Catholic schools or school quality? The effects of Catholic schools on labor market outcomes

This paper studies the effects of attending a Catholic high school on students’ labor market outcomes. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, I find that Catholic schooling is significantly associated with higher wages over the careers even after taking into account possible selection into Catholic schools with instruments. Using matched school quality data for public and Catholic schools, I further find that Catholic and public schools are different in various aspects of school quality measures and that these differences explain most of Catholic school effects. Among the school quality variables, teacher quality and the number of math courses taken are estimated to matter the most for students’ later earnings in the long run.     

Improving teaching quality through training: Evidence from the Caucasus

Teacher training constitutes a promising policy area for improving education quality in developing countries. While there is mixed empirical evidence on whether teacher training improves student achievement, some interventions that follow a comprehensive approach on teacher training show positive impacts. In this study we analyze the effect of the Georgian Primary Education Project, an initiative that provided teacher training and other teacher support activities in 122 schools in the Republic of Georgia between 2013 and 2015. We use a quasi-experimental design, specifically a Value-Added model, to estimate the effect of the program on math and Georgian test scores of students that were in grades 1–4 in 2013. We find that the program increased math test scores by 0.27 standard deviations; these gains were observed mostly in students that were in grades 1–3 in 2013, while no effects are observed for students that were in grade 4 in 2013. For Georgian we analyze the results for students that speak Georgian as their native language and for students in minority schools that speak Georgian as a second language. For native speakers we find an average effect of 0.15 standard deviations, in this case, the observed gains are also concentrated in students that were in grades 1–3 in 2013, and no impact is observed on students that were in grade 4 in 2013. We do not find any significant effects on reading Georgian as a second language. This study contributes to the growing literature on comprehensive teacher training as a strategy to improve students’ achievement in developing countries.     

Interventions in schools’ curricula to achieve quality in learning: experiences from the Commonwealth Caribbean

Abstract

For some four decades governments in Commonwealth Caribbean (CC) countries have been introducing interventions in their school systems to provide quality education for all. Examples of these are learner-centred teaching pedagogy and the integration of technology into teaching and learning. The data for the paper is based on published research and evaluation studies of these interventions. How successful have these interventions been? Following a discussion of how quality in education and learning has been interpreted, this paper seeks to answer this question through a review of selected interventions in schools in three CC countries. Challenges that CC countries need to address as they pursue goals relating to quality education are: the intersection of quality with access and equity, limitations in teacher training which have militated against change in teaching pedagogy, and resources and infrastructure.     

Increasing the supply of secondary teachers in sub‐Saharan Africa: a stakeholder assessment of policy options in six countries

Over the next decade many countries of sub‐Saharan Africa will face a demand for qualified secondary school teachers that current systems for teacher recruitment, training, deployment and retention will be unable to meet. While strategies for increasing teacher supply to meet this shortage have been suggested, less attention has been given to investigating the acceptability of these potential solutions by those educators closest to the school and classroom level and who often serve as gatekeepers to policy implementation. Kingdon’s multiple streams model is the framework used in this study to assess the feasibility of key strategies widely offered as possible solutions to resolve the projected teacher shortage. This study investigated the responses of 114 secondary school teachers, headteachers and education officials across six countries to policy options for increasing teacher supply. While none of the groups supported options to increase the supply through changed teacher training, there was support among all three groups for options that affected retention, including increased in‐service training and distance education, more mentorship for new teachers and more opportunities for teachers to network with each other. These findings suggest that policy‐makers in sub‐Saharan African countries need to build political support among education stakeholders to find the most feasible and viable solutions to address the large teacher shortages through both increasing supply and retention.     

Is Nigeria experiencing a learning crisis: Evidence from curriculum-matched learning assessment

Agenda 2030 sets an ambitious target to provide inclusive and quality education for all. The first step in this quest is identifying those left behind in accessing quality education and reasons for their exclusion. However, Nigeria like many developing countries lacks data on learning assessment to measure progress on Agenda 2030 at the national and sub-national levels. In this study, we construct a measure for the quality of education by matching curriculum with literacy and numeracy assessments based on existing education survey. In addition, we examine the drivers of quality education in Nigeria based on the newly constructed learning indicator. Our findings confirm Nigerian education system is indeed facing deep learning crisis with the affected children mostly from poor households, in the rural areas, those that attend government-owned schools, and those in the northern region of the country Nigeria. The results emphasized the need for systemic change that will improve school infrastructure, teacher training and ensure more parental involvement.     

