The Relationship Between the Haberman Star Teacher Pre-Screener Score and the Studentsâ€™ Academic Growth in a Large Urban School District's Low-Performing Schools.
A large number of students are failing or are at-risk of failing in schools across the US. Low-income and minority students, specifically African American students, have a reduced chance to get teachers of high quality when compared with their non-minority, non-low-income peers (Center for Public Education, 2005). Teacher attrition has a significant cost to school districts (The Cost of, n.d.). Teacher effectiveness is an important factor in student growth and achievement (Wahlstrom, Louis, Leithwood and Anderson, 2010). The present study used 2010-2013 archival data from grades fourth and fifth in 49 low-performing schools in a large urban district in Texas. The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between the Haberman Star Teacher Pre-Screener score and the students’ academic growth using scores of the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in English Reading and Mathematics as measured by the Educational Value-Added Analysis System. In this correlational study, two types of inferential analyses were conducted to measure the correlation and the strength of the relationship between the two variables. The analyses were the Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient and a simple linear regression. During the analysis, it was noted that the teachers hired with the Haberman Star Teacher PreScreener online questionnaire had a greater tendency to return to the school as compared to those hired in the same years without using the Haberman online tool, somewhat alleviating these particular schools’ teacher turnover in the year 2013. Although the relationship between the 2 variables was not statistically significant at p = <0.01, it was positive in each instance and statistically significant at p=<0.05 in one instance. Suggested recommendations included to add the face-to-face component of the interview to the online pre-screener for the teacher recruitment process for low-performing schools, and to increase the sample size in future studies to determine any relationship with statistical significance. These recommendations should be taken with caution as there are other variables that influence teacher effectiveness and the small sample size of the study.
Haberman, Online teacher screener, Value-added, Teacher effectiveness, Teacher interview tools, Communities, Large urban school district, Low performing schools
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