Teacher Quality Research in 2007

In this Research Retrospective, we review the results of several important studies of teacher quality released in 2007, highlighting 10 major findings that were pervasive among these studies. 1 Together, these findings can help to inform the considerations that policymakers must attend to as they seek to shape approaches that improve teaching and learning in our country's schools. The imperative to better connect sound evidence to effective policy is not new. However, it has taken on increased importance in an education era that demands improved results for students and often faces limited resources to reach them. At the heart of the educational experience are the interactions between students and their teachers. All students need and deserve excellent teachers — but for some, the chances of having a highly qualified classroom teacher are much lower than for others. Too often, students in high-poverty, high-minority schools learn from teachers with less experience, lower qualifications, and higher rates of turnover. And for these students, the quality of the instruction provided by those teachers can mean the difference between getting ahead or falling further behind , between learning to be an avid reader or struggling to decipher words, between graduating from high 1 This is by no means an exhaustive literature review. We chose to focus primarily on significant studies released in 2007 (and, in very few cases, late 2006) which have noteworthy policy implications. We believe this summary reflects an important range of relevant findings reflected in multiple studies, but regret any studies we have inadvertently overlooked. See the references for the full list of studies reviewed for this document. school or facing a life with limited prospects. The quality of the teachers in American classrooms — those who carry so much responsibility and can awaken so many possibilities — is of critical importance from economic, social, pedagogical, and democratic perspectives. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) tried to do what federal law had previously side-stepped — establish standards for teacher quality — through its " highly qualified teacher " provisions. Under NCLB, all teachers of core academic subjects must hold a bachelor's degree, be fully certified, and demonstrate knowledge of the subject(s) they teach. If states could ensure that all students were taught by " highly qualified teachers, " lawmakers posited, this would erase — or at least diminish — the inequities that characterize U.S. schools. The jury is still out regarding the …