Teaching Quality: What preparation and practices matter? - Access related research titles from the ECS Research Studies Database. Links embedded in titles will take you to each study's findings and recommendations....

State Partnerships for Quality Teacher Preparation PDF - This issue paper examines how the effective use of data, competency-based teacher education standards and current relationships between districts and teacher education programs can lead to powerful partnerships that drive both the continuous improvement of schools and teacher education programs. The paper, which was developed with the support of the National Center for Teacher Transformation, is a result of a meeting of education leaders from throughout the nation that explored how to build effective state partnerships for quality teacher preparation. (Bruce Vandal and Barbara Thompson, Education Commission of the States, May 2009)...

Community Colleges and Teacher Preparation: Roles, Issues and Opportunities PDF - The role of community colleges in preparing the next generation of teachers in U.S. classrooms continues to evolve. In many states, community colleges are becoming critical leaders in efforts to develop a pool of highly effective teachers for states and regions that have demand which far exceeds supply. The result of a meeting between ECS and the National Center for Teacher Transformation, this paper describes a variety of forces in education policy and reform that are providing an important context to the role of community colleges in teacher education. The paper articulates how community colleges can capitalize on their unique attributes as responsive institutions that serve a diverse population of students to meet critical workforce demand in local and regional communities and positively impact the field of teacher education. (Tricia Coulter and Bruce Vandal, Education Commission of the States, May 2007)...

Web Tables- Beginning K-12 Teacher Characteristics and Preparation by School Type, 2009 - Research on academic achievement has revealed wide variation in teachers’ qualifications and experiences across schools. These Web Tables present the demographic characteristics and teaching preparation, including undergraduate coursetaking and certification, of 2007–08 baccalaureate degree recipients who taught at the K–12 level within a year of completing their bachelor’s degree. The analysis also compares teachers across a number of key characteristics of the schools in which they taught, including the percentage of students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, location (rural, sub-urban/town, or urban), race/ethnicity, and sector (public and private). (National Center for Education Statistics, October 2012)...

Teacher Quality 2.0: From Teacher Education to Student Progress: Teacher Quality Since NCLB - This first paper in a series on teaching quality provides an overview of the last decade’s research and policy innovations that reframed thinking on objective measures to evaluate a teacher’s classroom accomplishments and shortfalls. While no consensus has emerged yet about how to improve teacher quality, the paper notes that policymakers continue to experiment with many levers, including teacher preparation programs, recruitment incentives, tenure provisions, and differential pay, to achieve the highest-quality teacher workforce. (American Enterprise Institute, August 2012)...

Educating the Next Generation of Massachusetts Teachers: Building Effective Partnerships in Preparation and Support - In this policy perspective, the Rennie Center presents a new three-year model for post-baccalaureate teacher preparation and development aimed at improving the quality of the educator workforce statewide. The model proposed focuses on partnerships at the district level to achieve joint accountability for the training of a majority of teachers working in the Commonwealth. The "New Partnership-based Model for Massachusetts Teacher Preparation" is built on evidence-based practices in teacher preparation and development, and may serve as a framework for preparation programs in the state through which all teacher candidates can train. (Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, June 2012)...

What Teacher Preparation Programs Teach About K-12 Assessment: A review - This report provides information on the preparation provided in teacher training programs regarding using assessment data to improve classroom instruction. The report follows a similar shorter report released in March 2012. This report expands the initial sampling to encompass 180 undergraduate and graduate programs housed in 98 institutions in 30 states. The authors' purpose is to encourage teacher preparation programs, along with the federal and state agencies supporting and overseeing these programs, to focus more on the importance of future teachers' knowledge and skills in the increasingly critical area of assessment. (National Council on Teacher Quality, May 2012)...

Certification Requirements and Teacher Quality: A Comparison of Alternative Routes to Teaching - The author compares the characteristics of alternatively certified teachers with their traditionally prepared colleagues by evaluating the effectiveness of each teacher based on value-added measures. The author finds that teachers who enter through a path requiring no coursework have substantially greater effects on student achievement than do either traditionally prepared teachers or alternative programs that require some formal coursework in education. These results suggest that the additional education coursework required in traditional teacher preparation programs either does little to boost the human capital of teachers or that whatever gains accrue from traditional teacher education training are offset by greater innate ability of individuals who enter teaching through routes requiring little formal training in education. (National Center for Analysis Data in Education Research, December 2011)...

A Review of Tennessee's Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs - This legislative brief reviews the information included in Tennessee's current Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs, as well as the report card's limitations. The brief also outlines ongoing Race to the Top initiatives aimed at redesigning the report card to make it more readable and a more useful tool for institutions to evaluate their teacher preparation programs. (Offices of Research and Education Accountability, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, October 2011)...

Grade Inflation for Education Majors and Low Standards for Teachers: When Everyone Makes the Grade - The data on median grades by department confirm that there are significantly lower grading standards and inflated grades for education majors. Why does this matter? As the author concludes, “Low grading standards in university education departments are part of a larger culture of low standards for educators, and they precede the low evaluation standards by which teachers are judged in K–12 schools. The culture of low standards for educators is problematic because it creates a disconnect between teachers’ perceptions of acceptable performance and the perceptions of everyone else.” (Cory Koedel, AEI, August 2011)...

Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2011 - Teachers strongly oppose many current education reform proposals, but the teaching profession is undergoing a profound transformation due to an influx of new teachers coming from non-traditional backgrounds. (C. Emily Feistritzer, National Center for Education Information, July 2011)...

