Research has shown that there is no greater influence on a student's success than the quality of his or her teacher. This book presents the research findings which demonstrate the connection between teacher effectiveness and student achievement. We've always known, at least intuitively, that teachers matter, but this book proves that teachers are the most powerful factors ensuring student success. Author James Stronge describes and explains the value-added teacher-assessment research that has emerged in the past decade and demystifies the power and practices of effective teachers.

This book is based on author James H. Stronge's 20-plus years of consulting with school districts and other educational organizations in designing, piloting, and training educators in the use of teacher-performance evaluation systems. Its primary purpose is to help both teachers and their evaluators collect more comprehensive and accurate assessment data for judging teacher effectiveness. The author provides field-tested teacher-evaluation systems based on performance standards which include data collection tools and performance appraisal rubrics.

Easy-to-use, authoritative, and flexible, the tools in this book and CD-ROM have been developed over the last 15 years and have been field tested in over 500 schools. These tools will empower you to do your evaluations based on current thinking and best practices.