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There has been a recent expansion of high school course offerings in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical/health (STEMM) fields. The large span of courses now offered in STEMM are delineated across STEMM-general courses (i.e., chemistry) and STEMM-CTE courses (i.e., information technology). Little is known, however, about who are the teachers in these courses. This brief addresses this void by developing a taxonomy of the STEMM teaching workforce using statewide data from Maryland. Through this taxonomy, we examine the number of STEMM teachers by whether they teach general versus CTE STEMM courses, and whether they do so exclusively or across both types. We then examine what teaching courseloads look like across these groupings, as well as by qualifications and demographics. The aim of this brief is to understand not only the landscape of who teaches which STEMM courses, but also to identify disparities. This can help inform research on STEMM courses and teachers as well as policy, practice, and professional development.

Background/Context Teacher coaching, defined by sustained observation and feedback cycles, has a longstanding theory of action that has held up to several rigorous evaluations in recent years. Policymakers and practitioners have taken note of these findings, rolling out coaching programs in classrooms and schools across the United States as a key policy initiative to improve instructional quality and student outcomes at scale. One likely factor leading to its success is that coaching program activities are situated much more closely to key outcomes than other initiatives (e.g., certification, licensure). However, coaching too exists in a broader policy context that creates both opportunities and challenges for success. On one hand, coaches are uniquely positioned not only to help teachers improve their practice but also to serve in leadership and capacity-building roles for their broader education systems; on the other hand, coaches’ role in system infrastructures can mean that their work is impeded by these same organizational factors, including top-down hierarchies and competing reform interests. Purpose/Objective/Research Design This piece synthesizes qualitative and mixed methods research presented in this volume in order to situate coaching programs within broader policy contexts and identify avenues for continued exploration. Conclusions/Recommendations Navigating these tensions requires additional research and data on the conditions and mechanisms that drive effective teacher coaching and how these conditions and mechanisms can be replicated at scale. One mechanism that should serve as the focal point of ongoing work are the coaches themselves. What skills and dispositions do coaches need in order to work with teachers to develop instructional practice while also effectively navigating policy conditions in their schools and districts?

Can a school or district improve student achievement simply by switching to a higher‐quality textbook or curriculum? We conducted the first multi‐textbook, multi‐state effort to estimate textbook efficacy following widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and associated changes in the textbook market. Pooling textbook adoption and student test score data across six geographically and demographically diverse U.S. states, we found little evidence of differences in average achievement gains for schools using different math textbooks. We found some evidence of greater variation in achievement gains among schools using pre‐CCSS editions, which may have been more varied in their content than post‐CCSS editions because they were written for a broader set of standards. We also found greater variation among schools that had more exposure to a given text. However, these differences were small. Despite considerable interest and attention to textbooks as a low‐cost, “silver bullet” intervention for improving student outcomes, we conclude that the adoption of a new textbook or set of curriculum materials, on its own, is unlikely to achieve this goal.

Teacher evaluation reform has been among the most controversial education reforms in recent years. It also is one of the costliest in terms of the time teachers and principals must spend on classroom observations. We conducted a randomized field trial at four sites to evaluate whether substituting teacher-collected videos for in-person observations could improve the value of teacher observations for teachers, administrators, or students. Relative to teachers in the control group who participated in standard in-person observations, teachers in the video-based treatment group reported that post-observation meetings were more “supportive” and they were more able to identify a specific practice they changed afterward. Treatment principals were able to shift their observation work to noninstructional times. The program also substantially increased teacher retention. Nevertheless, the intervention did not improve students’ academic achievement or self-reported classroom experiences, either in the year of the intervention or for the next cohort of students. Following from the literature on observation and feedback cycles in low-stakes settings, we hypothesize that to improve student outcomes schools may need to pair video feedback with more specific supports for desired changes in practice.

The pursuit of multiple educational outcomes makes teaching a complex craft subject to potential conflicts and competing commitments. Using a data set in which teachers were randomly assigned to classes paired with videotaped lessons, we both document and unpack such a tradeoff. Upper-elementary teachers who excel at raising students’ math test scores often are less successful at improving student-reported engagement in class (and vice versa). Furthermore, teaching practices that improve test scores (e.g., cognitively demanding content) can simultaneously decrease engagement. At the same time, paired quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal two areas of practice that support both outcomes: active mathematics with opportunities for hands-on participation, physical movement, and peer interaction; and established routines and procedures to proactively organize the classroom. In addition to guiding practice-based teacher education, our sequential, explanatory mixed-methods analysis can serve as a model for rigorously studying and identifying dimensions of “good” teaching that promote multidimensional student development.

