National Council on Teacher Quality

About Yearbook

The State Teacher Policy Yearbook examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: states. States' influence over the profession-whether through regulation approved by state boards of education or profession standards boards or laws passed by state legislatures-is far reaching. These policies have an impact on who decides to enter teaching and who stays and everything in between. The Yearbook provides an unprecedented analysis of each state's full range of teacher policies, measured against a realistic blueprint for reform.

The Yearbook identifies six key areas of states' teacher policies in urgent need of policy attention. In developing the policy goals within each of these areas, we began with our own nationally respected advisory board, and widened the scope to consult with over 150 different policy groups, academics, education, think tanks and national education organizations, some of them with quite different perspectives than our own. In addition to the important feedback we received from these organizations, the best advice we received came from states themselves.

The teacher quality goals in this volume have all met four critical benchmarks:

They are supported by a strong rationale that is grounded in responsible research (see www.nctq.org for a full list of the citations to support each goal);
They use meaningful inputs shown to improve student achievement and employ measurable outputs;
They are practical and designed to make the teaching profession more responsive to the current labor market;
They can work in all 50 states