Last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released a new study on teacher education programs, and determined that three-fourths of all student teaching programs, including those at top universities, are inadequate. NCTQ named 19 standards that they believe each program must meet in order to be successful, but only five were considered “critical Read more about Reviewing (Trashing?) Student Teaching[…]
In a recent EducationNext report, researchers examine the Teacher Evaluation System (TES) of Cincinnati to test if it is as effective as has been touted and whether it could address the “Widget Effect” cited by The New Teacher Project (2009). Cincinnati’s TES uses classroom observations performed by trained evaluators external to the school who are Read more about Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness: The Cincinnati Model[…]
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has released the Department’s first report on the revamped School Improvement Grants (SIG) program, “Baseline Analyses of SIG Applications and SIG-Eligible and SIG-Awarded Schools.” This baseline report provides an overview of the state policies and practices for SIG implementation as well as a description of the first round of Read more about Baseline Analysis of SIG Schools[…]
What is the role of private enterprise in American public education? AEI is launching a new education project to explore this question. Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), announced the launch of a new AEI research project to examine the role of for-profit companies in public education. Read more about Private Enterprise and Public Education[…]
A new report, Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation, from the Annie E. Casey Foundation finds that students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma. For readers who can’t master even basic skills by third grade, the rate Read more about The Relationship of Third-Grade Reading Skills, Poverty and Graduation[…]
A new book from Yvette Jackson will restore teachers’ belief in their ability to help all students perform at high intellectual levels. Jackson outlines a simple but radical approach to teaching that builds on students’ strengths in order to develop instruction that is both relevant and motivational. The Pedagogy of Confidence draws from neuroscience, cognitive Read more about The Pedagogy of Confidence[…]
A new report from the Aspen Institute looks at the teacher evaluation systems of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and the Achievement First (AF) charter network as a means to help education leaders develop their own teacher evaluation and performance management systems. According to the report, the challenge facing education leaders is to Read more about Teacher Evaluation and Performance Management: Best Practices[…]
The PIE Network’s most recent report, “Schools in High Gear: Reforms That Work When They Work Together” is a set of essays written by the network’s policy partners, leaders from the five policy organizations that support the network. The policy partners span the ideological spectrum but come together around the core ingredients for education reform. Read more about Alignment of Reform Efforts[…]
A Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) white paper links national assessment reform and the need to advance teaching as a results-oriented profession. The paper raises cautions about the use of value-added models (VAMs) as “the preferred method” to estimate the effects of individual teachers on student achievement. Even highly accomplished teachers who embrace accountability, the Read more about New Student Assessments and Advancing Teaching as a Results-Oriented Profession[…]
There are many things we can’t predict about the future of education, but happily, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has allowed us to look into the future of education statistics. For example, postsecondary enrollment rose by 34 percent between 1994 and 2008; NCES projects that it will increase another 17 percent by 2019. Read more about CES releases “Projections of Education Statistics to 2019”[…]
Principals arguably play the most important role in ensuring that excellent teaching occurs in their school. Principals’ Approaches to Developing Teacher Quality: Constraints and Opportunities in Hiring, Assigning, Evaluating and Developing Teachers by The Center for American Progress and The Education Trust provides key findings from a study of 30 principals working in charter and Read more about Principals’ Approaches to Developing Teacher Quality[…]
Four new education titles top my list for must-reads: A New Culture of Learning, The Influence of Teachers, Too Simple to Fail: A Case for Educational Change, and Teaching the Taboo. For those who are looking forward to what schooling might become, “A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Read more about New Education Titles that Can’t Be Missed[…]
The Data Quality Campaign’s (DQC) sixth annual state analysis, Data for Action 2010, reveals that states have made unprecedented progress collecting longitudinal information but have not taken action to ensure data are used to improve student achievement. When the DQC launched in 2005, no state had all 10 Essential Elements of Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems. Read more about Data for Action 2010[…]
Core Education has always been focused on providing exceptional professional development to preservice, induction, and inservice teachers. We are also dedicated to promoting the state and district policies that make this type of professional development possible. Now, new research provides insights into the policies of four states that support outstanding professional development. Learning Forward (previously Read more about Seeking Exceptional Professional Development?[…]
The higher education community has been buzzing about Academically Adrift, a new study by researchers Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa about how much students are learning in college. What do the authors conclude? Students aren’t learning much. In fact, 45 percent of students made no gains on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (a test of higher Read more about Academically Adrift in College?[…]
I taught middle school English for five years, and I can honestly say that middle schools are strange (and wonderful!) places. They are not quite elementary schools, although some students are still struggling to master basic skills, and they are not quite high schools, although some students are earning high school credit and seriously considering Read more about Gaining Ground in Middle School[…]