Help us put a great teacher in every classroom

A 52-volume compendium of customized state reports for the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as a national summary overview, measuring state progress against a set of 36 specific policy goals.

A current picture of the teacher evaluation policy landscape, including in-depth analysis of states with some of the most ambitious policies and early observations of the challenges states face.

The Prairie State is the latest focus of NCTQ's ongoing study of teacher-preparation programs across the country. This time around, we evaluate 113 undergraduate and graduate programs at 53 ed schools, with one big takeaway: Illinois needs to do much more to prepare teachers for today's classrooms.

A year after NCTQ released a study on Seattle's human-capital policies, we take a close look at the district's new collective-bargaining agreement. Better teacher evaluations—check. More principal autonomy in selecting staff—check. But there is room for improvement.

In too many school districts, principals have little say over which teachers work in their buildings. NCTQ's new policy brief explores the staffing policies in 101 school districts and points to promising practices and solutions for states and districts to consider.

NCTQ's analysis of science-teacher licensure policies in every state of the union reveals that most offer loopholes allowing high school teachers to teach specific subjects without adequate preparation. Eleven states get a green light for avoiding such loopholes, but 33 are given red.

Keeping track of the various sources of personnel data, like payroll and hiring records, and knowing how to use them effectively, is not easy. Our checklist outlines the goals, data and questions a district should consider while developing a smart human-capital strategy.

Seattle Public Schools and the local teachers union negotiated a new contract September 2. Beforehand, NCTQ took a side-by-side look at each party's proposal, concluding that the district's plans would put Seattle at the forefront of teacher-quality reform.

Before the 10 winners of the Round 2 Race to the Top funds were announced, NCTQ assesed the "Great Teachers and Leaders" sections of the 19 finalists' proposals and recommended which states should have been given green, yellow, and red lights.

Traditional education schools are under fire for failing to prepare new teachers for the challenges of today's classrooms. With that in mind, NCTQ releases its largest ed school study to date, measuring 67 undergraduate programs in Texas against 25 standards focused on design. Most programs failed to meet every NCTQ standard, while some rated highly, others miserably—useful information for ed school "consumers," both aspiring teachers and school districts looking to hire.

NCTQ has reviewed the "Great Teachers and Leaders" section of the 16 finalists' Race to the Top proposals. See our take on which applications are a "go," in which instances the U.S. Department of Education should proceed with caution, and in which cases the Department ought to put on the brakes.

NCTQ's annual 52-volume report on state policies that impact the teaching profession. This year's edition is a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of states' teacher policies including key policy areas such as teacher preparation, evaluation, tenure and dismissal, alternative certification and compensation.

Interim editions of the Yearbook, such as the 2010 Blueprint for Change, provide shorter briefs for each state that include a state-specific action plan, updating states' progress on Yearbook goals and giving advice on how to prioritize policy needs.

This paper illustrates ways districts can rethink their teacher payrolls and salary schedules to find innovative ways to reward teacher excellence, absent additional funds.

States may no longer be working on their Race to the Top applications, but NCTQ's scorecard is a great way to assess states' human capital policies. Covering areas like pathways into teaching and measuring teacher effectiveness, the scorecard can help states prioritize their reform efforts.

Removing the Roadblocks: How Federal Policy Can Cultivate Effective Teachers

Student teaching serves as a capstone experience for nearly 200,000 teacher candidates each year. In an effort to understand how to get student teaching "right," NCTQ embarked on an ambitious effort to measure student teaching programs nationwide, assessing the degree to which they have the right pieces in place necessary for delivering a high quality program.

Read NCTQ's advice to states on what they can do to improve their shot at getting a portion of the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funds.

Read NCTQ's analysis of what school districts can do to improve teacher quality.

As a follow up to NCTQ's national studies of how well elementary teachers are prepared to teach reading and mathematics, NCTQ looks at preparation in both subjects in all undergraduate teacher preparation programs in Colorado (December 2009) New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming (September 2009).

Note preparation program change: Colorado College indicated significant changes have been made since NCTQ's review to its required course in reading for elementary teacher candidates.

Strong K-12 math and science preparation ensures that college freshmen are capable of diving into demanding STEM* majors rather than treading water in remedial courses. That's better for them and for our nation's future. State laws and regulations can help to build a bigger and better pipeline of K-12 teachers who will savor, not skirt, rigorous math and science instruction.

*Science, technology, engineering and mathematics

NCTQ Releases Study of Reading Preparation in Indiana Education Schools: As a follow up to NCTQ's national study on how well elementary teachers are prepared to teach reading, NCTQ looks at reading preparation in Indiana.

