California: Hot Seat for Contentious Education Issues

Seal_of_the_California_Department_of_Education.jpg (JPEG Image, 230 × 230 pixels)Last month, the Democratic Party in California held a three day convention. The convention, at which the California Teachers Association was prominently represented, sparked a wave of rhetoric that reveals at least a temporary rift among some members and former members of the Democratic Party in California.  The rift concerns how much school choice and student testing as part of teacher evaluations should be part of the Democratic platform for education reform.

On one side, those who disagree with both of these movements, stand the younger leaders of the Democratic Party in California, such as Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, and the California Teachers Association. On the other side, those who favor school choice and teacher evaluations that include student test scores, stand prominent education groups StudentsFirst and Democrats for Education Reform.

The first group, which had the chance to make its views known at the recent California Democratic Party Convention, charges the latter two education groups with being fronts for Republican and corporate interests because of their agenda which supposedly jeopardizes public schools and its teachers.

The second group, represented most prominently by Michelle Rhee, charges the first group with not being true to their Democratic ideals because they seek to obstruct measures that focus on helping students, especially minority students, have access to better education.

Below are some selected sections from a Los Angeles Times article about the debate:

“People can call themselves Democrats for Education Reform – it’s a free country – but if your agenda is to shut teachers and school employees out of the political process and not lift a finger to prevent cuts in education, in my book you’re not a reformer, you’re not helping education, and you’re sure not much of a Democrat,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, a registered Democrat whose office is nonpartisan.

California Teachers Assn. President Dean Vogel argued that the organizations are working to eliminate workers’ rights and “hellbent on turning students into test-taking machines. I’ll tell you right now, they want to do that, they have to come through us,” Vogel said.  ”Let’s be perfectly clear,” he added. “These organizations are backed by moneyed interests, Republican operatives and out-of-state Wall Street billionaires dedicated to school privatization and trampling on teacher and worker rights.”  

Gloria Romero, a former Democratic majority leader in the state Senate who leads the California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform, called the Sunday resolution “stupid.”  ”They drank some Kool-Aid that has been fresh squeezed for them by the most powerful political interest in California, the California Teachers Assn.,” she said, adding that improving schools for minorities and the poor should be a priority for the party.  ”They beat their chest,” she continued, “they get some money into their campaign coffers, but they walk away having abandoned the call for quality education for children of color.”

The clash over education had been building throughout the three-day convention, underscoring a larger debate taking place in education circles. A spokeswoman for StudentsFirst said the party failed over the weekend to discuss any concrete steps to improve education.

“The heated rhetoric … is especially disappointing because it reveals an abject refusal to tackle the most important issue: ensuring that every California student goes to a great school and has a great teacher,” said the spokeswoman, Jessica Ng.

StudentsFirst, founded by former Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, has spent nearly $1.5 million since 2012 on efforts to elect Democrats.  Rhee is married to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. An early hint of the convention controversy came when party officials, who had initially approved Johnson’s request that his advocacy group have a booth at the convention, reversed course and said no.  

A spokesman for the party said the decision not to provide space for the Democratic mayor of the host city had nothing to do with his group’s message.  ”We simply experienced a higher demand for exhibitor booths than initially anticipated,” Tenoch Flores said.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-democrats-20130415,0,2919125.story?utm_source=feedly

 

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Final Next Generation Science Standards Released

ngssIn case you missed it, the final Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a new set of voluntary, rigorous, and internationally benchmarked standards for K-12 science education, have been released.

Twenty six states and their broad-based teams worked together for two years with a 41-member writing team and partners to develop the standards which identify science and engineering practices and content that all K-12 students should master in order to be fully prepared for college, careers and citizenship. The NGSS were built upon a vision for science education established by the Framework for K-12 Science Education, published by the National Academies’ National Research Council in 2011.

The lead state partners include Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

“The NGSS aim to prepare students to be better decision makers about scientific and technical issues and to apply science to their daily lives. By blending core science knowledge with scientific practices, students are engaged in a more relevant context that deepens their understanding and helps them to build what they need to move forward with their education -whether that’s moving on to a four-year college or moving into post-secondary training,” said Matt Krehbeil, Science Education Program Consultant, of Kansas.

