Matthew Ronfeldt

How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement

Researchers and policymakers often assume that teacher turnover harms student achievement, though recent studies suggest this may not be the case. Using a unique identification strategy that employs school-by-grade level turnover and two classes of fixed-effects models, this study estimates the effects of teacher turnover on over 850,000 New York City fourth- and fifth-grade student observations over 8 years. The results indicate that students in grade levels with higher turnover score lower in both English language arts (ELA) and math and that these effects are particularly strong in schools with more low-performing and Black students. Moreover, the results suggest that there is a disruptive effect of turnover beyond changing the distribution in teacher quality.

Where Should Student Teachers Learn to Teach? Effects of Field Placement School Characteristics on Teacher Retention and Effectiveness.

This study is motivated by an ongoing debate about the kinds of schools that make for the best field placements during pre-service preparation. On the one hand, easier-to-staff schools may support teacher learning because they are typically better-functioning institutions that offer desirable teaching conditions. On the other hand, such field placements may leave new teachers unprepared to work in difficult-to-staff schools and with underserved student populations that need high quality teachers the most. Using administrative and survey data on almost 3,000 New York City teachers, their students, and their schools, this study finds that learning to teach in easier-to-staff field placement schools has positive effects on teacher retention and student achievement gains, even for teachers who end up working in the hardest-to-staff schools. The proportion of poor, minority, and low-achieving students in field placements is unrelated to later teacher effectiveness and retention suggesting something beyond student populations explain these results.

Surveying the Landscape of Teacher Education in New York City: Constrained Variation and the Challenge of Innovation

In this article, the authors describe the state of teacher education in and around the large and diverse school district of New York City. Using multiple data sources, including program documents, interviews, and surveys of teachers, this study attempts to explore the characteristics of programs that prepare elementary teachers of New York City public schools, including the kinds of programs that exist, who enters these different programs, who teaches in the programs, and what characterizes the core curriculum. A central question concerns the amount of variation that exists in the preparation of elementary teachers for a single, large school district. Despite the number and variety of programs that exist to prepare elementary teachers, the authors found the overall curriculum and structure of teacher education to be more similar than different. To understand this lack of variation, the authors draw on organizational theory, particularly, the concept of institutional isomorphism, to examine the case of teacher education. The authors conclude with recommendations for what it might take to change the landscape of teacher education in the context of a large urban district.

The Test Matters The Relationship Between Classroom Observation Scores and Teacher Value Added on Multiple Types of Assessment

In this study, we examined how the relationships between one observation protocol, the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation (PLATO), and value-added measures shift when different tests are used to assess student achievement. Using data from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project, we found that PLATO was more strongly related to the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT-9), the alternative assessment used by MET to assess more ambitious outcomes. We also found that the SAT-9 is more instructionally sensitive to the PLATO factor of Cognitive and Disciplinary Demand than the state tests used in MET study. This difference suggests that PLATO factors designed specifically to identify ambitious instructional practices are especially sensitive to which test is used to construct value-added scores.

Preparing practitioners to respond to resistance: a cross‐professional view

Teaching depends upon relationships. Yet teaching is only one of a number of professions in which practice depends heavily upon the quality of human relationship between practitioners and their clients. To explore how other professions prepare professionals for the work of building and maintaining relationships, we embarked on a study that investigated the preparation of teachers, clergy, and clinical psychologists, all professions that engage in what we are calling ‘relational practices’. In this article, we explore how preparation programs in teaching and clinical psychology, in particular, teach novices to attend to relationships in their practice, focusing specifically on how novices are prepared to respond to various forms of resistance from those they seek to serve. Our analysis draws upon a subset of data from our larger study, including interviews, classroom observations, and observations of field experiences from visits to five professional preparation programs: three clinical psychology programs and two teacher preparation programs. Our data suggest that clinical psychology and teacher education programs both prepare novices to try to prevent resistance through careful planning. However, clinical psychology programs provided students with more opportunities to rehearse responses to client resistance in the moment, through the use of role‐play and other simulations. Clinical psychology programs also provided novice clinicians with both a common language and theoretical base with which to analyze client resistance. We argue that teacher education might be strengthened by providing novice teachers with similarly deliberate and focused opportunities to practice responding to resistance.

