The National Academy of Education commissions paper by Matthew Ronfeldt

Professor Matthew Ronfeldt contributed one of the first two papers in the National Academy of Education's (NAEd) new commissioned paper series. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the series covers key aspects of teacher preparation and evaluation methods that support high-quality preparation and continuous program improvement. The series is part of the Evaluating and Improving Teacher Preparation Programs project by the NAEd. The project aims to identify best practices among existing models of evaluation tools and provide recommendations for the development of new models.

In the introduction to his paper, Ronfeldt notes that Congress tasked the National Research Council to carry out a study identifying dimensions of teacher preparation related to student learning/achievement in 2010. The conclusion was that there was still little to say about which teacher preparation features were related to better student outcomes. Since the NRC report, writes Ronfeldt, "a substantial number of large-scale, quantitative studies on preparation features associated with teaching effectiveness and retention have emerged." His paper, Links Among Teacher Preparation, Retention, and Teacher Effectiveness, is a review of large-scale, quantitative studies of teacher education. In it he describes the groundbreaking work by the New York City Teacher Pathways Project, focuses on research about clinical experiences, and reviews new evidence about practice-based course simulations and coursework generally.