Supporting Effective Teaching in Tennessee: Executive Summary | Page 25

Teacher Recruitment, Preparation, and Support
Research has conclusively shown that teachers are one of the
most important determinants of a student’s level of achievement.
Research has also shown that teachers vary quite drastically in
their effectiveness (as measured by students’ achievement gains)
and that the most effective teachers disproportionately teach
high-income, high-achieving students rather than the most
disadvantaged students.33

produce high-performing teachers, research has shown that on
the whole there is no difference in the performance of teachers
from traditional and alternative certification programs.34

The traditional route for becoming a teacher is to enroll in a teacher
education program at an undergraduate college. Admission
to a traditional education program at a public university in
Tennessee requires a 2.5 GPA and either passing each subtest of
There are several challenges to addressing this problem. First,
the Praxis I, scoring a 21 or greater on the ACT, or scoring a 920
it is very hard to define teacher “effectiveness,” especially for
or greater on the SAT. Undergraduate education programs must
teachers in non-tested grades (K-2) and
include a general liberal arts component,
non-tested subjects (e.g., arts, foreign
classes on core education theory (e.g.,
language). Second, no one has successfully
pedagogy), courses in a concentration
developed a tool for conclusively
area (e.g., elementary education or middle
predicting which teacher candidates will
and high school math), and a semester of
I m provi n g te ac h er
be the most effective teachers. Third,
student teaching.35
professional development opportunities
q ua l it y m u st
for teachers are notoriously of varying
Several traditional teacher preparation
quality, with some being very helpful
programs in Tennessee have concluded
pri m a ri ly b e a b o u t
but far too many being significantly
these requirements are insufficient
less so. Fourth, teacher evaluations are
and have thus decided to redesign
b etter s u pporti n g
rarely used effectively to help teachers
their training model. Specifically, the
improve their performance and to
Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) has
remove the small number of teachers
launched a Teacher Quality Initiative
a n d d eve l opi n g o u r
who are significantly underperforming.
(TQI) focused on developing a new
Fifth, the policies that most drastically
model for undergraduate teacher training
existi n g te ac h ers a n d
affect teachers, specifically tenure and
that includes three years of coursework to
compensation, primarily reward qualities
develop a strong content knowledge and
recr u iti n g n ew h i g h other than effectiveness.
pedagogy base but also an intensive yearlong residency in the fourth year of the
q ua l it y te ac h ers i n to
Research has made it clear this proble