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Background: In the last decade, the effects of teachers on student performance (typically manifested as state-wide standardized tests) have been re-examined using statistical models that are known as value-added models. These statistical models aim to compute the unique contribution of the teachers in promoting student achievement gains from grade to grade, net of student background and prior ability. Value-added models are widely used nowadays and they are used by some states to rank teachers. These models are used to measure teacher performance or effectiveness (via student achievement gains), with the ultimate objective of rewarding or penalizing teachers. Such practices have resulted in a large amount of controversy in the education community about the role of value-added models in the process of making important decisions about teachers such as salary increases, promotion, or termination of employment. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the effects teachers have on student achievement, with an emphasis on value-added models. The paper also discusses whether value-added models are appropriately used as a sole indicator in evaluating teachers' performance and making critical decisions about teachers' futures in the profession. Research Design: This is a narrative review of the literature on teacher effects that includes evidence about the stability of teacher effects using value-added models. Conclusions: More comprehensive systems for teacher evaluation are needed. We need more research on value-added models and more work on evaluating value-added models. The strengths and weaknesses of these models should be clearly described. We also need much more empirical evidence with respect to the reliability and the stability of value-added measures across different states. The findings thus far do not seem robust and conclusive enough to warrant decisions about raises, tenure, or termination of employment. In other words, it is unclear that the value-added measures that inform the accountability system are adequate. It is not obvious that we are better equipped now to make such important decisions about teachers than we were 35 years ago. Good et al. have argued that we need well-thought-out and well-developed criteria that guide accountability decisions. Perhaps such criteria should be standardized across school districts and states. That would ensure that empirical evidence across different states is comparable and would help determine whether findings converge or diverge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching. Purpose/Objective: Good, after reviewing what is known about effective teaching, attempts to apply this to current descriptions of effective teaching and its application value for practice. Good notes that much of the "new" research on effective teaching has simply replicated what has been known since the 1980s. Although this is not unimportant (since it shows that older findings still pertain to contemporary classrooms), it is unfortunate that research has not moved beyond the relationship between general teacher behavior (those that cut across subject areas) and student achievement (as measured by standardized tests). How this information can be applied and the difficulty in using this information is examined in the paper. Research Design: The paper is a historical analysis and reviews research on teaching from the 1960s to today. Conclusion: This paper has stressed that our data base on effective teaching is limited--still it has some implications for practice. Even though the knowledge base is limited, there is no clear knowledge that teachers-in-training learn and have the opportunity to practice and use. It would seem that teacher education programs would want to assure that their graduates, in addition to possessing appropriate knowledge, would also have clear conceptual understanding and skills related to active teaching, proactive management, communication of appropriate expectations for learning, and the ability to plan and enact instruction that balances procedural and conceptual knowledge. Future research on the use of this knowledge base and its effects in teacher education programs would be informative. If done correctly, research on teaching can improve instruction. However, the research must be applied carefully if it is to have useful effects. And, as noted often in this paper, research must consider outcomes of schooling other than achievement such as creativity, adaptability, and problem finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: In the past two years, states have implemented sweeping reforms to their teacher evaluation systems in response to Race to the Top legislation and, more recently, NCLB waivers. With these new systems, policymakers hope to make teacher evaluation both more rigorous and more grounded in specific job performance domains such as teaching quality and contributions to student outcomes. Attaching high stakes to teacher scores has prompted an increased focus on the reliability and validity of these scores. Teachers unions have expressed strong concerns about the reliability and validity of using student achievement data to evaluate teachers and the potential for subjective ratings by classroom observers to be biased. The legislation enacted by many states also requires scores derived from teacher observations and the overall systems of teacher evaluation to be valid and reliable. Focus of the Study: In this paper, we explore how state education officials and their district and local partners plan to implement and evaluate their teacher evaluation systems, focusing in particular on states' efforts to investigate the reliability and validity of scores emerging from the observational component of these systems. Research Design: Through document analysis and interviews with state education officials, we explore several issues that arise in observational systems, including the overall generalizability of teacher scores; the training, certification, and reliability of observers; and specifications regarding the sampling and number of lessons observed per teacher. Findings: Respondents' reports suggest that states are attending to the reliability and validity of scores, but inconsistently; in only a few states does there appear to be a coherent strategy regarding reliability and validity in place. Conclusions: There remain a variety of system design and implementation decisions that states can optimize to increase the reliability and validity of their teacher evaluation scores. While a state may engage in auditing scores, for instance, it may miss the gains to reliability and validity that would accrue from periodic rater retraining and recertification, a stiff program of rater monitoring, and the use of multiple raters per teacher. Most troublesome are decisions about which and how many lessons to sample, which are either mandated legislatively, result from practical concerns or negotiations between stakeholders, or, at best case, rest on broad research not directly related to the state context. This suggests that states should more actively investigate the number of lessons and lesson sampling designs required to yield high-quality scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out that the most popular current school reforms offered have failed to accomplish their goal because they fail to understand the fundamental problem of American schools, namely, income inequality and the poverty that accompanies such inequality. Prescriptions to fix our schools cannot work if the diagnosis about what is wrong with them is in error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: The academic success and failure of low-income youth, and Black and Latina/o youth in particular, has received significant attention in the educational literature, particularly in relation to school dropout. Over the last decade, several studies have demonstrated that student-teacher relationships, committed teachers, and notions of caring are critical to the success of Latina/o youth. However, high-poverty urban schools are graduating fewer than half of their students, in comparison with about 70% at the national level. There remains a scant body of research, policy, and conceptual frameworks to help address the crisis, popularly deemed the "dropout crisis, "particularly among Latinas/os, the youngest, fastest growing, and lowest educated group in the United States. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In what ways can and should researchers, practitioners, and policy makers recognize the existence of Latina/o youth? The purpose of the article, contextualized in the theoretical and empirical literature, is to problematize the concept of recognition, particularly for Latina/o youth, and introduce a conceptual framework to understand, examine, and help rectify the crisis facing this population. Research Design: In this conceptual paper, I argue that key stakeholders must recognize the existence of the Latina/o youth by acknowledging their human existence through legitimizing the unequal conditions and struggles they face in school. Educators much engage youth in curricular and pedagogical experiences that seek to raise students' consciousness through critical thinking and dialogue. This article is focused on the human and interpersonal actions and processes that are necessary to facilitate agency and change among students. Theoretical origins informing recognition are discussed, followed by a contextualized analysis of recognition within the present-day conditions of U.S. schools, particularly for Latina/o youth. I then propose five pedagogies of recognition: relational recognition, curricular recognition, pedagogical recognition, contextualizing recognition, and transformative recognition. Each form of recognition is situated in the relevant literature. Conclusions/Recommendations: This article argues that the proposed pedagogies of recognition need to be enacted to foster the intellectual, academic, and political development of youth, particularly Latina/o youth. Recognition can help educators and scholars understand how the social, political, and economic conditions impact Latina/o youth and helps educators reframe the conceptual bases of their work by challenging them to interrogate the (in)effectiveness of institutional and classroom-level practices. The ultimate goal is to help educators and researchers reconstruct and redefine the purpose of education for Latina/o youth in U.S. schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brown v. Board of Education (1954) case has left a lasting impact on the way children are educated in this country. Much has been written about the legacy of Brown as it relates to current desegregation practices, academic achievement for students of color, and school reform. This paper will examine the implications of the Brown decision on reform efforts in special education, as well as address the need for greater emphasis on teaching that reflects an understanding of the intersection of race, culture, and class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]