Teacher pay and teacher aptitude

Can changes in teacher pay encourage more able individuals to enter the teaching profession? So far, studies of the impact of pay on the aptitude distribution of teachers have provided mixed evidence on the extent to which altering teacher salaries represents a feasible solution to the teacher quality problem. One possible reason is that these studies have been unable to separate labor supply effects from labor demand effects. To address this, I model the relationship between current salaries and the academic aptitude of future teachers (those entering teacher education courses). Using a unique dataset of test scores for every individual admitted into an Australian university between 1989 and 2003, I explore how interstate variation in average pay or pay dispersion affects the decision to enter teacher education courses. A 1 percent rise in the salary of a starting teacher boosts the average aptitude of students entering teacher education courses by 0.6 percentile ranks, with the effect being strongest for those at the median. This result is robust to instrumenting for teacher pay using uniform salary schedules for public schools. I also find some evidence that more pay dispersion in the non-teaching sector lowers the aptitude of potential teachers.     

Teacher Testing and the Improvement of Practice

Previous approaches to teacher testing have been criticized for poorly representing the knowledge base for teaching, for oversimplifying teaching decisions, and for lacking criterion-related validity evidence supporting their use. A new generation of teacher assessments has been developed in the United States through the efforts of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and a corollary organization of more than 30 states. These performance-based assessments use videotapes of teachers' practice, examples of lessons and assessments, samples of student work, and analyses of classroom events and outcomes to provide evidence about teaching. Early research on the effects of these assessments suggests that they may be more valid measures of teacher knowledge and skill and that they may help teachers improve their practice. The stimulus to teacher learning appears to occur through task structures that require teachers to learn new content and teaching strategies as part of their demonstration of performance and through the processes of required reflection about the relationships between learning and teaching.     

The Assessment of Mathematics and Science Teacher Quality

The purpose of this study was to examine the types of instruments being used to document mathematics and science teacher quality characteristics in 48 nationally funded mathematics and science education awards. Each of the 48 projects operationalized teacher quality and determined how to assess it. The main research questions examined the instruments awardees used to gather data on mathematics and science teacher quality, and the main characteristics of teachers examined by awardees. Results showed that awardees most frequently used surveys or questionnaires to assess characteristics of mathematics and science teacher quality. The most common teacher characteristics examined by awardees' included teacher behaviors, practices, and beliefs, followed by the assessment of subject and pedagogical knowledge, and the documentation of mathematics and science teachers' certification. A few new instruments were under development and in use to assess characteristics of teacher quality. Detailed information on the development and psychometric properties of the instruments used for these examinations was not available from the reports. Because awardees were at different stages in their funded activities and data collection efforts were ongoing at the time of this analysis, this study offers a preliminary and formative review of the use of assessments to document mathematics and science teacher quality characteristics among these awards.     

Evaluating instructional quality

ABSTRACT

Building on the papers in this special issue, this article uses modern conceptions of validity theory to provide a framework for considering the evaluation of teaching quality. The 3 facets of teaching quality focused on are domain conceptualization, evidence and inferences, and their evaluation. Domain definitions vary in their specificity with tradeoffs in their range of applicability and specificity of inference. Evidence collection can range from highly standardized assessments to observations that must attend to evidence from a myriad of classroom interactions. For all assessments, however, even the most standardized, different interpretations of assessment tasks can threaten the validity of score interpretations. The papers consider a range of processes that are designed to generate, support, and interrogate the validity of inferences based on assessment scores. A fundamental question underlying this type of measurement is whether differences in the quality of teaching that students experience can be causally attributed to the teacher.     

Research on Learners and Teachers of Mathematics and Science: Forerunners to a Focus on Teacher Educator Professional Growth

This introductory paper first reflects the genesis of research in mathematics and science teacher education. The analyses show a movement from foci of research in mathematics and science education from students to teachers, and then to teacher educators. Next, an overview of research in mathematics and science teacher education and its development is provided, including teacher educators’ growth. This is followed by a comparative look at the seven papers in this special issue through three lenses, focusing on who the teacher educators in these papers are, the practices which are the focus for development, and the contexts in which the professional growth is situated. The seven papers not only exemplify how teacher educators might critically and systematically reflect on their own growth, educate new teacher educators, and do corresponding research, but also demonstrate the considerable progress the research community has made with respect to the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators in the last decade. Finally, challenges and questions are raised, in particular in relation to raising the quality and quantity of proficient teacher educators in order to strengthen teacher education research, and to have enough human resources to offer more and better professional development opportunities and to support schools.

