This page is divided into two main sections: 1) recent news about teacher quality, and 2) key research about educator effectiveness. The key research section is then further divided into 4 sub-sections: General Research on Creating an Effective Teaching Profession, Attracting and Developing Effective Teachers, Measuring Effective Teaching, Retaining Effective Teachers.
RECENT NEWS
- What Do the Best Teachers Think About Teaching? See this new report from The New Teacher Project.
- The Challenge of Educator Evaluation: Are All Teachers Above Average? See this New York Times article.
- What is the Most Effective, Reliable Way to Evaluate Teachers? See this Gates Foundation report.
- A Bar Exam for Teachers? See this Washington Post article.
- Education Week article describes how Obama’s victory may affect education policy.
- New York Times Article: Want to Ruin Teaching? Give Ratings
- The Hangover — a new report on the challenges facing and recommendations for new teacher evaluation systems.
- New York Times editorial emphasizing the necessity and challenges of teacher evaluation
- New York Times article on the economics of becoming a teacher
- Washington Post article describing raises for high performing teachers.
- New report evaluating states’ progress on teacher evaluation.
KEY RESEARCH
General Research on Creating an Effective Teaching Profession
- The Irreplaceables — A 2012 Report by The New Teacher Project focusing on the importance of distinguishing between teachers of varying quality and retaining top teachers.
- The Widget Effect — An earlier (2009) report by The New Teacher Project emphasizing the consequences of our failure to distinguish between good and bad teachers.
- Aspen Institute Datasheet on the Teaching Workforce — Provides brief statistical summary of the teaching profession, including statistics on entering and leaving the profession.
- Building a High Quality Teaching Profession: Lessons from Around the World — Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development study that provides an international perspective on the teaching profession in the United States.
- Teacher Quality: Education Policy White Paper — National Academy of Education report that makes recommendations for attracting and retaining good teachers.
Attracting and Developing Effective Teachers
- Reforming Teacher Education: Something Old, Something New — A 2006 RAND report describing problems in teacher education and recent efforts to solve those problems.
- Teacher Education for Tomorrow — A paper prepared for the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education by the Center for Teacher Quality. Emphasizes the urgent need to reform teacher education.
- Our Future, Our Teachers — The Obama administration’s plan to reform teacher preparation.
- A Primer on Effective Professional Development — Research study that describes the key characteristics of professional development that increase teacher effectiveness.
- Transforming Teacher Education to Reform America’s P-20 Education System — 2010 article in the Journal of Teacher Education summarizing challenges and reforms related to teacher education.
- Teachers Wanted: Attracting and Retaining Good Teachers — A 2004 book describing the challenges of — and strategies for — finding quality teachers.
Measuring Effective Teaching
- Measures of Effective Teaching Project — Gates Foundation sponsored project that piloted comprehensive teacher evaluation systems.
- The ‘MET’ Made Simple — The New Teacher Project’s summary of the MET’s findings.
- The State of the States: Trends and Early Lessons on Teacher Evaluation and Effectiveness Policies — A National Center on Teacher Quality report describing teacher evaluation implementation efforts in all states, as well as common challenges and successes in those states.
- More Than Measurement: The TAP System’s Lessons Learned for Designing Better Teacher Evaluation Systems — Provides 10 key recommendations for effective teacher evaluation systems.
- Teacher Evaluation Training and Certification: Lessons Learned from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project — As the title suggests, this report emphasizes the importance of evaluator training and certification to ensure reliable evaluations.
- The Long Term Impacts of Teachers — This Harvard study examines the impact of teacher quality on the future earnings of students.
- A Great Evaluator for Every Teacher: 5 Ways to Ensure That Teacher Evaluations Are Fair, Reliable, and Effective — A report The Effective Educator’s founder co-authored emphasizing the need for reliable evaluators in the teacher evaluation process.
Retaining Effective Teachers
- Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis — 2001 academic report on the causes and consequences of teacher turnover.
- Ready for the Next Challenge: Improving the Distribution and Retention of Excellent Teachers in Urban Schools — Emphasizes teacher-leadership roles to retain high performing teachers.
- How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement — 2011 study that presents evidence of the negative impact of teacher turnover on student achievement.
- What Keeps Good Teachers in the Classroom? Understanding and Reducing Teacher Turnover — Alliance for Excellent Education brief synthesizing research on teacher turnover and presenting teacher retention strategies.
- Teacher Turnover in Charter Schools Research — A working paper arguing that teacher turnover has a negative impact on student achievement even when teacher quality is held constant.
- Why Are My Teachers Leaving? Retaining Public Charter School Teachers for Student Success — A report the founder of the Effective Educator co-authored based on interviews with more than 200 charter school teachers. The report provides several teacher retention strategies for schools.
