Is 'highly qualified' really highly qualified? : an examination of teacher quality measures and their impact on student achievement
Research consistently shows that teachers can have a tremendous impact on student achievement outcomes. To close the achievement gap, districts and schools must dramatically increase the number of excellent teachers in classrooms. Currently, school districts assess the quality of their teaching staff according to teachers’ training—undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, alternative certification, and teaching experience. The question is: are these the right measures? Are these teacher characteristics driving student achievement results? If not, districts must choose new measures, a move that will have major implications for teacher training, hiring, and firing. This study uses data from the California Department of Education to estimate the effect of teaching experience, highest degree level, and type of alternative certification on student achievement outcomes—standardized test scores—in California Public Schools. I find that teaching experience is positively related to student achievement, though the magnitude of its impact is small; higher degrees either marginally increase achievement or negatively impact achievement; and alternative certification programs are negatively correlated with student achievement.