Since its inception the Center for Teaching Quality has focused its policy work on advancing teaching as a results-oriented profession – producing papers and other products that inform smart solutions to vexing problems. Our work is rooted in a deep understanding of teaching’s past and our hopes for the future.

Since 1999 Center for Teaching Quality has produced papers and led conferences on such topics as recruiting teachers to high needs schools, teacher induction, the effects of National Board Certification on student achievement, teacher data systems, virtual mentoring and online teacher communities, teacher education reform, performance pay, the implementation of the HQT provisions of No Child Left Behind, teacher working conditions that matter for student achievement, urban teacher residencies, and effective professional development (including professional learning communities).

See our research and reports section to review and download papers.

Our current policy work focuses on teacher education for tomorrow, urban teacher residencies, the strategic management of human capital, performance pay, and analyses of the Race to the Top approaches to teaching effectiveness reforms.

Creating Teacher Education to Serve Tomorrow’s Students and Schools

Too often, pundits and policymakers assert that teachers need less preparation, not more, before they begin to teach. It may be worth thinking about whether we can make entering the teaching profession less complicated, with fewer meaningless loopholes to jump through – but it never should be easier to do so if we want to maintain high standards for the profession. In a paper commissioned by NCATE, Barnett Berry draws on empirical evidence and innovative policy analyses to make the case for how to create the kind of teacher education needed to serve students and schools in the 21st century and beyond.