Background/Context: Questions about teacher quality, including how teachers ought to be educated and licensed, rank near the top of the educational agenda in the United States. These controversies persist because of lack of consensus about what "teacher quality" means, conflicting claims about the empirical evidence, and public skepticism about…

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education's online newsletter "The Education Innovator" is to promote innovative practices in education; to offer features on promising programs and practices; to provide information on innovative research, schools, policies, and trends; and to keep readers informed of key Department priorities and activities.…

Recently, educational researchers and practitioners have turned to value-added models to evaluate teacher performance. Although value-added estimates depend on the assessment used to measure student achievement, the importance of outcome selection has received scant attention in the literature. Using data from a large, urban school district, I…

Since the introduction of the Coleman Report (1966), the focus on closing the achievement gap has been a critical component of educational policy for political leaders and field research by educators. The economic crisis which California and the nation at large currently face creates a challenging situation in attempting to narrow the gap.…

Teacher education has been subject to both scathing criticism and innumerable efforts designed to reform it or to save it from being dismantled. One of the latest and most well funded efforts aimed at teacher education reform is boldly titled Teachers for a New Era (TNE). Eleven colleges and universities of various types nationwide were selected…

Contends British educational researchers must begin investigating what is taught in the classroom and how teachers might best manage content within the constraints of the National Curriculum. Reviews U.S. research concerning the importance of subject matter in educating students. Illustrates research possibilities for problems in primary…

Value-added modeling (VAM) to estimate school and teacher effects is currently of considerable interest to researchers and policymakers. Recent reports suggest that VAM demonstrates the importance of teachers as a source of variance in student outcomes. Policymakers see VAM as a possible component of education reform through improved teacher…