This paper briefly explains why a focus on effectiveness is needed and how it might work, and it describes current federal policy related to teacher quality. It then provides some new ideas about how federal policy can stimulate change at the state and local level to help states and districts move from a qualifications focus to an effectiveness focus: That is, a focus on a teacher’s ability to improve student learning as measured by both value-added measures and other measures. If an effectiveness approach is going to succeed, three things must be in place:
- State and district capacity to collect and use high-quality data
- Knowledge about how to use these data to inform human capital policies
- The political will to focus on teacher effectiveness
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