A significant challenge to school turnaround efforts is a lack of turnaround leaders available to work in these schools. Four education organizations —The Center on School Turnaround at WestEd, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, Public Impact, and the University of Virginia Darden/Curry Partnership – have been studying issues Read more
A recent report from New America: Ed-Central blog, titled Beyond Boundaries, looks at states’ role in the teacher evaluation process. New teacher evaluation systems are an increasingly common aspect of teachers’ daily lives. To ensure that all students have access to quality teaching, the vast majority of states have adopted Read more
As districts face the recurring problem of ensuring every student has access to a high-quality teacher, a growing number have begun to proactively form deep, mutually beneficial partnerships with teacher preparation programs to produce teacher candidates who match their specific needs. These partnerships, when done well, take significant time and Read more
A recent blog by the Albert Shaker Institute examines the inner workings of what is effective and what is not effective when it comes to teacher collaboration. The blog starts off with an attention-grabbing introduction: You’ve probably attended meetings that were a waste of your time. Perhaps there was no Read more
Is there really a teacher shortage? This question is a complex one and it is not easily answered. A recent analysis of the data of the teaching landscape by the Education Policy Center at the American Institutes for Research, shows that the shortages may not be as large as previously Read more
State achievement standards represent how much the state expects their students to learn in order to reach various levels of academic proficiency. In the past, these achievement standards were used by each state to report adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind federal legislation, and are now being used Read more
What do we know about how students learn, and what does that knowledge mean for how we teach? That’s what The Science of Learning, a publication from Deans for Impact, seeks to answer. Deans for Impact is an organization of two dozen Deans of education schools who have committed themselves Read more
In a recent article in Real Clear Education, Patrick Riccard reflects on the potential for teacher preparation programs to implement a competency-based approach. Excerpts from the article appear below: Demonstrating knowledge and ability should be the key criterion for teachers’ preparation, placement, development, and advancement. Teacher preparation must begin to Read more
A recent report, written by the Center for American Progress, guides the reader through a teacher’s career trajectory, beginning at recruitment and selection and continuing throughout his or her career in order to provide policymakers and the public with a forward-thinking document that proposes how to elevate and modernize the Read more
The nation’s state superintendents are trying to send the message that, even though there are no longer any federal requirements for teacher evaluation, states aren’t abandoning their commitment to review their teachers on a regular basis. This comes as a result of the federal passage of ESSA which relaxes the Read more
Education Week author Marc Tucker describes what NCEE has learned about the design of the instructional systems used by top-performing countries and suggest ways in which U.S. states can adapt those lessons for use in their own state system under the Every Student Succeeds Act. He defines “instructional system” as Read more
University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) and New Leaders have released a toolkit, called SEP3, to help states evaluate principal preparation programs. This toolkit provides essential guidance, tools, and resources for implementing a more in-depth and rigorous principal preparation evaluation process, thereby enabling states to accurately assess quality, promote improvement, Read more
Currently in education, especially K-12, there is an emphasis on accountability and a pressure for rapid, large-scale implementation. National debate continues to rage over the use of testing for student and teacher evaluation, and we hunt for elusive silver bullets. Within this context, the Network to Transform Teaching (NT3) was Read more
A study, published in the journal Education Next, finds that since 2011, 45 states have raised the levels at which students are considered “proficient” on state tests. Thirty-six of the 45 did so within just the last two years. The report is the seventh in a series that examines states’ Read more
A recent blog by Third Way examines several issues in education policy and reveals the outdated logic and arguments that are being used to debate modern issues. This stagnation in conversation not only threatens our ability to move forward with the best policies for our nation’s students, but it also Read more
A new OECD report, Supporting Teacher Professionalism, based on the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), examines the nature and extent of support for teacher professionalism across 34 countries. Teacher professionalism is defined as the knowledge, skills, and practices that teachers must have in order to be effective educators. The Read more