Recruiting Effective Math Teachers: Evidence From New York City

For well over a decade school districts across the United States have struggled to recruit and retain effective mathematics teachers. In response to the need for qualified math teachers and the difficulty of directly recruiting individuals who have already completed the math content required for qualification, some districts, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City, have developed alternative certification programs with a math immersion component to recruit otherwise well-qualified candidates who do not have undergraduate majors in math. This article examines the qualifications, student achievement gains, and retention of Math Immersion teachers in New York City compared to New York City mathematics teachers who began their careers through other pathways.

Recruitment or Preparation? Investigating the Effects of Teacher Characteristics and Student Teaching

Some believe the solution to improving instructional quality in K-12 schools lies in identifying and recruiting certain kinds of individuals to the profession (e.g., academically talented, stronger commitment). Others believe that talented or committed individuals cannot become effective or enduring teachers without adequate preparation. Most prior literature examines either recruitment or preparation, rather than weighing evidence for both simultaneously. In addition, most prior research investigates the effects of either approach on only a single outcome, rather than considering multiple outcomes at once. Drawing on pre- and poststudent teaching surveys of more than 1,000 prospective teachers in a large, urban district, this study uses a unique strategy to disentangle the effects of one dimension of preparation (student teaching) from the effects of teacher characteristics on a number of measures for teachers’ self-perceived instructional quality and career plans. The findings indicate that career plans are more often related to teacher characteristics, whereas self-perceived instructional quality is more often related to features of clinical preparation. Implications for recruitment and preparation are discussed.

Field Placement Schools and Instructional Effectiveness

Student teaching has long been considered a cornerstone of teacher preparation. One dimension thought to affect student teacher learning is the kinds of schools in which these experiences occur. Drawing on extensive survey and administrative data on all teachers, students, and schools in a large, urban district, this study investigates whether certain kinds of field placement schools predict later teacher performance. It finds that teachers who learned to teach in field placements with stronger teacher collaboration, achievement gains, and, to a lesser degree, teacher retention were subsequently more effective at raising student achievement. However, these kinds of schools were less likely to be used as field placements. Results suggest that better functioning school organizations with positive work environments make desirable settings for teacher learning and that preparation programs, and the districts they supply, would benefit from more strategically using these kinds of schools to prepare future teachers.

Evaluating Teacher Preparation Using Graduates’ Observational Ratings

Despite growing calls for more accountability of teacher education programs (TEPs), there is little consensus about how to evaluate them. This study investigates the potential for using observational ratings of program completers to evaluate TEPs. Drawing on statewide data on almost 9,500 program completers, representing 44 providers (183 programs) in Tennessee across 3 years, we investigate multiple models to estimate TEP quality. Results suggest that using observational ratings to evaluate TEPs has promise. We were able to detect significant and meaningful differences between TEPs, which were fairly robust across modeling approaches. Moreover, TEP rankings based on observational ratings were positively and significantly related to rankings based on student achievement gains.

Does New Teacher Induction Really Improve Retention

Policymakers have increasingly worked to combat teacher turnover by implementing induction programs for early-career teachers. Yet the existing evidence for the effects of induction on turnover is mixed. Drawing on data from the three most recent administrations of the Schools and Staffing and Teacher Follow-Up Surveys, as well as the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study, this study investigates whether different kinds of induction supports predict teacher turnover among nationally representative samples of first-year teachers. We find that receiving induction supports in the first year predicts less teacher migration and attrition, suggesting that using induction to reduce new teacher turnover is a promising policy trend. We also find that levels of induction support are fairly constant for different kinds of teachers and teachers in different kinds of schools. The exceptions are that teachers who are Black and who work in schools with more students who speak English as a second language report higher levels of induction supports.