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Teacher Quality

Building a New Structure for School Leadership
Richard F. Elmore (2000)
Summary: This paper focuses on imperatives of public school leadership and the demands standard-based accountability place upon it.

A Sense of Calling: Who Teaches and Why
Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson, and Tony Foleno (2000)
Summary: In A Sense of Calling, Public Agenda attempted to find out what teachers really think of their profession, and to compare their views with those of the administrators who hired them and college graduates who chose different careers.

Unintended Consequences: The Case for Reforming The Staffing Rules in Urban Teachers Union Contracts
The New Teacher Project ( November 17, 2005 )
Summary: The report shows how contractual staffing rules undermine urban schools and the educational needs of their students.

Studying Teacher Education: The Report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education
American Educational Research Association ( June 20, 2005 )
Summary: A comprehensive study on teacher education research. This volume provides a comprehensive picture of what is known on quality teacher education, what is not known, and what needs more study.

A Good Teacher in Every Classroom
National Academy of Education (May 24, 2005)
Summary: This guide calls on federal and state policymakers to embrace regulations aimed at raising teacher education standards while finding money to help expand the number of people training for and succeeding in teaching as a career.

Does Teacher Preparation Matter? Evidence about Teacher Certification, Teach for America, and Teacher Effectiveness
Stanford University: School of Education (April 15, 2005)
Summary: In the face of recent debates about whether teacher education makes a difference to teacher quality, a new large-scale study shows that certified teachers consistently produce significantly stronger student achievement gains than do uncertified teachers.

On Barren Ground: How Urban High Schools Fail to Support and Retain Newly Tenured Teachers
Harvard Graduate School of Education (April 15, 2005)
Summary: Based on interviews with twelve fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-year teachers who worked in five urban, public high schools, this study examines the career development and retention of newly tenured teachers. Overall, this study finds that participants' schools failed to support their career development in ways that promoted their long-term retention in teaching.

Teacher Working Conditions are Student Learning Conditions
Southeast Center for Teaching Quality (March 22, 2005)
Summary: While existing national data on teacher turnover is helpful, communities need customized data from their own schools and communities to effectively inform local reform strategies. Governor Easley's Teacher Working Conditions Initiative provides a unique opportunity for North Carolina communities to receive school, district and statewide data on teachers' perceptions of their working conditions, along with hard evidence of existing school conditions from reality based survey questions.