Research that moved minds: Top Teacher Quality Bulletin articles of 2024
The end of the year offers an opportunity to reflect on what we learned and what sparked interest in the...
The data and analyses district leaders used to support their work in 2024
District leaders' jobs are never easy and 2024 was no exception.NCTQ publishes our monthly District Trendline newsletter to provide district...
When “do no harm” is impossible, how can districts design teacher layoffs to do the least damage?
When teacher layoffs are necessary, districts with thoughtful policies can minimize disruptions to schools and students, especially those facing greater...
Ahead of the pack: Which districts are setting strong clinical practice policies?
Districts miss an opportunity to improve teacher effectiveness and strengthen their hiring pipelines if they don't support strong student teaching...
AI coaching for teachers: Does it work, and do teachers trust it?
New research suggests that targeted and timely AI feedback on teachers' instruction is possible and can improve instruction—but teachers still...
Building a strong student teaching model: Districts and teacher prep programs share successes and challenges
Just as you wouldn't start a marathon without taking practice runs, new teachers shouldn't become teachers of record without getting...
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In the eye of the beholder: What happens when teachers think the curriculum is too tough for students?
A new report explores why some teachers don't use standards-aligned curriculum materials. Here's what states and districts should do to...
Driving change through research: A look back at 2023
NCTQ's Teacher Quality Bulletin distills the latest education research into clear, actionable information for education leaders. From topics like effective...
What's resonating with school district leaders and staff in 2023
Explore the most popular District Trendline posts of 2023, spotlighting topics like paid parental leave benefits, housing costs in relation...
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Increasing teacher diversity: Four ways districts can take action
Pipelines, incentives, retention strategies, and data tracking lead to greater diversity.
Top five state priorities for education leaders, researchers, and advocates
To learn about state priorities in the coming years, NCTQ surveyed education leaders, advocacy groups, and researchers across the country.
Precious little time: How to make teachers' professional learning worthwhile
How do you balance teachers' need for professional development with the time it takes away from their students? And do...
Teaching that goes beyond the test? How to measure the many accomplishments of great teachers
What does the research say about measuring how great a teacher is other than their students' test scores?
Coming up ACEs in Dallas: Differentiated pay for teachers and dramatic gains for students
A new study examines a program in Dallas—Accelerating Campus Excellence or ACE—that sought to boost teacher pay for stellar educators...
Meeting the moment with measurement: Massachusetts’ lessons from emergency teacher licensure
As states quickly shifted requirements for teacher licensure in the early days of the pandemic, some also saw an opportunity to learn...
Gambling with children’s futures—and no one’s tracking whether we win or lose
Almost no one is tracking the impact recent policy decisions have on student learning and how they perpetuate educational inequity.
What’s in a school? Would a teacher in any other setting be as effective?
The answer (perhaps less satisfying than policy wonks would like) is that It depends on the school context.
Seven strategies school districts are using to increase teacher diversity
Several school district leaders shared how they've accomplished recent gains in building a more diverse teacher workforce.
New from Illinois: Whether and where teacher shortages exist, and how states can tell
New research from Illinois reiterates that the nature of the teacher shortage problem is one of inequity.
Forging a path to a better place: A look back at the most widely read Teacher Quality Bulletin posts of 2022
The most-read Teacher Quality Bulletin posts of 2022 reflect the questions, overturned assumptions, and trade-offs that face education leaders.
A look back on how school districts are preparing for the years ahead
The most popular District Trendline posts of 2022, with topics ranging from pay increases for substitutes to building a positive...
Making the most of who you have: Academic and behavioral gains from repeat teachers
A new study finds sizable gains for students when they are assigned to a teacher for the second time.
From the source: What strategies do teachers of color believe will be most successful in recruiting and retaining teachers of color?
A new RAND Corporation survey asked teachers what would be the most effective strategies to recruit and retain more teachers...
Reducing certification requirements and reviewing the effects: Texas tracks the data on the state’s temporary teacher waiver policy
Temporary gains accompanied by longer-term challenges.
