Institutions of learning hire faculty to teach and carry out certain contractual duties. The onus rests on the institution to retain those who are effectively carrying out the job for which they were appointed and to replace those who are not meeting up with the required assignments. The problem now becomes that of choosing the most appropriate…

Some states have used new teacher performance assessments in an attempt to improve teacher quality for more than two decades. New teacher performance assessments include performance expectations, scoring rubrics, and writing prompts, which are organized into subject-specific handbooks. Teacher candidates completing performance assessments assemble…

For years, the debate about American education was like a bad marriage. The arguments were about everything but the core issue--instructional quality. The other issues--education finance, school choice, standards--all matter, but are secondary to the importance of effective instruction. In the labor-intensive education field, effective instruction…

This is the second of two reports commissioned by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) intended to address the dire need for teacher preparation policy and programs to reflect recent advances in scientific knowledge of child and adolescent development. In the first report, "Principles and Exemplars for…

One method used extensively to aid in determining instruction effectiveness is Student Evaluations of Instruction (SEI). This paper examines the use of statistical Process Control charts as a way to correctly measure teaching effectiveness. This field studying SEIs has produced a significant literature. It is not surprising that there is…

Teacher quality has become a top priority of our national agenda. There is empirical evidence that suggests that teacher inputs have impact on student outcomes. It is also believed that teacher dispositions are as crucial for student achievement as a teacher's pedagogical and content knowledge/skills. The National Council for Accreditation of…