     

Teacher behavior under performance pay incentives

Over the last decade many districts implemented performance pay incentives to reward teachers for improving student achievement. Economic theory suggests that these programs could alter teacher work effort, cooperation, and retention. Because teachers can choose to work in a performance pay district that has characteristics correlated with teacher behavior, I use the distance between a teacher's undergraduate institution and the nearest performance pay district as an instrumental variable. Using data from the 2003 and 2007 waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey, I find that teachers respond to performance pay incentives by working fewer hours per week. Performance pay also decreases participation in unpaid cooperative school activities, while there is suggestive evidence that teacher turnover decreases. The treatment effects are heterogeneous; male teachers respond more positively than female teachers. In Florida, which restricts state performance pay funding to individual teachers, I find that work effort and teacher turnover increase.     

Open Learning and New Technologies in Teacher Education: new paradigms for development

This paper suggests that teacher education is undergoing significant transformation. In most countries there is a recognition that the quality and extent of provision will need to be raised. Open and distance education, utilising new interactive forms of technology, will have a crucial, perhaps major, role to play in this process. The school will act increasingly as a ‘site’ for learning within evolving models of initial and in‐service teacher education. All forms of teacher education will exploit new technologies. There will be an increasing convergence between conventional and open and distance modes of delivery. New assessments of costs and effectiveness will need to be made. Changes in technology has rendered ‘out‐of‐date’ much of the previous evaluative evidence. National and international expertise in open and distance education, new methodologies and teacher education will need to be developed.     

美国教师绩效工资制度的分析与反思

推行绩效工资是美国近来教师教育改革一系列重要举措中的重要组成部分,它旨在通过工资和奖励制度的改革,形成与美国近年来注重质量和效率优先的教育改革政策相匹配的扶优罚劣的教学激励机制。这既是美国基础教育和教师教育改革的深化,同时也是教师管理机制的一次大胆变革。本文旨在先通过案例的分析,寻找绩效工资争议的核心问题,然后通过对于教师工资本身的特殊性,美国教师工资制度的发展和教师绩效工资制度本身,来谈下我对教师绩效工资制度的看法。     

Teacher opinions on performance pay: Evidence from India

The practical viability of performance-based pay programs for teachers depends critically on the extent of support the idea will receive from teachers. We present evidence on teacher opinions with regard to performance-based pay from teacher interviews conducted in the context of an experimental evaluation of a program that provided performance-based bonuses to teachers in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. We report four main findings in this paper: (1) over 80% of teachers had a favorable opinion about the idea of linking a component of pay to measures of performance, (2) exposure to an actual incentive program increased teacher support for the idea, (3) teacher support declines with age, experience, training, and base pay, and (4) the extent of teachers’ stated ex ante support for performance-linked pay (over a series of mean-preserving spreads of pay) is positively correlated with their ex post performance as measured by estimates of teacher value addition. This suggests that teachers are aware of their own effectiveness and that implementing a performance-linked pay program could not only have broad-based support among teachers but also attract more effective teachers into the teaching profession.     

中日教师流动:比较与借鉴

本文从教师流动的主导、流动过程、流向和流动的效果等四个方面对中日两国教师流动进行比较。呈现了我国教师流动的不足,并以日本的教师定期流动制为借鉴,提出了规范和完善我国教师流动的的建议：第一,推动教师流动的制度化、法制化;第二,教师流动以促进教育均衡发展、教师质量提高为目的;第三,改革教师的人事制度;第四,实行同工同酬,出台特殊津贴政策。     

Reforming Teachers' Pay Systems: The Advanced Skills Teacher in Australia

Over the past five years, Australian education systems have attempted to establish a new career path for teachers called the Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) classification. The reform emanated from a historic and unique coming together of all teacher unions throughout the country to make a joint submission to the Industrial Relations Commission. Potentially, the AST constituted one of the most progressive educational initiatives ever adopted in Australia. In this article we review what happened in practice. Our findings point to a dilemma for those who might attempt to introduce professional career paths for teachers in the future. Fundamental improvements to teachers' pay systems and career structures undoubtedly depend on initiatives within the industrial relations arena. However, this arena proved to be an unsuitable context in which to develop the kind of teaching standards and performance assessments that are essential for career paths based on quality of practice. We concl ude that these tasks require instead the creation of stable, national, expert professional bodies that embrace all stakeholders.     

Lessons Learned About Standards-Based Teacher Evaluation Systems

In this article, I draw several lessons learned about how to assess student, classroom, and teacher effects, with a specific focus on performance-based teacher evaluations. One lesson is that hierarchical linear modeling techniques are helpful in sorting out the magnitude of impacts at these three different levels of the education system. The other major lessons are reflected in the conclusion that research findings suggest that educators have learned how to design and operate performance-based teacher assessments that have sufficient reliability and validity to use for consequential decisions such as triggering pay increases.     

