What makes a teacher effective?

You'd like to know, wouldn't you? So, too, would some researchers at Florida State University. And they've got more than $1-million in grants to help them find out.

Economics professor Tim Sass and education assistant professor Stacey Rutledge are looking at such factors as teacher training, principal assessments and high-stakes testing to compile a statistical, objective look at exactly what goes into good teaching.

They plan to issue a report, as well as create a web site to help educators across the country develop conditions that make educators more effective.

"We have a federal policy - the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 -  that says all teachers need to be highly qualified, but sets narrow criteria for what constitutes effectiveness: a bachelor’s degree, certification, and having passed a content knowledge assessment," Rutledge said in a news release. "So this really is an attempt to identify a broader set of criteria for defining effectiveness."

Comments

[dixi.teacher]

I hope they actually talk to teachers about what makes them effective.
I am a teacher and I can tell you this much:

1)Planning Time, Planning Time, Planning Time. Planning time is essential to effective teaching. When districts like Hillsborough decrease planning time by 50% it decrease the rigor and relevance in planning and grading. I know many people don't believe it is necessary -- but to them I say "Come do my job for one week and then tell me planning time is not essential." And I am well aware of the argument that secondary and elementary should have equity in their planning time. But unless you have led an isolated life, you should know teenagers and elementary kids have different needs and these different needs can not be met in the same fashion. It's apples and oranges -- what both levels of teachers do is equally as difficult but extremely diffferent.

2.Supportive Administration. When school admistrators are more concerned about their upward mobility than with the success of their school, it trickles down to ineffective teaching.

3.Better Pay. Period. I know that this will be an outrage to Joe and Jill Q. Public, but if you want your kids to get a better education pay teachers more. Good people don't enter the field because they know they can make more money elsewhere and good people leave the field because they can make better money elsewhere. Again, if you think our job is so easy come do my job for a week and then tell me what you think.