School Factors May Influence Teacher Effectiveness
I've heard a lot of people question the wisdom of teacher transfers based on the reasoning that a teacher who's effective in one school setting might not be as effective in another, due to differences in the student population, the culture of the school, or the pedagogy/curricula.
So far there's been precious little research literature on this topic, but a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that there are good reasons to investigate it in depth.
Analyzing a set of matched student-teacher data in North Carolina between 1995 and 2006, researcher C. Kirabo Jackson, found that what he calls "match quality"—the factors that make a teacher rmore productive in one school setting than another—can account for up to a quarter of the observable "teacher effect," i.e., how effective a teacher appears to be at raising his or her students' academic achievement.
He also found that the teachers studied tended to be more effective in mathematics after they moved to a new school. That finding suggests that they are actively seeking out schools with a better match for their talent.
So far there's been precious little research literature on this topic, but a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that there are good reasons to investigate it in depth.
Analyzing a set of matched student-teacher data in North Carolina between 1995 and 2006, researcher C. Kirabo Jackson, found that what he calls "match quality"—the factors that make a teacher rmore productive in one school setting than another—can account for up to a quarter of the observable "teacher effect," i.e., how effective a teacher appears to be at raising his or her students' academic achievement.
He also found that the teachers studied tended to be more effective in mathematics after they moved to a new school. That finding suggests that they are actively seeking out schools with a better match for their talent.