Quality Teaching: Individual and Social Approaches

Event Overview

Americans generally believe in the importance of teachers and the quality of teaching in U.S. public schools, according to a recent PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools,” but think that improvements should still be made.

Indeed, 94 percent of U.S. adults say that teacher quality is “very important” to the improvement of schools and 62 percent of public school parents say they trust and have confidence in the teachers who are already in the classroom. In terms of raising the quality of the teaching force, about half of Americans believe that high-achieving high school students should be recruited to enter teacher training and a majority of respondents say that teachers’ salaries are too low, another factor with an influence on recruitment. Americans also support higher standards for those entering the teaching force, with three-quarters saying that, as with medicine and law, the teaching profession should require entrants to pass board certification, in addition to earning a degree. A majority (55 percent) of Americans, however, oppose the use of student test scores as a measure of teaching quality.

This two-panel conversation focused on these results and their implications for policy and practice, taking on the question of how government, schools of education, school districts and schools can promote, nurture and support quality teaching.