Over the last decade, policy and business leaders have come to know what parents have always known: teachers make the greatest difference to student achievement. With new statistical and analytical methods used by a wide range of researchers, evidence has been mounting that teacher quality can account for a large share of variance in student test…

Over the last two decades, researchers have presented convincing evidence that teachers are an important key to school improvement and to closing the student achievement gap. However, ensuring that all students are taught by quality teachers--those with the right talent, skills, and experience--is not enough. Teachers--even the best of them--must…

In early January 2003, "Education Week" released a new report on the status of teaching in the United States and concluded that many states are taking steps to recruit and retain skilled teachers, but few efforts focus on the schools where these teachers are needed most. Drawing upon a large national database, "Quality Counts…