To be successful, teachers must also be able to transmit the relevant skills and knowledge to their students. It is now possible to use each student's previous performance to predict how well he or she should do on tests. If a particular teacher's students consistently do better or worse than expected, it is possible to deduce how effective that teacher is. Ascertaining the value that teachers add to their students' learning, instead of evaluating their subject knowledge or their teaching methods, is a cost-effective way to evaluate not only teachers' subject mastery but also their ability to ensure that the students learn the material. There are jurisdictions that are already doing this.
Recent research shows that good teaching matters a lot.
This means that efficient feedback mechanisms to help teachers and administrators identify best practices and evaluate performance are crucially important. OQE Suggests Prospective teachers should be required to pass subject mastery examinations before being certified to teach the relevant subjects. Ontario should develop a value-added assessment system for tracking teachers' effectiveness. Principals' training should include a course on how to carry out performance appraisals of their staff.