One of the most important things school systems can do to promote student achievement is to ensure that all students have effective teachers. Effective teachers may be particularly important for the most disadvantaged students. The U.S. Department of Education commissioned the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to create this report as a…

The Texas statewide assessment of academic skills in 1997 indicated that >55 % of the student population failed to master the mathematics objectives set by the test criteria and 42 % of the mathematics teachers at the secondary level in the East Texas region were categorized as underqualified to teach mathematics at that level. The issue of…

Each year, considerable resources are spent on professional development to build teacher knowledge and skills. Yet not much is known about its impact on student achievement. Research confirms that professional development can affect teacher practice, but research has yet to confirm if those changes in practice improve student learning.…

Pay-for-performance plans have become popular as school districts search for ways to improve teacher quality and student academic achievement. There is a need to develop systems that are sensitive to the market and are performance based whereby higher performing teachers receive greater financial compensation and recognition. The sense of…

Frustrated with years of below-average performance on standardized tests, high dropout rates and a negative image of its schools, the board of education in Maine School Administrative District 11, a 2,200-student school district in central Maine, charged a 15-member committee of educators, school board members and community representatives to…

Good teaching matters. There is persuasive evidence that students benefit from high quality instruction and that these benefits are cumulative for students who have good teachers for several years. Teacher effectiveness matters so much that low-income students lucky enough to have three very good teachers in a row in elementary school earn test…

The purpose of this study was to identify and to explore programs related to school leadership in two California charter schools. Four research questions guided this study: (a) What policies, programs, and processes are used to improve teacher and administrative leadership (school leadership) in charter schools? (b) How are resources used to…

There is growing evidence that, of all school resources, teachers have the largest impact on student achievement. Principals arguably play the most important role in ensuring that excellent teaching occurs in their school. How principals hire teachers, assign them to specific positions, evaluate them, and provide growth opportunities for them…

Observation measures of instructional quality tend to fall into two broad categories--those for use across subject areas and those intended for use in specific subject areas. The move toward content-specific measures is a result of research suggesting that effective teaching looks different across subject areas and that both content knowledge and…

A primary purpose of early childhood education and interventions is to promote children's acquisition of knowledge and skills linked to later social competence and academic success. In this report, special attention is given to summarizing what has been learned about early childhood classrooms as contexts for development and learning, the kinds of…

The Title II-D grant program, "Enhancing Education Through Technology," (EETT) provides financial assistance to higher poverty school districts that have the greatest need for technology support or have been identified as being in need of improvement. In 2009, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) provided an additional $650…

While there has been substantial research studying the factors that influence teachers' career decisions, there is far less literature on the relationship between teacher effectiveness, mobility, and attrition. In the paper "Teacher Effectiveness, Mobility, and Attrition in Florida: A Descriptive Analysis," Martin West and Matthew…

The 20-year partnership between Boston University and the school district of Chelsea, Massachusetts, came to an official end in June 2008. Although the partnership is by many measures successful, the continued success of the district will depend on how well Boston University is able to share with stakeholders management techniques and the…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the National Board Teacher Certification (NBTC) process was an effective form of professional development for teachers that would result in changing teachers' instructional practice resulting in improved student learning. The study also examined how a cohort of NBTC candidates impacted the non-NBTC…

Because they focus on the quality of instruction, teacher evaluations can be powerful catalysts for teacher and school improvement. But today, the typical teacher evaluation consists of a single, fleeting classroom visit by an administrator untrained in evaluation. Often he or she wields a checklist of classroom conditions and teacher behaviors…