Research points to teacher quality as an important school-level factor influencing student learning and ultimately preparing children for their futures as citizens and workers in a knowledge-based economy. However, efforts to improve the quality of teachers face several challenges. One challenge is a lack of consensus about what makes teachers effective. Even though research demonstrates that some teachers affect their students’ academic growth more than other teachers, research has not categorically identified the specific indicators of teacher quality, such as the characteristics, classroom practices, and qualifications that are most likely to improve student learning. Some researchers have shown that with the exception of a few factors, they cannot state, with a strong degree of certainty and consistency, which aspects of teacher quality matter most for student learning. Another challenge is the high attrition rates and shortages of teachers, especially in high-poverty areas. For example, almost half of teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years of teaching, and there is an anticipated surge in retirements of teachers from the baby boom generation. Moreover, research has shown that many students, especially those in high-poverty and high-minority schools, have teachers who have limited knowledge of the subjects they teach. In addition, there are concerns that graduates of teacher education programs are inadequately prepared to teach to high standards and that once teachers are in the classroom, training to help remedy this situation is sporadic and uncoordinated. While many teachers follow a traditional career path of preparation followed by ongoing professional development, there are also alternative career paths. Many prospective teachers receive their undergraduate degrees through teacher preparation programs administered by institutions of higher education. Traditional teaching preparation programs typically include field-based experience, courses in specific subject matter, and strategies of instruction or pedagogy. Within institutions of higher education, these prospective teachers generally learn subject matter content in schools of arts and sciences and learn pedagogy in schools of education. Under this traditional approach, prospective teachers must complete all their certification requirements before beginning to teach. Teachers may also gain certification through alternative routes designed for prospective teachers who have been out of the job market (e.g., stay-at-home mothers) or have a career in a different field and who hold at least an undergraduate degree. Alternative route candidates receive training needed to meet the certification requirements of other teachers while teaching in the classroom. Generally, after completing a traditional or alternative teacher preparation program, teachers in the classroom participate in ongoing training or professional development. Training for new and veteran teachers may differ, with some states and school districts providing mentoring or induction programs for new teachers. Induction for new teachers may include district- or school- level orientation sessions, special in-service training, mentoring by an experienced teacher, and classroom observation. See figure 1 for an illustration of the various steps in the career path for teachers. Entities at the local, state, and federal levels each play a role in the preparation and ongoing professional development training of teachers. The roles and responsibilities of these entities sometimes overlap (see table 1). For example, about half of alternative teacher certification programs are administered by institutions of higher education, and school districts, state educational agencies (SEA), and other entities can also offer alternative routes to certification. State agencies for higher education (SAHE)—also referred to as the board of regents or the department, commission, or council for postsecondary or higher education—can also play a role in teacher quality. These agencies oversee state institutions of higher education where most teachers are trained. SAHEs generally approve of new academic programs at institutions of higher education and some may have budgetary authority. School districts, institutions of higher education, and states collect and report data, which include tracking teachers’ professional development hours, maintaining records of certified teachers, tracking student test scores and graduation rates, as well as producing teacher supply and demand studies. These and other data are intended to inform efforts such as improving schools, reducing student achievement gaps, and tracking the highly qualified status of all teachers. To make better use of these data, many states are putting in place longitudinal data systems that link data, such as student test scores and enrollment patterns, of individuals or groups of students over time. In addition, many states are using or have interest in using growth models—a term that refers to a variety of methods for tracking changes in a variable over time—to measure progress for schools and for student groups or individual students. For example, one type of model (known as a value-added model) measures students’ gains from previous test scores. GAO has reported that states with a longitudinal data system will be better positioned to implement a growth model than they would have been without it. The federal government plays an important role in education. Education’s mission is, among other things, to ensure equal access to education and promote educational excellence throughout the nation by supporting state and local educational improvement efforts, as well as improving coordination and management of federal education programs. For example, Education provides financial assistance through various formula and competitive grant programs. Formula grants allocate federal funds to states or school districts in accordance with a distribution formula prescribed by statute or