Finally! Data on what makes a great teacher.

Amanda Ripley, writing in The Atlantic, describes findings from a Teach for America study on what makes a great teacher.  The education world abounds in anecdotal stories of pedagogical greatness, by the TfA study is one of the few to quantify what sets high-performing teachers apart from mere mortals.  What they found is that great teachers:

• Set big goals for their students;
• Avidly recruit students and their families into the educational process;
• Maintain focus, ensuring that everything they do contributes to learning;
• Plan exhaustively and purposefully; and
• Work relentlessly.

In other word, what makes a great teacher is not all that different from what makes a great leader or a great anything.  It's about passion, planning, execution and effort.

I see a new evaluation rubric for teachers lurking in the above.