What difference does teacher quality make to social class inequalities?

LERN/IoE/DEBRe Conference:Socio-economic status, social class and education; London, UK: May 2009Dylan Wiliam

www.dylanwiliam.net

Science

We need to improve average student achievement

We need to narrow achievement gaps

Both require improving teacher quality

Improving the quality of entrants takes too long

So we have to make the teachers we have better

We can change teachers in a range of ways

Some will benefit students, and some will not.

Those that do tend to involve changes in teacher practice

Changing practice requires new kinds of teacher learning

And new models of professional development.

Overview: science and design

Design

Looking for answers in the wrong place…Three generations of school effectiveness researchRaw results approaches

Different schools get different results Conclusion: Schools make a difference

Demographic-based approaches Demographic factors account for most of the variation Conclusion: Schools don’t make a difference

Value-added approaches School-level differences in value-added are relatively small Classroom-level differences in value-added are large Conclusion: An effective school is a school full of effective classrooms

Turkey . Hungary . Japan .Belgium .Italy .Germany .Austria .Netherlands .Czech Republic .Korea .Slovak Republic .Greece .Switzerland .Luxembourg .Portugal .Mexico .United States .Australia .New Zealand .Spain .Canada .Ireland .Denmark .Poland .Sweden .Norway .Finland .Iceland .

-80

-60

-40

-20

0

20

40

60

80

100

Within schoolsBetween schools explained by social background of schoolsBetween schools explained by social background of studentsBetween schools not explained by social background

Within schools

Between schools

OECD PISA data from McGaw, 2008

Teachers matter…In many countries, classroom variability is at least 4 times school level variability It’s not class size or the between- or within-class grouping strategyIt’s the teacher The commodification of teachers has received widespread support:

From teacher unions (who understandably resist performance-related pay) From politicians (so the focus is on teacher supply, rather than teacher quality)

Having a good rather than weak teacher (±1sd) increases performance by more than one GCSE grade

Being taught by the best teacher from a group of 50 means that a student will learn at four times the rate of a student taught by the worst teacher in that group

And the gains for the lowest attainers are greater than for average studentsSo that in the classrooms of the best teachers

Students with behavioural difficulties learn as much as those without Students from disadvantaged backgrounds do as well as those from advantaged

backgrounds (Hamre & Pianta, 2005)

… more for some than others

Achievement gaps

Disadvantaged background (mother’s education)

Poor behavior

Teacher’s provision of instructional support

High No (good)Average No (good)Low Yes (bad)

High Yes (bad)Average Yes (bad)Low Yes (bad)

Teacher’s provision of emotional support

High Yes (bad)Average Yes (bad)Low Yes (bad)

High No (good)Average Yes (bad)Low Yes (bad)

Impact of teacher quality on student outcomes (Hamre & Pianta, 2005))

Two ways to make teachers better…Replace existing teachers with better ones Important, but very slow, and of limited impact

Teach for America/Teach First (at most 1% of teaching force) Raising the bar for entry to teaching

Improve the effectiveness of existing teachersNot because they are not good enough, but because they can be better

(so ‘good enough’ is not good enough)The “love the one you’re with” strategy It can be done

Provided we focus rigorously on the things that matter to students Even when they’re hard to do

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

200

400

600

800

1000

Teacher quality

Raising the bar for entry to teaching…

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

200

400

600

800

1000

Teacher quality

Mean: 50 Mean: 55 (0.5 sd increase)

Lowest 30% removed

…is too slow…The correlation between teacher quality and student progress is around 0.2

This means that raising teacher quality by one standard deviation will increase student progress by 0.2 standard deviations

Raising the bar for entry into the profession so that we no longer recruit the lowest performing 30% of teachers would over twenty to thirty years, increase average teacher quality by 0.5 standard deviations.

This would increase student achievement by 0.1 standard deviations an increase of the speed of student learning of 25-30%, or, put another way an increase in the average score on a typical test of one point (e.g. from 50 to 51)A small, but valuable effect (annual value of £8bn)

20-25%Total “explained” difference

<5%Further professional qualifications (MA, NBPTS)

10-15%Pedagogical content knowledge

<5%Advanced content matter knowledge

So our policies need to be more specificThe dark matter of teacher qualityTeachers make a differenceBut what makes the difference in teachers?