A 51-volume encyclopedia—with a handy national summary—that takes an unparalleled look at what states are doing to improve teacher quality and a blueprint for reform.

NCTQ takes a close look at the governance of the teaching profession and finds that state legislators and other state-level policymakers crafting state laws and regulation, not those bargaining at the local level, decide some of the most important rules governing the teaching profession.

American students' chronically poor performance in mathematics on international tests may begin in the earliest grades, handicapped by the weak knowledge of mathematics of their own elementary teachers. NCTQ looks at the quality of preparation provided by a representative sampling of institutions in nearly every state. We also provide a test developed by leading mathematicians which assesses for the knowledge that elementary teachers should acquire during their preparation. Imagine the implications of an elementary teaching force being able to pass this test.

Note rating change: Our rating for The College of New Jersey has been upgraded to "an education school that would pass with better focus and textbooks."

Note rating change: Our rating for Southern New Hampshire University has been upgraded to "an education school that would pass with more coursework."

A new report from NCTQ and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, examines the current realities of alternate routes, originally intended as a fast track way to get talented individuals into teaching.

To improve teacher quality, there's little doubt that we need to reform how teachers get paid. Before districts leap with such enthusiasm into performance pay experiments, a little knowledge about the limitations of value-added methodologies and the tests themselves could help schools avoid fundamentally flawed designs.

Going against the grain, NCTQ asserts that federal efforts to force school districts to achieve full "comparability" and "equitable distribution of teachers" are NOT good for poor kids.

The first edition of the State Teacher Policy Yearbook 2007 provides both an unprecedented analyses of the teacher policies in every state as well as an ambitious but realistic blueprint for reform.

NCTQ's recommendations for teacher quality provisions in NCLB and HEA reauthorizations.

In this groundbreaking report, NCTQ studied a large representative sampling of ed schools to find out what future elementary teachers are—and are not—learning about reading instruction. The report, the most comprehensive of its kind, determined that education schools are ignoring the principles of good reading instruction that would prepare prospective teachers how to better teach reading.

NCTQ President Kate Walsh takes on teacher education in a new essay published for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's white paper series "Fwd: Arresting Insights in Education." Walsh highlights a recent study in which the nation's leading teacher educators admit that there's little evidence to prove the effectiveness of teacher ed. While applauding the panel's admission of this failure, she calls them out on a lack of attention to both the achievement gap and scientific reading strategies. In her own words: "In ignoring the role that teacher education could play in giving teachers the necessary skills to alleviate the ill-effects of poverty, the profession misses its best chance to counter its many critics."

Over the past year, two economists—Michael Podgursky, currently Middlebush Professor and Chairman in the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.—have been debating whether or not teachers are adequately paid, at least compared to other professionals with comparable training.

NCTQ releases the second in a series of reports that examines states' progress-or lack thereof-in meeting the ambitious new federal requirement that by the end of the 2006 school year there will be a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom in the nation.

This is a highly readable, visually dynamic 12-page booklet designed to give policymakers a great synthesis of the most recent, responsible research on the attributes of effective teachers. We give you the straight story on what qualities of a prospective teacher matter a lot... and what doesn't matter as much as you might think. It's an excellent tool for state and local school boards, department of education staff members, superintendents and legislators — anyone who wants to do a better job of designing policies that will increase the odds of putting more effective teachers in classrooms across the country.

Harvard Education Press
Eds. Frederick M. Hess, Andrew J. Rotherham, and Kate Walsh

Christopher O. Tracy and Kate Walsh

The National Council on Teacher Quality in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education International Affairs Office prepared this report as part of an international project with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

This report presents a balanced picture of the debate on teacher quality in the U.S. and focuses on the aspects of teacher policy dealing with attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining effective teachers by synthesizing relevant research, identifying innovative and successful policy practices, facilitating exchanges of lessons among countries and identifying policy options. Fully vetted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), no other publication includes comprehensive data about such a diverse group of topics. Covering issues from teaching requirements to retirement, this is a large 25-nation study and is the first of its kind on teacher issues.

The Abell Foundation
Kate Walsh, Senior Policy Analyst

View analyses of over 150 studies dating from 1945 through 2001 that explored the relationship of teacher certification and teacher effectiveness. The studies here comprise a complete and comprehensive list of all studies cited by certification advocates as offering evidence of certification's value. Many of these studies cannot be found through routine sources, as they are too old or were never published. Analysis includes "quality checks" noting if the study was subjected to a peer review and if it controlled for necessary variables such as student poverty.