The most reliable way to evaluate teachers is to use a three-
pronged approach built on student test scores, classroom
observations by multiple reviewers and teacher evaluations from
students themselves, the foundation found. “We identified groups
of teachers who caused students to learn more,” said Thomas J.
Kane, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
and principal investigator of the Gates study, also known as the
Measures of Effective Teaching project. The findings released
Tuesday involved an analysis of about 3,000 teachers and their
students in Charlotte; Dallas; Denver; Memphis; New York;
Pittsburgh; and Hillsborough County, Fla., which includes Tampa.
Researchers were drawn from the Educational Testing Service and
several universities, including Harvard, Stanford and the
University of Virginia. The large-scale study is the first to
demonstrate that it is possible to identify great teaching, the
foundation said. Researchers videotaped 3,000 participating
teachers and experts analyzed t