The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and its Implications for Student Achievement in High-Poverty Schools

What is the distribution of educational resources across schools and what effect do disparities in resources have on the achievement of poor and minority students? This question dates to the Coleman Report (1966), but continues to be hotly debated, involving the courts as well as federal, state, and local governments. Arguably, the most important educational resource is teachers. Disparities in teacher qualifications figure prominently in most educational policy discussions and are a central feature of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which requires a “highly qualified teacher” in every classroom in a core academic subject. Many states and large districts also have policies in place to attract teachers to difficult-to-staff schools (Loeb & Miller, 2006). The recent interest in teacher labor markets stems in part from recognition of the importance of teachers and from the recognition of substantial differences across schools in the qualifications of teachers. A consistent finding in the research literature is that teachers are important for student learning and that great variation exists in the effectiveness of teachers (Sanders & Rivers, 1996; Aaronson, Barrow, & Sander, 2007; Rockoff, 2004; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Kane, Rockoff, & Staiger, 2007). Thus, understanding what makes an effective teacher as well as how teachers sort by their effectiveness across schools is central to understanding and addressing student achievement gaps. Prior studies have found substantial sorting of teachers across schools, with the schools with the highest proportions of poor, non-white, and low-scoring students having the least qualified teachers as measured by certification, exam performance, and inexperience (Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002; Clotfelter, Ladd, & Vigdor, 2006). Yet there have been substantial changes in the educational policy landscape over the past five years. New laws, including NCLB, have changed requirements for teachers. Assessment-based accountability policies at the state level have created standards and increased oversight of schools, especially those with low-achieving students. New routes into teaching, many with fewer requirements before teaching, have lowered the cost for individuals to enter the teaching profession. These changes have affected teacher labor markets profoundly. In this paper we examine these changes, asking how the distribution of teachers has changed in recent years and what the implications of these changes are for students. We examine three questions: