A recent Congressional hearing has weighed how Congress should improve teacher preparation, and while the improvements may be necessary, they certainly won’t come easily. One of the big questions facing lawmakers: Should the federal government call for colleges of education to track their graduates into the classroom? And, if so, Read more
Currently, there are more first year teachers in the United States than teachers of any other experience level. At many schools, most of the teachers have only been teaching for a few years. Meanwhile, the skills and responsibilities expected of educators are expanding, as higher standards and new technologies are Read more
With pilot tests being conducted and debates raging over Common Core-aligned assessments, new changes proposed for the SAT, and emerging plans for new science assessments, the landscape of educational assessments is changing rapidly. In this month’s issue brief, we have assembled summary information and links that will keep you on Read more
Secretary Duncan announced that, over the next year, he and NBPTS President Ron Thorpe will co-convene a new initiative, Teach to Lead, to foster ambitious commitments on authentic opportunities for teachers to take up leadership roles without leaving the classroom. The goal is to ensure that when important decisions are Read more
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently released the PISA 2012 Results, entitled Creative Problem Solving: Students’ Skills in Tackling Real-Life Problems. It is the OECD’s first assessment of problem-solving skills and its first attempt to measure the creative skills that today’s economy demands from its workers. Some Read more
Misinformation about the Common Core State Standards Initiative abounds. Those who seek to correct this misinformation might glean some insights from recent public health research about the power of disinformation campaigns. Navigator Communications suggests a new approach to communicating with parents and the public about the standards, based on communications Read more
A new report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching highlights the causes for and consequences of a relatively inexperienced teacher workforce, as well as promising practices in response to this reality. The high number of inexperienced teachers in public school classrooms is a largely unrecognized problem that Read more
The U.S. Department of Education is developing a 50-state strategy that may finally put some teeth into a key part of the No Child Left Behind Act that has been largely ignored for the past 12 years: the inequitable distribution of the nation’s best teachers. Managing to bring more equity Read more
A new report from TNTP provides an inside look at their effort to rebuild their own pre-service teacher training from the ground up, with one goal in mind: Give new teachers the skills they need to be successful from the moment they set foot in their classrooms. TNTP had to Read more
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is now recruiting! Help shape the future of National Board Certification and experience a sample of the process that thousands of teachers have called transformative. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is seeking PreK-12 grade teachers to volunteer to participate in Read more
New studies of textbooks calling themselves “Common Core Aligned” suggest that schools and teachers should remember that a “buyer beware” policy is essential when it comes to purchasing quality textbooks. William Schmidt, a professor of statistics and education at Michigan State University in East Lansing and head of a research Read more
Lawmakers in the state of Wyoming recently became the first lawmakers in the country to block the education department of its state from implementing the new Next Generation Science Standards. This blog has written multiple pieces about the gradual adoption of NGSS, which 9 states and DC have already adopted. Read more
America Achieves’ latest multimedia report in its Spotlight on Promising Practices series is entitled “Great Principals: Developing Every Teacher.” As the title indicates, these stories showcase effective school leadership and its impact on teaching and learning. Watch how at Merrill Middle School in Denver, school leaders have implemented an incredibly Read more
This free professional development package features everything you need to facilitate a three-hour presentation on using student achievement data to support instructional decision making. Produced by the Doing What Works (DWW) project at WestEd, this “one-stop-shop” professional development package contains: A sample workshop agenda; presentation slides; facilitator’s checklist; an optional Read more
Students, particularly low-income students, aren’t really thinking about college rankings when choosing higher education options, according to a new brief released by the American Council on Education. The study comes as the Obama administration works on its highly anticipated college rating system, which ACE says will become a de facto Read more
New Speak Up 2013 findings show growth in flipped classroom implementation and interest. A quarter of administrators identified flipped learning as having a significant impact on transforming teaching and learning in their school district, surpassing other digital learning trends such as educational games and mobile apps (21 percent) and even Read more