Academics and policymakers increasingly emphasize that a key to improving educational outcomes in the United States is enhancing the quality of teachers. While the attention to preservice teacher education is important, it will be many years before today's pre-service teachers constitute a majority of the teaching workforce. Hence, the focus of teacher quality enhancement efforts in the near term must be in-service professional development for those already in the teacher workforce.
This project is examining the Appalachian Math and Science Partnership (AMSP) effects on student learning. A goal of the partnership is to close the achievement gap in student math and science knowledge through AMSP activities. This study presents a statistical method for evaluating the effects of AMSP participation on student learning. This project employs a research design that involves a two equation model to estimate the independent effects of teacher participation in AMSP on student outcomes. A two equation model is used because estimation is complicated by the fact that teachers and schools voluntarily choose to participate in AMSP. The first equation of the model corrects for the nonrandom nature of selection of schools and teachers into AMSP which, when uncorrected, can also bias the estimates of the program effects. The second equation incorporates the first stage selection estimates and includes other independent variables that would be expected to influence test scores. Alternative measures of student achievement are used.
This project is significant for two reasons. First,the project will directly address whether AMSP is improving student outcomes among participating Appalachian teachers and schools. This project also makes an important contribution in establishing a scientifically sound method for evaluating the effects of MSPs and other professional development programs. Developing statistical and other methodological approaches to studying the impact of the effects of these programs is important in the national movement to improve teacher quality and student learning in math and science.
Academics and policymakers increasingly emphasize that a key to improving educational outcomes in the United States is to enhance the quality of teachers. After many years of research that failed to show significant and systematic effects of inputs into the education process—such as school expenditures, teacher salaries, or pupil-teacher ratios on student outcomes—recent work illustrates that the quality of teachers is a significant factor in explaining student achievement. With increasing emphasis on teacher quality has come a penchant among policymakers to improve training for pre-service teachers; this is the element of the teacher production system most easily manipulated by lawmakers. While the attention to teacher training is important, it will be many years before today’s pre-service teachers constitute a majority of the teaching workforce. Hence, the focus of teacher quality enhancement efforts in the near term must be in-service training for those already in the teacher workforce, typically called professional development (PD). One such initiative focused on in-service teacher PD is that of the National Science Foundation’s Math and Science Partnerships (MSP). This project evaluated one MSP -- the Appalachian Math and Science Partnership (AMSP) and its effects on student learning. A goal of the partnership was to close the achievement gap in student math and science knowledge through AMSP activities. The evaluation focused on whether students of teachers who participated in AMSP professional development performed better on math and science exams than students whose teachers did not participate. This project was significant for two reasons. First, the evaluation contribution of this project centered on how to properly estimate the effects of the AMSP intervention given that teachers were not randomly assigned to the program. Evidence in research publications illustrates that correcting for the non-random assignment of teachers is critical to a proper evaluation of the effectiveness of the teacher training. The second reason for project significance pertains to the empirical outcomes of the evaluation. The evaluation techniques employed in this project illustrated that AMSP was successful in generating higher student math outcomes in K-12 schools of Appalachian Kentucky. Furthermore, the cost of achievement the student gains from this PD was lower than most school reform efforts that have been similarly estimated. It is clear that policymakers think math and science outcomes should be enhanced in the United States. The National Science Foundation has funded many partnerships for math and science training. Such large investments of human and financial resources call for evaluation that not only seeks to evaluate whether teachers' knowledge is enhanced but also examines whether student learning is enhanced. It is not sufficient to assume that federal dollars spent on innovative PD programs automatically increase student learning. Understanding these programs and whether they consistently generate positive returns for in-service professional development efforts is important in the national movement to improve teacher quality and student learning in math and science.
