The U.S. Department of Education has not been swayed by Georgia’s passionate defense of its teacher-evaluation plans, which are somewhat in conflict with what the state promised to do when it won a coveted Race to the Top grant. In a new letter to the state, the federal department’s Race Read more
The Department of Education has released the application materials for the latest round of the Race to the Top (RTT) competition. Geared towards individual school districts, this round will award grants from $5 – $40 million, depending on the size of the school district. From the application: The Race to Read more
Tennessee’s new way of evaluating classrooms “systematically failed” to identify bad teachers and provide them more training, according to a state report published Monday. The Tennessee Department of Education found that instructors who got failing grades when measured by their students’ test scores tended to get much higher marks from Read more
The State Collaborative on Reforming Education, or SCORE, has released a new report, “Supporting Effective Instruction in Tennessee,” focused on the state’s teacher evaluation system. The report follows a five-month listening and feedback process SCORE led on the evaluation system to identify what is working well, gather input on challenges Read more
The U.S. Department of Education has released proposed criteria for the 2012 Race to the Top program – a nearly $400 million competition that invites school districts to create plans for individualized classroom instruction aimed at closing achievement gaps and preparing each student for college and career. “Today, we’re taking Read more
The U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced yesterday that $133 million from the 2012 Race to the Top fund will be available for continued investments in state-level, comprehensive early education reform. The Departments intend to fund down the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 slate Read more
On March 27, Education Sector held a panel discussion to discuss the challenges facing states as we head towards 2014. Between now and 2014, states will be facing the challenges of new Common Core standards, new assessments, new accountability systems, new teacher evaluations, new data systems, and for some states, Read more
The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), the nonprofit research and advocacy group that is the major partner in effecting change in Tennessee’s K-12 public education system, released its annual report on Tennessee’s education reforms earlier this month. SCORE also outlined what it believes are four priority areas the state Read more
In a new chapter of the issues plaguing Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) has announced its plans for a statewide feedback process on the system (background information). The process is designed to gather input from all stakeholders, but particularly educators, and is a response Read more
In the latest installment of the back-and-forth of Hawaii’s struggle to uphold its Race to the Top promises, members of the Hawaii State Teachers Association have rejected a contract that included a provision for a performance-based compensation system—one of the measures Hawaii promised to take under the grant. Had the Read more
The US Department of Education recently released progress reports on the 12 Race to the Top winners, outlining their successes and failures in upholding the commitments they made in their grant proposals. So where do the winners now stand? Delaware: ($120 million) Delaware had to delay rolling out their teacher-evaluation Read more
The Center for American Progress released a report last week focused on the 12 first-round Race to the Top (RTT) winners’ progress on teacher preparation and accountability systems. RTT winners are required to meet several goals, such as linking student achievement and growth data to their teachers; tie this information Read more
When Tennessee was one of the first winners named in the federal Race to the Top competition, Secretary Arne Duncan praised the state’s officials for having “the courage, capacity and commitment to turn their ideas into practice that can improve outcomes for students.” Now, it appears that commendation was premature. Read more
The time of reckoning has arrived: winners of the Race to the Top competition have entered the season where they must make good on their promises to link teacher evaluation with student performance. This process is not easy, given the volatile debates that are taking place nation-wide surrounding this issue. Read more
Last week the Department of Education released the proposed requirements for the new round of Race to the Top (RTT) grants (not to be confused with the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge, which is a separate competition). This year, $200 million is up for grabs, with only Read more
The Early Education Initiative (EEI), part of the New America Foundation, has compiled a wealth of data in an attempt to identify front-runners and possible contenders for the Department of Education’s Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge grant competition. The data analyzed for all 50 states plus the District of Read more