An elementary-school RCT found no statistically significant difference between TFA and non-TFA teachers in mathematics or reading achievement¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · quant-synthesisr2·q3
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? In the Clark et al. (2015) elementary school randomized controlled trial, the difference between the TFA group and the comparison group was not statistically significant in mathematics. → Teach For America 2016
Evidence¶
Teach For America 2016¶
Teach For America. (2016). WWC Intervention Report: Teach For America. What Works Clearinghouse, U.S. Department of Education. https://www.teachforamerica.org
q3 · i? · quant-synthesis · r2
This RCT across 36 elementary schools randomly assigned students within grade to TFA or non-TFA teachers, with analytic samples of 2,065 students for math and 2,123 for reading. The report states: "The authors reported, and the WWC confirmed, that the difference between the TFA group and the comparison group was not statistically significant", and the effect size was not large enough to be substantively important.
"The authors reported, and the WWC confirmed, that the difference between the TFA group and the comparison group was not statistically significant."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- A randomized controlled trial found TFA secondary math teachers outperformed non-TFA comparison teachers in mathematics achievement — related
- Wijekumar et al. (2009) finds no statistically significant difference between Odyssey® Math and comparison classrooms on grade 4 TerraNova math scores — related
- TFA teachers have positive effects on mathematics achievement for students in grades pre-K-12, based on six studies — related
- TFA teachers in their first two years of teaching are more effective than more experienced non-TFA teachers in the same schools — reports the opposite
- Secondary math teachers from Teach For America and the Teaching Fellows programs are as effective as teachers receiving traditional certification — related
- In some cases, Teach For America and Teaching Fellows secondary math teachers are more effective than traditionally certified math teachers — related
- Students with alternatively certified teachers did no worse on achievement tests than students with traditionally certified teachers — a broader claim this one bears on
- Teaching by first- or second-year TFA corps members shows no significant effect on elementary-grade students' reading compared with non-TFA novice teachers — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- TFA shows a small positive effect on reading for early elementary students (PreK to grade 2) but not in math — reports the opposite
- The findings contradict claims that alternative teacher preparation programs such as Teach For America harm students — a broader claim this one bears on
- A program is said to have an effect when the difference between program and non-program groups is statistically significant — a broader claim this one bears on
- TFA corps members hired in the first two years of the i3 scale-up were as effective as other teachers in the same high-poverty schools in teaching reading and math — related
- No statistically significant TFA impacts were found for upper elementary grades (3 through 5) in reading or math or for other examined subgroups — related
- Within-school random assignment studies such as the TFA evaluation are challenging but may be feasible and generate useful evidence — related
- Students of TFA teachers did not perform significantly differently from students of other under-certified teachers — related
- Study designs that randomly assign students within schools involve trade-offs, illustrated by the Teach For America evaluation experience — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
clark-2015-elementary-tfa-indeterminate |
title |
An elementary-school RCT found no statistically significant difference between TFA and non-TFA teachers in mathematics or reading achievement |
description |
An elementary-school RCT found no statistically significant difference between TFA and non-TFA teachers in mathematics or reading achievement |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2016 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-07 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — teach-for-america-2016 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.