Equitable Distribution: Connecticut
Identifying Effective Teachers Policy
Analysis of Connecticut's policies
Providing comprehensive reporting may be the state's most important role for ensuring the equitable distribution of teachers among schools. Connecticut reports some school-level data that can help support the equitable distribution of teacher talent among schools within districts.
Although Connecticut does not provide a school-level teacher quality index that demonstrates the academic backgrounds of a school's teachers, the state does collect and publicly report on the percentage of highly qualified teachers, teacher absenteeism rates and turnover rates, average teacher experience and the percentage of teachers with two years' experience or less. Commendably, these data are reported for each school, rather than aggregated by district. Furthermore, the state reports on the poverty and minority percentages at both the district and state level and compares the percentages of highly qualified teachers at high- and low-poverty schools as well as high- and low-minority population schools.
Recommendations for Connecticut
Use a teacher quality index to report publicly about each school.
Connecticut is commended for reporting more school-level data than most states, including teacher absenteeism and turnover rates. However, the state should consider adopting a teacher quality index, such as the one developed by the Illinois Education Research Council, with data including teachers' average SAT or ACT scores, the percentage of teachers failing basic skills licensure tests at least once, the selectivity of teachers' undergraduate colleges and the percentage of new teachers. This can shine a light on how equitably teachers are distributed both across and within districts. Individual school report cards should include such data in a manner that translates these factors into something easily understood by the public, such as a color-coded matrix indicating a school's high or low score.
Provide comparative data based on school demographics.
As Connecticut does with highly qualified teachers, the state should provide comparative data for schools with similar poverty and minority populations. This would yield a more comprehensive picture of gaps in the equitable distribution of teachers.
State response to our analysis
Connecticut was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
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Connecticut
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Preparation Programs
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Research rationale
For an example of a teacher quality index, see White, Bradford R.; Presley, Jennifer and DeAngelis, Karen J. Leveling Up: Narrowing the Teacher Academic Capital Gap in Illinois. Illinois Education Research Council: IERC 2008-1 http://ierc.siue.edu/documents/IERC2008-1.pdf.
For more about teachers' effectiveness in the early years of teaching, see Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance on the Job by Robert Gordon, Thomas J. Kane, and Douglas O. Staiger at: The Hamilton Project, http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/200604hamilton_1.pdf (2009);
See also Jennifer Rice King, Teacher Quality: Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003).