How do we develop reliable and informative measures of teacher effectiveness? How do we apply what is already known about teacher effectiveness to teachers of physics? How do we use measures of teacher effectiveness to inform teacher education programs? The session will begin with a presentation from Jennifer Presley, former Director of the Illinois Education Research Council (IERC). Under Presley's leadership, the IERC developed a school Teacher Quality Index (TQI), and conducted studies that show a clear relationship between TQI and student achievement and college readiness. TQI distribution is strongly linked to school poverty levels and very high percent minority schools, implicating teacher quality as a major factor in the achievement gap. The IERC results will inspire and inform a discussion on the posed questions led by Monica Plisch, co-PI of the PhysTEC project.