This book asks whether higher salaries have improved the quality of newly recruited teachers. It reviews data on the characteristics of beginning teachers and shows how important features of the labor market for teachers systematically undermine efforts to improve teacher quality. The text also offers a comparison of personnel policies and staffing patterns in public and private schools, focusing on national trends in teacher recruitment. It discusses ways to measure teacher quality, examines several indicators of quality, such as student achievement and principals' ratings of their staffs, and then uses these findings to assess the evidence on salary growth and teacher recruitment. It looks at what has gone wrong with teacher recruitment and offers an analysis of the operation of the teacher labor market so as to interpret findings. These results are used to review the implications for teacher recruitment of various other reforms of current interest. The text also describes the prospects for reform by examining salary differentiation and rising standards and assesses personnel policies in the private sector to see whether private schools offer a model for reforming public education. This section details teacher quality, working conditions, and compensation policies. The book concludes with a summation of its major points. (Contains an index, approximately 315 references, 12 data tables and 17 figures.) (RJM)

February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index

State education departments and school districts face an important challenge in implementing a new law that requires disadvantaged students to be held to the same standards as other students. The new requirements come from provisions of the 1994 reauthorization of Title I, the largest federal effort in precollegiate education, which provides aid to "level the field" for disadvantaged students. Testing, Teaching, and Learning is written to help states and school districts comply with the new law, offering guidance for designing and implementing assessment and accountability systems. This book examines standards-based education reform and reviews the research on student assessment, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students covered by Title I. With examples of states and districts that have track records in new systems, the committee develops a practical "decision framework" for education officials. The book explores how best to design assessment and accountability systems that support high levels of student learning and to work toward continuous improvement. Testing, Teaching, and Learning will be an important tool for all involved in educating disadvantaged studentsâ€"state and local administrators and classroom teachers.