VAM Under Scrutiny: Teacher Evaluation Litigation in the States

As teacher quality is judged and tenured teachers are rated ineffective, educators are challenging teacher evaluation systems in the courts as they adversely affect their employment. Teachers have lost jobs, pay, tenure, and career advancement. This article reports on these cases, providing an interpretation in light of court cases about teacher evaluation with an emphasis on value-added models (VAM), and focuses on the litigation working its way through the courts.     

The Single Salary Schedule and Other Issues of Teacher Pay

The importance of teacher quality for determining student outcomes is now well established. At the same time, the translation of what is known about teacher quality into effective policy is far from being institutionalized. The simplest summary of research into teacher quality is that some teachers are dramatically more effective than others but that common measures of quality are largely uncorrelated with true quality. Thus, for example, we continue to face problems of insufficient numbers of high-quality teachers, or shortages of math and science teachers, and of “out of field” teachers. Many argue that we should tightened up on entry requirements along with increasing overall pay, but these policies are unlikely to deal with the current problems. Instead, we are likely to be much better off by loosening up entry requirements, by paying more attention to retention decisions, and by rewarding the people we want—those who are effective and who meet current areas of need.     

美术教师专业化发展探析

美术教师专业化发展是教育发展的需要,也是教师发展的需要。在数码技术高度发达的现代社会,美术教师要注重自我的专业化成长,才能进一步适应社会发展及教育发展的需要,才能在教学过程中更好地引导学生进行美术活动,从而建立高尚的审美品格和正确的人生观、道德观,才能真正促进学生自身素质的发展。美术教师专业化发展体现在教学行为的转变、教学技能的发展、教学领导力的提升、自身文化底蕴的累积、专业技能的扩容和教科研能力的提高等多个方面。     

Quality Assessment in Initial Teacher Education: Lessons from the 1993/94 OFSTED Experience

Different interest groups define quality in different ways. Enterprises such as education, and, specifically, teacher education, serve many interest groups including funding bodies, employers and students as consumers. Assessment of quality in this context has to take account of the priorities of such groups if the process is to have credibility. Processes involved also have to take account of the purposes to which such assessments might be put. Issues related to the recent cycle of inspections of secondary initial teacher education courses are discussed in the light of these factors. The process is fairly robust and comprehensive and is thus well equipped to inform various stakeholders and to bring about improvement through inspection. Because of a range of variables which have the potential to influence the outcome of an inspection, the process is less valid as a mechanism for influencing resourcing or as a means of comparing quality in initial teacher education with that in other areas of higher education.     

Standards for Teacher Tests

States are increasingly requiring that public school teachers pass one or more tests as a condition for permanent employment. As a result of a recent federal court decision, these tests must now satisfy the same legal standards as other employment tests. Moreover, some of the measures used to assess teacher competence no longer rely on multiple-choice items. They now utilize various types of open-ended performance assessments. This article discusses how these developments may affect the adverse impact, reliability, validity, and pass-fail standards of teacher certification tests. The article concludes by recommending that such tests combine multiple-choice questions with open-end tasks that focus on the common or critical situations that are likely to arise across the full range of practice setting for which the teacher is being certified or licensed.     

Standards for Teacher Tests

States are increasingly requiring that public school teachers pass one or more tests as a condition for permanent employment. As a result of a recent federal court decision, these tests must now satisfy the same legal standards as other employment tests. Moreover, some of the measures used to assess teacher competence no longer rely on multiple-choice items. They now utilize various types of open-ended performance assessments. This article discusses how these developments may affect the adverse impact, reliability, validity, and pass-fail standards of teacher certification tests. The article concludes by recommending that such tests combine multiple-choice questions with open-end tasks that focus on the common or critical situations that are likely to arise across the full range of practice setting for which the teacher is being certified or licensed.     

田野课堂与教师文化——以中学语文特级教师肖家芸《向生命鞠躬》教学为例

教师文化是"学校文化"建设的关键,亦是教育改革的重点。新的教育理念能否真正作用于学生,新课程改革能否真正被践行、被落实,都与教师文化极为相关。课堂是解读教师文化的最佳场域,教师的文化样态可以从教师的文化批判力、文化智识,教师的课程观、学生观等多方面察析。通过观察、透视中学语文特级教师肖家芸《向生命鞠躬》一课的教学,可以体察教师的教育智慧,可以解读蕴含于其中的教师文化。而无论是"尊重教师生命,关注教师个性",还是"尊重学生生命,尽显人文关怀",都是"好的"教师文化的显性表征。前者可以帮助我们体认教师的文化批判力和文化智识,后者可以帮助我们体察教师文化中的尊重、平等、全纳、民主等特质。它们直接作用并影响课堂文化品质,进而作用并影响学校文化品质、教育文化品质。