Investigating the Role of Human Resources in School Turnaround: A Decomposition of Improving Schools in Two States Acknowledgements: This research draws upon work performed under contract with the Institute of Education Sciences (ED-04-CO-0025/0020). This work does not necessarily represent the views of any affiliated institutions, and any and all errors are mine. Michael Hansen CALDER at the American Institutes for Research 6 th Annual CALDER Conference February 21, 2013 Washington, DC

2 The presumed role of human resources in turnaround  Turnaround, transformation models Prescribe principal and/or teacher turnover  Teacher and principal quality are most consequential schooling inputs Assume teacher/principal quality are static

3 Workforce turnover or human capital development?  Which of the two models dominates in past turnaround schools?  Results: Evidence of elements of both models playing a role Strong improvements among stable teachers Strong incoming teachers, no evidence on weak outgoing teachers

Longitudinal Data Sources Florida  Math FCAT-SSS  Student-teacher linked  Spans to years North Carolina  Math EOG tests  Student-teacher linked  Spans to years  Principals 4

How is School Performance Identified? Time Span of Observation Window Monitoring PeriodBaseline Period CLPs TA MI NI

Descriptive Means of the Sample of Low-performing Schools 6 StateFloridaNorth Carolina School sampleElementaryMiddleElementaryMiddle Proportion of African American students 52.6%40.4%55.5%62.3% Proportion of Hispanic students21.6%31.6%12.9%9.2% Proportion of students ever eligible for free or reduced-price lunch program 89.8%83.2%74.4%69.5% Mean Student Achievement in Math Unique CLP, Non-TA Schools Unique CLP, TA Schools Total student-year observations43,55315,39837,37124,505 Note: Samples limited to student-teacher linked observations in math in chronically low-performing schools identified in Hansen and Choi (2012) using the 2005 turnaround point in math.

7 Decomposing Performance Improvements across Workforce  Pre- vs. post-period  Turnaround (TA) vs. non-TA  3 types of teachers in workforce: Outgoing Stable Incoming

Identifying Teacher Groups Contributing to Performance 8 Outgoing Incoming Stable Pre-periodPost-period

What Workforce Dynamics Turnaround Schools?

Teachers: Evidence Suggestive of Human Capital Development 11 StateFloridaNorth Carolina School sampleElem.MiddleElem.Middle TA*Post (β 5 ) 0.139**0.153**0.187**0.092** Outgoing*TA (β 7 ) Incoming*TA*Post (β 9 ) *0.014 Observations 43,55315,39837,37124,505 R-squared

Observed performance in NC Schools

Principals: Similar Evidence of Human Capital Development 14 School sampleNC Elem.NC Middle TA*Post (β 5 ) 0.154**0.065** Outgoing*TA (β 7 ) Incoming*TA*Post (β 9 ) Observations 39,39437,353 R-squared

15 Results are Robust to Alternative Specifications  Are these results sensitive to: How teacher groups are categorized? How TA schools identified?  No qualitative changes to the estimated relationships

16 Same Patterns of Improvement Observed in Other Schools?  What about middling schools with low growth? How do they improve? Replicate identification and estimation in schools that have higher levels of status, but quick improvement in school growth  Improvement of stable teachers most prominent in elementary schools; turnover in middle schools

17 Summary of Findings  Results show strong, robust gains associated with stable teachers  Evidence of high-performing incoming teachers, but not outgoing  Does not necessarily vindicate either of two workforce models, but suggests mix or spillover

18 Important Study Limitations  Descriptive investigation of outlier schools Not causal or representative  Improvements are absorbed into staff, though other interventions may be at work  Not an evaluation of specific treatment; not predictive of current efforts

19 Policy Implications  Current policy emphasizes human capital turnover Best use of intervention efforts? Can these successes be replicated?  Feeds into larger debate about teacher quality Costs of improvement vs. replacement Individual or context-specific effectiveness