When Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act in 2015, it intended to send a strong signal: any further encroachment of federal authority on the nation's K-12 schools needed to end. Compared to its more prescriptive predecessor in 2000, known as No Child Left Behind, the new law, dubbed "ESSA" for the Every Student…

Children across the country face unprecedented levels of missed instruction as a result of the pandemic. As millions of students and teachers continue remote learning, experiment with hybrid models, and ultimately return to their classrooms, the nation has a greater need than ever for teachers who have the skills to address the challenges ahead.…

Using evidence from more than 500 colleges and universities producing nearly half of the nation's new teachers annually, this report answers two questions that go to the heart of whether the demands of teacher preparation are well matched to the demands of the classroom: Are teacher candidates graded too easily, misleading them about their…

The imperative for prospective teachers, school districts, Illinois policy makers and the public as a whole to know more about teacher preparation is the motivation behind this report. At the request of Advance Illinois, the authors evaluated 111 undergraduate and graduate programs in 53 education schools as well as three "independent…

In this paper, the authors lay out a number of features of "Race to the Top" funding and what states like Michigan should expect from the upcoming competition. They then provide a description of the kind of strategies--including next steps broken down by key actors and back-of-the-envelope cost calculations for implementing such…

The U.S. Department of Education recently published a notice of draft priorities and requirements for applying for "Race to the Top" (RTT) funding--$4.35 billion in competitive federal grants. Even though it constitutes the smallest piece of education stimulus funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, "Race to the…

In this second study of education schools, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) examines the mathematics preparation of America's elementary teachers. The impetus is the mediocre performance of American students in mathematics compared with their counterparts around the world. Mathematics relies heavily on cumulative knowledge. The link…

The nation's higher goals for student learning in mathematics cannot be reached without improved teacher capacity. To accomplish these goals an analysis of current teacher preparation in mathematics is necessary, along with the development of an agenda for improvement. Based on groundwork laid during a meeting in Washington, D.C. in March 2007,…

This report presents a balanced picture of the debate on teacher quality in the U.S. and focuses on the aspects of teacher policy dealing with attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining effective teachers by synthesizing relevant research, identifying innovative and successful policy practices, facilitating exchanges of lessons among…

Great teachers make a profound difference in the lives of children. Each of us can remember the personal qualities of a great teacher whose influence stretches into our adulthood--or who gave our own children a solid start in life. But these elusive qualities are hard to measure. It's even harder to use them to predict who will become a great…

While nearly all states now have something on their books labeled "alternate route to certification," these programs defy standard definition due to their enormous variability. States differ in the types of candidates allowed to apply (e.g., career changers or recent college graduates) and in the academic backgrounds these individuals must…

Advocates of stricter licensing and certification requirements for teachers often cite a plethora of studies in support of their position. In this article, the author discusses a recent review of this literature, in which she and her colleagues at the Abell Foundation found several problems with the studies themselves and the ways in which they…

This report, the second in a series published by the National Council on Teacher Quality, examines states' progress in meeting the new federal requirement that by the end of the 2005-2006 school year there will be a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom in the nation. This new requirement has led to some discomfort in more than a…

For all the conflict generated by various K-12 education reform efforts, there is one principle everyone agrees on: teachers need to know the subject matter they teach. This principle makes sense to parents, educators, and policy makers alike. On the importance of a teacher's knowledge the views range from those who believe subject knowledge to be…

In recent years, the debate over teacher quality and preparation has gained new urgency. Competing groups of partisans have dominated this debate: one seemingly eager to assail the nation's education schools and to suggest that there is an insufficiently defined body of professional teaching knowledge, the other committed to advancing…