How some states use licensure test pass rate data to build a stronger, more diverse teacher workforce
While nearly every state in the nation requires aspiring teachers to pass at least one licensure test, the information from...
How states are making licensure tests free to aspiring teachers
These states' efforts illustrate multiple approaches to help aspiring teachers to mitigate the cost burden of testing fees.
Six steps to hire a strong teacher workforce
Insights on what school districts can do to ensure every classroom is staffed with an effective teacher.
Strategies to build a sustainable special education teacher workforce
An examination of incentives offered by states and large school districts.
What teachers really want: It isn’t just higher salaries
Every now and then, conventional wisdom gets it wrong.
Teacher quality in 2021: A story of resilience
Our nation's educators and students are exhausted and embattled, but not beaten.
Getting districts and teacher prep on the same page on reading pays off
There's clear evidence that teachers are more effective reading instructors with special education students when both their preservice preparation and...
Six steps to use student teachers to solve staffing challenges
For school districts looking to fulfill staffing needs, hosting student teachers offers many advantages to creating a pool of effective...
The importance of content knowledge for elementary teachers
Elementary teachers need to know the content they will teach.
Teacher licensure pass rate data: Lessons learned on teacher quality and diversity
Information gleaned from licensure tests can offer a compass, guiding efforts to strengthen and diversify the teacher workforce.
The opportunity to learn from teacher licensure pass rate data — and why it matters
Strengthening our teacher workforce begins with better, more transparent data.
Diversifying the teacher workforce: More than a foot in the door
Many efforts to increase diversity focus on getting more teachers of color to the door of the classroom, with too...
The turning tide: Greater interest in teaching among Black and Hispanic students
Black and Hispanic college students don't enter teaching at the same rate as white students, but new trends indicate some...
Changing habits: easier than changing hearts and minds?
The path to becoming anti-racist is long, challenging, and for teachers, essential. Tackling one's mindset and implicit biases takes hard...
Testing, testing… Are teachers less likely to quit when states stop testing?
Does removing the stress of a standardized test keep teachers in the classroom?
Meeting the moment: Preparing teachers to teach for equity
What is it going to take for teachers to enter the classroom ready to close the opportunity gap, rather than...
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More evidence that teacher evaluation works
Well before COVID-19 hit, many states had backed away from only recently adopted teacher evaluation policies. With COVID-19 now dominating...
Pension debt is crippling any meaningful increases to education funding
In light of the economic turmoil that COVID-19 is bringing about, pension shortfalls are likely to grow at an even more...
Benefits of learning from the best
Some of the essential skills can be learned from textbooks and lectures—but knowing how to put it all in motion...
If you believe it, can they achieve it?
Believing that one's students have potential—and treating them accordingly—helps them rise to their teacher's expectations.
Shocker! New evidence that teachers are more effective when they know their subject
Perhaps this headline seems self-evident, but the backlash against licensure tests suggests otherwise.
Getting students to the room where it happens
If this measure can help identify and reward those teachers who are effectively encouraging kids to show up to class...
Three steps for creating and retaining a strong STEM teaching corps
Districts report the most difficulty not only filling STEM and special ed vacancies but keeping them filled with strong, effective...
The best-laid plans oft go awry
"This should work!" Reading between the lines of a new study looking at how to make the most of effective...
Drinking deep of the data in Tennessee
Tennessee is at it again! The Volunteer State, known for its strong policies around teacher prep and teacher evaluation, is...
Steps to help create a stronger, more diverse elementary teacher workforce
School districts currently hire about 70,000 new elementary teachers each year, with the expectation that these teachers are ready to...
Who are today’s teachers?
Some noteworthy findings from Richard Ingersoll and his colleagues in the recent examination of how the teaching workforce has changed...
Setting the record straight
The newest scare about teacher shortages focuses on the question of teacher retention...
Measuring up: New study identifies districts and states that are seeing results with teacher evaluation systems
Teacher evaluation systems, when implemented well, are coinciding with real and measurable benefits for students and teachers alike.
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What school districts can do to tackle teacher shortages
Coverage of teacher shortages tells of real struggles faced by districts, but it only tells part of the story.
