Ensayo presidencial
Jennifer King Rice
Department of Education Policy
and Leadership
Universidad de Maryland
parque universitario, Maryland 20742
jkr@umd.edu
FROM HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO HIGH
QUALITY: AN IMPERATIVE FOR
POLICY AND RESEARCH TO
RECAST THE TEACHER MOLD
INTRODUCCIÓN
One of the most enduring and compelling issues that
has attracted the attention of education researchers and
policy makers is the issue of how best to invest in teacher
quality. De hecho, approximately one-third of the papers
presented at the 2007 American Education Finance As-
sociation (AEFA) conference were dedicated to research
on teacher issues. The attention given to teachers as an
education input is not surprising. We know that teachers
are the single most expensive and the single most im-
portant resource provided to students. A quality teacher
in every classroom is clearly a cornerstone for providing
an adequate education for all students. Sin embargo, not all
students have access to effective teachers, and the cur-
rent distribution of teachers poses serious problems for
the equity, adequacy, and effectiveness of public educa-
ción. En particular, urban schools serving large concen-
trations of high-poverty and low-achieving students face
serious challenges with respect to staffing: they experi-
ence higher rates of turnover than their nonurban coun-
terparts; the teachers they lose tend to have better qualifi-
cations than those who stay; and the teachers hired to fill
the vacancies tend to be less experienced and less quali-
fied than those they are replacing (Ingersoll 200; Lank-
ford, Loeb, and Wyckoff 2002). In the end, these schools
find themselves serving some of the highest need
students with many of the lowest qualified teachers.
C(cid:1) 2008 American Education Finance Association
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FROM HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO HIGH QUALITY
Policy makers and researchers are eager to identify policy, practicas, and re-
sources that will address staffing deficiencies and ultimately improve student
resultados, particularly in chronically low-performing schools.
Efforts to identify ways to enhance teacher quality and improve the dis-
tribution of teachers across schools and districts have potentially profound
implications for the efficiency and equity of the education system. The impor-
tance of these issues has put teachers at the center of debates about funding
adequacy and at the heart of many education policy initiatives, most notably
the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Acto, introduced in 200 to increase
student achievement and narrow persistent achievement gaps. As members
of AEFA continue to grapple with questions about how to use public resources
in ways that promote goals of efficiency and equity, it stands to reason that
many of us have chosen to focus our efforts on teachers as one of the most
critical resources in the education production process.
Research has made important strides toward understanding this compli-
cated input. Por ejemplo, we have made good progress estimating the effects
(or lack thereof) of various teacher qualifications common in salary schedules
(Goldhaber 2007) and identifying how teachers are distributed across districts
y escuelas (Boyd et al. 2003; Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin 2004; Lankford,
Loeb, and Wyckoff 2002). Sin embargo, we still have much to learn about what
it will take—in terms of policies, practicas, and resources—if we are serious
about staffing all schools with high-quality teachers. Empirical evidence is still
needed to inform a raft of critical policy questions. What makes a “quality”
maestro? Are hiring and compensation policies that reward certain qualifica-
tions the equivalent of investing in teacher quality? What should states and
districts think about as they struggle to comply with NCLB requirements re-
garding “highly qualified” teachers? What investments can and should states
make toward improving teacher quality? How should teacher resources be
distributed across states, districts, and schools to achieve equity and adequacy
objetivos? While even the best studies often take a back seat to political interests
in policy-making arenas, the absence of solid evidence leaves policy makers
with little choice but to forge ahead without the guidance of research.
The teacher reform discourse has been characterized as a bipolar debate
with those seeking to professionalize teaching on one side and those push-
ing for deregulation of the profession on the other (Cochran-Smith and Fries
.
See Rice et al. (2008) for a typology of teacher policy that captures the multidimensional nature of
the problem (supply, recruitment, distribución, and retention) and the multiple policy responses in
play (economic incentives, avenues into the profession, hiring strategies, professional development,
and working conditions).
