Eric.ed.gov – The Relationship of Teacher Quality and Student Achievement in Elementary Schools from the New York City

The present study sought to examine the relationship between teacher quality and student achievement in public elementary schools in a community district school of the New York City. It has 23 elementary schools, more than 7,600 students and around 350 teachers. For this study, participants consist of a sample of 117 full-time teachers who were working in third, fourth and fifth grade during the 2006-2007 school year. By recognizing the link between quality teaching and student achievement, this study addressed the broad question: “What is the relationship between teacher quality and student achievement?” Methodologically, data collection was based on a standardized questionnaire developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The survey used here was adapted by the researcher to explore three specific teacher quality characteristics: educational background, certification & training status, and professional development programs. This study was designed to test the Total Quality Management (TQM) theoretical propositions relating quality inputs to quality outputs. Data analysis and the relationship between quality teaching and student achievement were examined through two main statistical tests: the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and the multiple regression analysis tests. As this study attempted to explain how observable teacher characteristics are related to the student achievement, this study concluded that some observable teacher quality characteristics such as the educational background, certification & training status and professional development activities are significantly related to the student achievement. Particularly, this study verified that teachers’ educational background characteristics such as highest degree earned, major field of study and the pre-teaching tests are significantly related to the student achievement. In the same way, this study confirms that teachers’ certification area is significantly related to the student achievement. Also, this study confirms that teachers’ professional development components such as participation in professional development activities, support received, rewards gained and collaboration activities are statistically related to the student achievement in Math and ELA test. As these findings are consistently constructed based on rigorous statistical analysis, they could have important and practical implications. In effect, such information can be particularly valuable in guiding policies regarding how to hire, whom to reward, to retain the best teachers and how to distribute available teachers across schools and classrooms. Furthermore, they could guide strategic decisions, mostly those referred to implement policies to improve teacher quality as well as other education policies to motivate high-quality teaching in elementary schools. The following are appended: (1) Teacher Questionnaire; (2) Frequencies of the Survey Items: Educational Background; (3) Frequencies of the Survey Items: Certification & Training Status; (4) Frequencies of the Survey: Professional Development; (5) Variable Measurement: Student Achievement; (6) Definition of Terms; (7) Letter Model to Respondent Teachers; (8) Consent Form Model to Participate in Research; and (9) Participant Teacher from Selected Schools. (Contains 48 tables and 1 figure.)