Research & Insights

If there’s one thing we know about teacher evaluations, it’s that they’re only as effective as the people doing the evaluating.

Is the reason Americans tolerate unnecessarily high rates of kids who never learn how to read yet another manifestation of institutionalized racism?

Looking for a good principal? Start your search with good teachers.

Just as football and basketball teams spend hours reviewing game tape, teachers have much to gain from self-observation.

What do substitute teacher pools look like across the largest school districts in the country and how can districts use strategic compensation and other innovative practices to ensure a strong and stable substitute pool?

I look back to my sisters of a century or more ago, who fought a lot harder for a lot longer and think we’ve all been a bit too quick to declare defeat.

Perhaps this headline seems self-evident, but the backlash against licensure tests suggests otherwise.

While all student teaching experiences are not
created equal, understanding and measuring how they are different turns out to
be a challenge.

Here’s a legitimately scary topic never far from teachers’ minds when the economy takes a downturn: the threat of being laid off.

In this month’s District Trendline, we examine some key characteristics of teacher evaluation systems in the nation’s largest school districts, and how those characteristics align with what research indicates makes teacher evaluations most meaningful.

This month, the District Trendline looks at the role of advanced degrees in how teachers are paid.

In journalist Natalie Wexler’s powerful new book, The Knowledge Gap, she sets out to make the case for the critical importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum.

If this measure can help identify and reward those teachers who are effectively encouraging kids to show up to class every day, especially those kids who have been falling behind, then it seems like one worth considering.

Our drum is beating for both better base pay and much more strategic use of compensation dollars by school districts to purchase what they most need and value.

Districts report the most difficulty not only filling STEM and special ed vacancies but keeping them filled with strong, effective teachers. Given these shortages, what can districts do to recruit and retain a strong STEM workforce?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m thinking that these two images should have long ago put an immediate end to any debate over what teachers need to know before being entrusted with teaching children to read.

A new study calls attention to consistency problems—even in an evaluation system that appears to align with best practices—concerning enough to warrant additional study and, perhaps, some adjustments in practices.

“First, do no harm” is a good dictum for doctors, and may be one for policymakers as well. Even the best-intended policies can cause an unintended ripple of harm.

If we want to increase the number of teachers who believe that the teaching profession is valued by society from the current abysmal 36 percent, one place to start is paying them like the professionals they are.

This month, the District Trendline takes the teacher salary conversation back to the basics. We take a look at how teacher salaries are structured, how much teachers make, and investigate if salaries have kept up with inflation over the last five years.

In spite of a federal law requiring states to take action to ameliorate the inequitable distribution of teacher talent, many states (and consequently their districts) aren’t doing much.

“This should work!” Reading between the lines of a new study looking at how to make the most of effective elementary teachers, it seemed pretty clear that even its dispassionate authors, Kevin Bastian and C Kevin Fortner (of UNC Chapel Hill and Georgia State University, respectively) were taken aback by their results.