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Do teachers continue to improve in their effectiveness as they gain experience in the teaching profession? This paper aims to answer that question by critically reviewing recent literature that analyzes the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes in K-12 public schools in the United States. This report reviews 30 studies published within the last 15 years that analyze the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes in the United States. The goal of this paper is to provide researchers and policymakers with a comprehensive and timely review of this body of work. A renewed look at this research is warranted due to advances in research methods (including the use of teacher and student fixed effects) and data systems that have allowed researchers to more accurately answer this question. Specifically, by including teacher fixed effects in their analyses, researchers have been able to compare a teacher with multiple years of experience to that same teacher when he or she had fewer years of experience. In contrast, older studies often used less precise methods, such as cross-sectional analyses, which compare distinct cohorts of teachers with different experience levels during a single school year. [For the research brief to this report "Does Teaching Experience Increase Teacher Effectiveness? A Review of the Research. Research Brief," see ED606427.]

ISSN: ISSN- Publication Title: Learning Policy Institute