The purpose of this paper is to outline what we believe to be promising a strategy for developing a scalable behavioral intervention to encourage teachers to adopt teaching practices that support a growth-mindset classroom culture. We first briefly review the most widely-implemented current policies and programs aimed at influencing teachers' instructional practices and consider, based on the available research, how effective those approaches are likely to be for encouraging growth mindset-supportive teaching practices. We then lay out what we believe to be the most important psychological forces currently at play, either facilitating or hindering teachers’ adoption of such practices. On the basis of this analysis of existing psychological forces, and drawing ideas from the research literature in four complementary disciplines, we propose an “intervention toolkit”—candidate intervention ideas that we suggest should be considered for inclusion as components of a larger intervention. Throughout, we identify additional issues for consideration in designing the intervention and important questions for future research.

There is growing interest among researchers, policy makers, and practitioners in identifying teachers who are skilled at improving student outcomes beyond test scores. However, questions remain about the validity of these teacher effect estimates. Leveraging the random assignment of teachers to classes, I find that teachers have causal effects on their students’ self-reported behavior in class, self-efficacy in math, and happiness in class that are similar in magnitude to effects on math test scores. Weak correlations between teacher effects on different student outcomes indicate that these measures capture unique skills that teachers bring to the classroom. Teacher effects calculated in nonexperimental data are related to these same outcomes following random assignment, revealing that they contain important information content on teachers. However, for some nonexperimental teacher effect estimates, large and potentially important degrees of bias remain. These results suggest that researchers and policy makers should proceed with caution when using these measures. They likely are more appropriate for low-stakes decisions—such as matching teachers to professional development—than for high-stakes personnel decisions and accountability.

Easy access to low-cost, high definition video technology has transformed how researchers and practitioners are approaching school improvement efforts. Video-based observations of classroom instruction provide researchers the means to define and measure aspects of effective teaching and suggest subsequent professional learning. In this article we describe three use cases for video observations based on the work we are doing at the Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard University. The cases discuss strategies for (1) using teacher videos to improve instructional practice through 1:1 coaching focused on the use of a mathematics-specific observation rubric, (2) making observation and feedback cycles practical for over-burdened principals, and (3) developing outcome measures to inform our understanding of teacher effectiveness and suggest the potential for improvement. We describe a research agenda that is grounded in concrete examples of teaching practice.

Teacher coaching has emerged as a promising alternative to traditional models of professional development. We review the empirical literature on teacher coaching and conduct meta-analyses to estimate the mean effect of coaching programs on teachers’ instructional practice and students’ academic achievement. Combining results across 60 studies that employ causal research designs, we find pooled effect sizes of 0.49 standard deviations (SD) on instruction and 0.18 SD on achievement. Much of this evidence comes from literacy coaching programs for prekindergarten and elementary school teachers in the United States. Although these findings affirm the potential of coaching as a development tool, further analyses illustrate the challenges of taking coaching programs to scale while maintaining effectiveness. Average effects from effectiveness trials of larger programs are only a fraction of the effects found in efficacy trials of smaller programs. We conclude by discussing ways to address scale-up implementation challenges and providing guidance for future causal studies.

Critics of test-based accountability warn that test preparation has a negative influence on teachers’ instruction due to a focus on procedural skills. Others advocate that the adoption of more rigo...

Much debate surrounding teacher quality has focused on students’ standardized test scores, but recent federal and state initiatives have emphasized the use of multiple measures to evaluate teacher quality, including classroom observations. In this study, we explore differences across school districts in the relationship between student achievement outcomes and the observed quality of teachers’ instruction. Using data from 298 elementary mathematics teachers in five urban US districts, we examine relationships between teachers’ performance on the Mathematical Quality of Instruction observation instrument and their students’ scores on both state standardized and researcher-developed tests. We find that these relationships differ across school districts. We explore the extent to which differences in skills and expectations for students across tests may explain this variability. An improved understanding of the relationship between classroom observations and student tests may help districts to better ...

