Examining the Relationship Between Teacher Quality as an Organizational Property of Schools and Students' Achievement and Growth Rates

Purpose: No Child Left Behind (NCLB) brought attention to the need for states to upgrade the criteria used to certify teachers for entry into the profession. This study focuses on collective teacher qualifications mandated by NCLB and the role they play in explaining differences in school achievement and growth rates. Research Methods: The study examines whether school-level differences in teacher quality are related to student learning in reading and math in a longitudinal cohort consisting of more than 14,000 students nested in a random sample of 197 elementary schools. Findings: First, as a school-level resource, collective teacher quality was positively related to school achievement levels in reading and math. Second, the strength of the relationship was conditional on school demographic composition; for example, the positive relationship in reading was enhanced in school contexts where targeted student subgroups (e.g., low socioeconomic students, students receiving English services) were more highly clustered. Third, collective teacher quality was related to increased student growth rates in math. Fourth, within schools, higher teacher quality was associated with reduced gaps in student learning rates associated with social class and race/ethnicity. Implications: Results are consistent with studies that have found that teacher professional qualifications matter in explaining differences in student achievement. They also suggest other promising avenues through which collective teacher quality influences school effectiveness and equity outcomes.

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