Can effective teaching transfer across schools?

Original article in Education Week by Stephen Sawchuk.

At least one study indicates, tentatively, that the answer may be a "yes."

The idea of helping ensure the best teachers are paired with the weaker students makes a lot of intuitive sense. It's been among the policy proposals stemming from a renewed focus on teacher evaluations.

For instance, in agreeing to accept 2009 economic-stimulus legislation, states had to pledge to take steps to improve their teachers' effectiveness, and, borrowing a formulation from the No Child Left Behind Act, to ensure an "equitable distribution" of high-quality teachers between high- and low-poverty schools.

At the same time, scholars have also suggested that value-added measurements can be influenced by factors such as a teacher's peers, and by other cultural factors within a schools.

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