administrative regulation. Competitive grants are awarded through a competitive process, whereby grant applications are reviewed according to published selection criteria and legislative and regulatory requirements established for the program. Education has discretion to determine which applications best address the program requirements and are thus worthy of funding. In addition, Education monitors and conducts activities related to the particular program and grantees receiving these funds. Education has eight principal offices responsible for specific program areas. These principal offices award and manage all grant programs for that program area. In addition, each principal office contains several program offices that administer the day- to-day activities of one or more grant programs, such as those authorized in Title I of ESEA (see table 2). Thirty-two program offices manage about 150 grant programs departmentwide. A goal of ESEA is improving student achievement so that all students will be proficient in math and reading by 2014. To accomplish this goal, Education has established a series of strategic objectives that include improving teacher quality. To assess its progress in meeting this objective, Education has established performance measures in its strategic plan. These measures all relate to having highly qualified teachers in core academic classes at elementary and secondary schools, including low- and high-poverty schools. These measures are also included in Education’s annual performance plan. These plans are intended to provide a direct linkage between an agency’s longer-term goals (as defined in the strategic plan) and what its managers and staff are doing on a day-to-day basis. A number of federal laws govern teacher quality. With the 2001 reauthorization of ESEA, which requires public school teachers to be highly qualified in every core academic subject they teach, the federal government established specific criteria for teachers. Title I of ESEA requires every state and school district receiving Title I funds to develop and submit a plan for how it intends to meet the teacher qualification requirements, which is part of a broader plan outlining how it will meet other requirements of the act such as those requiring challenging academic content and student achievement standards. In addition, the state plan must establish each district’s and school’s annual measurable objectives for increasing the number of teachers meeting qualification requirements and receiving high-quality professional development with the goal of ensuring that all teachers met the requirements by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. While there is evidence that most teachers meet their states’ requirements to be considered highly qualified, schools and school districts with high student poverty rates have generally had particular difficulty attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers; as a result, their students are often assigned to teachers with less experience, education, and skills than those who teach other students. As GAO has reported, Title II of ESEA provides states and districts with funding to help them implement various initiatives for raising teacher and principal qualifications. In addition, other federal laws that authorize programs intended to influence teacher quality include the following: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is the primary federal law addressing the educational needs of students with disabilities. The act, as amended, cross-references the ESEA “highly qualified” teacher definition, but unlike ESEA, this act requires that all special education teachers—not just those teaching core subjects—must meet certain requirements. The Higher Education Act (HEA), as amended by the Higher Education Opportunity Act, authorizes most of Education’s programs targeted to postsecondary education. Specifically, the act established discretionary grants to prepare prospective teachers and accountability requirements for teacher preparation programs and states. For example, it requires annual reporting on the quality of traditional and alternative teacher preparation programs, including the efforts of institutions of higher education to increase the number of prospective teachers teaching in high-need areas and being responsive to the needs of school districts. The Education Sciences Reform Act is intended to strengthen the principal education research, statistics, and evaluation activities of Education. Within Education, it established the Institute of Education Sciences, which has a mission to provide reliable information about the condition and progress of education in the United States, educational practices that support learning and improve achievement, and the effectiveness of federal and other education programs. Over a third of the programs that Education administers support efforts to improve teacher quality. Many of these statutorily authorized programs supporting teacher quality are intended to specifically support teacher quality activities, such as professional development training for teachers already serving in the classroom; the remaining programs support teacher quality activities but do so in pursuit of other program purposes or goals. Education officials said they have taken some steps to share information among the multiple offices administering these programs and have established and completed broader collaborative efforts on occasion. In fiscal year 2009, Education administered 56 statutorily authorized programs that support efforts to improve teacher quality. Of these 56 programs, Education allocated about $4.1 billion to 23 programs that have, as a specific purpose, improving teacher quality, including increasing the number of highly qualified teachers in the classroom. The remaining 33 programs do not have the primary purpose of improving teacher quality and focus on other program goals or purposes, such as increasing student access to institutions of higher education.