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Subject matter expertise and teaching experience up to six years make teachers better, as measured by students’ results. That’s better than nothing. There are l

Subject matter expertise and teaching experience up to six years make teachers better, as measured by students’ results. That’s better than nothing. There are lots of things we reward teachers for that have no discernible effects, like education degrees but if you go from a system where many of the Math teachers have humanities degrees to one where they all have Physics/Math/Statistics degrees results will improve. Ditto if you go from everyone having a Bachelor’s in Math to everyone having a Master’s. Teachers are far from completely useless, even if selection effects are far stronger than treatment effects.

cameronbrown 7y ago
> Ditto if you go from everyone having a Bachelor’s in Math to everyone having a Master’s. Is this really going to matter when teaching basic calculus?
- acollins1331 7y ago
  Yes.
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    Citation pretty please.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  It seems the evidence is weaker than I thought and we have no strong evidence that subject matter expertise is any more helpful than an education degree. Likewise experience may not help as we can’t rule out greater texture in a school leading to getting better classes so the teachers look better. Great schools and great teachers exist. We have no idea how to make either. http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%201997%20EduEvaPolAna%2019%282%29.pdf http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publication... > Assessing the effects of school resources on student performance: An update > The relationship between school resources and student achievement has been controversial, in large part because it calls into question a variety of traditional policy approaches. This article reviews the available educational production literature, updating previous summaries. The close to 400 studies of student achievement demonstrate that there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family inputs are taken into account.

cameronbrown 7y ago

> Ditto if you go from everyone having a Bachelor’s in Math to everyone having a Master’s. Is this really going to matter when teaching basic calculus?

acollins1331 7y ago
Yes.
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  Citation pretty please.
barry-cotter 7y ago
It seems the evidence is weaker than I thought and we have no strong evidence that subject matter expertise is any more helpful than an education degree. Likewise experience may not help as we can’t rule out greater texture in a school leading to getting better classes so the teachers look better. Great schools and great teachers exist. We have no idea how to make either. http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%201997%20EduEvaPolAna%2019%282%29.pdf http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publication... > Assessing the effects of school resources on student performance: An update > The relationship between school resources and student achievement has been controversial, in large part because it calls into question a variety of traditional policy approaches. This article reviews the available educational production literature, updating previous summaries. The close to 400 studies of student achievement demonstrate that there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family inputs are taken into account.