The Highly Qualified Teacher

In this follow-up to Effective Teacher Induction and Mentoring, Michael Strong tackles the major issues surrounding teacher quality and effectiveness. The Highly Qualified Teacher provides an accessible overview of the research related to teacher quality, and introduces a new method for evaluating teachers based on extensive fieldwork in schools. This timely work clarifies the different definitions of teacher quality and distinguishes between good teaching and successful teaching. Strong thoroughly examines the empirical evidence responsible for identifying the qualities associated with positive student outcomes, including observational measures that are able to predict a teacher’s ability to raise student achievement in mathematics.

This comprehensive, up-to-date volume is essential reading for students of education, as well as school administrators, educational policy specialists, and anyone wrestling with the federal mandate to provide a highly qualified teacher in every classroom.

Michael Strong is senior researcher at the Center for Research on the Teaching Profession at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Effective Teacher Induction and Mentoring: Assessing the Evidence.

“An important resource for teacher educators and for others interested in advancing the study of teacher quality and teacher effectiveness.”
—Sandra J. Odell, editor, Journal of Teacher Education

“This work may change the way we approach teacher evaluation.”
—Richard M. Ingersoll, University of Pennsylvania

“Strong’s timely book is a truly major contribution to our understanding of teacher quality. He blows away the fog, illuminates the rough contours of what is visible, and helps us navigate our way forward to an assessment of the particular characteristics that define an excellent teacher.”
—Daniel Fallon, professor emeritus, University of Maryland, College Park, former chair, Education Division, Carnegie Corporation of New York

“Michael Strong’s encyclopedic compilation of teacher and teaching quality research is a must-read for practitioners as well as policymakers and those who inform them. Isn't it time that data, and not just ideology, pave the way for identifying, preparing, and rewarding highly qualified teachers?”
—Barnett Berry, founder and president of the Center for Teaching Quality, author of Teaching 2030