English learners (ELs) are students whose native language is other than English and who score below proficient on an English proficiency test. There were more than 5 million ELs in U.S. schools in 2019, and millions of dollars in federal, state, and local funds are spent each year in an effort to help them reach proficiency and shed their EL classification. While specific language instruction is most of what’s done to reach that goal, these young people are not just learning language, but also math, science, social studies and (yes) English with their peers. Could the effectiveness of their general education teachers have an impact on the speed with which ELs reach proficiency, as well? A new study aims to find out.
SRI International researcher Ela Joshi uses administrative data from the Tennessee Department of Education covering the school years 2006–07 to 2014–15—a dataset that includes student and teacher demographics, students’ annual EL status, measures of teacher effectiveness from the state’s evaluation system, student-teacher linkages, and staffing details—as well as EL students’ scores on end-of-year tests. Her sample comprises over 13,000 Volunteer State students who began kindergarten between 2006 and 2012 and who were continuously enrolled through third grade. Most importantly, all were still classified as ELs at the start of third grade, and all were linked with specific EL teachers and specific general education teachers at the elementary level or specific general education English teachers in middle school.
Joshi uses discrete-time survival analysis to estimate the relationship between ELs’ likelihood of reaching English-language proficiency in each year between third and eighth grade, as well as specific characteristics of their general education teachers—such as demographics and effectiveness—that may impact that trajectory. Joshi tests five separate measures of teacher effectiveness, all of which use either state value-added (TVAAS) or teacher observation scores: a continuous three-year composite value added score; the TVAAS level of effectiveness; a continuous average observation score; observation quartiles; and a summary level of effectiveness (LOE) score, which combines TVAAS, observation data, and student surveys.
Overall, ELs assigned to effective or highly-effective general education teachers (as rated by any of the five effectiveness measures) were 17 to 50 percent more likely to reach English-language proficiency in a given year, compared to their peers assigned to less-effective general education teachers. However, robustness checks on these findings began to whittle away at the observed impacts. In the end, teacher effectiveness based on TVAAS scores and observation scores were the strongest predictors of student success (10 to 31 percent more likely than their peers to reach proficiency), the others showing little to no impact. Joshi discusses a number of possible mechanisms that may be at work, all of which boil down to “great teachers are great teachers to many different types of students.”
As to demographics, a ten-year increase in teacher experience was associated with a 5 to 8 percent increase in the probability of a student reaching proficiency in a given year, and assignment to a general education teacher of color was associated with an 11 percent increase in the probability of reaching proficiency. The latter finding could be connected to the benefits of a sympathetic set of academic perceptions and attitudes between teacher and student observed in other research, but the former seems to be more of the “great teacher” effect.
All of this combines to point out the obvious: To reach the highest possible level of achievement, all students need their teachers to be of the highest possible quality. Unfortunately, how to make that happen is far less obvious.
SOURCE: Ela Joshi, “Unpacking the Relationship Between Classroom Teacher Characteristics and Time to English Learner Reclassification,” American Educational Research Association AERA Journal (January 2023).
