The Effect of Teaching in Underserved Schools on Beliefs About Education Reform

• In Event: Education and Public Opinion

Abstract

What insights into education policy can we gain from individuals who teach in underserved schools? We take the case of Teach for America, and ask whether teaching in low-income communities alters individuals’ beliefs about education inequality and reform. Leveraging the fact that TFA admission is a discontinuous function of an applicant’s selection score, we conduct a regression discontinuity analysis of an original survey of over 32,000 applicants to the 2007-2015 TFA cohorts and assess whether TFA participation alters individuals’ perceptions of a) what contributes to income-based differences in educational achievement and b) where we should focus our efforts to achieve educational equity. We find that first-hand experience in underserved schools through TFA reduces beliefs that low-income students themselves (or their families) are to blame for income-based differences in educational achievement. Rather, TFA participants apportion blame for income-based achievement gaps to larger societal inequities. When evaluating a number of education reform strategies, TFA participants are no more likely to believe that current politically-charged policy levers- including school choice policies, the Common Core standards, teacher merit pay, and teachers’ unions- can effectively reduce these inequalities Instead, TFA participants are more optimistic about teachers’ potential to foster student learning, and are more supportive of investments in early childhood education and wraparound services for low-income children. Interestingly, TFA participation also elicits greater optimism that the achievement gap is a solvable problem.

Authors

• Katharine M Conn, CPRE, Columbia University

• Virginia Lovison

• Cecilia Hyunjung Mo