Helping good teachers become great teachers is at the heart of Dr. Judy Wahrman’s research into the quality of instruction that Ohio’s school children experience.

Wahrman, associate professor of education, is one of six lead researchers participating in Ohio’s Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP), a statewide effort to examine how the preparation and development of new teachers affects the success of their students.

The group is using the academic performance of students as a way to measure the teachers’ success. “Quality teachers are critical to the success of their students, and historically very little has been done to track and assess the effectiveness of recent teacher education graduates in the classroom,” Wahrman explained. “We are working to identify the characteristics, attributes and behavior of teachers whose students make more academic progress than expected. From these results we hope to supply teachers and teacher education programs with the direction needed to help them become truly effective.”

TQP is funded by a number of partners, including Procter & Gamble, the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Board of Regents. The multi-year research project also has the support of all 50 Ohio colleges and universities that offer teacher preparation programs.

According to Wahrman, TQP is an innovative research initiative. “This is an unprecedented commitment by a state’s universities and colleges, both public and private, to put themselves on the line by looking at what they do and by asking: ‘Are we delivering on the promise we’re making to our students? And how can we improve our preparation of teachers?’” Wahrman said.

The research team is examining four different groups of teachers: new graduates, novice teachers, experienced teachers and teachers who have an alternative education license (AEL). Wahrman, along with a colleague from the University of Cincinnati, is studying the AEL group. She is comparing the effectiveness of teachers who go through a traditional teacher education program with those who go through an alternative education license program, like the one sponsored by the state of Ohio.

“Even though there are relatively few teachers in Ohio who have an AEL, only 500 of the 7,000 Ohio teachers who graduated from 2000 to 2005 have the licensure. That is not the case nationally. In states like Delaware, one-fifth of the teachers have an AEL,” Wahrman stated. “Prior to our efforts, no research has been done on the effectiveness of these teachers.”

The research for the entire project is expected to be completed in 2008. At that time, TQP hopes to make recommendations on future public policy decisions and teacher education practices – in Ohio and across the nation. “The single most important thing we can do to raise students’ academic achievements is to do a better job of preparing teachers and putting high-quality teachers in every classroom,” Wahrman added. “The results of this research will give us the tools needed to ensure that our graduates will inspire and develop their students’ abilities to the fullest.”

This story was featured in the Winter 2006 issue of the Findlay magazine. To read other stories from this issue, click here.