TNTP, a national nonprofit organization working to ensure that all students get excellent teachers, recently released a first-of-its-kind resource on effective teaching written by and for practicing teachers. The resource, Unlocking Student Effort , is a paper that includes five essays written by the winners of TNTP’s 2012 Fishman Prize Read more
Two state consortia—Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium—have made great strides to develop new assessment systems ready for use in two years. Over the summer, for example, they released sample items and tasks and are putting together teams of educators Read more
Last week Andrew Rotherham from Time magazine wrote about whether teachers should be able to sell their lesson plans. He talks about kindergarten teacher Deanna Jump, who has made more than one million dollars selling her lesson plans online. That is what teachers are looking for, since the new Common Core Read more
Few efforts are as pressing this school year as those of identifying issues and creating new approaches to improve educator quality. In support of these imperatives, (AIR) has released new resources to ensure that leaders have the capabilities and tools needed to successfully improve teaching and learning. The online destinations Read more
Education Week is again offering new “Spotlights on Education” for free. Spotlights are collections of recent articles grouped by theme to give readers an in-depth look at education issues. Featured Spotlights include: The Education Week Spotlight on Personalized Learning – a collection of articles hand-picked by Ed Week editors for Read more
The Hope Street Group, a national, nonpartisan non-profit organization that focuses on bringing together political leadership with non-governmental innovators in business, nonprofit organizations, etc. to develop creative solutions for America’s current economic problems, has launched a new website—The Teacher Evaluation Playbook. The site serves as a guide for implementing strategies Read more
Last week the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) launched a new site containing cutting-edge postsecondary education research for a policy-focused audience. PolicyDirect is a one-stop, online resource that delivers more than 300 easy-to-use summaries of academic research that highlights critical findings on important higher education issues such as college Read more
Achieve has released new resources directed toward the business community, to inform and rally more advocates for education reform. The Business Resources for a College- and Career-Ready America include modular resources for business leaders to use as they engage their internal and external networks of colleagues, peers, employees, and employers Read more
New state-level data on charter schools and teacher certification are now available on the State Education Reforms website. The State Education Reforms website, which draws primarily on data collected by organizations other than NCES, compiles and disseminates data on state-level education reform efforts in five areas: (1) Accountability (2) Assessment Read more
Increased awareness of how much effective teaching matters has led to a national momentum to find new ways to evaluate teaching. Many states and school districts are redesigning how teacher effectiveness is assessed, rewarded, and supported, efforts spurred or reinforced by Federal initiatives such as the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF-4). Read more
As the discussion of the Common Core and associated assessment systems heats up, I wanted to share these valuable resources. They were compiled by Achieve, the US Education Delivery Institute, and Education First, and are hyperlinked in the press release below: As states move forward with their implementation of the Read more
Date: Thursday, July 12, 2012 Time: 2:00-3:00pm EST The new emphasis on teacher effectiveness is changing the K-12 education landscape. What does the latest research suggest about the impact of teacher effectiveness on student achievement? What are the best strategies for enhancing teacher effectiveness? And how do district leaders assess Read more
Resource Watch: ‘Pinteresting’ Idea for Teachers – Teaching Now – Education Week Teacher. Grockit, the online test prep company, has recently launched a new social learning site similar to Pinterest, but designed specifically for educators and students, according to The Journal, an education-technology news magazine. On Learnist, users can “pin” Read more
The What Works Clearinghouse has released a new guide focused on improving math skills in students in the middle grades. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), part of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), functions as a central repository for education research on “what works” in education. Periodically, IES releases a Read more
The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing professional learning opportunities for teachers, policymakers, and other education leaders, has revamped its website to be more user-friendly. The site is more interactive and has more functionality for users, who can now: Perform a dynamic search of all Read more
The two multistate organizations tasked with developing math and ELA assessment systems to support the Common Core, Smarter Balanced and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), have been hard at work over the past several months. To help keep interested parties updated on their activities, Read more