As a new decade dawns, teachers stand at the center of a policy vortex. They serve as the primary focus of one of the Obama administration's four pillars of educational reform--effective teachers and leaders. Educational reformers of all stripes have focused tremendous energy on thinking of ways to identify effective teachers and in turn recruit,…

This is the fourth in a series of reports from Reality Check 2006, an ongoing set of tracking surveys on education issues. Reality Check surveys attitudes among public school parents, students, teachers, principals and superintendents on a regular basis. In surveys on education, it is not uncommon for the public, parents and teachers to see…