Empirical Puzzles on Effective Teachers: U.S. Research

Abstract

This chapter addresses the knowledge base on selection and evaluation of effective teachers using recent empirical literature from the United States. It finds that the traditional criteria of teacher licensing, educational credentials, and teaching experience show extremely weak relationships to gains (value-added) in student achievement. Combining classroom observations and measures of teacher value-added seem to hold promise in identifying productive teachers among those already employed, but lack applicability in the initial selection of teachers. Differences among teacher training programs in teacher effectiveness are surprisingly small relative to variance within programs. Issues of how to select teachers and how to reward them for their contributions to student and school productivity remain contested without solid evidence to resolve them.