The creation of the NGSS was entirely state-driven, with no federal funds or incentives to create or adopt the standards. The process was primarily funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a leading philanthropy dedicated to improving science education in the U.S. The NGSS are grounded in a sound, evidence-based foundation of current scientific research-including research on the ways students learn science effectively-and identify the science all K-12 students should know.

“The Next Generation Science Standards are going to pull together inquiry and practice, and recognize the role of engineering. Pulling together the cross-cutting concepts is going to be a challenge, but it’s really effective pedagogy,” said Ellen Ebert, Washington State’s Director of Science for Teaching and Learning at the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. “In Washington State we’re looking at the NGSS to propel students into 21st century-we’re looking at college and career readiness. This is a real opportunity to help students see the potential of science in their lives.”

“The Next Generation of Science Standards promise to help students understand why is it that we have to know science and help them use scientific learning to develop critical thinking skills-which may be applied throughout their lives, no matter the topic. Today, students see science as simply a list of facts and ideas that they are expected to memorize. In contrast to that approach education researchers have learned, particularly in the last 15 to 20 years, that if we cover fewer ideas, but go into more depth, students come away with a much richer understanding. Unlike previous standards, where you have separation of inquiry and ideas that students should know, in the NGSS they are now together,” said Joseph S. Krajcik, Professor of Science Education in the College of Education at Michigan State University and a member of the writing team.

For more information, please visit: http://www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards

For commentary on the standards, please visit these links: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/04/09/28science_ep.h32.html?tkn=MNRFfFHQkhlEGl9Nb7fCNjDPZXx34QVP%2FORf&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/04/03/27camins.h32.html?tkn=WYUFFZq4kqp4kxL7s7ozrm7vnb6xF4rW03nK&cmp=clp-edweek

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How helpful are “state grade” reports really?

National Education Policy CenterThe Think Twice Think Tank charges that “state grades” reports are mainly helpful to understand the policy agenda of those creating the grades, not as a means to understand the policies of state education departments.

The Think Twice think tank review project, part of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, asserts that while the grades may be generally reflective of the particular policy item about which they are concerned, these grades are predictable based on the agenda of the organization creating the grades. Because of this fact and their very general nature, these grades act as an attractive eye-catcher in the media more than a helpful tool for those involved in policy-making.

The Think Twice Think Tank was responding specifically to the StudentsFirst 2013 State Policy Report Card, which this blog wrote about recently.

Furthermore, when each state grade is analyzed for the StudentsFirst report, every state but three received an A or a B in some category, and every state received at least one D or F in some category.

Here is NEPC’s explanation:

More interesting than the biases of the genre is the broader discourse of “grading” states: the issuing of report cards has become a tool for satisfying key constituencies. Each report garners attention during a few news cycles, satisfying organization funders, and on occasion is part of what drives policy change where the focus is narrow (such as the Fordham Institute’s focus on science curriculum standards, especially in its handing out Fs for anti-evolution standards). But the more reports that appear, the more the news cycle dilutes the impact of any one such report and the more that state policymakers and advocates might be able to cherry-pick grades for their own purposes. The release of “grading” reports shortly before the start of many legislative sessions highlights the potential use of the grades as a way to shape current policy debate. Whether any individual attempt to grade states contributes to serious policy discussion is doubtful when a report issued the first week of January is followed by several other attempts to “grade the states” before the end of the month.

An illustration of this dynamic appears in the table below, which identifies the highest and lowest grade received by each state and the District of Columbia over several cycles of report cards from a number of organizations. The range of grades received by each state is partly due to the variety of policies examined, but also a reflection of the values and interests of sponsoring organizations.

The short-term publicity advantage of the state “grade” as a news hook is diluted every time that an additional organization uses the tactic of applying grades to states. Regardless of the publicity garnered by an individual report, the dynamic is tilted towards increasing dilution and gamesmanship. In the name of rigor, “grading the states” reports have become the fodder by which most states can claim a good grade in something while others can claim that almost all states fail at something else.

