Just four years after passing a law mandating that prospective teachers must pass the Test of Academic Proficiency (TAP) within five attempts, Illinois state board of education officials have scrapped this law in hopes of “manipulating the pipeline” of new teachers. State officials, dismayed at the disproportionately low number of minority teachers compared to minority Read more about Illinois scraps limits on basic skills test-taking[…]
Supporting Principals in Implementing Teacher Evaluation Systems is the latest policy brief from NASSP and NAESP. It is the product of two months of work from a committee of elementary, middle level, and high school principals from the across the country who are all experiencing different challenges and opportunities in conducting classroom observations, mentoring and Read more about Supporting Principals in Implementing Teacher Evaluation Systems[…]
As several of the assessment consortia begin field-testing this spring, public interest and questions are increasing rapidly. We hope these up-to-date one-page summaries of each of the six multistate consortia are helpful in your communications activities. The Comprehensive Assessment Consortia: PARCC http://www.k12center.org/rsc/pdf/k12_center_parcc.pdf Smarter Balanced http://www.k12center.org/rsc/pdf/k12_center_smarter_balanced.pdf Summary of Key Similarities and Differences http://www.k12center.org/rsc/pdf/key_diffs_handout_march%202014.pdf The Alternate Read more about At-A-Glance Summaries of the Six Assessment Consortia[…]
A consensus has emerged: In either their state guidance or Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver applications, 42 states say the goal of teacher evaluations is to improve teaching practice or explicitly link the purpose of teacher evaluations to professional learning. Is your state achieving this important goal? Do teachers in your state receive Read more about Utilizing Evaluation to Support Teachers[…]
More than 1 million students across 14 states and D.C. have been trying out almost 10,000 test items as the group deploys its pilot exams. During a call with reporters, PARCC officials pushed the same idea as Smarter Balanced and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have done in recent days: Glitches are expected and welcome. Massachusetts Read more about Pilot Testing for Common Core Underway[…]
For more than two decades, Teach for America has been sending bright young college grads into challenging classrooms with as few as five weeks of up-front training and expecting them to teach for two years. That’s about to change. TFA recently announced a pilot program to give an extra year of training to 2,000 college Read more about Teach for America To Boost Training & Retention Efforts[…]
IES has recently released its Projections of Education Statistics to 2022. This edition of the report provides projections for key education statistics, including enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures in elementary and secondary public and private schools, as well as enrollment and degrees conferred at postsecondary degree-granting institutions. Included are national data on enrollment and graduates Read more about NCES releases “Projections of Education Statistics to 2022”[…]
How are states defining and applying Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) in their teacher evaluation systems? That is the question that a new report from Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands answers. The report provides an overview of how states are using SLOs, based on a review of state education websites. SLOs are an alternative Read more about REL Northeast Explores SLO Implementation[…]
Just as Common Core has divided liberals—so it is also dividing conservatives. On the liberal side, one camp is for it because of its promise of increasing equity and competency for students across the United States and another camp is against it because they feel it has not been implemented well enough and will lead Read more about Big Business takes on Tea Party over Common Core[…]
The American Federation of Teachers, to date the recipient of more than $11 million in Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation largesse, will no longer accept Gates funding, Politico has reported, citing increasing criticism from members. This is a real case of “put your money where your mouth is”, or in this particular case, “don’t take Read more about AFT Says It Will No Longer Accept Gates Funding[…]
The U.S. Department of Education announced the start of the $134 million 2014 Investing in Innovation (i3) grant competition with the release of the program’s invitation for pre-applications for the i3 “Development” grants (up to $3,000,000 each). In its fifth round of competition, the i3 program continues to develop and expand practices that accelerate student Read more about ED launches 2014 Investing in Innovation (i3) Grant Competition[…]
P-Tech schools, short for Pathways in Technology Early College High School, are the hottest new education commodity, especially in urban areas with progressive political leadership. They essentially are STEM focused public high schools at which students will spend four years, gain a high school diploma and an associate’s degree, receive curriculum and leadership from a Read more about At P-Tech Schools, get a Diploma and a Job[…]
Marc Tucker, a long-time proponent of studying high-performing international education systems as a means of improving American education, provided some recent reflection on Shanghai’s students continuing to score highly in PISA, one of the premier means of comparing international student achievement. Marc Tucker explains how Shanghai is able to both produce high quality beginning teachers Read more about Shanghai’s Teacher Development System[…]
Last week, the College Board, under the leadership of David Coleman, announced upcoming (Spring 2016) wholesale changes to the format of the SAT, one of the two most common tests needed for students to gain college acceptance. For a few years now, officially every college that accepts the SAT also accepts the ACT, the main Read more about Changes Coming to the SAT[…]
In a new primary sources survey, 20,000 teachers provide powerful insights on teaching in an era of change. The verdict is: teachers want their voices heard in order to offer direction on student success, Common Core implementation, teacher evaluation, and parental support. Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released results from the comprehensive Read more about Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on Teaching in an Era of Change[…]
States should promote data use skills, ease of access to data, and the use of a common language about data literacy to support strengthening data literacy among the nation’s educators as an important lever for improving student achievement, according to a new policy brief, Data Literacy: It’s About Time. The policy brief looks at current Read more about Action Needed to Improve Educator Data Literacy[…]