Dr. Lankford, an economist, has been collaborating with associate James Wyckoff and others on studies of teacher careers and their relationship to student achievement. Together, they have developed the Teachers Pathway Project, a multi-year study of teachers and teacher preparation programs to examine characteristics of teacher education and pathways into teaching and to identify attributes that impact student outcomes in New York City schools. These researchers have produced a series of papers examining teacher labor markets, in which they describe the sorting of teachers by their academic achievement and by the racial and economic characteristics of students and model various aspects of teacher labor markets that contribute to this sorting. Their work addresses in particular the processes behind the well-known finding that the least qualified teachers are most likely to teach the nonwhite, poor and low-achieving students.
For instance, in a paper that appeared in the American Economic Review (2005), “Explaining the Short Careers of High-Achieving Teachers in Schools with Low-Performing Students,” this team examines the decisions of elementary teachers in New York City to stay in the same school, transfer to another public school within NYC, transfer to a school outside NYC, or leave teaching altogether during the first five years of their careers. This study improves on existing research in that it demonstrates how teachers’ transfer and quit behaviors are influenced by (i) interactions between teacher qualifications and school-level student achievement (ii) unobserved variation in teachers’ responses to school-level student attributes, and (iii) the distance from new teachers’ prior homes to their first jobs. The role of the third factor is specifically addressed in a 2005 paper that appeared in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, “The Draw of Home: How Teachers’ Preferences for Proximity Disadvantage Urban Schools,” which presents the team’s striking findings regarding the little-understood spatial geography of teacher labor markets and the importance of school proximity in teachers’ decisions where to seek employment.
Dr. Lankford and his collaborators also consider policies that might alleviate the sorting processes that disadvantage urban schools. In a recent paper in Education Finance and Policy (2006), they consider how changes in entry requirements alter the teacher workforce. Noting that the US is in the midst of what amounts to a national experiment on how best to attract, prepare, and retain teachers, particularly for high-poverty urban schools, they assess, with New York City data, the effects of pathways into teaching on the teacher workforce and student achievement. They consider whether teachers entering through alternative certification routes alter the attributes of the teacher workforce and how the achievement gains of the students of alternative route teachers compare to those of other teachers. While there are some differences in student achievement associated with the pathways by which teachers have entered the system, the basic story is that the alternative-route teachers, who had reduced coursework prior to teaching, performed as well as other teachers after a few years of classroom experience.
Lankford has been the PI or Co-PI on numerous research grants over the last three years. Currently, his research on the relationship of teacher preparation and student outcomes is supported by grants from the New York State Education department, the Carnegie Corporation, the Spencer Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.
This research team is continuing its multi-year project to examine the pathways into teaching and relationship between those pathways and the educational outcomes for students. Given the continued gap in achievement between non-Hispanic white students and both Hispanic and African American students, this research is central to the cross-cutting theme of vulnerable populations.
Lankford’s research complements that of other associates who are analyzing Add Health and interested in education and the development of human capital in the US and around the world. His research on the teacher workforce contributes directly to an understanding of the processes generating educational inequalities and the linkages between race/ethnicity and educational attainment. This work contributes to the CSDA foci on children in general and minority and immigrant children in particular.
Lankford uses the computing infrastructure and statistical consultation provided by the Center.