Quality teaching depends on a wide array of personal and contextual factors. An emerging and substantial body of literature has reframed the focus on teaching quality by examining how teachers' abilities to influence student achievement change over the course of their career and how these changes are influenced by the context in which they work.…

Part of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) research series titled "Teachers' Time: Collaborating for Learning, Teaching, and Leading," this case study looks at Hillsdale High School, a large, comprehensive high school located in San Mateo, California, a high-tech enclave of Silicon Valley nestled 23 miles…

Background: Through its Children First initiative, New York City policymakers promoted collaborative inquiry as a process for helping administrators and teachers use student data to improve instruction and raise student achievement. Since 2007, city schools were expected to engage higher proportions of faculty in the inquiry work each year.…