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The classroom teacher plays a powerful role in improving student outcomes, and teachers are increasingly looked at as a means to address disparities in achievement. Consequently, policy makers are becoming interested in understanding the distribution of teacher effectiveness across school characteristics. Very recent research suggests that, on average, students in high-poverty schools receive instruction from less effective teachers (as operationalized through teacher value-added scores) than do students in lower-poverty schools. This research seeks to build upon this literature by also examining how teacher effectiveness varies across urbanicity and location, doing so while using an often overlooked subset of schools—namely those that come from small and/or rural districts. The results of this study support the notion that teacher effectiveness is not equal across the poverty level of schools, as it finds a meaningful and robust connection between school FRPL rates and teacher value-added scores; findings pertaining to the urbanicity of schools are less conclusive. This study also finds that teacher effects vary across location, as does the connection between teacher effects and school FRPL rates. Evidence is put forth which suggests that this variability may do due in part to the supply of teachers in a given region. This study is organized into three essays: the first examines teacher effects across school income and urbanicity; the second incorporates the impact of location and teacher staffing theory; the third essay is a policy brief intended for a wide audience, as it synthesizes the findings of the first two essays to make concrete policy recommendations.

ISBN: 9781321342796