Research Findings: It is widely acknowledged that consistent, high-quality teacher-student interactions promote optimal developmental outcomes for children. Previous research on the quality of teacher-student interactions provides empirical support for this premise. Little research has been conducted on the consistency of teacher-student…

The Student Response to Faculty Instruction (SRFI) is an instrument designed to measure the student perspective on courses in higher education. The SRFI was derived from decades of empirical studies of student evaluations of teaching. This article describes the development of the SRFI and its psychometric attributes demonstrated in two pilot study…

During the past decade, New York City undertook a district-wide high school reform that is perhaps unprecedented in its scope, scale, and pace. Between fall 2002 and fall 2008, the school district closed 23 large failing high schools (with graduation rates below 45 percent), opened 216 new small high schools (with different missions, structures,…

Extensive education research on the contribution of teachers to student achievement produces two generally accepted results. First, teacher quality varies substantially as measured by the value added to student achievement or future academic attainment or earnings. Second, variables often used to determine entry into the profession and…

There are fierce debates over the best way to prepare teachers. Some argue that easing entry into teaching is necessary to attract strong candidates, while others argue that investing in high quality teacher preparation is the most promising approach. Most agree, however, that we lack a strong research basis for understanding how to prepare…

Value-added models in education research allow researchers to explore how a wide variety of policies and measured school inputs affect the academic performance of students. Researchers typically quantify the impacts of such interventions in terms of "effect sizes", i.e., the estimated effect of a one standard deviation change in the…