The number one quality business leaders look for in employees is creativity and yet the U.S. education system undermines the development of the higher-order skills that promote creativity by its dogged focus on multiple-choice tests. Stephan Turnipseed and Linda DarlingHammond discuss the kind of rich accountability system that will help students…

As schools across the country prepare for new standards under the Common Core, states are moving toward creating more aligned systems of assessment and accountability. This paper recommends an accountability approach that focuses on meaningful learning, enabled by professionally skilled and committed educators, and supported by adequate and…

The inequitable distribution of well-qualified teachers to students in the United States is a longstanding issue. Despite federal mandates under the No Child Left Behind Act and the use of a range of incentives to attract teachers to high-need schools, the problem remains acute in many states. This study examines how and why teacher quality is…

Recent policy interest in tying student learning to teacher evaluation has led to growing use of value-added methods for assessing student learning gains linked to individual teachers. VAM analyses rely on complex assumptions about the roles of schools, multiple teachers, student aptitudes and efforts, homes and families in producing measured…

Recent debates about the utility of teacher education have raised questions about whether certified teachers are, in general, more effective than those who have not met the testing and training requirements for certification, and whether some candidates with strong liberal arts backgrounds might be at least as effective as teacher education…

Discusses the need for a national teacher supply policy to meet the requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act that there be a highly qualified teacher in all classrooms. Programs for teacher supply should be modeled on medical manpower efforts. Describes some successful strategies. (SLD)

Documents many inaccuracies in the Abell Foundation report on teacher certification and describes the actual findings of many of the studies the Foundation's report purports to review. Presents data challenging the Abell Foundation claim that uncertified teachers are as effective as certified teachers. (SLD)

Used data from a 50-state survey of policies, case studies, the 1993-94 Schools and Staffing Survey, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress to examine the ways in which teacher qualifications and other school inputs are related to student achievement across states. Findings suggest that policy investments in teacher quality may be…