Measuring the Effects of Instructional Time on Student Learning: Evidence from the Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study

Abstract

This paper analyzes data from the Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study to examine whether learning rates vary across students, across teachers, and across subject matter as a function of allocated instructional time. The effect of a student's beginning achievement level on the rate of learning is investigated. Time allocated to learning is significantly related to reading and mathematics test scores, but the size of the effect varies across teachers in mathematics and across subject matter and grade level. Higher beginning achievement levels are consistently and significantly associated with lower learning rates.