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Jennifer King Rice
200). While both sides of this argument have their merits, neither has the
empirical evidence needed to be persuasive. Current “highly qualified teacher”
requirements in the federal NCLB legislation encompass aspects of both posi-
ciones. NCLB stipulates criteria for being designated a highly qualified teacher
but leaves a great deal of discretion to states in terms of interpretation and
implementación. NCLB reflects the assumptions that qualified teachers are
quality teachers, that states and districts have the capacity to staff all schools
with qualified teachers, and that doing so will promote higher levels of student
logro (not to mention the other goals of public education).
En este ensayo, I argue for a clearer distinction between qualifications and
quality in the teacher policy discourse. I draw on the voices of teachers
and administrators from a set of multilevel case studies to consider how
high-stakes accountability policies that emphasize qualifications may actu-
ally undermine efforts to staff all schools with high-quality teachers.2 I con-
clude the essay by discussing how the findings from this relatively small
sample of administrators, directores, and teachers suggest that education
policy and research may need to recast how we think about and invest in
profesores.
THE CRUX OF THE MATTER: TEACHER QUALITY VERSUS TEACHER
QUALIFICATIONS
Defining Teacher Quality
A critical step in resolving the debate over how to improve teacher quality
requires gaining greater clarity about what teacher quality is. Education lead-
ers and the general public have long recognized the importance of having
good teachers, and these convictions are supported by evidence demonstrat-
ing teachers as one of the most important school-related factors influencing
2. This essay draws on findings from multilevel case studies of teacher policy in three states: Maryland,
Nueva York, and Connecticut. For more information on this work, see Rice, Roellke, and Sparks 2006
and Rice et al. 2008. This study of teacher policy goes directly to the source—administrators and
teachers—to understand what we are doing and what we need to be doing to staff all schools with
high-quality teachers. Since teacher policy is designed and implemented at multiple levels of the
education system, we conducted nested case studies of teacher policy. These multilevel case studies
examined teachers within schools, schools within districts, and districts within states. We selected
districts and schools that face challenges with respect to teacher staffing and that are perceived by
leaders in the system as employing interesting or promising strategies with respect to staffing. Four
sources of data informed the analysis: () documents providing information on teacher recruitment
and retention policies and investments in those policies at the state, distrito, and school levels; (2)
extant data on teacher staffing patterns in the selected schools and districts; (3) interviews with state,
distrito, and school administrators about their views of the teacher quality challenge and the kinds of
investments they are making in policies to staff schools with quality teachers; y (4) focus groups
with teachers in selected schools to understand the critical issues related to their decisions about
where to work and to assess their perceptions of the impact of policies and practices on teacher
recruitment and retention.
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153
FROM HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO HIGH QUALITY
Logro estudiantil (Darling-Hammond 2000; Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain
998; Sanders 998). Sin embargo, establishing a concrete definition of what
constitutes a good teacher has been tricky at best. Tomados juntos, the volumes
of research on the impact of various teacher qualifications yield what appear to
be inconsistent and inconclusive findings (see Hanushek 997). While more
recent efforts to carefully and comprehensively make sense of the existing
evidence have found that some teacher qualifications matter (p.ej., measures
that account for teachers’ knowledge and abilities relative to the subjects they
enseñar), there is clearly still much to be learned about the attributes that make
a good teacher (Rice 2003).
Simplemente pon,
teacher quality is a teacher’s ability to realize desired
outcomes—that is, to effectively educate his or her students. This implies
a wide range of outcomes that reflect the broad goals of public education: a
produce individuals who can contribute to the economic, political, civic, social,
and cultural institutions in our society. We expect high school graduates to
have acquired a wide range of competencies, habilidades, and personal qualities that
“contribute to a successful life and a well-functioning society” (Rychen and Sal-
ganik 2003). Sin embargo, measuring the effectiveness of education investments,
including teachers, has typically focused on a narrow set of indicators driven,
in large part, by the quantity, quality, and accessibility of available data. En el
current policy context of high-stakes accountability, the dominant measures
of school and teacher performance are student test scores.