Ripple effects: effective teaching echoes for years
The nation has taken steps toward giving all students, regardless of their background, equal access to great teachers. By more...
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Want teachers who are ready on day one? Here's where to look!
As school districts plan for the coming school year, many are already considering where to recruit a fresh crop of...
The best laid plans...
There is a cautionary lesson from a new working paper examining Houston's bold talent initiative. In many ways, it yielded...
Disproving the prophets of teacher shortages
Too often in education, education groups' pursuit of validation for their policy priorities and the media's desire for a strong...
If knowing is half the battle, Tennessee is winning this engagement
We've long been excited about the wealth of information – and its potential uses – coming from Tennessee's teacher prep...
Because every day in the classroom counts
While I have many memories from my first year of teaching, one of the most visceral comes from my early...
Teacher diversity: Grounding our goals in reality
One feature of an ideal school environment, we believe, is that both students and their teachers reflect America in all of...
Preschool teacher prep: illusions of quality
30 million words. It's a staggering number representing the tremendous gap in the number of utterances (not distinct words) a child hears...
A fault in our measures? Evidence of bias in classroom observations may raise some familiar concerns
A lot of us can rattle off the possible shortcomings of using value-added test scores to evaluate teachers: The...
A bleak look at teacher prep in Tennessee
New data shines a spotlight on what's happening in the black box of teacher prep – but what it reveals...
TeachLivE offers a new twist on practice teaching
A new technology allows teacher candidates to (virtually) step in front of the classroom early on in their teacher training....
Stopping lemmings with a single click
We've all been there. A teacher asks a class to answer a simple question with a show of hands. You're not...
Early childhood interventions—a slow fade and a strong comeback?
When trying to improve educational outcomes, it is hard not to feel the need for urgency. We want to figure...
TeachLivE offers a new twist on practice teaching
Imagine that you're trying to teach a lesson on cell division, and one student will not pay attention. Even worse, she keeps...
Goldilocks and the econometric models
Things that get better with time: fine wines, first edition books and even teachers in spite of prevailing wisdom. That's...
Harder work, higher earnings?
An NCTQ follower on Twitter, @mescamilla1980, recently challenged our take on what's behind the disproportionately high grades earned by teacher candidates, suggesting...
Why and how we looked behind the Easy A's
For nearly a decade, NCTQ has been trying to figure out how to evaluate teacher prep coursework for its rigor. It's...
Sensible, technical advice for school districts on incorporating student learning into teacher evals
School leaders seeking to revamp their teacher evaluation systems are biting into a meaty subject. Behind the very public questions of...
Worth their weight in gold
We love this study for what it says about great teachers. People generally agree that an effective English teacher may not...
Which teachers stick around?
While the recent landmark Vergara v. California court case focused on teachers who are or should be dismissed, the greatest...
What you didn’t learn in Kindergarten:
Prep programs don’t prepare teachers for the challenges of teaching elementary math.
She’s really nice, but….
A new report sheds light on millennials’ dwindling esteem for the teaching profession
Classroom Management at the push of a button
New apps help teachers and kids follow the rules
When walkthroughs fail: New research on principals' instructional leadership
A new study examines whether the impromptu classroom walkthrough really works
What do new teachers learn about classroom management? Not nearly enough
Teacher prep programs do too little to prepare teachers for their greatest challenge...
Unequal class sizes for all?
Why giving Mrs. Jones more students than Mr. Smith may make everyone better off.
No man should stand alone
A key factor in keeping black men in the teaching profession: Other black male teachers
The Pen is Mightier than the Censor
Take a moment this Banned Books Week to remember a book that changed your life.
Overmining the NAEP data
Blog warns analysts: Don't let good data collapse under faulty analysis
Should they stay or should they go: Teachers in turnaround schools
A new paper explores whether low-performing schools' improvement is due to the teachers who leave or the teachers who stay.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, can one VAM score tell us all?
Is an elementary teacher who teaches math effectively also an effective reading teacher, and vice versa?
Data vacuum: State intel on principals a black hole
A new report finds that many states lack even the most basic data on principals