Teachers need ongoing, targeted supports to be effective. That’s why district and state leaders across the country are changing how they evaluate and support teachers. Over the past three years, 16 states have changed their teacher evaluation policies, with another 28 poised to do so in the next few years. Read more
Khan Academy has a new resource for helping students and parents navigate the college admissions process. It includes video interviews and conversations with successful students from all walks of life and admissions officers and counselors at some of the nation’s top schools. One of the best features is “Making High Read more
Achieve recently announced the release of Classroom Sample Assessment Tasks for middle and high school grades. These sample tasks, written by secondary science and math teachers, provide examples of how content and practices from both the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in Mathematics Read more
Join REL Mid-Atlantic for an Ask An Expert online chat on Using Student Surveys to Monitor Teacher Effectiveness. Kim Marshall, a former teacher of the year and principal who now advises and coaches new principals, will lead the discussion. He teaches instructional leadership and publishes The Marshall Memo, a weekly Read more
A coalition of 11 states will create comprehensive, high-quality, open educational resources (OER) supporting K-12 mathematics and English language arts aligned with state learning standards. This new partnership, The K-12 OER Collaborative, is being coordinated by a nonprofit, The Learning Accelerator (TLA). It aims to offer additional choice to local Read more
For implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to be successful, all educators need access to high quality and aligned instructional materials. Achieve launched the Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) initiative to build the capacity of educators to evaluate and improve the quality of instructional materials Read more
Taking Stock of Personalized Learning is part of a series of special reports by Education Week that identifies high-priority topics in the K-12 world and examines them in significant depth. This report tackles the issue of personalized learning, one of the hottest topics in education, and a concept that raises Read more
As someone who cares about education, you may already know the value of The Nation’s Report Card – the nation’s gold standard for measuring student achievement. Whether or not you’re new to the report card – also known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – there’s a new Read more
The Regional Education Laboratories offer a number of webinars that are of interest to education reformers. Below, you will find a list of recently recorded webinars as well an upcoming event of interest. Effective School Leaders This webinar explores the role of school leaders in fostering teacher effectiveness and discusses Read more
A new toolkit from REL West at WestEd helps educators productively engage students in school improvement efforts, including generating and analyzing data. The Speak Out, Listen Up! toolkit offers strategies for eliciting student voice, or perspective, about education challenges — a perspective that is beneficial in rethinking policies and practices. Read more
Earlier this summer, Achieve launched the Student Assessment Inventory for School Districts, a new tool to help school district leaders to take stock of how many assessments are administered throughout a school year and for what purposes they are given. Designed from a student perspective, the tool can be used Read more
The National Center for Education Statistics has added the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data to PowerStats. This update includes the following datasets from the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey: Public Schools, Private Schools, Public and Private Schools combined, Public Principals, Private Principals, Public and Private Principals combined, Public Read more
A new poll by Education Next finds that the Common Core State Standards may have an image problem. The poll finds that the public likes the idea of shared standards – so long as the question doesn’t mention the phrase “Common Core.” Even Republicans, who express the most antipathy to Read more
EdReports.org, a new, independent nonprofit designed to improve K-12 education in the United States, will launch in winter 2014. EdReports.org will provide free, web-based reviews of instructional materials focusing on alignment to the Common Core and other indicators of high quality as recommended by educators, including usability, teacher support, and Read more
Faced with tougher state standards and new research about how children learn, more schools and school districts have plunged into variants of personalized learning, or approaches to instruction that seek to better cater to students’ individual learning needs. This special report from Education Week explores that growing interest in personalized Read more
TeacherLedProfessionalLearning.org aims to catalyze changes to ensure that all teachers have the chance to learn on the job and that great teachers can lead on the job. The website starts with a simple premise: Schools already have their greatest professional development resource on hand: great teachers who are ready to Read more