Measures of teacher quality are limited in that they typically focus on a nar-
row set of outcomes, are not widely trusted by teachers, are often contextually
dependent, and are retrospective based on what a teacher has done. Consecuencia-
frecuentemente, teacher hiring and, in most cases, compensation policies have relied
heavily on teacher qualifications such as experience, degree, and certification
as proxies for teacher quality (Odden and Kelley 2002). Sin embargo, empirical
research has not found these qualifications to be strong predictors of teacher
eficacia (Goldhaber 2007; Rice 2003). Even when they are statistically
significant predictors of teacher performance, they explain only a small pro-
portion of the variability in student achievement attributable to variation in
teacher quality. En otras palabras, while teacher qualifications may have some-
thing to do with teacher quality, other more elusive teacher characteristics may
be more important predictors of teacher effectiveness. Más, these teacher
characteristics may well vary for different kinds of students and school com-
munities. Since teacher quality involves context-specific criteria related to a
teacher’s potential to be effective in a particular school and teaching assign-
mento, compared with teacher qualifications that are more widely applicable
across school settings, it follows that externally imposed minimum qualifica-
tions are easier to legislate.
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Jennifer King Rice
No Child Left Behind and “Highly Qualified Teachers”
Even in the context of limited information about what constitutes a good
maestro, federal, estado, and district policies continue to rely heavily on teacher
qualifications as indicators of teacher quality.3 Most recently, educators at all
levels have responded to the highly qualified teacher provision of NCLB. C.A-
knowledging teacher quality as one of the most powerful strategies available
for boosting student achievement, policy makers emphasized raising the qual-
ity of the teacher workforce as a necessary requirement for improving student
achievement and narrowing the achievement gap (Jennings 2003). Consecuencia-
frecuentemente, federal policy makers placed new requirements on states and local
school districts to ensure a basic level of qualifications for teachers in their
classrooms. These requirements responded to growing evidence that teacher
quality is one of the most important school-related factors influencing stu-
dent achievement and that persistent inequities in the distribution of qualified
teachers further disadvantage students most at risk of academic failure.
NCLB’s architects intended to improve teacher quality by establishing a def-
inition for a highly qualified teacher, a standard that applies to teachers who
instruct students in core academic subjects.4 In broad terms, NCLB defines a
highly qualified teacher as one who has a bachelor’s degree, full state certifica-
tion and licensure, and content knowledge in each subject taught.5 While NCLB
provides clear guidelines regarding what counts as a highly qualified teacher,
states are granted much discretion in determining specific certification and
licensure requirements, minimum standards for subject matter knowledge,
and requirements for evaluating existing teachers’ credentials through “high
objective uniform state standard of evaluation”(HOUSSE) provisions.6
NCLB AND THE TEACHER QUALITY CHALLENGE:
VOICES FROM THE FIELD
Evidence suggests that despite its stated goals, NCLB and other high-stakes
accountability policies may exacerbate the staffing challenges in districts
This section draws heavily from Kolbe and Rice (2008).
3.
4. The “highly qualified teacher” requirement applies to elementary and secondary school teachers
who teach in one or more core academic subjects, including English, reading or language arts,
matemáticas, ciencia, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, letras, historia, y
geography.
5. Arguably, this set of qualifications can be seen as a floor. De hecho, some have argued that the
qualifications identified in the NCLB legislation are more reflective of a minimally qualified teacher
than a highly qualified teacher.
6. HOUSSE is a state-developed assessment that may be used to verify a veteran teacher’s competency
if the teacher has not met either the content or testing requirement in a specific core academic
área. The standard must be one that “provides objective coherent information about the teacher’s
attainment of core content knowledge in the academic subjects in which the teacher teaches.” The
law gives states the latitude to develop an evaluation process of subject matter competency for
veteran teachers as long as the process meets six criteria specified in the law.
