Instruction in upper elementary grades is often departmentalized: about one in six elementary school teachers in the original administrative data was linked to a subject he or she did not teach¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr?·q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2020: baselines and conditions change
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.
q2 i? When verified teacher-subject-student links are compared with original administrative data, about one in six elementary school teachers is linked to a subject he or she did not teach, indicating departmentalized instruction in grades 4-5. → Eric Isenberg 2015
Evidence¶
Eric Isenberg 2015¶
Eric Isenberg, Bing-ru Teh, Elias Walsh. (2015). Elementary School Data Issues for Value-Added Models: Implications for Research. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, vol. 8, issue 1. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/journal-article-elementary-school-data-issues-for-valueadded-models-implications-for-research doi:10.1080/19345747.2014.974231
q2 · i? · associational · r?
Comparative analysis of teacher-student links in which mathematics and/or English/language arts teachers verified the subjects and students they taught, against original administrative data links. The study reports that "instruction is often departmentalized in these grades" and that about one in six teachers was mislinked to an untaught subject.
"We compared these data to teacher–student links from the original administrative data. Results show that instruction is often departmentalized in these grades. About one in six elementary school teachers in the original data was linked to a subject that he or she did not teach."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Researchers presume grades 4-5 administrative data are better for value-added teacher effectiveness research because of self-contained classrooms and classroom homogeneity — related
- The effects of departmentalized instruction on student achievement and teacher retention remain unclear — related
- About one in six grade 4 and 5 math and reading/ELA teachers is linked in unconfirmed administrative data to a subject they do not teach — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
- Schools implementing departmentalized elementary instruction completed key implementation steps, but some faced scheduling challenges — related
- Departmentalized elementary teachers' experiences matched some, but not all, hypothesized benefits and challenges of departmentalized instruction — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
one-in-six-elementary-teachers-linked-to-untaught-subject |
title |
Instruction in upper elementary grades is often departmentalized: about one in six elementary school teachers in the original administrative data was linked to a subject he or she did not teach |
description |
Instruction in upper elementary grades is often departmentalized: about one in six elementary school teachers in the original administrative data was linked to a subject he or she did not teach |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2015 |
recheck_by |
2020 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-08 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — eric-isenberg-2015 |
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