POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF LONG-TERM TEACHER EFFECTS
ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Karen L. Bembry, Heather R. Jordan, Elvia Gomez
Mark C. Anderson, Robert L. Mendro
Dallas Independent School District
Dallas, TX 75204

This paper considers the policy implications of research into the longitudinal effects of teachers on student achievement. The research shows that teachers have a long-term impact on student achievement and that teacher effectiveness is largely immutable to typical approaches to change. The paper considers the considerable impact of these results on student equity, teacher staff development, teacher class assignment, teacher appraisal, curriculum, and administrator training and performance.

 Introduction

The use of student data to assess teacher effectiveness in actual applications is a recent phenomenon (Sanders and Horn, 1993; Webster, Mendro, Orsak and Weerasinghe, 1997; Schalock, Schalock, and Girod, 1997; Kingston and Reidy, 1997). There has been considerable debate about the methodology and appropriateness of the using student data at all (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Glass, 1990; Raudenbush and Bryk, 1989; Millman, 1981; Webster, 1995; Webster and Mendro, 1997; Thum and Bryk, 1997). The successful application of unbiased methods of determining teacher effectiveness has been limited to a few locations. However, results from recent research at two of these locations related to long-term teacher effectiveness has been remarkably consistent (Sanders and Rivers, 1996; Jordan, Mendro, and Weerasinghe, 1997). Sanders and Rivers produced a seminal study on longitudinal teacher effectiveness. Jordan, et. al., extended the study across a wide range of grades. Using two different methods of determining teacher effectiveness, two different criterion measures, three different large urban populations, and two different analysis methods, the studies found highly similar distributions of teacher effectiveness. At the one grade the analyses had in common, distributions were nearly identical (Jordan, Mendro, and Weerasinghe, 1997).

The current study reports the further extension of the research conducted by Jordan, et. al., and combines the results with research being conducted on the mathematics program in the Dallas Independent School District (Bearden, 1997) It then uses the results to consider a number of critical policy implications relative to teacher effectiveness and student achievement. These implications are divided into two broad areas, implications for policies related to student equity and implications for policies related to teacher improvement.

The paper is organized into three sections. The first section discusses the general results of the research on teacher effectiveness and the corresponding research on the Dallas Independent School District mathematics program. The remaining two sections consider, in turn, the policy implications of these research results in the areas noted above.