Taking a Fresh Look at Teaching Quality

The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning has worked since its inception to ensure that every child in California has a well-prepared and effective teacher. The first ten years of our work have primarily focused on the “well-prepared” aspect of this goal since 14% of teachers in the state were underprepared for the classroom. However, as a result of the hard work of California’s policy-makers, the underprepared rate has dropped to 5%. It is time to focus on the effectiveness of the teaching occurring in classrooms across the state. The Center partnered with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to sponsor a forum group to address the matter—Taking a Fresh Look at Teaching Quality.

The Teaching Quality forum group brought together 23 highly knowledgeable individuals from California’s education leadership, policy, research, and foundation communities who were interested in deeply probing the various dimensions of effective teaching. (Click here for a list of forum members.) Each forum meeting surveyed a portion of the teacher development landscape that contributes to quality teaching.  Some of the topics explored during these meetings include:

1. The indicators of quality teaching at key points throughout the stages of career development from novice to experienced veteran;
2. The ways in which each segment of the state’s teacher development continuum influences the quality of classroom instruction;
3. The degree to which teaching context and setting modifies and influences our understanding of quality teaching; and
4. The extent to which the policy messages regarding teacher quality are consistent and coherent throughout the teacher development continuum.

This forum resulted in a policy brief which synthesizes the extant literature on teaching quality, current California policies impacting teaching quality, and findings from the discussions at the forum meetings. To download the policy brief, please click here.

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