# Teacher Effectiveness Linked to Student Achievement January 08, 2013 CEPR Faculty Director Tom Kane recently led the Measures of Effective Teaching project, a $52 million study sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In January 2013, the project published three new reports. The teachers who were identified as more effective during the first year of the project—using student achievement gains, classroom observations, and student surveys—produced greater student achievement following random assignment. This is the first large-scale study to demonstrate that it is possible to use teacher evaluations to identify great teachers. The three-year study also found that teacher evaluations which combine student achievement gains, classroom observations, and student evaluations, provided the best combination of predictive power and reliability. ***MET Project Reports:*** *Ensuring Fair and Reliable Measures of Effective Teaching: Culminating Findings of the MET Project's Three-Year Study* This non-technical research brief for policymakers and practitioners summarizes recent analyses from the MET project on identifying effective teaching while accounting for differences among teachers’ students, on combining measures into composites, and on assuring reliable classroom observations.[ Download Full Report](http://www.metproject.org/downloads/MET_Ensuring_Fair_and_Reliable_Measures_Practitioner_Brief.pdf) *Have We Identified Effective Teachers? Validating Measures of Effective Teaching Using Random Assignment* This report presents an in-depth discussion of the technical methods,findings, and implications of the MET project’s random assignment study of teaching effectiveness measures. [ Download Full Report](http://www.metproject.org/downloads/MET_Validating_Using_Random_Assignment_Research_Paper.pdf) *The Reality of Classroom Observations by School Personnel* This report presents an in-depth discussion of the technical methods,results, and implications of the MET project’s study of video-based classroom observations by school personnel. [Download Full Report](http://www.metproject.org/downloads/MET_Reliability%20of%20Classroom%20Observations_Research%20Paper.pdf) *A Composite Estimator of Effective Teaching*This report presents an in-depth discussion of statistical modeling and estimating the parameters of an optimal combined measure of teacher effectiveness using data from the MET project. [Download Full Report](http://www.metproject.org/downloads/MET_Composite_Estimator_of_Effective_Teaching_Research_Paper.pdf) *For a complete list of MET project reports, see:* ***Media Coverage:*** [The key to evaluating teachers: Ask kids what they think (The Washington Post)](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/23/the-key-to-evaluating-teachers-ask-kids-what-they-think/)[Good Teachers Linked to Test Success (Wall Street Journal)](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323706704578230121388712506.html)[Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher (The Washington Post)](http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/gates-study-weve-figured-out-what-makes-a-good-teacher/2013/01/08/05ca7d60-59b0-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html)[Student test scores can identify effective teachers, study finds (The Los Angeles Times)](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0109-gates-teacher-20130109,0,3602120.story)[Combined Measures Better at Gauging Teacher Effectiveness, Study Finds (Education Week)](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/08/17teach_ep.h32.html?tkn=QLVFELV/ijsUPd9rgNLNZ/BjlvQWlnlxwYsx&cmp=clp-edweek) See also:- [ Teacher Effectiveness ](/focus-areas/teacher-effectiveness) - [ In the News ](/cepr-in-the-news) - [ 2013 ](/year/2013) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)