Instructional Coaches: The Heroes of the Golden Age of Educational Practice

Posted on March 28, 2019March 25, 2019 by coreeducation

Recently in the Fordham Flypaper, Michael Petrilli wrote about the practice and promise of instructional coaches. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Whether initiated from the bottom-up or the top-down, any effort to help educators align their practice with the best evidence is going to succeed or fail on the strength of its implementation. This Read more about Instructional Coaches: The Heroes of the Golden Age of Educational Practice[…]

Thinking About Classroom Practice: Five Ideas for Education Reformers

Posted on February 21, 2019March 3, 2020 by coreeducation

Recently in Fordham’s Flypaper, Robert Pondiscio reflected a new direction for education reform: a focus on instructional practice. He writes: Shifting ed reform’s focus to improving practice is an acknowledgment that underperformance is not a failure of will, but a lack of capacity. It’s a talent-development and human capital-strategy, not an accountability play. Forcing changes Read more about Thinking About Classroom Practice: Five Ideas for Education Reformers[…]

How Do You Build Continuously Improving Systems of Schools?

Posted on February 14, 2019February 12, 2019 by coreeducation

Over the last 20 years, eight U.S. cities have seen more students attending more effective schools at a faster pace than other urban areas. In Oakland, D.C., Denver, New Orleans, New York City, Newark, Camden, and Chicago, education leaders have increased the number of high-performing schools and set up systems that continuously improve. Bellwether Education’s Read more about How Do You Build Continuously Improving Systems of Schools?[…]

The Importance of High-Quality Instructional Materials

Posted on January 17, 2019January 19, 2019 by coreeducation

Learning Forward has released a special open-access issue of The Learning Professional. It builds on a vital topic for educators: the use of high-quality instructional materials. All students deserve access to high-quality content, and all teachers deserve support to implement it well. The message from research is straightforward: instructional materials matter. Good materials in the Read more about The Importance of High-Quality Instructional Materials[…]

The Year of Thinking Forward

Posted on January 15, 2019March 3, 2020 by coreeducation

In the Center for Public Education’s blog, The Lens, Robin Lake lays out 10 bold new ideas to push the education field toward the future. How can a shift in mindset from a portfolio of schools to a portfolio of learning opportunities help realize every student’s potential and prepare them to solve tomorrow’s most important Read more about The Year of Thinking Forward[…]

Researchers Peek into the Black Box of the Classroom

Posted on January 2, 2019December 31, 2018 by coreeducation

Writing for Ed Excellence, Michael Petrilli has summarized some of the biggest problems with educational research and has proposed three promising pathways forward. Excerpts from his piece appear below: Whereas the world outside of our schools has been transformed by information technology, the data we collect on classroom practices is somewhere between nonexistent and laughably Read more about Researchers Peek into the Black Box of the Classroom[…]

November Issue Brief: Systemic Education Reform

Posted on November 27, 2018November 24, 2018 by coreeducation

Improvement-minded educators and policymakers have found that changes to one element of the education system often have unintended consequences in other areas. As a result, it is important to consider the holistic system when implementing reforms. In Core Education’s November issue brief, we explore systems change in education. We explore resources that center on comprehensive Read more about November Issue Brief: Systemic Education Reform[…]

Inside Tennessee’s Statewide Teacher Transformation

Posted on October 18, 2018October 11, 2018 by coreeducation

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act has placed authority for improving education squarely in states’ hands. In its latest report, Scaling Reform: Inside Tennessee’s Statewide Teacher Transformation, FutureEd chronicles how one state has achieved major changes, with powerful lessons for other states. Over the past decade, Tennessee has led one of the most comprehensive educator Read more about Inside Tennessee’s Statewide Teacher Transformation[…]

Continuous Improvement in Practice

Posted on August 28, 2018March 3, 2020 by coreeducation

Calls for “continuous improvement” commonly arise in discussions about school improvement in the K-12 education system. But educators have various definitions of continuous improvement, and few know what continuous improvement looks like in practice. To advance this conversation, a new brief from WestEd helps to define continuous improvement both in theory and in practice, and Read more about Continuous Improvement in Practice[…]

Teacher Perceptions of Feedback and Evaluation Systems; Findings from the American Teacher Panel

Posted on July 31, 2018July 21, 2018 by coreeducation

In recent years, state and local education leaders across the United States have revised their teacher evaluation policies and practices in an effort to enhance the quality of evaluation measures and improve instructional practices. These teacher evaluations are often based on multiple measures of performance, including classroom observations, indicators of teachers’ contributions to their students’ Read more about Teacher Perceptions of Feedback and Evaluation Systems; Findings from the American Teacher Panel[…]

Preparing Educators and School Leaders for Effective Arts Integration

Posted on May 29, 2018May 26, 2018 by coreeducation

Research shows the positive impact of arts integration on students’ cognitive skills, engagement and attitudes about learning. How can states support educators and school leaders as they work to integrate the arts into core curricula? The Education Commission of the States has produced a new Preparing Educators and School Leaders for Effective Arts Integration report Read more about Preparing Educators and School Leaders for Effective Arts Integration[…]

Supporting Teachers So They and Their Students Can Thrive

Posted on May 24, 2018May 20, 2018 by coreeducation

Recently in The 74, Erin Figula wrote an opinion piece detailing three ways district leaders and administrators can authentically support teachers. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Increase Access to Meaningful Professional Learning While 84 percent of teachers say they wish they had access to more professional development opportunities, they’re not looking for more one-time Read more about Supporting Teachers So They and Their Students Can Thrive[…]

Introducing a Framework for High Quality Project Based Learning

Posted on May 22, 2018March 3, 2020 by coreeducation

A growing number of educators around the world believe that project based learning (PBL) is an important instructional approach that enables students to master academic skills and content knowledge, develop skills necessary for future success, and build the personal agency needed to tackle life’s and the world’s challenges. Projects are an easy way to engage Read more about Introducing a Framework for High Quality Project Based Learning[…]

New Collaborations and New Approaches to Teacher Preparation

Posted on March 29, 2018March 24, 2018 by coreeducation

In October 2017, American Institutes for Research (AIR) convened a panel of more than 30 teacher educators, researchers, and school and district leaders to present interdisciplinary research study designs that would break ground on new ways to better prepare teachers. These innovative designs, and the conversations they sparked, represent the cutting edge of teacher preparation Read more about New Collaborations and New Approaches to Teacher Preparation[…]

Building Systems Knowledge for Continuous Improvement

Posted on February 12, 2018February 9, 2018 by coreeducation

In California, recent policy shifts have created a high degree of local control with the expectation that school districts will think differently about school and district improvement. However, many districts lack the individual expertise and organizational capacity to support these changes at scale. In large part, this is due to a lack of a shared Read more about Building Systems Knowledge for Continuous Improvement[…]

How School Buildings Affect Teacher Collaboration

Posted on January 22, 2018January 19, 2018 by coreeducation

Writing for Education Next, researchers James P. Spillane and Matthew Shirrell describe the findings of a four-year study of a midwestern suburban district, where they analyzed collaboration patterns among teachers and teased out the impact of teacher proximity to one another, shared workspace, and school design. Their analysis finds that physical proximity predicts staff interactions, Read more about How School Buildings Affect Teacher Collaboration[…]