While the name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, the newly launched Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) will likely become a household name in the world of teacher quality over the next few years.

The center links up the brain power of six universities and the D.C.-based Urban Institute, with funding from a five-year, $10 million Department of Education grant and a mission to investigate "who teaches what kind of students, what determines teacher quality, and how these concerns affect academic achievement and high school graduation rates." Led by such formidable researchers as Eric Hanushek and Michael Podgursky (both of NCTQ's advisory board), CALDER will be broadly focused on a different theme each year; in the first year, they'll look into how to best disaggregate teacher data, especially in high-poverty and low-performing environments. You can read more here.