Do trainee teachers harm pupil attainment? Isolating the effect of pre-service teachers on contemporaneous pupil performance in ‘high-stakes’ tests

The prevalence of ‘pre-service’ or ‘trainee’ teachers in schools is rising in England, driven by the expansion of school-led routes to qualified teacher status and increasing demand for newly qualified teachers. This may have important implications for schools, which have historically been concerned with the impact of trainee teachers on their pupils’ attainment. There are, however, confounding factors which affect both the decision to host a trainee teacher and pupil attainment. We empirically model the impact of trainee teachers on contemporaneous pupil attainment in ‘high-stakes’ exams, exploiting unique data combining national administrative data on pupil test scores with a survey of schools’ involvement with initial teacher training over multiple academic years. We use school fixed effects to account for time-invariant school factors which may determine both schools’ teacher training decisions and pupil attainment. Counter to schools’ concerns, we find that pupil attainment in high-stakes assessments, on average, is not significantly affected by the number of trainee teachers. This is an important empirical finding, as it suggests that the rapid expansion of school-led teacher training is not likely to have a detrimental effect on pupil attainment in England, conditional on the set of schools that choose to engage with initial teacher training remaining similar: trainee teachers may still affect pupil attainment in schools that do not currently participate in initial teacher training, as these schools are typically more constrained.     

The spatial geography of teacher labor markets: Evidence from a developing country

An unequal distribution of teacher quality is a problem underlying the unequal distribution of educational outcomes in developing countries. However, we know little about how the labor market produces such a distribution. Using data from two regions in Peru, we investigate whether there is a national teacher market or smaller regional markets. We estimate discrete-choice multinomial models to identify variables (including teacher characteristics, institutional features and geographical factors) associated with the location of teachers in the first jobs of their careers. Results indicate that teacher markets are regional in scope. Being born in a certain province (sub-area of a region) substantially increases the probability of having a first teaching position in that same province. We also find evidence that the geographic mobility of teachers is quite limited. Results suggest that policies to strengthen teacher educational systems and reduce inequities should focus on the regional level.     

Quality of education and economic growth

This paper assesses the impact of school quality on student outcomes, particularly job performance, and subsequently on economic growth. It begins by showing that ‘investment in human capital’ has evolved from being viewed as simply an investment of student time to including interactions between time and monetary resources which may serve to improve school quality. Evidence is provided from studies of both elementary/secondary schooling and post-secondary education, and from studies of developed and less developed nations. It appears that school quality has substantially greater impact on changes in students' cognitive and behavioral outcomes in less developed than advanced countries. Yet school quality seems to effect lifetime earnings of all students regardless of the level of development of their nations. The paper explains why. in some cases, more years and money spent for schooling may not necessarily appear to reflect higher earnings. Explanations are provided for differences in the impact of school quality on student changes. A major one is the fact that there are significantly diminishing returns to expenditures on schooling, along with the fact that expenditure levels are so much lower in the poorer countries. Reasons are provided as to why, if institutional differences do not account for changes in students in wealthier nations, these differences should still account for differences in earnings. Factors such as measurement problems and institutional arrangements come into play in this regard. The paper concludes that improvement in the quality of schooling provided in developing countries may be more important tor the future economic prospects of these nations in the long run than will expanded access to poor quality education.     

Enhancing classroom teaching through Interactive Radio in South African primary schools: An evaluation of the OLSET programme

Abstract

This article provides a summative evaluation of the development and implementation of the Open Learning Systems Education Trust's (OLSET's) “English in Action” programme from 1992 to the end of 2009. It describes the programme's development from a uni-modal distance education model focused on enhancing learner involvement and learner gains to a multi-modal model focused on enhancing teacher and learner involvement, teacher and learner gains, school, classroom and teacher support and in-service teacher training. It also describes the expansion of schools, teachers and learners involved in the programme over a 17 year period. Reasons for the wide-spread support of the programme by teachers, principals and educational officials in South Africa are identified, and constraints and limitations highlighted. Conclusions are then drawn on the value of the programme's model relative to the resurgence of international interest in the potential of using radio as a basis for teacher support in developing countries.     