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155
FROM HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO HIGH QUALITY
that have an inadequate supply of qualified teachers and chronically low-
performing schools. Case study data (to which I will refer throughout this
essay) in Rice, Roellke, and Sparks (2006) and Rice et al. (2008) suggest three
explanations for this problematic consequence of the law, and each has im-
portant implications for policy. Primero, NCLB prioritizes measures of teacher
qualifications over matters of teacher quality, resulting in some schools by-
passing candidates deemed to be of high quality in order to hire teachers with
the documented qualifications required by the law. Segundo, some teachers who
meet the highly qualified standard are not high quality, given the contextual
factors of the school. Tercero, the emphasis of NCLB on standardization and a
narrow set of performance measures often repel teachers from low-performing
escuelas.
Prioritizing Qualifications over Quality
The federal government’s “highly qualified teacher” standard assumes that
a college degree, state certification, and subject matter expertise—regardless
of the state, distrito, or school in which a teacher works—constitute the set
of qualifications needed to raise student achievement and close achievement
gaps. The law’s emphasis on this set of teacher qualifications, sin embargo, has not
been without controversy. The empirical literature studying the relationship
between teacher qualifications and student achievement has found that these
qualifications are, a lo mejor, weak predictors of teacher performance.
The importance of distinguishing between teacher quality and teacher
qualifications was apparent in the districts and schools in our case studies. En
particular, we found that the highly qualified teacher requirement prioritizes
qualifications over quality and effectiveness, and this emphasis on qualifica-
tions was most dramatic and had the most profound effects in low-performing
and difficult-to-staff schools and districts. We found that more attractive dis-
tricts with a surplus of qualified teachers had the luxury of emphasizing policies
that enhance teacher quality (es decir., eficacia) based on internally determined
criteria that take into consideration the strengths and needs of the school com-
munity. A diferencia de, districts with an undersupply of qualified teachers were
forced to focus on externally imposed teacher qualifications (p.ej., federal and
state criteria), paying little attention to other teacher characteristics that might
be more likely to improve student performance.
In many cases, the principals and teachers in the schools we studied made
it clear that they hired teachers based on highly qualified teacher requirements
of NCLB, when they would have preferred other candidates who, by their
evaluación, better met the needs of the school. These findings suggest that
districts and schools that can hire from a surplus of teachers have a tremen-
dous advantage over their difficult-to-staff counterparts because they have the
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Jennifer King Rice
luxury of focusing on effectiveness rather than basic-level staffing issues. En
otras palabras, these surplus districts can focus their efforts on policies that will
yield the highest quality teachers in terms of effectiveness, while schools and
districts that face shortages are limited to hiring practices that will help staff
schools with teachers who meet a set of externally imposed qualifications that
are not strong predictors of effectiveness.
Several principals in our sample, particularly those working in the most
disadvantaged schools, expressed great frustration with the NCLB highly quali-
fied teacher requirement. A local instructional superintendent in the New York
City public schools commented on this challenge that is particularly salient in
the most difficult-to-staff schools:
So we are directed by the state and the city to hire only highly qualified
profesores. The problem is that in district 7—which is demographically
high poverty, lots of projects, poor working environment—it’s very
hard to attract highly qualified teachers. . . . Our principals go to job
fairs. . . . When we tell them we’re district 7, they don’t even drop an
application off to us. . . . We can’t be extremely selective about who we
hire simply because we don’t attract personnel here in district 7.
En algunos casos, school officials found themselves hiring teachers who had
all the credentials needed to be designated highly qualified but were considered
by principals to be less effective than others who did not meet the qualifications
specified in federal requirements and state policy. Como resultado, these principals
found themselves turning away some of the “best candidates” for their open
positions, in favor of less promising teachers who met the highly qualified
teacher requirements. As described by an assistant principal in a Maryland
Title I elementary school:
We were only allowed to interview HQ [highly qualified] profesores. Nosotros
did get a lot of calls from people who were already documented in
personnel but they had not received a HQ rating or they hadn’t gone
through the process. We were very interested in some of them but they
were not eligible to come to our school because they did not meet the
requirements of highly qualified. . . . Sometimes they seemed as if they
would be good matches for us but they didn’t have the rating. . . . I
remember one we were particularly interested in because of her skill
colocar, but she was not going to be rated as highly qualified until she had
more paper requirements met.
