Teach Effectively!

Professor Andrew Leigh of the Australian National University has reported the results of a study of the relationship between students’ outcomes and which teachers those students have. Professor Leigh examined the test scores for both literacy and numeracy of more than 90,000 students as they progressed through 3rd, 4th, and 5th or 5th, 6th, and 7th grades; he connected those scores to the students’ teachers and determined what part of the changes in students’ outcomes were attributable to the teachers.

Estimating Teacher Effectiveness From Two-Year Changes in
Students’ Test Scores*

Andrew Leigh
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University
andrew.leigh@anu.edu.au

http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/

Abstract

Using a dataset covering over 10,000 Australian primary school teachers and over 90,000 pupils, I estimate how effective teachers are in raising students’ test scores from one exam to the next. Since the exams are conducted only every two years, it is necessary to take account of the work of the teacher in the intervening year. Even after adjusting for measurement error, the resulting teacher fixed effects are widely dispersed across teachers, and there is a strong positive correlation between a teacher’s gains in literacy and numeracy. Teacher fixed effects show a significant association with some, though not all, observable teacher characteristics. Experience has the strongest effect, with a large effect in the early years of a teacher’s career. Female teachers do better at teaching literacy. Teachers with a masters degree or some other form of further qualification do not appear to achieve significantly larger test score gains. Overall, teacher characteristics found in the departmental payroll database can explain only a small fraction of the variance in teacher performance.

Link to Professor Leigh’s home page and to a PDF of the article. Link to an article by John Garnaut, writing in the Sydney (NSW, AU) Morning Herald