Here is the table that corresponds to this discussion: state grades

For more information, please visit this website: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-Students-First-Grades

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Will States be Ready for Common Core?

Common Core State Standards Initiative | HomeA new report released by Education First suggests that states have made “significant progress” toward Common Core readiness.

Education First and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center have released Moving Forward: A National Perspective on States’ Progress in Common Core State Standards Implementation Planning. A sequel to last year’s Preparing for Change report, this new report provides another 50-state snapshot of state plans to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and suggests that states have made significant progress since 2011.

A few highlights:

  • All 47 CCSS-adopting states reported having a formal implementation plan fortransitioning to the new standards.
  • Most CCSS-adopting states reported progress in planning since 2011.
  • As was the case in 2011, states are furthest along in their planning related to aligning teacher professional development to the CCSS.
  • Since 2011, states have advanced their planning to align instructional materials with the CCSS.
  • Most states have plans in place or in progress for aligning their teacher-evaluation systems to the CCSS.

There are a few signs of a lack of progress in some areas, however:

  • Six states indicated that they are further away from the goal of completing fully developed plans for a particular implementation area in 2012 than they reported a year earlier.
  • As of summer 2012, five states did not have a plan underway to align instructional materials with the CCSS.

The conclusion to the report remains positive, despite some of the weaknesses mentioned:

Though the ultimate impact of the transition to the Common Core State Standards remains to be seen, the survey results presented in this report suggest that most states are further along in planning for this change than they were a year ago. Since effective planning by state leaders will help educators navigate the shifting educational landscape and better prepare our nation’s students to meet new academic expectations, this is welcome news.

Access the report here: http://www.education-first.com/files/MovingForward_EF_EPE_020413_final.pdf

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Education Week releases annual Quality Counts Report: MD 1st for 5th year in a row

Education Week: January 10, 2013In addition to ranking states’ educational quality in an annual education report card, Education Week made Code of Conduct their theme for Quality Counts 2013. The report focuses on “the impact of a school’s social and disciplinary environment on students’ ability to learn and on the teachers and administrators tasked with guiding them.”

After last year’s tragic school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, but also based on other factors, Education Week decided to highlight the impact of school environment on those who learn and work in schools. In addition to the pressing issue of school safety, “strong peer and student-teacher relationships, effective and positive ways to address student misbehavior, supports for social and emotional development, and the involvement of parents and community groups” are all issues highlighted in their detailed annual report.

Christopher B. Swanson, Vice President of Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit organization that publishes Education Week, said, “there is growing agreement that a school’s broader climate profoundly affects student achievement and serves as a precursor for effective instruction, deep engagement in learning, and academic success.”

For an excellent resource on the theme of school climate, see Education Week’s on demand webinar entitled “Quality Counts: Involving Students in School Climate” at this link: http://www.edweek.org/ew/marketplace/webinars/webinars.html?intc=ml

Beyond the particular focus on school climate, Education Week included their annual report on state education, in which Maryland again ranked first.

Maryland received solid grades in each of the five categories employed by Education Week to make their rankings:

  • Chance for Success – Maryland received a B+ grade (sixth in the nation).  This category includes such factors as parental education, family income, student performance, and graduation rates.
  • Transitions and Alignment – Maryland was among eight States with an A grade.  This category includes early childhood education, college readiness policies, and workforce policies.
  • School Finance – Maryland received a B grade (eighth in the nation).  This category is based on school funding and equity in finance.
  • K-12 Achievement – Maryland received a B grade (third in the nation, 2012 data).  This category includes National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores and an analysis of achievement gaps.
  • Standards, Assessments, and Accountability– Maryland received a B+ grade (2012 data).  Maryland has a long history of high standards and detailed statewide accountability programs.
  • The Teaching Profession – Maryland ranked third in the nation with a B grade (third in the nation, 2012 data).  Maryland continues to improve the quality of its education workforce.

