What Makes an Effective Teacher?

What makes some teachers better than others?  According to an article in the Fall/Winter issue of Teacher PD Sourcebook, it depends on which research study you are reading.

A new study from the nonprofit Rand Corporation, for example, examines data from the Los Angeles Unified School District over a five year period and concludes that there is little correlation between teacher effectiveness (as measured by student test-score progress) and any particular qualifications or credentials.  That includes years of experience, education level attained, or licensure test scores.  Even failing a licensure exam showed no "statistically significant link: to a teacher's future effectiveness.

On the other hand, a newly published study by Duke University researcher Helen F. Ladd cross-checks North Carolina high school students' scores on required end-of-course exams against their teachers' records and find that teachers' credentials matter quite a bit.  Test-scores boosts, their study finds, are associate with everything from whether a teacher has a master's to where he or she went to college to how well he or she was scored on subject-area certification tests.

Moral of the story: "When it comes to improving teacher quality, make sure you check more than one source," states Anthony Rebora.