A new Bellwether report by Kaitlin Pennington and Alexander Brand analyzes District of Columbia Public Schools’ teacher exit survey data to better understand why high-performing teachers left, where they went, and what they say would have retained them. As school districts across the country report various kinds of teacher shortages, Read more
NCTQ’s Strategic Teacher Compensation Databurst, a study of states’ strategic teacher compensation policies, includes a snapshot of all 50 states’ and the District of Columbia’s teacher compensation policies as they relate to providing additional compensation for effective teacher performance, teaching in high-need schools and subjects, and relevant, prior non-teaching work Read more
Research shows the positive impact of arts integration on students’ cognitive skills, engagement and attitudes about learning. How can states support educators and school leaders as they work to integrate the arts into core curricula? The Education Commission of the States has produced a new Preparing Educators and School Leaders Read more
Recently in The 74, Erin Figula wrote an opinion piece detailing three ways district leaders and administrators can authentically support teachers. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Increase Access to Meaningful Professional Learning While 84 percent of teachers say they wish they had access to more professional development opportunities, they’re Read more
School administrators serve as instructional leaders and set the tone for the culture of a school. The principal’s influence is pivotal. In Core Education’s May issue brief, we explore effective school leadership and recommendations for policy to improve the preparation, support, and evaluation of educational leaders. In addition, we review Read more
A growing number of educators around the world believe that project based learning (PBL) is an important instructional approach that enables students to master academic skills and content knowledge, develop skills necessary for future success, and build the personal agency needed to tackle life’s and the world’s challenges. Projects are Read more
Kevin Mahnken, writing for The 74, recently reviewed a new working paper by the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Resear (CALDER). The study, conducted by CALDER director and University of Washington professor Dan Goldhaber, synthesizes two separate research topics: the influence of teacher quality on student achievement, Read more
GreatSchools has released a first-of-its-kind award recognizing and celebrating high schools that excel in ensuring students are prepared for college based on school-level postsecondary data collected and shared by their states. The award also underscores the need to open up new sets of data so we can shine the light Read more
The Learning Policy Institute has examined national data and recent research on the barriers teachers of color face to both entering and staying in the profession. Their new report, Diversifying the Teaching Profession: How to Recruit and Retain Teachers of Color, includes recommendations intended to help policymakers increase teacher workforce Read more
Robert C. Pianta, Dean of the University of Virginia Curry School of Education, recently wrote an article for RealClear Education in which he discusses the pitfalls of middle school and the possibilities for middle grades education. Excerpts from his piece appear below: Compliance. Restraint. Passivity. These are the behaviors and Read more
Writing for The 74, Beth Rabbitt reflects on the takeaways from the Learning Accelerator’s work with more than 100 leaders across eight regions nationally in the past year. Excerpts from the article appear below: Looking at patterns across each region, our biggest finding was this: ecosystems matter. Leaders can only Read more
Research shows school leadership is a pivotal factor in improving student achievement and retaining quality teachers. In fact, among school-related factors, leadership is found to have one of the greatest impacts on student learning — second only to classroom instruction. However, many districts are challenged by high rates of turnover, Read more
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released its latest ratings for 567 traditional graduate programs, 129 alternative route programs, and 18 residencies preparing both elementary and secondary teachers. Assessing programs on a number of key factors – such as how well they assess teachers’ subject matter content knowledge, Read more
In school year 2011-12, the majority of early-career teachers (i.e., teachers who had taught for five or fewer years) in public schools reported that they were well prepared for a range of instructional duties in their first year of teaching. The National Center for Education Statistics released a new Statistics Read more
It is often difficult for school and district leadership to identify high-quality teachers who will remain in the classroom, especially among those who are just entering the profession and in the first years of employment. However, a recent study by Robert Vagi, Margarita Pivovarova and Wendy Miedel Barnard suggests that Read more
In her newest policy paper and accompanying data visualization, Roxanne Garza explores how support systems for principals vary across the country. Over the last decade, the term instructional leader has worked its way into the vernacular of the education community to describe the role of school principals. What people actually Read more