Project Activities
Research question
- How effective are TFA teachers at teaching secondary math compared with other teachers teaching the same math courses in the same schools?
- How effective are Teaching Fellows at teaching secondary math compared with other teachers teaching the same math courses in the same schools?
Structured Abstract
Design
This study used an experimental design in which students were randomly assigned to a class taught by a math teacher from the program being studied (TFA or Teaching Fellows) or to a similar math class in the same school taught by a teacher who did not participate in either of the programs studied. Approximately 80 schools in 15 districts were recruited to take part in the study, with a focus on roughly 300 secondary school math teachers and approximately their 17,000 students.
Student achievement was measured by administering computer-adaptive math assessments to high school students and using scores from state- and district-administered math assessments for middle school students. A teacher survey was used to collect information on demographic characteristics, educational background, pre-service teaching experience, teacher education courses taken during the current school year, and mentoring and other support services received during the current school year. Structured interviews of highly-selective alternative certification program administrators was used to collect information on the strategies the programs used to recruit, screen, train, place, and support teachers.
Key findings
On Teach For America and Teaching Fellows:
- TFA teachers were more effective than their comparison teachers in the same schools regardless of the comparison teachers' route to certification.
- On average, students assigned to novice TFA teachers had higher math scores than students assigned to more experienced teachers from other routes to certification.
- Students of Teaching Fellows and comparison teachers had similar scores, on average, on the math tests they took at the end of the school year; however, Teaching Fellows were more effective than teachers from less selective alternative routes to certification, but neither more nor less effective than teachers from traditional routes to certification.
- Novice Teaching Fellows were more effective than novice comparison teachers; experienced Teaching Fellows teachers were neither more nor less effective than experienced comparison teachers.
From a brief synthesizing lessons learned from this study and another study focusing on teachers from less-selective routes to alternative certification:
- Teachers who enter teaching through alternative routes to certification can help fill teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools and subjects without reducing student achievement.
- Coursework taken while teaching appears to decrease teachers' effectiveness.
- Predicting teacher effectiveness at the time of hiring appears to be difficult.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
A report, titled The Effectiveness of Secondary Math Teachers from Teach For America and the Teaching Fellows Programs, along with a study snapshot and video recap, was released in September 2013.
An evaluation brief, titled Addressing Teacher Shortages in Disadvantaged Schools: Lessons From Two Institute of Education Sciences Studies, along with a video of a forum on the brief, was released in September 2013.
A restricted-use file containing de-identified data is available for the purposes of replicating study findings and secondary analysis.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