New systems that seek to evaluate teachers with regard to their classroom quality often rely on observation instruments that capture general instructional pedagogies. However, decades of research suggest that content-specific dimensions of instruction also are important to differentiate teachers and improve student outcomes. We explore the degree of overlap between a general and a content-specific instrument when capturing upper elementary teachers’ mathematics instruction. To do so, we conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on data from more than 2,000 videotaped lessons scored using both the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, a general instrument, and the Mathematical Quality of Instruction, a content-specific instrument. Findings indicate that there is some overlap between instruments but that preferred factor structures include both general and content-specific practices.

Education agencies are evaluating teachers using student achievement data. However, very little is known about the comparability of test-based or “value-added” metrics across districts and the extent to which they capture variability in classroom practices. Drawing on data from four urban districts, we found that teachers were categorized differently when compared within versus across districts. In addition, analyses of scores from two observation instruments, as well as qualitative viewing of lesson videos, identified stark differences in instructional practices across districts among teachers who received similar within-district value-added rankings. These patterns were not explained by observable background characteristics of teachers, suggesting that factors beyond labor market sorting likely played a key role.

This article analyzes a coaching model focused on classroom management skills and instructional practices across grade levels and subject areas. We describe the design and implementation of MATCH Teacher Coaching among an initial cohort of 59 teachers working in New Orleans charter schools. We evaluate the effect of the program on teachers’ instructional practices using a block randomized trial and find that coached teachers scored 0.59 standard deviations higher on an index of effective teaching practices comprised of observation scores, principal evaluations, and student surveys. We discuss implementation challenges and make recommendations for researcher–practitioner partnerships to address key remaining questions.

Although previous research has shown that teacher coaching can improve teaching practices and student achievement, little is known about specific features of effective coaching programs. We estimate the impact of MATCH Teacher Coaching (MTC) on a range of teacher practices using a blocked randomized trial and explore how changes in the coaching model across two cohorts are related to program effects. Findings indicate large positive effects in Cohort 1 but no effects in Cohort 2. After ruling out explanations related to the research design, a set of exploratory analyses suggest that differential treatment effects may be attributable to differences in coach effectiveness, coaching dosage, and the focus of coaching across cohorts.

Recent investigations into the education production function have moved beyond traditional teacher inputs, such as education, certification, and salary, focusing instead on observational measures of teaching practice. However, challenges to identification mean that this work has yet to coalesce around specific instructional dimensions that increase student achievement. I build on this discussion by exploiting within-school, between-grade, and cross-cohort variation in scores from two observation instruments; further, I condition on a uniquely rich set of teacher characteristics, practices, and skills. Findings indicate that inquiry-oriented instruction positively predicts student achievement. Content errors and imprecisions are negatively related, though these estimates are sensitive to the set of covariates included in the model. Two other dimensions of instruction, classroom emotional support and classroom organization, are not related to this outcome. Findings can inform recruitment and development efforts aimed at improving the quality of the teacher workforce.

Research on teacher stability typically focuses on the extent to which teachers remain in the same school, district, or the teaching profession from one year to the next. I investigate another facet of stability—whether teachers remain in the grade they teach. Drawing on administrative data from a large district in California, I find that high shares of teachers switch grades. Disproportionately, these are early career teachers who come from low-achieving or high-minority schools. Teachers who switch grades leave schools at higher rates than their colleagues and exhibit lower impacts on their students’ achievement. For teachers who switch to a nonadjacent grade, these negative effects can wipe out any gains due to increased experience and can persist in the year after the switch occurs.

Research has focused predominantly on how teachers affect students’ achievement on standardized tests despite evidence that a broad range of attitudes and behaviors are equally important to their long-term success. We find that upper-elementary teachers have large effects on self-reported measures of students’ self-efficacy in math, and happiness and behavior in class. Students’ attitudes and behaviors are predicted by teaching practices most proximal to these measures, including teachers’ emotional support and classroom organization. However, teachers who are effective at improving test scores often are not equally effective at improving students’ attitudes and behaviors. These findings lend empirical evidence to well-established theory on the multidimensional nature of teaching and the need to identify strategies for improving the full range of teachers’ skills.