The Center for American Progress and the Council of Chief State School Officers are out with a new report looking at next-generation accountability concepts that states have implemented in lieu of zero congressional action on No Child Left Behind. Generally, the accountability reforms fall into 5 categories across the states: Measuring progress toward college and Read more about Next Generation Accountability Concepts[…]
On his Education Week blog, Marc Tucker discusses the National Center for Education and the Economy’s latest report, which calls for replacing the current system of test-based accountability with a system much more likely to result in improvements in student performance. Following is an excerpt describing the plan outlined in the new report: Fixing Our Read more about Educator Accountability for Education Professionals – A New Idea[…]
For the past few months, Marc Tucker, of the National Center on Education and the Economy, has written a series of blog posts in which he lays out his plans for comprehensive reforms to bring more accountability to American education. Tucker began back in February with a post entitled, “NCLB, California and Accountability in all Read more about Marc Tucker: Designing a Better Accountability System[…]
A new report from the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder argues that the U.S. should consider adopting a European-style accountability system, where schools self-evaluate and then receive feedback from trained site visitors. The U.S. test-based accountability model holds schools and teachers accountable for student outcomes with little attention to school Read more about School-centered accountability vs. Test-based accountability[…]
Is there a policy disconnect surrounding teacher evaluation? In a commentary published in Education Week, Stephen Fink, executive director of the University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership, argues that how we use the new evaluation tools will determine whether we simply create the aura of accountability or actually help our teachers grow and improve Read more about Keeping Continuous Growth at Teacher Evaluation’s Core[…]
Conor Williams of the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation takes on those in the “teacher professionalism” camp of education reform. In an article sparked by Harvard Education Professor Jal Mehta’s new book and article, “Why American Education Fails: And How Lessons From Abroad Could Improve It”, Williams speculates that the concept of Read more about The Way We Talk: Professionalism[…]
Sara Mead of Bellwether Education recently wrote in an Education Week blog about her investigation into teacher evaluation legislation in 21 states that have passed laws in the last three years requiring teacher evaluations based in part on student achievement. Bellwether’s study finds that 12 states’ laws link tenure to teacher effectiveness, 16 explicitly give Read more about The Missing Piece in Teacher Evaluation Laws: Empowering Principals[…]
The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (TQ Center) is offering a free webinar to discuss teacher preparation improvement and accountability: Teacher Preparation Program Evaluation for Accountability and Improvement Thursday, September 27, 2012 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time During the past decade, teachers have been increasingly held accountable for the outcomes of their Read more about Holding Teacher Preparation Programs Accountable[…]
The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (or TQ Center) has released new resources focused on how “meaningful professional learning” into the design and implementation of teacher evaluation systems. These resources include: Aligning Teacher Evaluation with Professional Learning, an infographic showing the relationship between the two. Generating Teaching Effectiveness: The Role of Job-Embedded Professional Development, Read more about Aligning Teacher Evaluation with Professional Learning[…]
A new report from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) argues that principal evaluation systems should not be based only on student achievement gains, but on the quality of principal leadership and performance. Additionally, principals and other school-based leaders are being left out of education reform discussions. The report, called “The Ripple Effect,” also noted Read more about New Framework for Principal Evaluation Challenges National Model[…]
In a recent blog post for Education Week¸ Sarah Sparks reported on the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference in Vancouver, BC. Under discussion was the massive Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, funded by the Gates Foundation. MET is finding that their teacher effectiveness assessments “aren’t good at showing which differences are important between Read more about Studies Give Nuanced Look at Teacher Effectiveness[…]
In his most recent blog post for Time, Andrew Rotherham discusses five things he believes teachers could learn from the US Marine Corps. He begins the article with a reflection on the fighting in Fallujah: “19- and 20-year-old Marines were trusted to make extraordinary split-second decisions in an environment more dangerous and confusing than most Read more about What Teachers Can Learn from the Marines[…]
In a recent commentary for The Huffington Post, Harvard professor Dr. Thomas Payzant focuses attention on how accountability systems for teachers and leaders can be done better in this country. Not only are high-stakes evaluations stressful for superintendents, as illustrated by the high turnover rates around the country, but for students as well, and they Read more about Professor Speaks out against School Accountability Systems[…]
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 into teacher prep programs; publicly Read more about Getting Better at Teacher Preparation and State Accountability[…]
As the reauthorization of ESEA draws nearer, Education Sector’s Policy Director Kevin Carey and Robert Manwaring, a fiscal and policy consultant, argue in a newly released report, Growth Models and Accountability: A Recipe for Remaking ESEA, that Congress should combine a measure of student growth with achievement into a single accountability measure in the design Read more about Growth Models and Accountability: A Recipe for Remaking ESEA?[…]
National Education Association officials announced that they would put a “policy statement” before the union’s governing body for approval that, among other changes, would open the door to the use of “valid, reliable, high-quality standardized tests,” in combination with multiple other measures, for evaluating teachers. The statement, passed by the NEA’s board of directors, wouldn’t Read more about NEA Proposed Policy on Teacher Evaluation & Accountability[…]