International Journal of Commerce and Management Research

Authors
Souvik Sarkar

Abstract

Teacher qualifications are particularly necessary for regulating entry into the classroom when performance and outcome data are not yet available, as is the case with new teachers. Teacher qualifications are also commonly used as indicators of teacher quality because of the relative ease and cost-effectiveness of collecting this data, which can often be found in public records maintained by states and districts.

There are many issues and challenges in defining and measuring teacher quality this way—from statistical concerns with particular value-added models to more conceptual issues about the fairness of comparing classrooms serving different groups of students. Researchers have yet to reach consensus on these issues and challenges. We do not have a method for confirming whether a value-added model has attributed the “right” amount of variance in student achievement to teachers; other factors that impact student learning may have influenced students’ achievement in a particular classroom.