The National Council on Teacher Quality advocates for reforms in a broad range of teacher policies at the federal, state, and local levels in order to increase the number of effective teachers. In particular we recognize the absence of much of the evidence necessary to make a compelling case for change and seek to fill that void with a research agenda that has direct and practical implications for policy. We are committed to lending transparency and increasing public awareness about the four sets of institutions that have the greatest impact on teacher quality: states, teacher preparation programs, school districts and teachers' unions.

Our Board of Directors and Advisory Board is composed of Democrats, Republicans and Independents, all of whom believe that the teaching profession is way overdue for significant reform in how we recruit, prepare, retain, and compensate teachers.

Based in Washington, DC, the National Council on Teacher Quality was founded in 2000 to provide an alternative national voice to existing teacher organizations, and build the case for a comprehensive reform agenda that would challenge the current structure and regulation of the profession.

In May 2006, NCTQ launched a series of studies to examine how well education schools prepare teachers to deliver instruction in different subject areas. The first study What Education Schools Aren't Teaching About Reading -- and What Elementary Teachers Aren't Learning examined teacher preparation in reading instruction in 72 randomly selected education schools across the nation. The end result was not only a review of teacher preparation in effective reading instruction, but also a set of practical recommendations to states, the federal government, textbook publishers and education schools on how to tackle the problems that plague this crucial area of teacher training.

In June 2008, NCTQ followed-up on this report with a similar study on the state of preparation of elementary teachers in mathematics, entitled No Common Denominator. The study examined 77 education programs in 49 states and the District of Columbia, and having revealed that this area of teacher preparation is, too, in dire need of improvement, made recommendations to educators and policy makers on how to effect the change needed.

Instructional resources we recommend highly for those teaching elementary mathematics to prospective elementary teachers are posted at our new website, The Greatest Common Denominator.

In early summer 2010, NCTQ will release a third study examining prospective teachers' preparation at nearly 150 sample institutions in the crucial area of student teaching.

The student teaching study benefits from the expertise of an advisory group: Shannon Cannon (Associate Professor and University Supervisor, University of California, Davis), Charlotte Danielson (The Danielson Group), Susan Moore Johnson (Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education), Annie Lewis (Vice President of Program Design, Teach for America), Ellen Moir (Executive Director, The New Teacher Center), Michelle Reininger (Associate Professor, School of Education & Social Policy, Northwestern University), Jeff Sprout (Principal, Montebello Elementary School, Phoenix, AZ), Audra Watson (Executive Director of Teacher Development, New York City Department of Education).

In addition to these national studies, NCTQ has also been conducting a number of state-level studies of education schools: New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming. and Colorado. We are poised to expand that work considerably with a study on teacher preparation in Texas that will be released on March 15, 2010 and a study on teacher preparation in Illinois scheduled for release in early summer 2010.

Since 2007, NCTQ has published a 52-volume report examining the current teacher policies of 50 states, the District of Columbia and a national summary, known as the State Teacher Policy Yearbook. The Yearbook is aimed at an audience of state policymakers (school boards, governors, superintendents, legislators), providing customized analyses of the positive and negative impact of state policy on teacher quality.

The full Yearbook is produced only once every two years. In the interim year, the Yearbook focuses on a specific area of focus. The 2008 edition focused on state policies having an impact on new teachers. The 2010 edition will focus on the STEM teachers.

Currently NCTQ is also providing technical assistance to a number of states to help them design a winning Race to the Top proposal, as part of the US Department of Education stimulus funding.

NCTQ is breaking new ground by offering the public unprecedented access to the content of collective bargaining agreements and school board policies from all across the nation. We have developed an innovative database--TR³ ( Teacher Rules, Roles and Rights ), facilitating comparisons between policies from 100 districts from all 50 states. The database allows users to compare over 300 distinct provisions in the agreements, covering a wide range of contractual topics, such as salary and differential pay, professional development, leave benefits, employment termination procedures, class size, and many more.

NCTQ is the first to create a national, publicly accessible website that contains both the full text of the agreements and a database that permits easy search on key terms and an in-depth analysis and comparison. The organization plans to maintain and further develop this database--to add features to it and extend the breadth of material it contains.

Aside from maintaining this extensive database, NCTQ is currently working with selected districts and cities to provide a customized analysis of their human capital policies, primarily focusing on the teachers' contract. The end goal of each analysis is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the contract, and make concrete recommendations for improvement.