Teacher Supply, Demand, and Quality Policy Issues, Models, and Data Bases (1992) / Chapter Skim
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PART II SUMMARY
PART II SUMMARY
Pages 19-62
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From page 21... ...
Instead, we are concerned with the ability of the teaching force to deliver high-quality classroom instruction as ultimately measured by student learning outcomes. Numerous recent reports by blue ribbon commissions have concluded that education as a whole, and teachers in particular, are not producing public school students with the level of knowledge, skill, and discipline required in today's complex and competitive economic climate.
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From page 22... ...
elementary and secondary schools through three activities: · Identification of the major issues that policy makers can expect to face in the decade to come in developing and retaining a teaching force of the highest possible quality, and of their information needs in doing so; · Review of the adequacy of leading TSDQ projection models in relation to these information needs and delineation of specific directions in which such models should be developed further to meet these needs more completely; and · Review of the adequacy of state, regional, and national data bases relevant to TSDQ with respect to the basic data required to generate the information needed by policy makers and delineation of specific directions in which data bases should be developed further to meet these data requirements more completely. Given this focus on policy issues, projection models, and data bases, con
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From page 23... ...
a major policy issue: teacher quality; (b) TSDQ projection models; and (c)
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From page 24... ...
The editors of this volume organized them in the form reported in this summary. OVERVIEW OF TEACHER SUPPLY, DEMAND, AND SHORTAGE Teacher Demand The national demand for public school teachers is defined operationally, and in the aggregate, as the total number of teaching positions funded by local education agencies (LEAs)
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From page 25... ...
Instead of referring to total potential supply, the expression teacher supply is used loosely to refer to the composition of the actual teaching force, to potential sources of entering teachers such as recent graduates of teacher preparation programs, and to teacher supply shortages that occasionally occur in some subject matter fields at various geographic locations. The total potential supply of hireable individuals almost always equals or exceeds the number of available teaching positions.
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From page 26... ...
; and · Teachers employed in private schools who migrate to teaching positions in public schools. In view of this complexity in the sources of employed teachers, detailed information about flows of teachers into and within the profession is vital to understanding the relative importance of these sources of teacher supply.
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From page 27... ...
BOE AND DOROTHY M GILFORD 27 be very desirable to have similar information about the composition of applicant pools for open teaching positions and, in fact, about the total potential supply of teachers.
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From page 28... ...
During the early 1980s, however, it appeared that general teacher shortages could develop in the late 1980s and l990s.3 The following trends seemed to appear in several variables that affect teacher supply and demand in a direction that would increase demand and reduce supply: · High teacher attrition from the profession partly due to low salaries and poor working conditions, · Increasing teacher retirement rates due to an aging teacher force, · Rising public school enrollments due to the echo of the baby boom, · Continuing decline in teacher-pupil ratios, · Falling enrollments in teacher preparation programs, · Decreasing interest among women in teaching due to more lucrative opportunities in other professions, and · Constriction in the numbers of entering teachers because of more stringent entry standards including entry-level teacher tests and early per formance assessments. Most of these trends did not develop, nor did teacher shortages materialize.
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From page 29... ...
Falling Enrollments in Teacher Preparation Programs. Although falling enrollments in teacher preparation programs were projected, actual enrollments have been increasing fairly strongly in recent years.
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From page 30... ...
In 1966, 69.0 percent of public school teachers were women. This percentage dipped to a low of 65.7 in 1971, but then gradually rose to a new high of 70.2 percent in 1988 (NCES, 1991a)
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From page 31... ...
Other ways to compromise on applicant qualifications include hiring experienced teachers with poor performance records or hiring otherwise qualified teachers out of their fields of competence. These compromises with qualifications, which are made to equilibrate teacher supply and demand, are counterproductive to efforts by policy makers and administrators to improve the quality of teaching practice.
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From page 32... ...
