Recent research using matched student-teacher data has confirmed the existence of an important role for teaching quality in producing student test score improvement in elementary and middle schools (Aaronson, Barrow, Sander (2007), Hanushek, Kain, O’Brien, Rivken (2005), Kane, Rockoff, and Staiger (2007)). This development has intensified concerns about the ability of underperforming schools to...

Based on the conception of total teacher effectiveness, aims to develop strategies for conceptualizing teacher effectiveness research. From the new conception, the units of research on teacher effectiveness are cell, array and layer. The strategies advanced for conceptualizing research include the individual unit description strategies, the within-layer relationship strategies, the betweenlayer...

The nation of Indonesia is in an area of geological instability, resulting in repeated and severe natural disasters including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis. Teachers, as adult authority figures and people with whom students spend a majority of their day, can play a major role in the lives of children in a disaster-prone community. Four years after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake that...

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 imperativ...