Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

PART 1:
17
1. Introduction
Educators have long claimed that good teaching is the key to higher student
achievement, as well as to other positive student outcomes, such as moral values and
tolerance. Economists also have bought into this argument (Clotfelter, Ladd, & Vigdor,
2007; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Wright, Horn, & Sanders, 1997). Although
not all economists agree that higher salaries are associated with better teaching (see,
for example, Hanushek, 2006), there seems to be, even on this matter, a shift in their
thinking toward the notion that using monetary incentives to reward good teaching is a
means of recruiting better-prepared individuals into teaching (Lavy, 2005). Increasingly,
it seems acceptable to argue that teaching quality may be higher in countries that pay
teachers more (especially in return for greater competence) than the pay received by
competing professionals.
The reverse side of this coin is the common complaint in the literature that a significant
proportion of mathematics middle school and secondary teachers are not sufficiently
well trained in subject matter to teach higher level arithmetic concepts, introductory
algebra, and introductory geometry to seventh and eighth graders (Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2003). Yet, some nations are better
able than others to supply many more of these “elements” of mathematics knowledge
to teachers.
Some countries may “purchase” higher levels of teacher mathematics knowledge
because it is inexpensive to do so. The price of attracting more “mathematics- oriented”
individuals into teaching may be lower in certain countries than in others because
market demand for mathematics-intensive professions is relatively low. Also, even
with relatively high demand, the supply of mathematics-oriented professionals in
some countries may be high because past investments have created a young labor force
well prepared in mathematics, thus making it relatively inexpensive in those countries
to train almost any high school graduate to become not only a “good” mathematics
professional but also a good mathematics teacher.
Another reason why wages in mathematics-intensive professions may be relatively lower
in some countries is that political choices have kept the income distribution somewhat
more equal, thus holding down the salaries of highly demanded professions relative to
professions such as teaching. In this case, it is easier to attract mathematics-oriented
individuals into teaching because they do not have to give up as much monetarily to
pursue a teaching career.
Countries such as the United States can therefore find it expensive to match the better
mathematics teacher preparation in other countries, mainly because of the higher
salaries of university-educated engineers, mathematicians, and scientists compared
to university-educated mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher trainers. These
high salaries are the result of a small pool of labor with high-level mathematics skills
and a very high demand in industry for workers with such skills. Furthermore, countries
such as the United States, where student teachers have a comparatively poor high school
mathematics background, may find it expensive to train these people to a high level of
mathematics competence primarily because they start out so far behind.