Towards a model for research on the effects of school organizational health factors on primary school performance in Trinidad & Tobago

This article presents a model for research on the effects of school organizational heath factors on primary school academic achievement in Trinidad and Tobago. The model can be applicable for evaluating schools in other developing countries. As proposed, the model hypothesizes relationships between external factors (exogenous variables), school-level factors (endogenous variables), and school outcomes (student achievement and positive school climate). The endogenous variables are sub-scales of school organizational health. They include principal leadership, psycho-social environment, school–home–community relationships, teacher characteristics, curriculum quality, and school culture. These subscales are partially influenced by the Organizational Health Inventory OHI (Hoy and Feldman, 1987) and by school health indices set forth by the World Health Organization (1996). It is hoped that this school organizational health model can provide a conceptual tool for formulating a more comprehensive measure of healthy schools.     

Primary education expansion and quality of schooling

The rapid increases in enrollment seen in many developing countries might further worsen the poor schooling quality found in these countries. I estimate the effect of enrollment growth following the removal of primary school fees in Tanzania and find evidence of a sizeable increase in pupil-teacher ratios and a reduction in observable teacher quality, but rule out a substantial effect on test scores overall. These results are robust to instrumenting enrollment growth using predetermined fertility and migration decisions, and to a number of checks including the use of baseline enrollment rates as an alternative source of variation in enrollment growth. However, when investigating the possibility of heterogeneous effects for urban and rural areas, I find evidence of a deterioration of test scores in urban areas.     

Two teacher quality measures and the role of context: evidence from Chile

This research examines empirically the relationship between two measures of teacher quality: one based on professional standards and a second one using teacher value-added estimates. It also studies the extent to which teacher observable characteristics, such as teacher training variables, are associated to better performance on either of these measures and whether any of these two assessments is able to effectively measure teacher quality isolated from the effect of the context where teachers work. Context in this article is defined as any variable that is not under the direct control of the teacher but plays an important role on student learning and we believe is captured by school and municipal variables. The study uses hierarchical linear models and information from national and standardized assessments from Chile, specifically from the municipal education sector. Results show a small correlation between the two measures of teacher quality, in the lower end of results from previous studies conducted in the USA, and suggest that there is only a limited relationship between both measures of teacher quality. Teacher initial education type and professional development were statistically associated only to the standard-based measure of teacher quality. Context (both the school and municipal levels) plays an important role in the teacher effect measure, and in the standard-based measures, therefore, we conclude that neither of these measures are context-free. We expect that these results will contribute to the discussion about how to best measure teacher quality and how to evaluate teacher performance both in Chile and other parts of the world.     

Alternative school policies and the benefits of general cognitive skills

School policy debates vacillate between policies emphasizing improvement in general skills and those aimed at strengthening the linkages between schools and the workplace. While these policies do not necessarily conflict, each is frequently motivated by shortcomings in the other. This paper presents basic evidence about the very substantial impacts of general cognitive skills on individual earnings and on economic growth. The calculations are then put in a school policy framework that emphasizes the importance of considering both the magnitude and the speed of quality improvements. It then considers alternative school reform policies focused on improvements in teacher quality, identifying how much change is required. Finally, teacher bonus policies are put into the context of potential benefits.     

Which New Yorkers vote with their wallets? The impact of teacher quality data on household sorting,and residential and school demographics

This paper examines the relationship between the February 2012 New York City teacher quality data release, the racial and ethnic composition of elementary and middle public schools and their neighborhoods, and housing prices. A unique dataset that links teacher quality to school characteristics, housing prices and characteristics, and Census data is used to estimate a difference-in-difference model to estimate the impact of the teacher quality release on housing prices. These results are then used to estimate the impact of the data release on residential and school demographics. The results in this study provide the first evidence of the effects of teacher quality measures on the housing market in New York City and the demographic shifts in residential and school mobility patterns as a result. The data suggests that the housing market responds significantly to the new information that was provided by the release of the teacher quality information, even when taking into consideration the school grades and other variables that may influence teacher quality measures. The magnitude of how much housing prices increase is greatly impacted by certain neighborhood demographics and the results show that Hispanic neighborhoods with a high proportion of free and reduced price lunch students are among the neighborhoods that had the highest increase in housing prices due to the teacher quality release. Not only that, but the areas that had the highest increase in housing prices due to the teacher quality release have experienced increases in the proportion of white students and the neighborhoods are becoming more racially diverse.     

