Much debate surrounding teacher quality has focused on students’ standardized test scores, but recent federal and state initiatives have emphasized the use of multiple measures to evaluate teacher quality, including classroom observations. In this study, we explore differences across school districts in the relationship between student achievement outcomes and the observed quality of teachers’ instruction. Using data from 298 elementary mathematics teachers in five urban US districts, we examine relationships between teachers’ performance on the Mathematical Quality of Instruction observation instrument and their students’ scores on both state standardized and researcher-developed tests. We find that these relationships differ across school districts. We explore the extent to which differences in skills and expectations for students across tests may explain this variability. An improved understanding of the relationship between classroom observations and student tests may help districts to better support teachers in developing their instructional effectiveness.

中文翻译：

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小学数学教学观察与学生成绩之间的关系：探索不同地区的差异

围绕教师质量的许多争论都集中在学生的标准化考试成绩上，但最近联邦和州的举措强调使用多种措施来评估教师质量，包括课堂观察。在这项研究中，我们探讨了不同学区在学生成绩成果与观察到的教师教学质量之间的关系方面的差异。使用来自美国五个城市地区的 298 名小学数学教师的数据，我们研究了教师在数学教学质量观察工具上的表现与其学生在州标准化和研究人员开发的测试中的分数之间的关系。我们发现这些关系因学区而异。我们探讨了不同测试中学生的技能和期望差异在多大程度上可以解释这种可变性。更好地理解课堂观察和学生测试之间的关系可能有助于学区更好地支持教师提高教学效率。