The U.S. Department of Education has launched a new online resource, PROGRESS, to highlight state and local innovative ideas, promising practices, lessons learned, and resources informed by the implementation of K-12 education reforms. These stories will showcase the exciting transformations taking place in classrooms, schools, and systems across the country Read more
EdNext Editor-in-Chief Paul E. Peterson penned a recent op-ed in favor of the Common Core State Standards. Peterson highlighted a curious result of an EdNext survey of Americans, in which only 21% of those surveyed gave American schools an “A” or “B” but 49% of those surveyed gave their own Read more
A new report released by CompetencyWorks, titled Progress and Proficiency: Redesigning Grading for Competency Education, helps education leaders think through how to design grading policies that communicate academic performance to students and parents. As more schools and districts begin to develop competency-based pathways that allow students to progress based on Read more
On January 13, 2014, Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave an address to the National Assessment Governing Board Education Summit for Parent Leaders. He highlighted the continual need for American parents to demand more from their children’s schools and teachers so that Americans can be prepared to compete in the demanding Read more
TNTP, which has recently published many helpful documents about teacher effectiveness, has a new whitepaper out about the connection between teacher evaluations and Common Core. While these two issues have been on the tongues of most education professionals for the last several years, TNTP’s approach is unique in addressing each Read more
More than a dozen states are on track to assign A-F letter grades to schools, among the trends highlighted in a first-of-its-kind database published by the Education Commission of the States. The online database shows which indicators states are considering in gauging school performance and how state leaders are publicly Read more
U.S. corporations donate an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion a year to K-12 education. A new report argues that’s not enough. The report, published by Harvard Business School, the Boston Consulting Group and the Gates Foundation, aims to prod CEOs to move beyond “checkbook philanthropy” and push more transformative Read more
Teachers in 18 states and the District of Columbia have new resources to help them prepare their students for upcoming field tests. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers has posted sample test items for every grade on the testing platform students will use when taking the Read more
LearnZillion.com offers a free and growing set of Math and English Language resources for grades 2-12 that have been developed by expert teachers (a.k.a, the “Dream Team”). The Premium product is a participatory curriculum used by schools, districts and states to build teacher leaders and accelerate the successful implementation of Read more
Newly emerging research is beginning to shed light on the extent to which disadvantaged students have access to effective teaching, based on value added measures. “Value added” is a teacher’s contribution to students’ learning gains. Because individual researchers have varied in their presentation of this evidence, it is challenging for Read more
The National Education Association (NEA), Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ), and National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) are launching a groundbreaking initiative to advance teaching as a 21st-century profession. The Teacher Leadership Initiative (TLI) will support accomplished teachers in leading effective pedagogical, policy, and union reforms. In the 2014 Read more
A free DVD from the School Turnaround Learning Community provides resources for conducting professional development on using educator evaluation results to create and support a system of professional growth for teachers. The module contains three sessions, each including agendas, PowerPoint slides, facilitator’s notes, multimedia, sample materials, and handouts: Session 1: Read more
Can big data and predictive analytics help school leaders hire better teachers? That’s the new pitch being made by two companies: TeacherMatch, from Chicago, and Washington-based Hanover Research. Both claim that their new algorithm-driven teacher-selection tools can predict the impact teacher candidates will have on student test scores should they Read more
The new budget bill, which moved through both houses of Congress quickly and was easily passed by both houses, represents a 2.6 percent increase over the post-sequester budget for FY 2013. The fiscal relief is not evenly spread, with some programs receiving significant increases and others continuing at lower levels. Read more
The National Education Association recently posted online 3,000 lessons, representing the work of more than 100 “master teachers” who translated the Common Core math and language arts standards into classroom activities for every grade. The instructors share classroom videos, samples of student work and candid evaluations of resources they’ve tested. Read more
Indiana is the most recent state in which the debate over the best way to certify teachers has moved to center stage. There is a new proposal moving through the Indiana Board of Education that would allow anyone with a 3.0 GPA from the four-year college at which they graduated Read more