This issue is particularly important because it is widely presumed that higher-quality teachers will engage in higher-quality teaching practices in their classrooms, which will lead directly to improved student learning outcomes the prime objectives of all stakeholders in public education. While this presumption may be intuitively obvious, education researchers have found it difficult to demonstrate robust relationships between potential indices of teacher quality, on one hand, and student learning outcomes, on the other (Hanushek, 19861.
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From page 33... ...
Just as physician quality is not defined formally by the morbidity or mortality statistics of patients treated, so the argument goes, teacher quality should not be defined by associating teacher credentials with student learning outcomes.
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From page 34... ...
The use of alternative routes into the teaching profession was first proposed as a means of increasing the supply of math and science teachers, but proponents of this approach argue that it will also enhance teacher quality by attracting new teachers who are brighter, better educated in subject matter fields, and more experienced than the typical teacher education graduate. The general effectiveness of alternative route programs in achieving these objectives remains to be demonstrated.
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From page 35... ...
While these trends appear to be contrary to the objective of securing a teaching force of high quality, the general relevance of tested ability of teachers to the task of teaching and to the quality of student learning outcomes has not been demonstrated.4 One reason for this may be that tests used to measure teacher abilities are much too narrow and have been limited to the multiple-choice format. The ability to select the correct answer on an aptitude or achievement test may not indicate anything about a teacher's ability to solve open-ended problems, to explain solutions to students, or to create problems for teaching students.
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From page 36... ...
Even if the demographics of the teaching force matched the demographics of public school students on a school-by-school basis, it would not be possible to match teachers and students on a class-by-class basis, since classes of students are usually heterogeneous. Given this difficulty, perhaps the main concern should be with improving the quality of classroom teaching practice because of its centrality to academic outcomes, rather than teacher-pupil demographic matching.
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From page 37... ...
Not only must the content and strategy of teaching change, but teachers must also become increasingly prepared to teach a different kind of student, one that has been alienated traditionally from schools and that is unlikely to be similar to the teacher demographically. Of the five quality dimensions reviewed here, the quality of teaching practice is most directly connected logically to the objective of increasing the quality of student learning.
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From page 38... ...
Improved teacher training is a critical component of improving teaching practice. Because the teaching force is so large and the vast majority of teachers continue from year to year, inservice training for practicing teachers is needed if rapid change is to occur.
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From page 39... ...
Hard data are not yet available about the educational benefits of restructured schools, including improvement in teaching practice. Limits of Teacher Quality As stated earlier, it is widely presumed that higher-quality teachers will engage in higher-quality teaching practice in their classrooms, which will lead directly to improved student learning outcomes.
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From page 40... ...
First, available measures of teacher quality may have little relevance to the quality of teaching practice, though this cannot be determined with certainty because independent measures of the quality of teaching practice do not exist. Second, policy efforts over many decades to improve teacher credentials may have so restricted the range of differences among teachers that the remaining variability is irrelevant to the student learning outcomes.
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From page 41... ...
Information is also needed about what such indicators reveal with respect to teacher quality-quantity tradeoffs, quality-price relationships, and projections of quality and quantity of teacher supply. Information Need 2: Teacher Credentials.
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From page 42... ...
Suggestions for action on the topic of teacher quality centered around its definition and measurement. Without consensus on appropriate and useful measures of teacher quality, relevant components of data bases cannot be developed, and analyses of the quality dimension within teacher supply and demand are not possible.
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From page 43... ...
TSDQ PROJECTION MODELS The continuing concern of educational policy makers over the adequacy of the prospective supply of teachers in relation to demand has stimulated efforts over the years to produce data that could be used in projections of future supply-demand balance. Many of these efforts have focused on producing data bases fundamental to teacher supply and demand analyses (the topic of the following major section)
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From page 44... ...
As Manski notes, the model is dependent on the intuitive assumption that SAT score is a measure of teacher quality, although there is no research that supports this assumption. Types of TSDQ Models A teacher supply-demand projection model consists of a set of mathematical relationships that can be used to estimate future levels of teacher supply and demand.
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From page 45... ...