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FROM HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO HIGH QUALITY
Our findings suggest that the impact of NCLB on teacher quality will
be limited until all schools and school districts have an adequate supply of
qualified teachers. State and district policy makers need to adopt more tar-
geted policies that will improve the distribution of qualified teachers across
schools within their boundaries. Por ejemplo, policies are needed that pro-
vide substantial incentives for teachers to accept positions in difficult-to-staff
schools and teaching assignments, and more research is required to identify
how large those incentives need to be. Our data suggest that these incen-
tives need to be more substantial than the common $,000–$3,000 signing
bonuses that we observed and that they need to be sustained in order to retain
those teachers over time. Más, given the high proportion of inexperienced
teachers in low-performing schools, resources should also be allocated in ways
that attract more experienced and accomplished teachers. Por ejemplo, estados
could provide large incentives to teachers who have earned National Board
Certification to work in economically and educationally disadvantaged schools.
Sin embargo, in most of the contexts we studied, state rewards for National Board
Certification were not differentiated by the nature of the teaching assignment.
When Highly Qualified Is Not High Quality
A second issue that undermines the goals of NCLB is that highly qualified
teachers are not always high-quality teachers, and this disconnect is particularly
apparent in some types of schools and teaching assignments. NCLB and other
policies that define standards for teacher hiring must consider the context
in which they will be teaching. In many cases, we spoke with teachers who,
despite meeting the highly qualified teacher requirements, felt ill prepared to
teach the diversity of students in low-performing schools. En algunos casos, este
was due to language differences. En otros casos, the students simply needed
more instruction and remediation than the teachers had been prepared to
give. This lack of context-specific preparation suggests that having the highly
qualified teacher designation is insufficient to be a high-quality teacher in
some schools and in some teaching assignments.
A veteran elementary teacher in a Maryland Title I school described the
insufficient preparation of novice teachers entering the challenging teaching
ambiente:
There is a disconnect between the teacher prep program and the real
world. They are naive and come into, especially a Title I school, y
don’t understand the societal issues that impact the classroom. . . . El
gap between teacher education and what is going on in the school has
increased over the years.
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Jennifer King Rice
A novice teacher in Maryland commented on her specific teaching assignment:
I wasn’t prepared to teach a class where none of [the kids] can speak
Inglés. That is the one thing I struggle with. These kids were not on
a second-grade level when they came to school. I teach a second-grade
curriculum, but the kids are not on a second-grade level. They are very
behind.
One piece of this puzzle is teacher preparation. We talked with many
teachers who completed quick-entry alternative certification programs, and on
completion felt unprepared for their teaching assignments. This is not to say
that alternative certification programs are bad. De hecho, research has found some
to have had a positive effect on urban school systems (Johnson, Birkeland, y
Peske 2005). Nor do we mean to suggest that traditional university-based
teacher preparation is necessarily good. De hecho, many of these programs are
not tailored to the needs of teachers headed to struggling schools. Regardless of
the source and type of their preparation, novice teachers entering these schools
may need site-specific training, induction, and professional development that
will prepare them to be effective in the particular environments in which they
are teaching. Researchers and policy makers should work toward identifying
and investing in high-quality, site-specific training for teachers working in
particularly challenging environments.
In addition to adequate preparation specific to the students and commu-
nities they are serving, teachers with particularly challenging teaching assign-
ments may need reduced teaching loads for class preparation or sabbaticals
to provide the time they need for additional training. Given the hefty costs
associated with these policies, research is needed to understand the effects of
these sorts of highly targeted investments. En todos los casos, teachers in challenging
schools need strong administrators and mentor teachers who can provide on-
going support to help them be effective. Sin embargo, we know little about what
makes principals effective or how to invest in the recruitment, distribución,
and retention of good principals.
En suma, our case studies suggest that highly qualified teachers working in
low-performing, high-intensity schools need additional resources to be high-
quality teachers. Such provisions, including site-specific induction and pro-
fessional development, sabbaticals, reduced teaching loads, and supportive
master teachers and principals, may have the potential to offset more difficult
assignments with workplace conditions that attract well-prepared teachers to
these schools, make them more effective in their teaching assignments, y
retain them in those positions over time.
