The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released a new report, NCTQ State of the States 2019: Teacher and Principal Evaluation Policy, which documents policy reversals related to evaluation systems for both teachers and principals. Since the 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a large number Read more
Researchers from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University are working with Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program to improve the outcomes of college acceleration strategies for underrepresented high school students, particularly students of color and those from low-income families. This research project is designed to better understand the drivers Read more
The College in High School Alliance (CHSA) has partnered with the Level Up coalition to publish Unlocking Potential: A State Policy Roadmap for Equity and Quality in College in High School Programs. This resource can serve as a roadmap for states that want to design policy that drives meaningful change Read more
Addressing shortages in a state’s teacher labor market can present unique challenges and requires access to comprehensive data and an understanding of available policy levers. To support informed policy, the Education Commission of the States has compiled a national comparison of state policies related to teacher recruitment and retention, with Read more
Joel Rose of New Classrooms Innovation Partners recently wrote a piece for AEI illuminating the forces that keep schools as they are and exploring how these forces might be addressed. Main points include the following: K-12 innovation has a fundamental paradox: Meaningful improvements to student outcomes require learning models that Read more
Recently on the Education Gadfly show, Dan Goldhaber, the director of CALDER, joined Mike Petrilli, David Griffith, and Amber Northern to discuss what rigorous research says about identifying, developing, and retaining effective teachers. The discussion focused on three main questions: Are there any indicators that can help us to predict Read more
Listening closely to what students say about their school experiences can be beneficial to educators for understanding and addressing school-related topics and problems and for rethinking policies and practices. A new toolkit from REL West provides educators a purposeful and systematic means to gather and analyze local data by eliciting Read more
New Schools Venture Fund has released a new insight brief, “Using Expanded Measures of Student Success for School Improvement.” Nearly five years ago, in 2015, NSVF began investing in a national portfolio of innovative public schools that all embrace what they call an expanded definition of student success. So far, Read more
How do we best educate our children so that they learn better, and learn how to learn, in addition to learning what to learn? How do we translate this body of research into classroom practice effectively? The Learning Agency Lab has released six powerful videos from their “Science of Learning: Read more
Writing for The 74, Joel Rose and Daniel Weisberg recently reviewed an apparent paradox in education. Math instruction is both too rigorous and not rigorous enough. See below for excerpts from their piece: Walk into almost any classroom in America, and you’ll find at least some students who’ve fallen behind Read more
A team of current and former Stanford University researchers studied whether racial and ethnic segregation at school still matters today by looking at 350 million test scores across nearly every school in the United States from the 2008-09 school year to the 2015-16 school year. The study looked at student Read more
BrainFutures recently released a report that makes a clear case for integrating proven brain fitness programs into all U.S. classrooms. Over a decade of research has shown that evidence-based programs can improve students’ executive function skills and prosocial behaviors, which are more accurate predictors of academic readiness and life success Read more
Achieve is excited to release three new frameworks – one each for mathematics, reading, and science – for the educator community working on high-quality student assessments. The frameworks, which were developed by content experts and practitioners, can be used to evaluate the cognitive complexity of assessment items (the tasks students Read more
The GTL Center’s Mentoring and Induction Toolkit is a ready-to-use resource for states working closely with districts to build strong mentoring and induction programs. The purpose of the GTL Center’s Mentoring and Induction Toolkit is to give regional comprehensive centers (RCCs) and state education agencies (SEAs) tools, resources, and support Read more
An interactive data tool from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University creates the first database that attempts to measure the performance of every elementary and middle school in the country. The data set not only provides academic achievement for schools, districts, and states around the country, but it also Read more
Scientists know a lot about effective learning and teaching. In the past several decades, cognitive psychologists and other learning researchers have performed thousands of studies on effective learning and teaching practices. In some cases, research findings have gone against conventional wisdom or common practice. For example, varied practice (in terms Read more