Teacher Education, Experience, and the Practice of Aligned Instruction

Research over the past two decades has shown the alignment of teachers’ instruction with state standards is generally weak. Proposing that alignment is a useful measure of teachers’ curricular knowledge (Shulman, 1986), this study uses a large database of teacher reports of their content coverage to understand the relationship of teacher educational and career experience variables with instructional alignment. The results of the fixed effects models indicate significant, positive associations, though they are generally modest in magnitude. Implications for research and policy are discussed.