试论中小学教师培训管理模式的构建

教师培训管理模式是影响中小学教师培训质量的重要因素,通过对教师培训管理工作的概述,明确教师培训管理的内容和权限。教师培训管理模式的构建必须依托培训的目标管理、过程管理和分级负责来实现,但还必须始终加强对教师培训管理模式运行保障的建设,确保培训目标的顺利完成。     

Constraints to UPE: More than a question of supply?

The traditional approach to universal primary education (UPE) in developing countries has emphasised supply factors of schooling systems, such as the construction of schools and teacher training facilities, revisions to curricula and improvements in teaching materials. No doubt all these factors have played an important part in encouraging the growth of enrolment ratios throughout the developing world during the past two decades. But the profile of absentees from school, and the disproportionate enrolment of boys and girls in school suggest that this approach is unlikely to achieve full UPE. This paper calls for consideration of demand factors which may prevent children from attending school. Focusing on the household as the relevant unit, it examines the costs incurred when a child attends school in the developing world, and the benefits to be gained from school attendance. The paper then goes on to consider the case of Botswana, where, within the context of the goal of UPE, the government is investing vast resources in the expansion and improvement of the primary school system. Yet substantial numbers of children, boys in particular, continue to be withheld from school. After an analysis of the demand factors which prevent children from attending school in rural Botswana, the paper concludes with a discussion of the additional policies the Botswana government might find necessary to employ in order to achieve full UPE.     

Reframing the teacher profession as a dynamic multifaceted profession: A wider perspective on teacher quality and teacher competence frameworks

Many countries in Europe use some kind of competence framework to define the quality of teachers. They typically formulate one level of teaching quality which defines the competence level that teachers must have acquired after completing initial teacher education. In addition, most countries provide limited career structures that define career opportunities within the teacher profession itself, resulting in a profession where often the only option for career progression is to move to leadership positions. Competence frameworks that create opportunities for vertical and horizontal career structures can make being a teacher a more attractive profession. They offer teachers opportunities for ‘career crafting’ and professional growth and supply school leaders with tools for more elaborate career guidance. In this article, we present a framework that was developed in the Netherlands to support teacher growth and teachers' career development. It has been used as a starting point for creating a shared language and understanding of the teacher profession and as a catalyst for dialogue between teachers and school leaders on professional growth. We elaborate the main characteristics of the resulting model, its limitations, the feedback that has been collected and how this feedback has been incorporated in how the model is used and discussed by teachers, school leaders and teacher education institutes. Finally, we argue that the strength of the framework can be explained by the way it acts as a boundary object, inspiring mutual learning and dialogue between different activity systems (of teachers, school leaders and teacher educators).     

Towards a Taxonomy of Mentoring

Initial Teacher Education in England and Wales is currently undergoing substantial change. In particular, the government has insisted on increased time for school‐based work, on the development of training partnerships between schools and higher education providers, including the transfer of training funds from universities to schools, and on a competence model of assessment. This article focuses on one of the new partnership training courses. Using two of the areas of competence, Subject Knowledge and Subject Application, it explores the reality of partnership from the perspectives of students, school mentors and university tutors as they work through the first year of the new course. Finally, the writers present a series of questions for all those involved as the basis for developing such courses and for ensuring the quality of teacher education.     

Reforming teacher education in Tanzania

It is widely acknowledged that in order to improve the quality of education in primary schools in developing countries there is a need to place pedagogy and its training implications at the centre of teacher education reform. Like many countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, Tanzania has introduced various initiatives and reforms to improve the quality of teacher education at the pre- and in-service stages. Drawing on evidence from a baseline study of primary teacher interactional and discourse practices, and a review of teacher training colleges, this paper explores the training needs of teacher educators in Tanzania who, in the light of recent reforms to teacher education, will be responsible for education and training at the pre and in-service levels.     

Economic growth in developing countries: The role of human capital

The focus on human capital as a driver of economic growth for developing countries has led to undue attention on school attainment. Developing countries have made considerable progress in closing the gap with developed countries in terms of school attainment, but recent research has underscored the importance of cognitive skills for economic growth. This result shifts attention to issues of school quality and, in that area developing countries have been much less successful in closing the gaps with developed countries. Without improving school quality, developing countries will find it difficult to improve their long run economic performance.