Research & Practice
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project over two years, from 2009-2011, to help districts across the country identify effective teaching in order to improve student achievement and help teachers ensure excellence in their profession. They believe this project is an important step toward supporting teachers and ensuring that all students have access to high-quality instruction.
“Evidence shows clearly what most people know intuitively: teachers matter more to student learning than anything else inside a school (MET).”
The ‘Irreplaceables’ are teachers so successful that they are nearly impossible to replace. They provide more engaging learning experiences for students, helping them achieve five to six more months of learning each year than students of low-performing teachers—academic results that can be life-changing.
This paper examines the real retention crisis that urban schools nationwide are facing: not the failure to retain enough teachers, but the failure to retain the right teachers. Solving the retention crisis requires a new approach that revolves around smart retention. This study examines the causes and the consequences and offers solutions to break the cycle of low-performing schools and to improve the quality of teaching.
As Connecticut is currently piloting a comprehensive educator evaluation and support system that considers educators’ contributions to student learning growth, there is greater need for more information about measuring an educator’s contribution to student achievement.
This research & policy brief released by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, provides information about factors to consider when identifying and implementing measures of student learning growth, particularly within non-tested grades and subjects. It provides considerations and suggestions based on current models and experiences from the field.