Teacher Effects in Early Grades: Evidence From a Randomized Study

Posted by on August 22, 2011

Once anecdotal, now proven

A new report from Michigan State finds that having consistently good teachers in elementary school is as important for student achievement as small class size, according to the mlive.com website. The study, which appears in Teachers College Record, is one of the first to find that teachers can affect student achievement over time in the crucial early grades, highlighting the importance of identifying and hiring effective teachers in the early grades and implementing interventions such as professional development to improve teacher effectiveness. Study author Spyros Konstantopoulos analyzed reading and math scores on standardized tests for several thousand students in kindergarten through third grade involved in the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio study (Project STAR) in Tennessee, the first major study of the effects of class size on student learning. Konstantopoulos found teachers in all four grades can have a significant effect on student achievement independent of other teachers. This means, for example, that a kindergarten teacher can have significant, measurable effect on a third-grader’s math and reading scores. Konstantopoulos also found that teacher effects were more pronounced in reading than in math, which made sense, he said, because “teachers in kindergarten and even first grade typically see their role as that of a reading teacher, not necessarily a mathematics teacher.”

Read more: http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2011/08/msu_study_good_elementary_teac.html

See the report: http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=16099