Recently in Marc Tucker’s blog for the National Center on Education and the Economy, he explored the concept of professionalizing teaching, claiming that it requires an occupational overhaul, not just salary increases for the same occupation. Excerpts of the piece appear below: It costs no more to run a high-performance education system that produces high Read more about Marc Tucker on Professionalizing Teaching[…]
Melanie Asmar, writing for Chalkbeat, recently explored Denver’s new experiment to make the first year of teaching more bearable. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Next year, Denver is piloting the role of “associate teachers” in Denver Public Schools. These teachers will teach part-time in a high-poverty school and spend the rest of their Read more about Denver’s New Experiment with the First Year of Teaching[…]
District of Columbia Public Schools has been a source of some sensational headlines over the past decade, from an on-camera firing of a school principal to recent revelations of watered-down diplomas. But the school district arguably has done more to modernize public school teaching than any other in the nation. It is powerful work, yielding Read more about A Policymaker’s Playbook for Transforming Teaching[…]
A highly effective teacher can inspire incredible growth in students, but too often, our most talented teachers leave the classroom. How to retain teachers has emerged as a key area of interest for district leaders and policymakers. In Core Education’s June issue brief, we explore a variety of incentives, strategies, and school cultures to determine Read more about Core Education Issue Brief: Teacher Retention[…]
Writing for The 74, Thomas Arnett and Bryan Hassel summarize ways innovative schools are utilizing novel staffing structures to facilitate personalized learning. Excerpts from their piece appear below: By adding personalized learning to teachers’ workloads without changing how schools are organized, schools face a great risk that their attempts to personalize learning will fall short Read more about Personalized Learning Through Co-Teaching, Team Teaching, and Collaboration[…]
Eric Hanushek recently wrote an issue brief for AEI detailing the connection between quality education and a state’s economic future. Key points of the brief include the following: A key element of any successful economy, whether a nation or a state, is the quality of its workforce. The economic gains to each state from improving Read more about Every State’s Economic Future Lies with School Reform[…]
A new Bellwether report by Kaitlin Pennington and Alexander Brand analyzes District of Columbia Public Schools’ teacher exit survey data to better understand why high-performing teachers left, where they went, and what they say would have retained them. As school districts across the country report various kinds of teacher shortages, how to retain teachers has Read more about Retaining High Performers: Insights from Teacher Exit Surveys[…]
NCTQ’s Strategic Teacher Compensation Databurst, a study of states’ strategic teacher compensation policies, includes a snapshot of all 50 states’ and the District of Columbia’s teacher compensation policies as they relate to providing additional compensation for effective teacher performance, teaching in high-need schools and subjects, and relevant, prior non-teaching work experience. In addition to comprehensive Read more about NCTQ Releases Strategic Teacher Compensation Databurst[…]
It is often difficult for school and district leadership to identify high-quality teachers who will remain in the classroom, especially among those who are just entering the profession and in the first years of employment. However, a recent study by Robert Vagi, Margarita Pivovarova and Wendy Miedel Barnard suggests that examining a prospective teacher’s instructional Read more about What does pre-service teacher quality tell us about entry and retention in the profession?[…]
The National Association of State Boards of Education has released a policy brief exploring state mentoring policies related to the support of novice teachers and the research on effective mentoring programs. Policy recommendations as well as state exemplar programs are offered. The brief finds that although there is evidence that formal induction programs lasting at Read more about State Mentoring Policies Key to Supporting Novice Teachers[…]
According to a new evaluation brief from National Center for Education Evaluation (NCEE), providing educators with performance feedback and offering pay-for-performance bonuses can improve student achievement. The evaluation brief synthesizes two recent NCEE impact studies, which evaluated key strategies that can be funded through the federal Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants and its successor program, Read more about Key Strategies to Promote Educator Effectiveness[…]
A new Statistics in Brief from NCES highlights changes in teacher autonomy, satisfaction, job security, and commitment between 1999–2000 and 2011–12. The report focuses on patterns between perceived level of autonomy and perceptions of job security, satisfaction, and commitment. It relies on a sample of U.S. public school teachers using data collected through the 1999–2000 Read more about Teachers’ Perceptions of Autonomy, Satisfaction, Job Security, and Commitment[…]
Candice McQueen and Charla Hurt recently shared the progress of a Tennessee initiative to engage effective teachers as teacher leaders for The 74. Excerpts of their piece appear below: The idea seemed like common sense: Engage the most effective teachers, ask them to come up with ideas for improving schools, and share what they know Read more about Teacher Leadership Works[…]
A study conducted by American Institutes for Research (AIR) for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) shows that even small amounts of the right kind of feedback to teachers and principals can have a positive effect on student achievement in math. These findings are important for states and districts looking for ways to boost educator Read more about Study Finds Feedback to Teachers and Principals Can Improve Student Achievement in Math[…]
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[…]
A 45-part audio podcast series, produced by NWEA, the not-for-profit creator of assessment solutions, is featuring the voices of Teachers of the Year (TOY). From personal childhood stories of poverty and violence to the immense struggles that ESL students face today – these teachers share their personal and powerful accounts of the moment that crystallized Read more about New audio podcast series: “Teachers of the Year”[…]