Paul Bruno at the Brookings Institution explores the relationship between teacher evaluation policies and the supply of teachers in a recent article. Overall, teacher evaluations have been ramping up in recent years, with some evidence in New York City and Washington D.C. that they are improving student achievement. However, in Read more
Public Impact’s newest, five-step, free toolkit, “Evaluation, Accountability, and Professional Development in an Opportunity Culture: A Practical Guide”, gives schools, districts, and states what they need to create an evaluation system that helps teachers improve and advance their careers while helping more students. An accompanying State Policy Brief helps policymakers Read more
Michael J. Petrilli of the Fordham Institute on Education recently delivered an address to the New York State Council of School Superintendents about how to end the American education reform wars. Admittedly coming from a more conservative perspective, Petrilli advocates three main goals for school leaders: Be the voice of Read more
States are collecting and reporting on a wide range of college and career readiness measures. A new brief and interactive map from the Center on College and Career Readiness and Success Center provides information on states’ college and career readiness definitions, reported metrics, and programs such as career and technical Read more
How are America’s students really doing? We thought we knew, back when each state gave its own state assessments, but it turns out that proficiency rates were often highly inflated. Now we have some states collaborating in assessment consortia (e.g., PARCC and Smarter Balanced). Those common assessments will help provide Read more
Does money matter in education? Isabel V. Sawhill of the Brookings Institution answers: Yes, education spending–and teacher salaries–affect student outcomes. Not only that, but the research shows that money matters even more for minority and underprivileged students, making the money issue an equity issue as well. Sawhill reviewed education policy Read more
Getting Smart is a website devoted to improving education in today’s rapidly changing and globally connected world. One recent initiative of Getting Smart is “Smart Cities that Work for Everyone.” This initiative offers recommendations for how leaders in cities, but also applicable in states overall, can help educate and prepare Read more
A new longitudinal study highlights the stark reality in the U.S. that class matters far more than academic achievement up to grade 12 in terms of graduating from college. Simply put, even the lowest achieving rich students have a higher likelihood of graduating from college than do the highest achieving Read more
Well-known Stanford education reformer Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond has recently launched a new think tank to help reform American education, with a focus on deeper learning to equip students for the 21st century economy. The Learning Policy Institute has the backing of many large donors and has other notable education leaders Read more
An analysis from Rebecca Sibilia (founder of a new group called EdBuild) looks at differences in how states allocate resources to the neediest districts. The findings are particularly striking because 41 states actually give their neediest students a smaller share of resources, spending more in wealthier districts than in high-poverty Read more
Last year, with much fanfare, the Obama administration declared that it would tackle the tricky issue of equitable teacher distribution, calling on states to revise their plans for making sure that high-poverty schools get their fair share of qualified educators. Now most states have answered the call, rewriting plans that Read more
The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) has announced a new initiative designed to advance teacher preparation and professional development in the use of assessment in teaching and learning. The initiative includes a Task Force that will guide efforts to improve assessment literacy nationwide and the newly expanded AssessmentLiteracy.org website that will Read more
President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently rolled out a new plan to make the FAFSA (the federal tax form needed to apply for federal student aid for college) quicker, easier, and more accessible to more students. Following is a brief outline, from the White House website, of some Read more
While there are certainly shortcomings of the SAT and ACT exams, they are still a benchmark to evaluate the American education system because millions of students take these tests across the nation. The results from 2014 are not good: Only 28 percent of 2015 ACT-tested high school graduates met college-readiness Read more
At a crucial moment with the best possibility of an ESEA re-authorization on the near horizon and with only about one year left before the end of the Obama administration, long-serving Education Secretary Arne Duncan has stepped down. It is unclear why, but we do know that the President wanted Read more
Marc Tucker of the National Center on Education and the Economy wants the U.S. to reform the way that it approaches its instructional core. By this, he means “the combination of state-mandated standards, curriculum frameworks, course syllabi, instructional materials, and tests and examinations that together define and measure what students Read more