Teacher quality is a central pillar of the No Child Left Behind Act for good reason. Without high-quality teachers, one cannot realize the goal of high achievement for all students. In turn, if preservice teachers do not receive the highest-quality teacher preparation, then one cannot meet the demand for high-quality teachers. Few would argue with this logic, but it does invite the question, How can teacher preparation institutions determine whether their programs effectively prepare graduates to help all students achieve academically? To help answer this question, in 2000 the U.S. Department of Education (ED) established the National Awards Program for Effective Teacher Preparation. The awards are to recognize teacher preparation programs that have compelling evidence of their effectiveness in readying teachers to help all students meet high academic standards. ED also envisioned the awards program as encouraging further discussion of the elements of effective teacher preparation. To that end, the awards specifically require programs to describe how they systematically gather and use a variety of data for monitoring their activities and improving their efforts. Winning programs detailed their size, focus, goals, objectives, components (such as courses and field experiences), and criteria for judging effectiveness. Of the 19 programs that applied for the award in 2000, four are selected and discussed here. (Contains 1 note.)