Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience

Abstract

Although wide variation in teacher effectiveness is well established, much less is known about differences in teacher improvement over time. We document that average returns to teaching experience mask large variation across individual teachers and across groups of teachers working in different schools. We examine the role of school context in explaining these differences using a measure of the professional environment constructed from teachers responses to state-wide surveys. Our analyses show that teachers working in more supportive professional environments improve their effectiveness more over time than teachers working in less supportive contexts. On average, teachers working in schools at the 75th percentile of professional environment ratings improved 38% more than teachers in schools at the 25th percentile after 10 years.

Black Teachers’ Retention and Transfer Patterns in North Carolina: How Do Patterns Vary by Teacher Effectiveness, Subject, and School Conditions?

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Classroom Composition and Measured Teacher Performance

“…For example, Kraft and Papay (2014) find that school context-including supportive and collaborative environments, effective principal instructional leadership, and positive school culture-can facilitate greater returns to teacher experience or the extent to which teachers become more effective over time.…”

Innovative Practices That Promote Teacher Leader Identity and Development of Teacher Leadership in Professional Development Schools

“…Teacher leadership development process is a course through which various teachers enhance their instructional skills and experience, 360-degree feedback, personality, social mechanisms, and leadership skills (Smylie, 2015). The professional development schools promote leadership among the teachers more efficiently and successfully as compared to other school settings that are result and money oriented (Kraft & Papay, 2014). The schools are vital in the current society since they offer teachers an opportunity for them to grow their career as well advance their leadership skills.…”