The most extreme district disparity: District A's high-poverty middle schools had about 1 in 20 highest-performing math teachers versus about 12 in 20 in the lowest-poverty quintile¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2011 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2014: local conditions change quickly

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In District A middle school math, prevalence of highest-performing teachers ranged from about 5 percent in the two highest-poverty quintiles to about 60 percent in the lowest-poverty quintile, a statistically significant divergence from equal access. → Steven Glazerman and Jeffrey Max 2011

Evidence¶

Steven Glazerman and Jeffrey Max 2011¶

Steven Glazerman and Jeffrey Max. (2011). Do Low-Income Students Have Equal Access to the Highest-Performing Teachers? NCEE Evaluation Brief, NCEE 2011-4016. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20114016/pdf/20114016_app.pdf

q3 · i? · associational · r2

Figure 2 analysis for District A middle school math teachers (N=235 teachers as printed); the chi-square test of no relationship between quintile and percent highest-performing was rejected at the 0.05 level.

"About 1 in 20 teachers in the first two high- poverty quintiles were highest -performing, whereas about 12 in 20 teachers in the top quintile schools were highest-performing. Under perfectly equal access, all quintiles would have 4 of 20 teachers who were from this highest-performing group."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Across ten districts combined, high-poverty middle schools have significantly fewer highest-performing teachers than low-poverty middle schools — a broader claim this one bears on
• District G shows the opposite pattern: highest-poverty elementary schools were most likely to have highest-performing teachers — related
• The distribution of highest-performing teachers across schools is statistically unlikely to be random, with significance for middle school teachers on both poverty and achievement groupings but for elementary teachers only on achievement groupings — a broader claim this one bears on
• Main results are robust to grouping schools into four poverty quartiles instead of five quintiles — related
• Across ten districts combined, elementary schools show no statistically significant difference from an equitable distribution of highest-performing teachers — related
• Elementary under-representation of highest-performing teachers appears in 4 of 8 districts despite the aggregate null — related
• Educator evaluation systems combine student growth measures with other performance measures such as classroom observation scores to identify highest- and lowest-performing teachers — related
• Growth rates varied tremendously between schools regardless of poverty, with top-quartile schools producing more than double the growth of the worst quartile — related
• Disparities in access to effective teaching between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students varied widely across the 29 districts studied — a broader claim this one bears on
• Schools with lower percentages of Proficient and Distinguished observation ratings tend to be higher-poverty schools — related
• Teachers with the same observation scores can have very different value-added scores, with considerable overlap across observation-score quintiles — related