Preparing Effective Teachers and Leaders

Effective teaching matters. It’s what determines whether students learn how to add fractions or analyze the coherence of an argument in a text. It’s what keeps students engaged in school. And it’s what closes achievement gaps among students.

All of this gets said so often that it feels like a fundamental fact or a geometric theorem; we say it without really thinking about the preparation or training needed to have such an impact on a student’s life trajectory. And so, too many preparation programs fail to address either the demands educators will face once they graduate or the needs of the districts that will hire them.

Tomorrow, Ed Trust — along with partners from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), the Louisiana Board of Regents, the Massachusetts Department of Education, and New York University — will address what NCTQ calls “an industry of mediocrity” among teacher preparation. We will delve into the practices of leading states and institutions that are raising the level of rigor and ensuring that teacher candidates walk into the classroom prepared for the challenges they will face. But the federal government must also step up to provide the guidance and incentives to improve teacher and principal preparation, and we’ll talk about how best they can do that, too.

Educator preparation is not a theoretical exercise; it is vitally important given the outsized impact teachers — and principals — have on students’ lives. Join us for this critical conversation, “Preparing and Advancing Teachers and School Leaders,” at 1 p.m. tomorrow in the Cannon House Office Building, room 421.