventional standards (typically at or above 0.90). However, despite the high correlations overall, we show that the choice of which controls to include in VAMs, and how to include them, meaningfully influences school and teacher rankings based on model output. Models that are less aggressive in controlling for student-background and schooling-environment information systematically assign higher rankings to more-advantaged schools, and to individuals who teach at these schools.

Selecting Growth Measures for Use in School Evaluation Systems Should Proportionality Matter

The specifics of how growth models should be constructed and used for educational evaluation is a topic of lively policy debate in states and school districts nationwide. In this article, we take up the question of model choice—framed within a policy context—and examine three competing approaches. The first approach, reflected in the popular student growth percentiles (SGPs) framework, eschews all controls for student covariates and schooling environments. The second approach, typically associated with value-added models (VAMs), controls for student-background characteristics and under some conditions can be used to identify the causal effects of educational units (i.e., districts, schools, and teachers). The third approach, also VAM-based, fully levels the playing field so that the correlation between the growth measures and student demographics is essentially zero. We argue that the third approach is the most desirable for use in school evaluation systems. Our case rests on personnel economics, incentive-design theory, and the potential role that growth measures can play in improving instruction in K-12 schools.

Incorporating End-of-Course Exam Timing Into Educational Performance Evaluations

Abstract There is increased policy interest in extending test-based evaluations in K–12 education to include student achievement in high school. High school achievement is typically measured by performance on end-of-course exams (EOCs), which test course-specific standards in a variety of subjects. However, unlike standardized tests in the early grades, students take EOCs at different points in their schooling careers. The timing of the test is a choice variable presumably determined by input from administrators, students, and parents. Recent research indicates that school and district policies that determine when students take particular courses can have important consequences for achievement and subsequent outcomes such as advanced course taking. We develop an approach for modeling EOC test performance that disentangles the influence of school and district policies regarding the timing of course taking from other factors. After separating out the timing issue, better measures of the quality of instruction provided by districts, schools, and teachers can be obtained. Our approach also offers diagnostic value because it separates out the influence of school and district course-timing policies from other factors that determine student achievement.

Democratization and Diversion: The Effect of Missouri's A+ Schools Program on Postsecondary Enrollment

Abstract:Recent federal and state education policy has targeted community colleges as an affordable venue to increase postsecondary attainment. We examined a state program aimed at increasing community college enrollment, the Missouri A+ Schools Program, which provided eligible graduates from participating high schools the opportunity to earn a scholarship at a Missouri public two-year college. The Missouri A+ Schools Program aims to increase the democratization of education by providing greater access to attend postsecondary institutions but may simultaneously create a diversion away from four-year colleges. The staggered adoption of the Missouri A+ Schools Program across high schools allowed a quasi-experimental estimation of the effect of the program on postsecondary enrollment. The Missouri A+ Schools Program increased the overall college-going rate by 1.5 percentage points for graduates from A+ designated high schools. Furthermore, the A+ Schools Program increased two-year college-going rates by 5.3 percentage points, and decreased four-year college-going rates by 3.8 percentage points. Overall, the A+ Schools Program provided a democratizing effect by increasing overall postsecondary enrollment, while simultaneously creating a diversionary effect through increased two-year enrollment and a decline in four-year enrollment.