A Measured Approach to Improving Teacher Preparation - The authors point out that the nation's thousands of teacher preparation programs are good at churning out teachers but far less successful at ensuring that those teachers meet the needs of public schools and students. The time is ripe with reauthorization of federal education legislation and the momentum to reform teacher preparation. The authors propose a three-part strategy to improve teacher preparation programs. (Education Sector, January 2011)...

Transforming Teacher Education Through Clinical Practice: A National Strategy to Prepare Effective Teachers - This report indicates that to prepare effective teachers for 21st century classrooms, teacher education must shift away from a norm which emphasizes academic preparation and course work loosely linked to school-based experiences. Rather, it must move to programs that are fully grounded in clinical practice and interwoven with academic content and professional courses. In order to make the change, teacher education programs must work in close partnership with school districts to redesign teacher preparation to better serve both perspective teachers and the students they teach. (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, November 2010)...

Ed School Essentials: A Review of Illinois Teacher Preparation - By looking in detail at the design of education schools, we pursue such key questions as: (a) Will their graduates be able to teach reading or manage a classroom? (b) Will they be sufficiently knowledgeable about their content area? (c) Do they know about different types of assessments? (d) Have they practiced enough? (e) Were their mentors themselves effective teachers? (National Council on Teacher Quality, November 2010)...

Call for Action: Transforming Teaching and Learning to Prepare High School Students for College and Careers - The need for new forms of schooling with a learner-centered focus underlies the urgency to retool and enhance the systems that are used to leverage improvements in teaching and learning. In order to transform education at this most fundamental level, policy leaders and educators must focus on crafting integrated systems for defining and developing teacher effectiveness. (Alliance for Excellent Education, August 2010)...

Student Teaching in the United States - This National Council on Teacher Quality report claims that about 75% of student-teaching programs in the U.S. are inadequate. Researchers rated the programs' against standards related to the quality of their student-teaching components and found that more attention is needed to ensuring high-quality guidance from supervising teachers. Although controversial, this certainly is a conversation starter. You may view the executive summary or the appendices. (NCTQ, July 2011)...

Breaking the Cycle: An International Comparison of U.S. Mathematics Teacher Preparation - The findings of this study indicate math teachers in the U.S. need better training if the nation's K-12 students are going to compete globally. The study found nearly all future middle-school teachers in the top-achieving countries took courses in linear algebra and basic calculus, only half of the U.S. future teacher took the fundamental courses. The problem can be attacked by a three-prong approach: (1) Recruit teachers with stronger math backgrounds; (2) Implement more rigorous state certification requirements for math teachers; and (3) Require more demanding math courses in all teacher preparation programs. (Center for Research in Math and Science Education, Michigan State University, April 2010)...

A Matter of Degrees: Preparing Teachers for the Pre-K Classroom - Research indicates that state pre-k programs with higher teacher qualification requirements improve children's school readiness so states get the most out of their investment in early education. This report reviews research on training for pre-k teachers and concludes that educators with at least a bachelor's degree couples with specialized training in early childhood are best able to foster development of the cognitive, social and emotional skills children need to be ready for kindergarten. (Pre[K]Now/Pew Center on the States, March 2010)...

National Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics: Report Synopsis - Except for a handful of isolated pockets of excellence, the national system of preparing physics teachers is largely inefficient, mostly incoherent and massively unprepared to deal with the current and future needs of the nation's students. At least that is the conclusions drawn by a national task force. The document provides a synopsis of the findings and recommendations. (National Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics, January 2010)...

Teaching for a New World: Preparing High School Educators to Deliver College- and Career-Ready Instruction - In a rapidly changing world, education must keep pace. From the very first day new teachers walk into their classrooms, they need to be ready to deliver high-quality education to every single student in the room. It is time for a dedicated investment at all levels to overhaul teacher education and put our country on the path toward a brighter future. (M Miller, Alliance for Excellent Education, November 2009)...

An Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through Different Routes to Certification - This study addresses two questions related to teacher preparation and certification routes: 1) How do observed teacher practices vary by chosen route to certification; and 2) What aspects of certification programs are associated with teacher effectiveness. (Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, February 2009)...

Value Added Teacher Preparation Assessment Overview of 2007-08 Study - Five years of work has occurred as state leaders, research teams, university/district partners and national experts worked together to develop and implement Louisiana's Value Added Teacher Preparation Assessment. Louisiana is now at a point where it is possible to use an additional performance measure that extends beyond license test scores, surveys and the number of completers to assess the effectiveness of new teachers from the state's teacher preparation programs. (George Noell and Jeanne Burns, Louisiana Board of Regents, January 2009)...

Teacher Quality in a Changing Policy Landscape: Improvements in the Teacher Pool - A confluence of federal, state and local initiatives has improved teacher quality over the past 10 years. Prospective teachers who took Praxis assessments for teacher licensure from 2002 through 2005 tended to have higher SAT scores and higher college GPAs than test takers from eight years before. However, the demographics of the more recent Praxis test takers has changed little. Teachers still are predominantly white, female and native English speakers. (Drew Gitomer, ETS, December 2007)...

Educating Researchers - This is the third in a series of policy reports on the results of a four-year study of America’s education schools. This report focuses on the need for quality education research and on the preparation of the scholars and researchers who conduct it. (Arthur Levine, The Education Schools Project, April 2007) ...

Educating School Teachers - This report focuses on the education of classroom teachers, and finding that the nation’s teacher education programs are inadequately preparing their graduates to meet the realities of today’s standards-based, accountability-driven classrooms, in which the primary measure of success is student achievement. The report provides an examination of the successes and failures of university-based teacher education programs, offers “criteria for excellence” on which to judge the quality of programs and sets forth a comprehensive five-point plan for improving programs and changing teacher-education policy. (Arthur Levine, The Education Schools Project, September 2006) ...