How often have we heard the following: “If only we could get rid of the bottom 5-10% of teachers, everything would be wonderful.” Well, a new look at the data released a few weeks ago in NYC shows that this controversial statement is anything but proven. See this blog from the Albert Shanker Institute entitled “Revisiting the 5-10% Solution.”
“In a post over a year ago, I discussed the common argument that dismissing the “bottom 5-10 percent” of teachers would increase U.S. test scores to the level of high-performing nations. This argument is based on a calculation by economist Eric Hanushek, which suggests that dismissing the lowest-scoring teachers based on their math value-added scores would, over a period of around ten years (when the first cohort of students would have gone through the schooling system without the “bottom” teachers), increase U.S. math scores dramatically – perhaps to the level of high-performing nations such as Canada or Finland.
“This argument is, to say the least, controversial, and it invokes the full spectrum of reactions. In my opinion, it’s best seen as a policy-relevant illustration of the wide variation in test-based teacher effects, one that might suggest a potential of a course of action but can’t really tell us how it will turn out in practice. To highlight this point, I want to take a look at one issue mentioned in that previous post – that is, how the instability of value-added scores over time (which Hanushek’s simulation doesn’t address directly) might affect the projected benefits of this type of intervention, and how this is turn might modulate one’s view of the huge projected benefits…”