Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence

This Research Report examines the ways in which teacher qualifications and other school inputs are related to student achievement across states and suggests that policies adopted by states regarding teacher education, licensing, hiring, and professional development may make important differences in the qualifications and capacities teachers bring to their work.

Building Instructional Quality: Inside-Out and Outside-In Perspectives on San Diego's School Reform

This research report looks at the aggressive set of policies San Diego City School District used to improve instruction. It reveals how San Diego consolidated and redirected resources, redesigned the district office as well as work in schools, and mediated and leveraged state policy to further its reform agenda. The report also documents the difficulties of managing the politics and implementation of a coherent approach to change in a large district with an established culture of decentralization located in a state with a piecemeal, sometimes conflicting, menu of reforms.

A Case of Successful Teaching Policy: Connecticut's Long-Term Efforts to Improve Teaching and Learning

This Research Report describes 15-years' worth of successful effort by Connecticut to implement a comprehensive set of teaching quality policies to support improved student learning. The authors hypothesize that the power of Connecticut's teaching policy reform lies not simply in their comprehensiveness and in the state's political stability over the last decade but also in the power of policies to build capacity in teachers, students, administrators, teacher educators and state department staff. A Policy Brief based on this report is also available.