Do Teacher Absences Impact Student Achievement? Longitudinal Evidence from One Urban School District

Rates of employee absences and the effects of absences on productivity are topics of conversation in many organizations in many countries. One reason is that high rates of employee absence may signal weak management and poor labor-management relations. A second reason is that reducing rates of employee absence may be an effective way to improve productivity. This paper reports the results of a study of employee absences in education, a large, labor-intensive industry. Policymakers' concern with teacher absence rests on three premises: (1) that a significant portion of teachers' absences is discretionary, (2) that teachers' absences have a nontrivial impact on productivity, and (3) that feasible policy changes could reduce rates of absence among teachers. This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of the first two of these premises; it discusses the third premise. We employ a methodology that accounts for time-invariant differences among teachers in skill and motivation. We find large variation in adjusted teacher absence rates among schools. We estimate that each 10 days of teacher absences reduce students' mathematics achievement by 3.3 percent of a standard deviation.

Thoughts of Leaving: An Exploration of Why New York City Middle School Teachers Consider Leaving Their Classrooms

This report explores the conditions under which middle-school teachers in New York City leave their schools, and the consequences of this turnover. The focus on middle schools stems from the widely-held view that the middle grades are a critical turning point in the lives of children, and that many New York City school children lose academic momentum in these grades, setting them on trajectories of failure as they move towards high school and life beyond it. This report is based on a survey of more than 4,000 full-time middle school teachers working in 125 of the nearly 200 middle schools in New York City serving children in grades six through eight in the 2009-10 school year. The participating teachers reported whether they had considered leaving their current school or leaving teaching during that school year, and the reasons that they considered leaving. The report links their responses to teachers' reports about their own backgrounds and experiences, to the demographic characteristics of the schools in which they teach, and to the collective perceptions of all of the teachers in a school about that school as a workplace. This report is part of a three-year, mixed-methods study of teacher turnover in New York City middle schools

Teacher Stability and Turnover in Los Angeles: The Influence of Teacher and School Characteristics

Analyzes how teacher and school characteristics - including demographics, quality and qualification, specialty, school type (public, magnet, charter) and size, academic climate, and teacher-student racial match - influence teacher turnover

The effect of teacher quality on student achievement in urban schools : a multilevel analysis

textThe No Child Left Behind Act recognizes the importance of quality teachers in improving student achievement in that it mandates that all students have to be taught by “a highly qualified teacher”. The increasing demand for highly qualified teachers has led to a shortage of qualified teachers. In the United States, however, an uneven distribution of high quality teachers exists. A closer look at urban areas reveals that the problem is more severe in those localities than the national average. In order to address the teacher shortage problem in urban areas, more than 40 states initiated an alternative certification route for candidates who hold a bachelor’s degree (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Heilig, Cole, & Springel, 2011), although teachers’ certification or licensing status play an important role in differentiating teacher quality. The purpose of this study was to examine how high quality teachers are distributed across a large, urban district in Texas according to student’s characteristics, school characteristics and student achievement. In addition, more importantly, this study explored how teacher’s quality influences student achievement and, more specifically, on achievement of students with limited English proficiency (LEP). Due to the differences of characteristics in student characteristics and a school system, elementary schools and middle schools were separated in the analyses. In order to examine which students were allocated to high quality teachers and to determine the effect of teacher quality on students’ achievement in an urban district, Southeast Independent School District (SISD), which is a major urban district in Texas with more than 200,000 students, was chosen. As the largest public school system in Texas, SISD has large shares of minority and low-income students. Student data utilized in this analysis came from the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS), which is data collection and reporting system produced by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the public schools of Texas. SISD provided individual level teacher’s data, students’ data, and a matching file so that teacher’s and their students’ data could be linked. All data that SISD provided are protected by using masked identification. To address the research questions, the study involved three statistical approaches – descriptive analysis, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and three-level hierarchical linear models (HLM). Results from ANOVA indicated unequal distribution of high quality teachers across an urban school district. Economically disadvantaged students, minority students, and students with limited English proficiency were more likely to be allocated to alternatively certified teachers. It implies that students with economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds lose a chance to have fully-certified or highly qualified teachers. The test scores of students who had fully-certified teachers were higher than the test scores of under-certified teachers’ or alternatively-certified teachers’ students. Campus accountability ratings were also significantly lower for schools that had more Teach for America (TFA) teachers than schools that had more fully-certified teachers. There were also clear distinctions among teacher’s qualifications, student characteristics, and school conditions between elementary schools and middle schools. There were more alternative certified teachers and less fully-certified teachers in middle schools. Middle schools served a higher percentage of students that are economically disadvantaged, at-risk of dropping out, were LEP, and Hispanic. The average campus accountability rating was also lower in middle schools than elementary schools. Overall, school conditions in middle schools were more inferior than in elementary schools among urban schools in Texas. In order to explain the effect of teacher quality and school condition besides student’s characteristics on student performance, a multilevel analysis was necessary to explain each variance of students, teachers, and schools. Through multilevel analyses (or three-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM)), I confirmed that student background or ability was the strongest predictor of student achievement as many previous studies have found. The results showed that student achievement significantly differed by students’ background or ability even when they have the same reading teachers. However, HLM results also showed that teacher’s and school’s effects on student achievement were not negligible based on their proportions of variances. It implied that student achievement could be differentiated by teacher’s quality or school’s conditions. Among variables regarding teacher qualifications, the fully-certified teacher variable was a solely significant and positive factor of student achievement in middle schools. That is, students who had fully-certified teachers were more likely to achieve higher test scores than those who had under-certified and alternatively certified teachers after controlling all variables. However, in elementary schools that had 95 percent of fully-certified teachers did not show the significant differences of student achievement by teacher’s qualifications. The years of teaching experience and teacher educational attainment was not significant factors to explain student performance. Among school-level predictors, campus accountability ranking was a positively significant factor to predict student achievement in both elementary schools and middle schools. The percentage of economically disadvantaged students in campus was negatively associated with student achievement in middle schools. Since the study focused on reading achievement, the effect of teacher’s quality on the achievement of LEP students was particularly concerning. To address research questions, an interaction effect between teacher certification status and the achievement of LEP students was added on the three-level model. Results from the analysis showed that after accounting all variables LEP students who had fully-certified teachers achieved 0.1 scores higher on the TAKS reading test in the middle schools. Considering that LEP students typically achieved lower than their peers, the results implied that fully-certified teachers mitigate the effect of LEP on TAKS reading. The finding showed a positive effect of fully-certified teachers for students in need and corresponded with previous studies that high quality teachers played a more important role for socially and economically disadvantaged students. To sum up, this study found that teacher quality is a significant factor to predict student achievement, yet highly qualified teachers are unequally distributed across an urban school district. Socially and economically disadvantaged students were less likely to be taught by fully-certified teachers and were more likely to be taught by alternatively certified teachers. Furthermore, their achievement was significantly lower than their peers who were taught by highly qualified teachers. These aspects were more noticeable in middle schools.Educational Administratio

