Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Jane Hannaway on Performance Evaluations

Testimony of CALDER Director Jane Hannaway before the D.C. City Council on the human capital initiatives of the District of Columbia's Public Schools, given January 16, 2009. Hannaway describes CALDER's work on teacher quality addressing three main findings: (1) Teachers are the most important school factor that affects student learning, and the variation in effectiveness across teachers is large; (2) The variation in teacher effectiveness is greater within schools than the variation between schools; and (3) The variation in teacher effectiveness, both within and between schools, is a management problem that begs for attention. Hannaway argues at least some of this variation is a civil rights problem that demands policy attention and urges DCPS to continue to pursue new human capital management strategies to ensure teacher quality for all students.

Teach for America (TFA) selects and places graduates from the most competitive colleges as teachers in the lowest-performing schools in the country. This paper is the first study that examines TFA effects in high school. We use rich longitudinal data from North Carolina and estimate TFA effects through cross-subject student and school fixed-effects models. We find that TFA teachers tend to have a positive effect on high school student test scores relative to non-TFA teachers, including those who are certified in-field. Such effects exceed the impact of additional years of experience and are particularly strong in math and science.

The difficult tasks for District of Columbia policymakers and education administrators, the Urban Institute's Jane Hannaway told a Senate subcommittee, are how to get more high-performing teachers in the classroom (especially classrooms serving the most disadvantaged students), how to hold teachers and schools accountable for student performance, and how to do it fairly. Reforms that promote teacher effectiveness should no doubt be tried, but reforms should be guided by data systems that provide feedback on how well the reforms are doing and how they might be fine tuned.

In this Washington Times op-ed, senior education researcher Jane Hannaway explains that few school districts and states link student test performance to individual teachers. Getting good information on teacher quality might be the most important thing for a better school system.

[Riverside Press Enterprise] Jane Hannaway, director of the Education Policy Center, believes the United States can achieve a top-notch public education system. What can we do to catch up and excel? At the top of the list: We have to reach directly into the classroom to improve teacher quality.

Both the United States and England initiated ambitious standards-based education reform to eliminate large gaps between their highest and lowest achievers. England appears to be ahead, having started in 1988 with a national curriculum, tests, and performance tables. The United States' No Child Left Behind Act began rewriting state rules in 2002 with more incentives and punitive measures aimed at school performance. Viewing the contrasts as opportunity, educators and policymakers from each side of the Atlantic gathered in Philadelphia in mid-October for the second half of a dialogue on urban education. This policy brief offers highlights from their discussions.

[Cincinnati Enquirer] Teacher quality is arguably the most important in-school influence on student achievement. And, perhaps not surprisingly, teacher quality makes the most difference for students from disadvantaged families. Educational professionals and researchers alike also know that teachers vary greatly in their effectiveness. So isn't it surprising—and unacceptable—that teachers in schools serving the most disadvantaged students are typically the least experienced and least qualified?

In this project, researchers developed and piloted key components of a multi-year evaluation to assess the impact of standards-based reform at the local level on both schools and students. After summarizing the literature on evaluation of systemic standards-based reform, staff developed a conceptual framework and methodologies for a national evaluation of standards-based reform at the state and district levels. A scale for assessing implementation was developed and is recommended as a tool to be used in conducting the evaluation, and for use in ongoing monitoring by the U.S. Department of Education. This scale included quantified benchmarks of state-, district-, and school-level progress along a set of parameters that emerged from the literature review.

This paper reports results of the first systematic analysis of the progress of standards-based reform in U.S. school districts. Using data from a recent national survey of school districts and a companion national survey of schools, we find that not only do districts appear to play an important role, bigger districts appear to be particularly successful in promoting reform. Those who see reform as an exclusively state-school process may miss key ingredients for success. It is also a mistake to assume that large districts are not responsive. The benefits of larger size, however, appear to be moderated in high-poverty districts.

This study represents the first systematic national feedback from states and school districts on the state of education reform since the passage of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act and the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1994. It presents findings from a national mail survey of school districts and a telephone or in-person survey of state officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The surveys were undertaken to collect information from district- and state-level administrators about their views of standards-based reform and the new statutory provisions in the ESEA, the progress they are making in reform, the areas where they need more information and assistance, and the sources of assistance they find most helpful. The study responds to Congressional mandates in Sec.1501 and Sec.14701 of the ESEA for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to report on progress in implementing federal programs and their impact on reform.