AN IDEAL TQ DATA SYSTEM - INTRODUCTION

The ideal teaching quality (TQ) data system can provide detailed evidence about the preparation, retention, mobility, and effectiveness of teachers.  However, building an ideal teaching quality data system is an expensive, time-consuming endeavor.

Some states—such as Louisiana, Texas, New York, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah—have already built fairly sophisticated TQ data systems.  Many other states have just started to build such systems, while a handful of states have just started to think about building such systems.

The three most important characteristics of an ideal TQ data system are:

• The inclusion of a common, unique, and consistent identifier for students, teachers, teacher preparation programs, and schools so that all the different data can be linked together;

• Assessment data that is  based on tests that have been assessed by a psychometrician for reliability and validity as well as for the ability to compare scores across administrations and years;

• Data that is  cleaned and validated on a regular basis.

There are many diverse elements that could be included in an ideal TQ data system. We describe those elements in waves, with the first wave including the most essential elements and the final wave containing less important and/or more difficult elements to obtain.

Click here to advance to the First Wave of Elements

Last updated: March 17, 2006