ED released guidance for several components of the Stimulus today, including the Race to the Top Fund and the second round of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Lots more on this to come.

Right off the bat though, the guidance contains a definition of "effective teacher" relevant to our current What is effective teaching?. The guidance says that

Effective teacher means a teacher whose students achieve acceptable rates (e.g., at least one grade level in an academic year) of student growth (as defined in this notice). States may supplement this definition as they see fit so long as teacher effectiveness is judged, in significant measure, by student growth (as defined in this notice). 

In a speech to the Institute of Education Sciences today, Arne Duncan criticized states that have banned the use of student achievement data to evaluate individual teachers, declaring that not judging teachers on student achivement "is like suggesting we judge sports teams without looking at the box score." Sounds reasonable, although that particular analogy makes me wonder if he's read this piece about Shane Battier, the "no stats all star."

Here's the press release, Ed Week's Michele McNeil, and Charlie Barone.

Update: Text from the speech is in this discussion.