What States Can Do to Improve Teacher Effectiveness

Educators and policymakers understand that tinkering around the edges won’t improve teacher quality and that a concerted effort is essential to create systemic change. To succeed, states must make rapid progress in four areas: (1) defining teacher effectiveness, (2) building better systems to measure teacher effectiveness, (3) basing milestones in the teaching career on measured effectiveness, and (4) establishing and enforcing a policy of equitable access to effective teachers and align other reforms to support this effort.