Posted on July 16, 2008 at 1:09 pm by Amber Winkler
Teach for America in WWC
A new “quick review” out of the What Works Clearinghouse finds that Teach for America teachers
improved student performance on standardized end-of-course tests in math and science-by about one-tenth of a standard deviation. This is equivalent to moving a student from the 50th to the 54th percentile.
Simply put, more good news for the program. Find the WWC caveats and the review, based on a 2007 CALDER study, here.
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July 16th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I wouldn’t get too giddy over a 0.10 sd increase. Gains less than 0.25 sd are not generally considered to be educationally significant.
July 16th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Educationally significant, maybe not so much, but if it’s statistically significant it means that TFA teachers are consistently better at achieving measurable gains over not just other first-year teachers, but teachers of all experience levels. That sounds pretty exciting to me.