Matthew Ronfeldt

We survey undergraduate students at a large public university to understand the pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors driving their college major and career decisions with a focus on K-12 teaching. While the average student reports there is a 6% chance they will pursue teaching, almost 27% report a nonzero chance of working as a teacher in the future. Students, relative to existing statistics, generally believe they would earn substantially more in a non-teaching job (relative to a teaching job). We run a randomized information experiment where we provide students with information on the pecuniary and non-pecuniary job characteristics of teachers and non-teachers. This low-cost informational intervention impacts students' beliefs about their job characteristics if they were to work as a teacher or non-teacher, and increases the reported likelihood they will major or minor in education by 35% and pursue a job as a teacher or in education by 14%. Linking the survey data with administrative transcript records, we find that the intervention had small (and weak) impacts on the decision to minor in education in the subsequent year. Overall, our results indicate that students hold biased beliefs about their career prospects, they update these beliefs when provided with information, and that this information has limited impacts on their choices regarding studying and having a career in teaching.

More →

Many prior studies have examined whether there are average differences in levels of teaching effectiveness among graduates from different teacher preparation programs (TPPs); other studies have investigated which features of preparation predict graduates’ average levels of teaching effectiveness. This is the first study to examine whether there are average differences between TPPs in terms of graduates’ average growth, rather than levels, in teaching effectiveness, and to consider which features predict this growth. Examining all graduates from Tennessee TPPs from 2010 to 2018, we find meaningful differences between TPPs in terms of both levels and growth in teaching effectiveness. We also find that different TPP features, including areas of endorsement, program type, clinical placement type and length, program size, and faculty composition explain part of these differences. Yet, the features that predict initial teaching effectiveness are not the same features that predict growth.

More →

Prior work suggests that recent graduates from teacher education programs feel better prepared to teach and are more instructionally effective when they learned to teach with more instructionally effective cooperating teachers. However, we do not know if these relationships are causal. Even if they are, we do not know if it is possible to recruit cooperating teachers who are, on average, significantly more effective than those currently serving. This paper describes an innovative strategy to use historical administrative on teachers to recommend the most instructionally effective and experienced teachers in various districts and subject areas to serve as cooperating teachers. In collaboration with a large teacher education program, partnering districts were randomized to receive either recommendation lists or use business-as-usual approaches. Those districts that received recommendations recruited significantly and meaningfully more effective and experienced cooperating teachers. Additionally, preservice student teachers who learned to teach in these same districts felt significantly better prepared to teach. This study offers an innovative and low-cost strategy for recruiting effective and experienced cooperating teachers and presents some of the first evidence that learning to teach with instructionally effective cooperating teachers has a causal impact on feelings of preparedness to teach.

More →

Growing evidence suggests that preservice candidates receive better coaching and are more instructionally effective when they are mentored by more instructionally effective cooperating teachers (CTs). Yet, teacher education program leaders indicate it can be difficult to recruit instructionally effective teachers to serve as CTs, in part because teachers worry that serving may negatively impact district evaluation scores. Using a unique dataset on over 4,500 CTs, we compare evaluation scores during years these teachers served as CTs to years they did not. In years they served as CTs, teachers had significantly better observation ratings and somewhat better achievement gains, though not always at significant levels. These results suggest that concerns over lowered evaluations should not prevent teachers from serving as CTs.

More →