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Improving Teacher Quality Generated Research

Even though the Improving Teacher Quality Program has served over 3,000 teachers in its first five years, the Commission recognizes that it has reached scarcely one percent of California's teachers. As with the Eisenhower Program that preceded it, ITQ's full value is measured in more than the teachers it directly supports. Its value is also measured in the knowledge it produces about effective professional development. For Eisenhower, this meant curriculum (e.g., IMP and CMP mathematics that began with Commission awards), informal education (e.g., Math, Science, & Beyond and the Mathematics Festival Program supported by CMC), and improvements in models of teacher development (e.g., CSU Fresno's pioneering work to infuse the liberal arts major with more science and math content, now a model at many CSU campuses).

ITQ seeks to continue this legacy, and add one more important source of knowledge about professional development-the results of each project's scientifically based research project. Even though many of these projects are not yet complete, they have already disseminated important information to the field. A partial listing includes:

  • Taking a Reading/Writing Intervention for Secondary English Language Learners on the Road: Lessons Learned from the Pathway Project", Booth and Land, Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 42, no. 3, February 2008 (Login required) http://escholarship.org/uc/clta_lta
  • Teaching Writing through the Arts in Urban High Schools, Brouillette et al, Journal for Learning through the Arts, available at http://www.ncte.org/journals/rte/issues/v42-3
  • Numerous presentations at venues ranging from the American Educational Research Association to National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, to specialty organizations.
  • ITQ research as the basis for doctoral dissertations (e.g., H. Martin, "Elementary School Teachers' Mathematics Instructional Decision Making in the Context of District Mandates on Instruction", UC Davis)
As the findings from the first cohort of ITQ research projects become available, reports will be posted at this site.

Projects Funded in 2005 - Academic Literacy in Secondary Education