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159
FROM HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO HIGH QUALITY
A Broader Understanding of Professionalism and Performance
A third concern about NCLB is that high-stakes accountability policies, en
general, often drive good teachers away from low-performing schools, exac-
erbating the staffing challenges in these schools. Many teachers in our focus
groups expressed great frustration with the high degree of standardization
that has resulted from high-stakes accountability policies. Several argued that
the implementation of uniform curricula has damaged the professionalism of
teaching. One school principal in Maryland noted:
The teaching profession in the Title I world today is not the creative
venture it used to be. There is still a little bit of latitude, but it is not
nearly the latitude that was once allowed in previous years.
Putting aside questions surrounding the impact of such policies on equity
and efficiency in public education, these sorts of threats to the autonomy and
professionalism of teachers cause many to reconsider their career choices and
may make the profession less attractive to potential teachers. This concern was
expressed by a high school mathematics teacher in Connecticut:
What makes people want to teach is going to get lost, and the whole
concept that we have to create end products and everybody has to be in
the same box. They’re trying to force fit this and then when it doesn’t
trabajar, the blame comes back on us.
Adding to the difficulty, low-performing schools face greater challenges
than other schools in meeting performance standards. High-stakes account-
ability policies, like NCLB, that hold teachers accountable for outcomes that
are well beyond their control undermine staffing low-performing schools with
qualified, let alone quality, profesores. Several teachers from urban schools in our
sample described their frustration. A prekindergarten teacher in a Maryland
Title I school commented:
You feel like you’ve done well and then someone tells you that you’ve
not done enough. . . . I felt so thrilled with my kids’ progress and then
someone told me it wasn’t good enough; I was devastated. My kids will
be able to write their name next year and they are telling me that’s not
good enough.
The ultimate effect of high-stakes accountability, according to many teach-
ers we spoke with, is high attrition in low-performing schools. One Maryland
middle school teacher captured this well:
160
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Jennifer King Rice
The biggest factor in my mind for retaining teachers is NCLB and
standardized testing and its effect on each teacher and classroom.
When the school doesn’t have the means to increase the scores, entonces
teachers’ jobs are in jeopardy and teachers are discouraged. Maestros
will go elsewhere or go to schools where meeting the tests are easier
and they don’t have to worry about outside factors, whether it’s in other
states or other districts because the tests are less rigorous.
High-stakes accountability policies are not inherently bad. De hecho, equity
demands that we hold schools accountable. Sin embargo, to the extent that these
policies drive good teachers away from low-performing schools, we have a seri-
ous problem. High-stakes accountability policies need to be designed in ways
that draw the best teachers to the most challenging schools, provide support to
help teachers be as effective as possible, and reward those teachers for staying
allá. This implies not only a greater targeting of resources to support teachers
in those environments (as described above), but also a broader understanding
and assessment of teacher quality. High-stakes accountability policies, como
NCLB, must consider a broader set of indicators, beyond student achievement
resultados de las pruebas, to monitor teacher and school performance. We found that the
heavy reliance on the narrow set of outcomes captured by standardized testing
is very frustrating to teachers and often discourages them from remaining in
low-performing schools. A broader set of measures (incluido, Por ejemplo,
principal, peer, and parent evaluations and multiple measures of teachers’
knowledge of students and teaching) may capture the many ways that effective
teachers have an impact on students.
DISCUSIÓN: RECASTING THE TEACHER MOLD
This essay argues that we may need to recast the mold for teacher hiring and
compensation decisions and readjust teacher policy investments to promote
goals of equity and efficiency. To the extent that research can identify a set
of teacher qualifications that are consistently related to teacher performance,
those qualifications should be used as a floor for teacher employment. En otra
palabras, these criteria would set the bar for a “minimally qualified teacher.”
