Does teacher educational training help the early math skills of English language learners in Head Start?

Abstract

To address the early performance gap between native-born and immigrant children and to seek ways to reduce the disparity, the study explored the effect of teacher qualification on early math skills of preschoolers, with focused attention to immigrant children. Particularly, the study examined the effects of teacher educational levels, certification, and professional training, by employing Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis to a US nationally representative database from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences (FACES). The study found a significantly positive effect of teacher qualification for immigrant preschoolers in Head Start, who displayed lower early math skills than their native-born counterparts. Among immigrant preschoolers, those who were with teachers of lower educational levels showed significantly lower early math skills compared with their immigrant peers with teachers of higher educational levels. The study also supported teacher certification and professional training as potential mediators in promoting early math competency of immigrant students, especially with teachers of lower educational levels.

Introduction

Despite ongoing efforts by educators to promote mathematical proficiency, American students' performance in mathematics ranks lower than the international average (Baldi, Jin, Green, & Herget, 2007). Moreover, there is a large gap between native-born and immigrant students; immigrant students, especially those with limited English proficiency (LEP) have lower performance in mathematics (Baldi et al., 2007, Haile and Nguyen, 2007). This gap appears in the early years of schooling and widens as students advance through school (Liu et al., 2000, Perie et al., 2005). Preschool is a critical period to ensure academic success during later schooling, and should be a time to reduce the educational performance gap between mainstream and minority children (National Research Council, 2000, National Research Council, 2009). As one way to promote high-quality preschool education, educational researchers have emphasized the importance of teacher educational and professional training. Indeed, many studies have provided evidences of the importance of teachers' educational training in early childhood education; teachers with higher educational backgrounds tend to elicit better learning outcomes, manage early childhood classrooms better, and demonstrate more positive interaction with children than those with lower educational training (Clarke-Stewart et al., 2002, Saracho and Spodek, 2007, Tout et al., 2006).

On the other hand, a recent report from the National Research Council (NRC) stated that recent research results “call into the question the assumption that having a degree – especially an early childhood degree – must produce better developmental and learning outcomes for children” (p.306, 2009). If this skepticism about the educational background of preschool teachers is true, we should make efforts to improve other conditions of early childhood education rather than spending our financial resources on teachers' education or certification. On what basis do we make a sound educational policy for early childhood education? This study was designed to examine this unsettled but important educational issue and provide empirical results. The main goal of the study was to explore a relationship between teacher professional development and the early mathematical preparation of preschoolers from low-income families. As for teacher professional development, the study examined teachers' educational backgrounds, state-award certification, and professional training. These issues are particularly important considering the relatively low educational backgrounds of teachers in Head Start (Saracho & Spodek, 2007). The study first explored whether the low formal education of teachers functioned as a barrier to preschoolers in Head Start. Second, the study examined teacher certification and teacher training to see whether those two teacher factors would work as potential mediators to produce high quality preschool education among teachers with low educational backgrounds (associate degree or lower). The study results are expected to contribute to the educational policy for teacher professional support in Head Start. This attempt would align with the efforts of Head Start concerning the relatively low educational preparation of Head Start teachers (Saracho & Spodek, 2007). Head Start programs have made an effort to raise teacher qualifications by setting educational standards for all teachers to have at least an associate degree by 2003 and 50% of teachers to obtain a bachelor's degree by 2008 (Whitebook, 2003).

Another important attempt of the study is to pay special attention to English Language Learner (ELL) children in Head Start. Statistics show an ever-increasing growth rate of ELL students. From 1996 to 2006, the growth rate of ELL students was 57.17% in the total PK-12 enrollment, having 3.66% of a growth rate of the total enrollment (NCELA, 2010). Approximately 10 million students in the US, ages 5 to 17, speak a language other than English at home (NCES, 2005). Unfortunately, a large number of ELL students have displayed significantly low academic performance, including performance in the math subject area. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) presented the math performance gap between ELL and native students in fourth grade (217 for ELL vs. 242 for English-speaking) and in eighth grade (245 for ELL vs. 282 for English-speaking) (Lee, Grigg, & Dion, 2007).

Many researchers suggest that gaining a bachelor's degree or a teaching certificate can be one way to improve the qualification of teachers who serve many ELL children (Darling-Hammond et al., 2001, Goldhaber and Brewer, 1996). Research also shows that providing professional training for those teachers is a critical way to help them to add knowledge and pedagogy in teaching ELL students (Dong, 2002, Janzen, 2008, Jiang, 2006, King et al., 2001, Zientek and Thompson, 2008). Overall, researchers have suggested the potential of teacher professional development to help ELL students' success in formal schooling. However, there is dearth of research that has studied the professional development of Head Start teachers that promotes the performance of ELL children. We hope that the findings of the study contribute to fill the research gap.

The study used a US nationally representative dataset from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences (FACES) Survey. Benefiting from advanced features of two-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis for multilevel data, this study examined how the variables of teacher educational training at the higher level interact with student variables at the lower level. The overarching research questions of this study are as follows:

• Are there significant relationships between the following three teacher variables and the early mathematical skills of preschoolers in Head Start?

• Teacher educational levels

• Teacher preschool certificates

• Teacher professional training

• Are there significant differential effects of the teacher variables for ELL preschoolers?