Cost/effect comparisonsIntervention Extra months

of learning per year

Cost/class-room/yr

Class-size reduction (by 30%)

4 £20k

Increase teacher content knowledge from weak to strong

2 ?

Formative assessment/Assessment for learning

8 £2k

The formative assessment hi-jack…Long-cycleSpan: across units, terms Length: four weeks to one year Impact: Student monitoring; curriculum alignmentMedium-cycleSpan: within and between teaching units Length: one to four weeks Impact: Improved, student-involved, assessment; teacher cognition about learningShort-cycleSpan: within and between lessons Length:

day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours

Impact: classroom practice; student engagement

Unpacking formative assessmentKey processesEstablishing where the learners are in their learningEstablishing where they are goingWorking out how to get there

ParticipantsTeachersPeersLearners

…and one big ideaUse evidence about learning to adapt teaching and learning to meet student needs

Aspects of formative assessmentWhere the learner is

going

Where the learner is

How to get there

TeacherClarify and

share learning intentions

Engineering effective

discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

Providing feedback that moves learners

forward

PeerUnderstand and share learning intentions

Activating students as learningresources for one another

LearnerUnderstand learning intentions

Activating students as ownersof their own learning

Keeping Learning on Track (KLT)A pilot guides a plane or boat toward its destination by taking constant readings and making careful adjustments in response to wind, currents, weather, etc.

A good teacher does the same:Plans a carefully chosen route ahead of time (in essence building the track)Takes readings along the way Changes course as conditions dictate

Looking at the wrong knowledge…The most powerful teacher knowledge is not explicit That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t workWhat we know is more than we can sayAnd that is why most professional development has been relatively ineffective

Improving practice involves changing habits, not adding knowledge That’s why it’s hard

And the hardest bit is not getting new ideas into people’s heads It’s getting the old one’s out

That’s why it takes time

But it doesn’t happen naturally If it did, the most experienced teachers would be the best, and we know that’s not so

(Hanushek, 2005)We need to create systematic approaches to, and spaces for, teacher learning

Two competing drivers in designSome reforms are too loosee.g., the ‘Effective schools’ movementAllows customization to the local contextBut can suffer from ‘lethal mutations’

Some reforms are too tighte.g., Montessori SchoolsUndoubtedly effectiveNot possible to implement everywhereFails to capitalize on affordances in the local context

Designing for scale: tight but loose“In-principle” scalability requiresA single model for the whole school

But which honours the specifities of each subject and age-rangeUnderstanding what it means to scale (Coburn, 2003)

Depth Sustainability Spread Shift in reform ownership

Consideration of the diversity of contexts of applicationClarity about components, and the theory of action

The “tight but loose” formulation

… combines an obsessive adherence to central design principles (the “tight” part) with accommodations to the needs, resources, constraints, and particularities that occur in any school or district (the “loose” part), but only where these do not conflict with the theory of action of the intervention.

So what do we need?What is needed from teachersA commitment to:

the continuous improvement of practice focus on those things that make a difference to student outcomes

What is needed from leadersA commitment to:

creating expectations for the continuous improvement of practice ensuring that the the focus stays on those things that make a difference

to student outcomes providing the time, space, dispensation and support for innovation supporting risk-taking

What is needed from the systemA “signature pedagogy” for teacher learning

Signature pedagogies

In Law

In Medicine

A “signature pedagogy” for teacher learning?Monthly meetings of ‘teacher learning communities’ (TLCs) of 8-10 teachers that follow the same structure and sequence

Activity 1: Introduction & Housekeeping (5 minutes)

Activity 2: How’s It Going (35 minutes)

Activity 3: New Learning about formative assessment (20 minutes)

Activity 4: Personal Action Planning (10 minutes)

Activity 5: Summary of Learning (5 minutes)

Peer observations between TLC meetings

Run to the agenda of the observed, not the observer

SummaryRaising achievement is important

Raising achievement requires improving teacher quality

Improving teacher quality requires teacher professional development

To be effective, teacher professional development must addressWhat teachers do in the classroomHow teachers change what they do in the classroom

Formative assessment + Teacher learning communitiesA point of (uniquely?) high leverageA “Trojan Horse” into wider issues of pedagogy, psychology, and curriculum