Beyond those basic qualifications, schools should be free to take into con-
sideration contextually relevant factors to select the highest quality teachers
available to them. Appreciating this distinction between teacher qualifications
and teacher quality is essential if we are serious about improving student
performance in all schools.
While this approach sounds reasonable, current policy is problematic on
several grounds. Primero, in order to accept a set of state-specified teacher qual-
ifications as a legitimate floor for teacher employment decisions, we must
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161
FROM HIGHLY QUALIFIED TO HIGH QUALITY
assume that states have specified certification and subject matter competency
in ways that have been empirically shown to predict teacher performance. Oth-
erwise these qualification requirements limit the supply of teachers available
to schools for no good reason. As noted previously, research on the relationship
between teacher qualifications and teacher effectiveness has been plagued by
inconsistent and inconclusive findings.
Además, several issues surrounding the implementation of NCLB ap-
pear to be problematic, particularly for chronically low-performing schools that
have an inadequate supply of qualified teachers. Más destacado, NCLB’s empha-
sis on teacher qualifications (es decir., externally imposed criteria for hiring) encima
teacher quality (es decir., context-specific criteria related to teachers’ potential to
be effective), the disconnect between highly qualified and high-quality teach-
ers in some school contexts, and the standardization and narrow measures
of performance associated with current accountability policies all contribute
to serious staffing challenges. These challenges could be addressed through
policies that provide additional resources and supports to teachers in low-
performing schools, but these sorts of investments were insufficient in the
districts and schools we studied.
Several policy implications follow. I have argued that the impact of NCLB
on teacher quality will be limited until all schools and school districts have an
adequate supply of qualified teachers. The policy implications include devoting
more resources to highly targeted distributional policies at the state and district
niveles (including economic incentives and other resources to support teachers’
trabajar) that will increase the supply of qualified teachers to difficult-to-staff
schools so that administrators in those schools can hire based on teacher
quality considerations. In addition to distributional policies, we need to identify
and invest in policies, practicas, and resources that will attract well-prepared
profesores, make them more effective in their teaching assignments, and retain
them in those positions over time. These policies may require substantial
investments in professional development, strong leadership, and supportive
working conditions. Finalmente, policy makers need to reconsider the narrow set
of indicators currently used to measure teacher quality. Without a broader
understanding of teacher quality and a more comprehensive set of supports
for teachers and students in chronically low-performing schools, high-stakes
accountability policies run the risk of driving good teachers—who can find
positions in other schools—out of the schools and classrooms that need them
mayoría.
These sets of policies can be thought of as policy packages wherein individ-
ual teacher policies implemented across levels of the education system interact
in complex ways with one another. The data in Rice, Roellke, and Sparks (2006)
and Rice et al. (2008) suggest that different levels of the educational system
162
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Jennifer King Rice
have different resources, opportunities, and constraints that shape the kinds
of policies they adopt. The goal should be to identify “coherent packages” of
policies that are complementary and simultaneously address multiple dimen-
sions of the teacher staffing problem to improve teacher quality. Más, estos
policy packages should be aligned with the specific dimensions of the problem
that local systems are facing (p.ej., supply, recruitment, distribución, retention).
Por ejemplo, if a district has a sufficient overall supply of qualified teachers
but faces shortages in particular schools within the district, targeted policies
that distribute teachers to those difficult-to-staff schools are necessary. If the
problem is one of high teacher turnover in schools serving large concentra-
tions of disadvantaged students, then the policy configuration might invest
heavily in retention strategies aimed at those schools. Our study found that,
in many cases, districts and states were using low-cost policies (p.ej., signing
bonuses) to address high-cost problems (p.ej., retention).
More research is clearly needed to understand the impact of the various
investments in teacher policy outlined in this essay. This work should consider
the multiple dimensions of the staffing problem and the range of policy re-
sponses, with a goal of estimating the cost effectiveness of promising teacher
policy packages. This is certainly a complex terrain that defies single research
projects or even a single disciplinary perspective. The voices of teachers and
administrators presented in this essay suggest that the most promising direc-
tions may be those that draw on findings from a variety of research traditions
to recast how we think about and invest in teacher quality.
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