Teacher Quality is more than Standards.
As the debate around ‘teacher quality’ continues to dominate educational discourse in New South Wales and beyond, it is timely to reflect on what we truly value in our educators. Recent research has rightly challenged the narrow metrics often used to define excellence in teaching, urging us to look beyond professional standards and measurable outcomes to the many personal attributes that underpin great teaching (Simpson, White & Cotton, 2025).
Much of the prevailing narrative, fuelled more by anecdote than by evidence, has focused on deficit, on what teachers allegedly lack, rather than the rich complexity of what they bring to their classrooms every day. The Teacher Quality Construct, developed recently by Simpson, White, and Cotton through rigorous, multi-year research, offers a broader and more nuanced understanding of teacher excellence. This new framework identifies four interrelated domains: intellectual, interpersonal, affective, and intrapersonal, each essential to the fabric of effective teaching.
Amongst the 30 indicators now recognised as hallmarks of excellence are reflection, resilience, adaptability, motivation, respect, patience, clear communication, collaboration, ethics, and persistence. These are not skills that can be taught in initial teacher education courses, nor are they easily measured by student results. They are, instead, deeply personal qualities often forged through experience and self-reflection that shape how teachers respond to the needs of their students and communities.
Yet, despite this growing recognition, policy and practice too often remain wedded to reductive evaluation systems. The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), while valuable in providing a framework for professional growth, risk constraining our understanding of teacher quality if used as the sole indicator of effectiveness. Over-reliance on such standards can inadvertently diminish the status of the profession, contribute to burnout, and fail to acknowledge the emotional and relational labour at the heart of teaching.
Recent international evidence has shown that efforts to intensify teacher evaluation particularly those that hinge on student test scores or rigid observation rubrics, have not delivered the promised improvements in student learning (Bleiberg & Kraft, 2021). Indeed, after a decade of costly reforms, there is little to suggest that more frequent or stringent evaluation leads to better outcomes for students or teachers. Instead, such approaches can erode morale, stifle innovation, and drive talented educators away from the profession.
It is vital, therefore, that we heed the warning signs. Evaluation, when used judiciously, can support professional growth and accountability. But when it becomes an end in itself, it risks reducing teaching to a series of tick-box exercises, stripping away the very qualities such as empathy, creativity, adaptability, that make teachers exceptional. As contemporary research highlights, personality traits such as conscientiousness and agreeableness may play a modest role in instructional quality, but it is teachers’ well-being and sense of professional agency that most powerfully shape classroom success.
As educational leaders, let us champion the full spectrum of what it means to teach. Let us recognise and honour not only the measurable competencies but also the immeasurable heart and mind that educators bring to their work each day. In doing so, we affirm that while standards matter, it is the humanity behind the teaching that shapes lives and futures.
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Kirsten Macaulay
ACEL NSW Branch Executive Member