Jane Best and Courtney Cohen of McREL have written a helpful document looking at some of the hot button education issues today, but with a unique focus on rural education. While a quarter of all American students are enrolled in rural public schools, many rural teachers and administrators believe 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
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
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 Read more
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 Read more
In recent years a substantial number of policy makers, educators, corporate leaders and other concerned citizens have sought to find ways to narrow academic achievement gaps. Some view this task as a matter of basic fairness and equity – assuring that all students have the opportunity to compete on a Read more
“I’m reaching out to some of America’s leading foundations and corporations on a new initiative to help more young men of color facing especially tough odds to stay on track and reach their full potential.” President Barack Obama, January 28, 2014 President Obama is taking action to launch My Brother’s Read more
The Alliance for Excellent Education invites education professionals to attend an upcoming webinar entitled: “The Postsecondary Success Collaborative: Partnerships to Increase College Enrollment.” The free webinar will be held on March 24, 2014 from 1-2 pm, EST. The panelists for the event will be: Maud Abeel, Associate Director for Strategic 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
One policy response to the challenge of attracting high-performing teachers to low-achieving schools is offering teachers monetary incentives to transfer. This report examines impacts of transfer incentives — including the willingness of teachers to transfer when offered an incentive, teacher retention in the schools to which they transferred, and the Read more
For the last two years, the Education Department has been using waivers to grant states lenience in the face of the looming repercussions of No Child Left Behind (2001). This process seems likely to continue until Congress does a re-write of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the most recent Read more
The U.S. Department of Education announced that 31 applications have been selected as finalists for the Race to the Top-District (RTTT-D) competition. The 2013 RTTT-D program will provide close to $120 million to support locally developed plans to personalize and improve student learning, directly increase student achievement and educator effectiveness, Read more
Education Nation, which we blogged about last year, is, according to John Merrow, the “Super Bowl” of education events. Most all of the big names in Education Policy either presented there or were at least present. Moreover, many of these figures, such as Education Secretary Arne Duncan or former Florida Read more
TNTP, a nonprofit organization working to ensure that all students get excellent teachers, recently released the latest in its one-of-a-kind series of essays on effective teaching written by and for practicing teachers. Titled “Going Deep: Empowering Students to Take Risks, Make Mistakes and Master Difficult Material,” the new paper was Read more
Thousands of pages have been written this month alone on the failings of America’s education system and what to do about it. Diane Ravitch’s new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools, tries to debunk some of the pessimism of Read more
Public schools are supposed to be funded by public tax dollars, right? It turns out that many wealthy school districts or town-run schools within larger districts, especially in California, regularly garner significant funds from private donations. For example, in Hillsborough, CA, public funds spread to a total of $13,500 in Read more