Reacting to the positive news, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley said, “From the earliest days of our Administration, job creation and its primary ingredient, education, have topped our agenda.  Every year of this Administration, even during the toughest of times, we have invested to make this a reality.”

State Superintendent Dr. Lillian M. Lowery added, “Maryland public schools are so fortunate to have bipartisan support throughout the State. Our schools have the benefit of strong support from the Governor, other elected officials, educators, parents, business leaders, and the public at large.  This ranking could not be achieved without the support of every partner, and we won’t be able to continue our improvement without that broad coalition.”

Maryland received a B+ overall, and the nation as a whole received a C+ ranking, up from a C last year.  These grades come across as quite positive compared with those given last week by StudentsFirst in their state report cards.

For more information, please visit these links:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/index.html

http://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2013/01/10/

http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/pressrelease_details/2013_01_10

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/10/quality-counts-education-rankings-2013_n_2451431.html

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StudentsFirst gives 48 states C’s or below for Education Policy

StudentsFirstThe organization created by former DC public schools chair Michelle Rhee, StudentsFirst, has recently released results from their State Policy Report Card. The results, to put it mildly, are poor and are an effort by StudentsFirst to motivate reforms at the state level that StudentsFirst argues that states have been unwilling to make.

According the Executive Summary of the report, “State policies must empower parents to make the best choices for their children, and they must enable schools to recognize, reward, and retain the best educators. States must provide school and district leaders with opportunities to truly lead, innovate, and reform schools so they work well for all the kids they serve.”

StudentsFirst broke down their evaluation of state education policy into three categories, with specific headings under each:

  • Elevate the Teaching Profession
    • Meaningful Evaluations for Teachers and Principals
    • Use of Evaluations for Personnel Decisions
    • Professional Pay
    • Alternative Pathways to Certification
  • Empower Parents with Data and Choice
    • Giving Parents Meaningful Information
    • Increasing Quality Choices
    • Providing Comparable Resources
  • Spend Wisely and Govern Well
    • Governance Flexibility
    • Spending Resources Wisely
    • Teacher Pensions

The fact that so many states received poor grades has caused much frustration from states and other school policy experts. One example is Maryland, ranked by Education Week as the best state school system five years running and whose students scored in the top five in reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2011. On the StudentsFirst report card, Maryland came in 17th place and received a D+ score. For many state school officials, this suggests a problem with the whole idea of the Report Card.

The StudentsFirst report card measures different items than student achievement tests, as evidenced by the case of DCPS. DCPS, a district that has undertaken sweeping human capital reforms and has seen growth in its charter school sector, received a C+, putting them in fourth place out of fifty states.  This ranking for DCPS comes despite the fact that on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, DCPS 4th and 8th grade students ranked last.

Research is needed to draw correlations between the measures on the StudentsFirst report card and long-term student success. StudentsFirst, however, “believes — based on experience, research, and evidence — that education reform at the state level can have the most powerful impact on schools and students.”

To view the report card, please see http://reportcard.studentsfirst.org/

For more analysis and commentary, please visit the following websites:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2013/01/michelle_rhees_group_grades_states_and_no_one_gets_an_a.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/education/studentsfirst-issues-low-ratings-on-school-policies.html?hp&_r=2&

 

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New York State Education Commission Proposes Significant Changes

NY Education Reform CommissionIn April of 2012, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo convened the New NY Education Reform Commission.  Their task was to develop “an actionable course of reforms – based on proven models of success from within New York as well as other states and nations – that will provide the level of educational excellence that all New York’s school children deserve, that our State’s future economy demands, and that our taxpayers can afford.”

Made up of current and former business leaders, public and private education leaders, politicians, and community organization leaders from New York and around the nation, the Commission recently released its preliminary recommendations, to be followed up by final recommendations in September of 2013.

The commission traveled around New York conducting hearings and interviews in the hopes of using first hand information in addition to detailed analysis of education statistics to create a “comprehensive review of the structure, operation, and processes of New York State’s education system.”