Only behavioral models can be used to address "what if" questions about the effects of hypothetical changes in circumstances on teacher supply and demand. A third critical attribute of teacher supply-demand projection models is whether and how they deal with teacher quality.
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From page 46... ...
The standard approach is simply to assume that the distribution of enrollment among subjects at each level of education will remain constant. An important implicit assumption underlying all the current demand projection models is that the teacher market has been and is in a condition of excess supply.
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From page 47... ...
Apparently no existing teacher demand projection model incorporates teacher quality variables. The fact that teacher salary schedules typically are scaled by experience and training indicates that qualifications matter to LEAs.
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From page 48... ...
In sum, retention/attrition projection models are the most advanced elements of teacher supply-demand models, and further progress using recent research findings can be expected, widening the sophistication gap between attrition models and those for other components. Entering Teachers To satisfy teacher demand fully, entering teachers usually must be hired to augment the number of teachers retained from the prior year.
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From page 49... ...
The main problem in modeling entering teacher supply is that the number of eligible individuals willing to supply their services as teachers at a given point in time under the conditions prevailing at that time is not known with respect to any of the sources of supply. While estimates can be made, for example, of the number of experienced (but inactive)
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From page 50... ...
Although the reserve pool of certified teachers is the major source of entering teachers hired into public education and is probably in decline, very little is known about its size and composition. Information is needed about the current and projected size of this pool as a function of teacher quality and other characteristics.
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From page 51... ...
of teacher supply and demand needs to be developed to improve the accuracy and utility of estimates of supply-demand balances and imbalances, and to serve as a framework for determining the relevance of data to analyses of teacher supply-demand issues. In this
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From page 52... ...
exists for TSDQ modeling, it has not been systematically explicated. It was suggested that a statement of the theoretical underpinnings of TSDQ projection models would be useful for policy makers and others who are concerned about teacher supply-demand issues.
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From page 53... ...
Since data are not available on the quantity and quality of individuals in supply pools of potential entering teachers, methods for modeling projections of teacher supply and entry are underdeveloped. Both relevant data bases and methods to model teacher supply and entry are needed to achieve a complete TSDQ model and to make meaningful projections of imbalances of teacher demand and supply.
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From page 54... ...
In fact, it is common for researchers to spend several years creating usable data bases from state administrative records before beginning to conduct analyses of teacher supply-demand issues. A number of variables relevant to teacher quality are contained in state records.
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From page 55... ...
Nonetheless, the difficulties inherent in using state data for teacher supply-demand analyses can be managed, and experience has demonstrated that there are substantial benefits to be derived from research with teacher data bases. These sources of data, at their best, contain a remarkable degree of detailed, longitudinal information about teachers, students, and schools.
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From page 56... ...
to enhance assessment of teacher quality and qualifications; and (e) to provide more complete information on school policies and programs, administrator characteristics, and working conditions.
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From page 57... ...
Several national data bases relevant to teacher supply and demand have been sponsored by organizations other than NCES. Two examples are the National Surveys of Science and Mathematics Education, sponsored by NSF, and the Status of the American Public School Teacher, sponsored by the National Education Association, both of which include extensive information about national samples of teachers.
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From page 58... ...
Without this information, attrition studies lack precision and may yield misleading interpretations. For the most part, the strengths of national data bases relevant to TSDQ are the limitations of state data bases, while the limitations of national data bases are the strengths of those at the state level.
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From page 59... ...
relevant to analyses of teacher quality that have not been used for this purpose. A suggestion was made that these data be used to study the quality of teacher supply starting in high school at the beginning of the pipeline.
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From page 60... ...
The value of SASS and other national data bases for analyzing teacher supply and demand issues is much greater than can be exploited by NCES and contract analysts. Accordingly, it was suggested that NCES create and fund a consortium of independent TSDQ researchers in order to capitalize more fully on the potential of these data bases.
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From page 61... ...
Hudson 1991 Entering and Reentering Teachers in Indiana: Source of Supply.
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From page 62... ...
E.D. TABS: Aspects of Teacher Supply and Demand in Public School Districts and Private Schools: 1987-88.
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