Why Students Drop Out of School: A Review of 25 Years of Research

Reviews research on the underlying causes of the high school dropout crisis -- individual and institutional characteristics that predict whether a student is likely to drop out of high school. Discusses student engagement, deviance, and other models

Relationship Between Self-Efficacy Beliefs, Teacher Age, and Years of Experience of Teachers of Languages Other Than English and Their Perceived Leadership

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine a relationship between self-efficacy beliefs, age, and years of experience of educators of language other than English and teacher leadership. Language teachers constitute a unique subculture that exhibits varied levels of perceived importance and influence on the local, state, and national levels. The complexity of the academic context of second language acquisition contributed to the persistent shortage of educators nationwide between 1990 and 2017. In addition, the gap in ethnic representativeness of formal school leaders combined with the increased ethnic diversity of students communicates the need to invest in leadership development of teachers of languages other than English. The convenience sampling method was used to draw a representative sample of 64 language educators from school districts in the northeastern region of Texas. Two online surveys and a demographic questionnaire were employed to collect primary data. The Teachers’ Efficacy Beliefs System-Self (TEBS-Self) allowed to measure domain-specific teacher self-efficacy beliefs. The Teacher Leadership Inventory (TLI) revealed the scores on perceived teacher leadership. The results of a multiple linear regression analysis indicated that there were no statistically significant predictive relationships between the linear combination of self-efficacy scores, age, and years of experiences and the overall score of teacher leadership subscales. Limitations and implications of the findings and recommendations for future research were discussed

The relationship between teacher absenteeism and fourth-grade student mathematical achievement

Within public schools throughout the United States, an emphasis has been placed on improving education for all students. In turn, this has resulted in legislators and policymakers placing an emphasis on assessing student learning and holding the education community accountable. In this study, the researcher examined one variable in the accountability effort: teacher absenteeism. The major purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher absenteeism and fourth-grade student mathematical achievement. Data for this study were generated from nine school districts located in northern Louisiana. Data consisted of attendance records of fourth-grade teachers and student performance on the mathematics portion of the fourth-grade Louisiana Education Assessment Program (LEAP). It was hypothesized that teacher absences would negatively impact student performance on the mathematics portion of the LEAP. Hypotheses were tested and analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and two multiple regressions. Teachers were classified into four groups based on absenteeism rates of less than five days, five to ten days, eleven to fourteen days, and fifteen or more days per school year. The results of the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) found no statistically significant relationship between teacher absenteeism groups and student mathematical performance on the LEAP. In the two multiple regressions, neither the demographic characteristics (i.e., teacher age, years of teaching experience, level of education, and certification type) nor the organizational variables (i.e., school socioeconomic status and student mathematical achievement) were significant predictors of teacher absenteeism. Several potential explanations for the lack of relationship between teacher absenteeism and student performance on the mathematics portion of the LEAP were discussed. Recommendations for future research were made, including the replication and extension of this study in other settings