In two rounds of competitive proposals, the U.S. Secretary of Education awarded RTT funds to 11 states and the District of Columbia. A recent paper from the Center for American Progress describes and analyzes one component of the RTT proposals in these 11 states and D.C.—namely, state plans to promote improvements in teacher quality through Read more about Race to the Top and Teacher Preparation[…]
Findings have been released from Part I of MetLife’s twenty-seventh annual education survey, which focuses on what it means to be “college- and career-ready.” In this poll of middle and high school teachers, students, public-education parents, and executives of Fortune 100 companies, MetLife investigates how stakeholder groups feel about the college- and career-ready goal and Read more about What does college- and career-ready mean, anyway?[…]
The Albert Shanker Institute has issued a “Call for Common Content.” The proposal would go beyond the academic standards adopted by all but 9 states to seek more specific details regarding the knowledge, skills and understandings required of students to meet each standard. Specifically, the “Call” states, “Attaining the goals provided by these standards requires Read more about Common Core Standards Not Enough?[…]
The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality is pleased to introduce three new research & policy resources to assist districts and states in designing and implementing teacher professional development activities and evaluation systems. They are: Measuring Teacher Contributions to Student Learning Growth for Nontested Grades and Subjects was developed to help states consider options for Read more about New Resources from Teacher Quality Center[…]
The New Teacher Project (TNTP) announces the launch of The School Leader’s Toolbox, a new collection of resources used by the nation’s top charter schools to recruit, manage and support a high-performing teacher workforce. Effective strategies for building and managing teacher talent are singularly important in light of decades of research showing that teachers have Read more about The School Leader’s Toolbox[…]
In the spring 2011 issue of Education Next, Erin Dillon and Bill Tucker equate online learning with charter schools. Is online learning the next “cure-all” that will be implemented without any real way to assess its effectiveness? Their article, “Lessons for Online Learning” studies the lessons learned from the charter movement, such as focusing on Read more about Lessons for Online Learning[…]
A new book released this month by Education|Evolving associate Tim McDonald examines strategies for making schools more cost-effective and productive. Federal stimulus funding for K-12, McDonald argues, has created an impression that schools are suffering today because of the economic downturn. This is true. But the downturn is not the principle reason for their financial Read more about UNSUSTAINABLE: A Strategy for Making Public Schooling More Productive, Effective, and Affordable[…]
A new policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education calls for a practical set of standards and assessments to measure the quality of teacher performance. “Transforming High Schools: Performance Systems for Powerful Teaching” recommends providing teachers with the quality education and ongoing training needed to greatly improve student outcomes. The brief proposes changes to Read more about Transforming High Schools: Performance Systems for Powerful Teaching[…]
A recent article by Sandy Kress, Stephanie Zechmann, and J. Matthew Schmitten published in the Harvard Journal on Legislation provides a well-researched look at NCLB and other national experiments in consequential accountability. “The “consequential accountability” model of education reform involves creating explicit standards for students, testing against those standards, and assigning consequences to schools for Read more about When Performance Matters: The Past, the Present, and Future of Consequential Accountability in Public Education[…]
The New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative released a report that highlights problems nationwide with the licensing and preparation of teachers who work with young children in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first-, second- and third-grade classrooms. The report, “Getting in Sync: Revamping Licensure and Preparation for Teachers in Pre-K, Kindergarten and the Early Grades,” by Laura Bornfreund Read more about Revamping Licensure and Preparation for Early Grades Teachers[…]
Principals arguably play the most important role in ensuring that excellent teaching occurs in their school. Principals’ Approaches to Developing Teacher Quality: Constraints and Opportunities in Hiring, Assigning, Evaluating and Developing Teachers by The Center for American Progress and The Education Trust provides key findings from a study of 30 principals working in charter and Read more about Principals’ Approaches to Developing Teacher Quality[…]
Outdated rules and budget shortfalls could force schools nationwide to dismiss top teachers, with devastating consequences for the neediest students. As school districts across the country grapple with massive budget cuts, thousands of great teachers could lose their jobs despite a track record of success in the classroom, according to an analysis released by The Read more about Thousands of Great Teachers at Risk[…]
After adjusting for inflation, education spending per student has nearly tripled over the past four decades. But while some states and districts have spent their additional dollars wisely-and thus shown significant increases in student outcomes-overall student achievement has largely remained flat. To spark a national dialogue about educational productivity, the Center for American Progress attempted Read more about Return on Educational Investment[…]
The state of Maryland has released a new teacher self-assessment tool. It is available at http://pdot.marylandlearninglinks.org/ This free tool is designed to facilitate teacher reflection related to instruction of students wih special needs. Teachers log in and rate themselves on indicators in ten areas, using a five-point scoring tool. The system then prints a results Read more about Teacher Self-Assessment Tool[…]
Four new education titles top my list for must-reads: A New Culture of Learning, The Influence of Teachers, Too Simple to Fail: A Case for Educational Change, and Teaching the Taboo. For those who are looking forward to what schooling might become, “A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Read more about New Education Titles that Can’t Be Missed[…]
Effective teachers are critical to raising achievement and closing longstanding gaps among student subgroups. Unfortunately, access to effective teachers is not equitable or fair. Research shows that students in high-poverty schools are more likely than students in more affluent schools to have the least effective teachers. A new report from The Center for American Progress Read more about Essential Elements of Teacher Policy in ESEA: Effectiveness, Fairness and Evaluation[…]