The action plan is contained in two key sections: “Strengthen the Academic Pipeline from Pre-kindergarten through College” and “Great Educators Enable Great Students.”

Within the first section, there are seven recommendations:

  1. Increase access to early educational opportunities by providing high quality full-day pre-kindergarten for students in highest needs school districts.
  2. Restructure schools by integrating social, health and other services through community schools to improve student performance.
  3. Begin to restructure the school day and year by extending student learning time with academically enriched programming.
  4. Improve the education pipeline through the smart and innovative use of technology.
  5. Build better bridges from high school to college and careers.
  6. Promote increased access to educational opportunities by encouraging school district restructuring through consolidation and regional high schools.
  7. Create a school performance management system that will streamline district reporting and increase transparency and accountability.

Within the second section, there are five recommendations:

  1. Establish model admissions requirements for teacher and principal preparation programs to raise the bar for new educators.
  2. Recruit non-traditional candidates into teaching and leading by expanding alternative certification programs.
  3. Enhance the education training curriculum to better prepare teachers and principals to be highly effective upon entering the classroom.
  4. New York must raise the bar for entry into the profession.
  5. Strengthen educator preparation and in-service supports by establishing best practices to assure quality.

As of now, the recommendations mention little to nothing in the way of creating and sustaining funding for the proposed measures.  As the year progresses and the state government of New York wrangles over education funding issues, the commission may gain the new information it needs to include funding details in its final September report.

For more information, including a link to the full 92 page report, please visit these websites:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/nyregion/education-commission-recommends-core-reforms.html?_r=4&

http://www.governor.ny.gov/puttingstudentsfirst

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Stimulus Funds Saved Education Jobs, Encouraged Common Core

Education stimulus funds largely met the goal of saving or creating jobs for K-12 teachers and other education personnel, according to a summary of three years of survey research by the Center on Education Policy at the George Washington University (CEP). However, ongoing state budget shortfalls have slowed state implementation of education reforms tied to the receipt of stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The CEP report, What Impact Did Education Stimulus Funds Have on States and Schools?, summarizes the effects of the ARRA on K-12 education after three years of implementation. Findings are drawn from surveys, conducted between December 2009 and February 2012, of state and local officials charged with implementing the ARRA and Education Jobs programs.

In 2010, about 70 percent of the nation’s school districts used State Fiscal Stabilization funding, the largest pot of ARRA education money, to save or create jobs for teachers and other school personnel, CEP found. In 2011, a vast majority of the states surveyed by CEP also reported that ARRA and Education Jobs funds had saved teaching jobs and other district and school-level positions in their state. In addition, the majority of districts receiving ARRA supplemental funds for the federal Title I and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act programs reported using at least some of those funds to save or create jobs.

The report also finds that the stimulus funds had a side effect of laying the groundwork for a common reform agenda among the states. As a condition of receiving stimulus funds, states had to assure that they would take action on certain reform-related activities, including:

  • Making progress toward implementing rigorous standards and assessments;
  • Establishing and using statewide data systems to track students’ progress from preschool to college or careers;
  • Increasing teacher effectiveness; and
  • Providing support to turn around low-performing schools.

States participating in CEP’s surveys consistently indicated that they were taking action on these four reform areas, but by 2011 few states had fully implemented the reforms. Further, in states and districts facing budget cuts, progress on the four reforms has slowed.

“Given that nearly 84 percent of nation’s school districts reported funding cuts for the school year that just ended, parents and students may not see the full benefits of these reforms until local economic conditions improve,” said Alexandra Usher, CEP’s senior research assistant and co-author of the report. The report also finds that the state education agencies (SEAs) charged with guiding the implementation of ARRA reforms face funding and staffing challenges. Most SEAs report that they have enough expertise to carry out the ARRA reforms, but fewer report having enough staff to fully implement the reforms, and even fewer reported having enough financial resources. Further, while SEAs have not been immune to staff cuts, it appears that most have done so strategically, often cutting positions not related to the four reforms.

