Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Taking Note

FEBRUARY 2011

Examining Key Education Reform Ideas in Tennessee

Improving Teacher Effectiveness:
Tennessee’s Recent Progress and Future Opportunities
Research has shown that teachers are the most important factor in
determining how much a student learns and that there is great variability
in the quality of individual teachers.i For example, while some teachers
in Tennessee consistently improve their students’ performance several
grade levels in a single year, other teachers only improve their students’
performance two-thirds of a grade level in a single year.ii It is critical that
Tennessee focus on improving the effectiveness of its teachers.1 To
that end, this memo discusses four strategies for improving teacher
effectiveness, summarizes the state’s history and recent progress on each
of these strategies, and highlights best practices from other states that
Tennessee might consider adopting to further improve teacher effectiveness.

Evidence on What Works
Research has shown there are four key strategies for improving teacher
effectiveness. The first strategy – and the strategy on which the other three
are built – is differentiating teachers. Teachers come into the classroom
with different skill sets, knowledge, and abilities, and it is critical to be able to
identify those differences.iii The best way to differentiate teachers is to work
with teachers to create an evaluation system based on multiple measures,
such as classroom observations and student achievement data. To be
effective, this evaluation system must be well understood and respected by
teachers and principals and accurately identify individual teacher’s strengths
and weaknesses.iv
A second strategy – and arguably the most important strategy – for
improving teacher effectiveness is supporting all teachers in constantly
improving their instructional methods by providing them with meaningful
professional development. Research has shown that teachers improve
the most when they are provided with tailored professional learning
opportunities that are adapted to their individual strengths and weaknesses
and focused on the subject matter they teach.v Teachers especially
benefit from consistently having the opportunity to spend time planning and
collaborating with other teachers, and new teachers in particular benefit
from receiving structured mentoring from veteran teachers.vi
A third strategy for improving teacher effectiveness is rewarding highly
effective teachers. As mentioned above, there are many teachers who
are consistently improving their students’ performance several grade
levels in a single year.vii It is imperative that these teachers be rewarded
For the purposes of this memo, teacher effectiveness is defined as a teacher’s ability to improve his or her
classes in ways that research has shown are highly correlated with increased student learning.

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so that they have the opportunity to impact as many students as possible,
whether it be teaching more challenging groups of students or serving as
a mentor or instructional coach to other teachers.
A fourth and final strategy for improving teacher effectiveness is
removing the least effective teachers from the classroom. Research has
shown that removing the bottom 5% of teachers from the classroom
and replacing them with new teachers improves student achievement
by 20% of a year’s worth of learning. [viii] However, since research
has shown teachers can significantly improve their instructional
practices over time, it is critical that teachers be provided with targeted
professional development and support before being removed from the
classroom.ix

Tennessee’s Broken System
Tennessee’s education system has failed to effectively pursue each
of the four strategies outlined above. First, Tennessee’s system has
failed to effectively differentiate teachers. Tennessee’s current teacher
evaluation system gives teachers one of two performance ratings:
“satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory.” Approximately 99% of teachers receive
a “satisfactory” rating, making it essentially impossible to differentiate
teachers using these evaluations.x Even more concerning, a recent
survey by the Tennessee Board of Education found that just under
half of Tennessee teachers thought the state’s current evaluation
system had little or no value in differentiating teachers’ strengths and
weaknesses.xi By contrast, the Tennessee Value Added Assessment
System (TVAAS), which measures how effective individual teachers
are at improving student achievement in a given year, shows a much
wider variation in teacher effectiveness (see chart on the next page).xii
Although TVAAS may not be perfect, it does serve as a better method
for differentiating teachers than Tennessee’s current evaluation system.
Second, Tennessee’s education system has historically failed to
provide teachers with targeted professional learning opportunities that
can help teachers improve their instructional practices. For example,
although research has found that teachers need at least 15 professional
development experiences in a single year to significantly improve
their instructional practices, a majority of Tennessee teachers report
having less than six professional development experiences in the past
year, with nearly two percent reporting no professional development
experiences.xiii Moreover, a recent survey conducted by the Tennessee
Department of Education found that less than half of Tennessee

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