Teacher Quality

This volume offers insights from modeling relations between teacher quality, instructional quality and student outcomes in mathematics across countries. The relations explored take the educational context, such as school climate, into account. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is the only international large-scale study possessing a design framework that enables investigation of relations between teachers, their teaching, and student outcomes in mathematics. TIMSS provides both student achievement data and contextual background data from schools, teachers, students and parents, for over 60 countries. This book makes a major contribution to the field of educational effectiveness, especially teaching effectiveness, where cross-cultural comparisons are scarce. For readers interested in teacher quality, instructional quality, and student achievement and motivation in mathematics, the comparisons across cultures, grades, and time are insightful and thought-provoking. For readers interested in methodology, the advanced analytical methods, combined with application of methods new to educational research, illustrate interesting novel directions in methodology and the secondary analysis of international large-scale assessment (ILSA).

Teacher quality is the single most important school-related factor influencing student success. The author examines the body of research on the subject of teacher quality to draw conclusions about which attributes makes teachers most effective, (experience, preparation programs and degrees, type of certification, specific coursework taken in preparation for the profession, and teachers' own test scores), with a focus on aspects of teacher quality that can be translated into policy recommendations and incorporated into teaching practice.

The International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy is a comprehensive resource that examines how teacher quality is conceptualized, negotiated, and contested, and teacher policies are developed and implemented by global, national, and local policy actors. Edited by two of the leading comparative authorities in the field, it draws on the research and contributions of scholars from across the globe to explore five central questions: How has teacher quality been conceptualized from various disciplinary and theoretical perspectives? How are global and transnational policy actors and networks influencing teacher policies and practices? What are the perspectives and experiences of teachers in local policy contexts? What do comparative research studies tell us about teachers and how their work and policy contexts influence their teaching? How have various countries implemented policies aimed at improving teacher quality and how have these policies influenced teachers and students? The international contributors represent a wide variety of scholars who identify global dynamics influencing policy discourses on teacher quality, and examine national and local teaching and policy environments influencing teacher policy development and implementation in various countries. Divided into five sections, the book brings together the latest conceptual and empirical studies on teacher quality and teacher policies to inform future policy directions for recruiting, educating, and supporting the teaching profession.

Techniques for the difficult task of improving teacher quality No one stakeholder group can realize lasting change on their own; nor can any reform initiative focusing on just one type of strategy create the workplace conditions needed to truly build capacity within the education profession. Rather, stakeholders must focus on collaborating, reaching common understanding, and prioritizing for ultimate impact on the quality of teachers and teaching. This book discusses research and concrete examples of practice tied to teacher quality intended to improve eight key interrelated factors: Preparation; Recruitment; Hiring; Induction; Professional Development; Compensation and Incentives; Working Conditions; and Performance Management. Offers a framework and strategies for understanding the issues that make up the teacher quality question Written for educational leaders, superintendents, district administrators, teacher leaders, and principals, as well as policy-makers and other stakeholders Filled with illustrative examples teacher quality The author addresses the most important factor that affects student achievement-the quality of the teacher.

TEACHER ASSESSMENT AND THE QUEST FOR TEACHER QUALITY Teacher Assessment and the Quest for Teacher Quality is an essential resource that provides school leaders, administrators, and teacher educators with a wide range of perspectives on the complex issue of teacher quality. The book examines assessment in the context of preparation, licensure, hiring, tenure, and even dismissal and explores a wealth of relevant topics. Comprehensive in scope, the handbook includes contributions from leading experts in the field of teacher quality and teacher assessment. This important book contains basic information on a variety of approaches to teacher assessment and teacher quality topics including the science and psychology of teacher selection, performance-based assessments, and hiring decisions. In addition, the contributors explore the role of formative assessments in new teacher induction, assessing for teacher tenure, various approaches to annual performance assessments, assessing teacher contributions to student achievement, and the law regarding teacher dismissals. The expert authors also tackle broader assessment issues including the interpretation of assessments, standards for teacher evaluation, and the inherent dilemma posed by measuring the quality of teaching. For the goal of ensuring quality teaching for all our students, Teacher Assessment and the Quest for Teacher Quality is an important resource and a lasting contribution to the literature on the topic.

This edited collection brings together papers written by a number of experienced international academics who share a passion for promoting research-informed, high-quality pre-service and in-service teacher education that makes a positive difference to the lives of teachers and their students. Taken together, the contributions to this book represent a call to arms for all who lead education policy at local, regional, and national levels, teacher educators, and schools themselves, to engage in sustained and productive collaboration. Topics include: the centrality of empathy to the classroom, ‘practical theorising’ that is a central part of all good teachers’ armoury; the possibilities for collaborative professionalism which enables them to extend and enrich their thinking, commitment, and capacity for resilience; the pedagogical reasoning, habits of mind, critical reflection, knowledge, and skills that lead to the best classroom practices. Only when the voices of stakeholders at all these levels are brought together, heard, and enacted, are students in all schools in all contexts and in all jurisdictions likely to receive the quality of education to which all are entitled. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Teachers and Teaching.

Policymakers and researchers have focused on improving the quality of our nation's 3 million teachers to raise the achievement of students in key academic areas, such as reading and mathematics. Given the importance of teacher quality to student achievement and the key role federal and state governments play in supporting teacher quality, the objectives for this report included examining: (1) the extent that the U.S. Dept. of Education (DoE) funds and coordinates teacher quality programs; (2) studies that DoE conducts on teacher quality and how it provides and coordinates research-related assistance to states and school districts; and (3) challenges to collaboration within states and how DoE helps address those challenges. Illus.