To read the full report, please visit http://www.cep-dc.org/displayDocument.cfm?DocumentID=407

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State Education Agencies Add “Innovation Offices”

Across the country, state education agencies have begun to institute new offices to specialize in innovation—searching for new ideas and helping them to make it into education policy.  The “new ideas” cover a variety of areas, from teacher quality to online learning, which means they “transcend the assigned duties of any single office or division,” making the creation of an office focused on innovation a logical step.

Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan and Oregon have all established offices to promote innovation, and other states are considering them.  Supporters of such offices see them as vehicles for leading education departments “beyond their traditional focus on service and compliance toward working as laboratories for ideas and the sharing of information across districts.”  Much of the force behind creating these offices also has to do with the pressure to turn around failing schools and districts—giving people the space to think creatively how to do this is “changing the way we do business,” says Chris Minnich, senior membership director for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

One innovation to come from Kentucky’s Division of Innovation and Partner Engagement (DIPE) was “the snowbound pilot.”  Every year, school districts in the eastern part of Kentucky have been forced to cancel three to four weeks of school due to heavy snow.  This has been hugely disruptive to students’ education, so three districts proposed solutions, and DIPE helped implement them.  The success of the initial pilot moved lawmakers to change legislation to give districts more flexibility to educate students through alternate means, including virtual lessons.  Six additional districts joined the pilot program in the current academic year.

In Louisiana, the office of innovation has a budget of $20 million and has focused on issues such as school turnarounds, recruiting and retaining qualified teachers, and implementing a state teacher and administrator evaluation system.  It also oversees an “educator pipeline,” or service to help districts across the state attract teaching talent.

For now, most innovations are implemented at the district, rather than state, level.  It is too early to tell whether or not any innovation or initiative will ever reach state-wide status.  “The challenge is to get this innovation to become mainstream,” says CCSSO’s Minnich.  An overriding goal is for agencies to make so many breakthroughs that, someday, “these offices of innovation won’t be needed anymore.”

To read more, please visit http://tinyurl.com/7kxc2tc

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Gateways to the Principalship

Last month, Gretchen Rhines Cheney and Jacquelyn Davis of the Center for American Progress released a study that looked at school leadership from the ground up.  Research shows that principals account for ¼ of a school’s total impact on student learning; moreover, there is a growing base of research that “clearly defines the disposition, skills, and knowledge needed for effective school leadership…[but] few educators are being measured against these criteria prior to becoming principals.”  Furthermore, principals are positioned to make decisions that allow children to have effective teachers each year of their schools lives, which in effect gives the principal great influence over each student’s academic achievement.
In their research, the authors found that few states are utilizing their authority in the areas of approving principal preparation programs and overseeing principal licensure in an efficient manner to improve educational outcomes for children.  Laws are antiquated and describe skill sets that no longer put administrators in good stead to effectively lead modern schools.  The authors call upon states to act as gatekeepers and take “immediate action to guarantee that each and every school is led by a high-quality principal.”

The policies and requirements for principal preparation in sixteen states were analyzed for the study; half of these states are “leading” in the efforts to act as gatekeepers, and the other half are “lagging.”  The lagging states (IN, KS, MN, NM, OK, SC, TX, WA) are not the only states in the country with poor policies, rather, they stand as concrete examples of poor policies.  The leading states (DE, FL, GA, IL, LA, NY, RI, TN) are not perfect and have not comprehensively reformed their entire principal preparation/licensure system, but they provide examples of “specific component reform” that can be used to “create the more holistic reform needed.”
Overall, the authors make several recommendations for states to ensure their role as gatekeepers are being used effectively to improve principal quality nationwide.  These are:

1. Develop a framework on principal effectiveness based on current best practice research that governs both principal preparation approval and licensure.  Then states must stick to the framework.

2. Be agnostic about what entities deliver the training and development for aspiring principals.  The “playing field” should be open to a wide range of providers that meet program requirements.

3. Input-based measures should be limited (e.g., years of teaching and master’s degrees) and performance-based measures that test actual skills and competencies should be emphasized.

To read the full study, please visit http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/10/principalship.html

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