Teacher quality, student learning and the education reform agenda

Current education debate concentrates on developing strategies for educational reform. A significant component of the debate focuses on the quality of teachers and on the quality of instruction. Education research informs most of the debate, relying upon quantitative research methods that highlight school and student failure. The over-emphasis of the role of the teacher in the learning process in this research is in question. The suggestion is that contemporary education debate, informed by a quantitative research tradition, unduly emphasizes the role of the teacher in the learning process. This development tends to ignore causal factors in the process of learning other than the role of teachers.