Matt Barnum reports at Chalkbeat about a follow-up study about transferring teachers and what it shows about the context of teaching.
This reflected the moment’s zeitgeist: use test scores to identify the best teachers (and also the worst). This so-called Talent Transfer Initiative worked, according to a 2013 study: Test scores rose by 3 to 5 percentile points among students taught by transferring educators. It was an example of the tangible benefits of having an excellent teacher.
Yet the story does not end there. A group of researchers recently released a paper reexamining this study and offered an intriguing twist. If the transferring teachers remained as effective as they had been in their prior school, test scores would have risen even more.
But in fact, in their new schools, these great teachers transformed into merely pretty good teachers. This reflects a profound and sometimes underappreciated fact about teacher performance: It’s not just about the inherent skills of an individual. It’s also about the school environment.
“Teacher effectiveness is dynamic,” says Matthew Kraft, a Brown University professor and coauthor of the new paper. “Teaching is a team sport.”
The study is important because there’s been a vacuum in policy efforts to improve teacher quality since the 2010s. The bevy of teacher evaluation laws during that period produced little in the way of overall student learning gains, according to a widely cited study coauthored by Kraft. Teachers are still very important, though. This new study is one small step in understanding how to bolster the profession.
Read the full article here. It’s a reminder that switching teachers around is not a substitute for providing schools with the resources and support they need.