Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters.
In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
Generally speaking the corporate reformers argue that only the first few years of experience matter, though you can see from these charts from a study by Thomas J. Kane, now at the Gates foundation, Jonah E. Rockoff and Douglas O. Staiger that at year five, effectiveness is still going up for all categories other than uncertified teachers. (see charts to the right.)
Of course, most Teach for America recruits are gone by then, which is why their dotted line vanishes at year three.
Actually, there are many studies that show that teaching experience matters, for 15-20 years – with each year in the profession leading to more student gains, especially in reading.
In fact, the importance of experience may be clearer in the teaching profession than any other, as shown in a recent re-analysis of the STAR Tennessee experiment, showing that Kindergarten students had higher achievement and earnings as adults, depending on how long their teachers had been in the profession, with gains for every year up to twenty.
Another study of low-performing, high poverty schools, shows that years of teaching experience at the 2nd grade level was associated with higher reading achievement, for up to 20 years.
“A teacher who had been teaching at a particular grade level for more than 5 years was positively and significantly associated with increased student achievement (effect size=.27)…grade level experience was sizable compared to race (minority status effect size = -.33) and SES (economically disadvantaged effect size= -.08)….Teachers constantly improved teaching effectiveness until the 21st year and declined beyond that.”
See also this study of Florida, showing that for 4th and 5th grade teachers, “in elementary school reading there may be student achievement 
returns to as many as 15 years of additional teacher experience.”
Actually their graph (to the right) shows gains in reading for up to 30 years!
So when people who claim to care about kids advocate for laying off experienced teachers, don’t believe them.
Parents whose children attend private schools or well-funded public schools don’t have to choose between having experienced teachers and smaller classes, and neither should we.
- Leonie Haimson
THANK YOU! I am appalled at the nerve of the politicians claiming to be doing the job “the people want”. Very peculiar that others should be giving up some salary and collective bargaining but the politicians have decided not to lead by example!!
I am very frustrated.
Thanks for your hard work.
We need to stand behind our teachers and strengthen our unions not destroy them.
Labor unions fought for reasonable work weeks, pensions, paid vacations and health care benefits. We cannot let their hard work be destroyed. The wealthiest Americans have to pay their fair share of taxes. We need to stop bailing out Wall Street and invest in public education.
Teachers work extremely hard and need all the support we can give them. Experienced teachers are more expensive but they should be compensated for their years of dedicated service and sacrifice to our children.
Thanks for sending this out. Today (2/28/11) on Marketplace, Bill Gates was on pushing the idea that an “effective” teacher matters more than class size or anything else in the classroom. He failed to mention what makes a teacher effective: time on the job. Sad that his foundation is spending so much money to build a better mousetrap when it’s already known what makes teachers more effective.
The sad part about this whole thing is that there is no need for teacher layoffs and nobody cares about that.Nobody has come up with how this system of eliminating seniority will work.,inaccurrate test scores which Bloomberg and his cronies have been faking for years,principal biasis,lower salary for my budget.,,get rid of people who don’t agree and dare to voice their opinion.At this point ther is a surplus in the budget,nobody knows how many people are retiring or leaving,but let’s put out ridiculous numbers and scare everyone so that the Education mayor and his puppets in the press can get their way.i think this is a plan to do everything possible to the public schools and allow the mayor’s rich buddies to open more and more charter schools in the vacated building Notice you never see a plan for what will happen when they close a school. HOW SAD!
I think this is a very interesting article that adds value to the discussion over teach effectiveness and tangentially to the pay structure of the profession. I am left with a few unanswered questions after reading this article and looking through the charts.
First, the Experience Matters chart seems to show that uncertified teachers are the best math teachers. I intuitively have trouble believing this but wonder which group of teachers are included in these numbers. Some uncertified teachers are not certified because they are experts in their fields and others have just not been able, financially or otherwise, to get their certification.
Second, I have trouble with using the absolute test scores to compare teachers. The reality is that with seniority comes choice of class to teach and the most experienced teachers often choose the highest performing students. So, comparing the test scores of a 20-year vet teaching an honors class with a first year teacher of a remedial class does not give a very good comparison. This also applies to teachers in low performing schools and often Teach For America teachers.
I think the debate is almost as important as the answer but am disappointed when the debate ends and violence or political games take the day. Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and empathy for our country’s schools, students, and teachers!
[...] from teachers. Be sure you don’t sign that petition by mistake; since along with class size, teacher experience matters [...]
[...] seniority less important in firing decisions. While no one wants their child to have a bad teacher, parents do want teachers with solid credentials and experience. Too often in the recent past, districts have fired excellent older teachers in what looks more [...]
[...] seniority less important in firing decisions. While no one wants their child to have a bad teacher, parents do want teachers with solid credentials and experience. Too often in the recent past, districts have fired excellent older teachers in what looks more [...]
[...] seniority less important in firing decisions. While no one wants their child to have a bad teacher, parents do want teachers with solid credentials and experience. Too often in the recent past, districts have fired excellent older teachers in what looks more [...]
The explanation is simple. Small classes and experienced teachers for their own kids. Large classes and inexperienced teachers for other peoples’ kids.