Identifying Effective Teachers Policy
Providing comprehensive reporting may be the state's most
important role for ensuring the equitable distribution of teachers
among schools. Ohio reports some school-level data that can help
support the equitable distribution of teacher talent.
Ohio
collects and publicly reports some of the data recommended by NCTQ.
Although the state does not provide a school-level teacher quality
index that demonstrates the academic backgrounds of a school's
teachers, Ohio does report on the percentage of highly qualified
teachers, teacher absenteeism, and the average years of teacher
experience. Commendably, these data are reported for each school,
rather than aggregated by district.
Use a teacher quality index to report publicly about each school.
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, can shine a light on how equitably teachers are
distributed both across and within districts. Ohio should
ensure that individual school report cards 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.
Publish other data that facilitate comparison across schools.
Ohio should collect and report other school-level data that reflect the stability of a school's faculty, including the teacher turnover rate.
Provide comparative data based on school demographics.
Providing comparative data for schools with similar poverty and minority populations would yield an even more comprehensive picture of gaps in the equitable distribution of teachers.
Ohio noted that it provides comparative data for school districts. In order to evaluate performance data for a given district, it is often useful to consider how similar districts compare on the same data. The method for use with Ohio's Local Report Cards starts with any given district and identifies up to 20 districts that are most similar according to certain criteria. Statistically speaking, these are the "nearest neighbors" of the selected district.