Part 2 of the latest MetLife Survey of the American Teacher finds continuing challenges in preparing diverse learners for college and careers, and teachers say success depends on resources to address different student needs. More than 90 percent of all middle and high school teachers surveyed in the new MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Read more about Survey of the American Teacher – Part 2[…]
In two rounds of competitive proposals, the U.S. Secretary of Education awarded RTT funds to 11 states and the District of Columbia. A recent paper from the Center for American Progress describes and analyzes one component of the RTT proposals in these 11 states and D.C.—namely, state plans to promote improvements in teacher quality through Read more about Race to the Top and Teacher Preparation[…]
Findings have been released from Part I of MetLife’s twenty-seventh annual education survey, which focuses on what it means to be “college- and career-ready.” In this poll of middle and high school teachers, students, public-education parents, and executives of Fortune 100 companies, MetLife investigates how stakeholder groups feel about the college- and career-ready goal and Read more about What does college- and career-ready mean, anyway?[…]
The Albert Shanker Institute has issued a “Call for Common Content.” The proposal would go beyond the academic standards adopted by all but 9 states to seek more specific details regarding the knowledge, skills and understandings required of students to meet each standard. Specifically, the “Call” states, “Attaining the goals provided by these standards requires Read more about Common Core Standards Not Enough?[…]
A recent article by Sandy Kress, Stephanie Zechmann, and J. Matthew Schmitten published in the Harvard Journal on Legislation provides a well-researched look at NCLB and other national experiments in consequential accountability. “The “consequential accountability” model of education reform involves creating explicit standards for students, testing against those standards, and assigning consequences to schools for Read more about When Performance Matters: The Past, the Present, and Future of Consequential Accountability in Public Education[…]
The New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative released a report that highlights problems nationwide with the licensing and preparation of teachers who work with young children in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first-, second- and third-grade classrooms. The report, “Getting in Sync: Revamping Licensure and Preparation for Teachers in Pre-K, Kindergarten and the Early Grades,” by Laura Bornfreund Read more about Revamping Licensure and Preparation for Early Grades Teachers[…]
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[…]
Outdated rules and budget shortfalls could force schools nationwide to dismiss top teachers, with devastating consequences for the neediest students. As school districts across the country grapple with massive budget cuts, thousands of great teachers could lose their jobs despite a track record of success in the classroom, according to an analysis released by The Read more about Thousands of Great Teachers at Risk[…]
After adjusting for inflation, education spending per student has nearly tripled over the past four decades. But while some states and districts have spent their additional dollars wisely-and thus shown significant increases in student outcomes-overall student achievement has largely remained flat. To spark a national dialogue about educational productivity, the Center for American Progress attempted Read more about Return on Educational Investment[…]
Effective teachers are critical to raising achievement and closing longstanding gaps among student subgroups. Unfortunately, access to effective teachers is not equitable or fair. Research shows that students in high-poverty schools are more likely than students in more affluent schools to have the least effective teachers. A new report from The Center for American Progress Read more about Essential Elements of Teacher Policy in ESEA: Effectiveness, Fairness and Evaluation[…]
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[…]
Digital learning is disruptive. The personalization of learning that it makes possible is a radical break from the course-and-class model of school with its technology of teacher-instruction. Personalization would change school, change teaching and change learning. What is the best way to go about changing the long-standing system of schooling? It may be more difficult Read more about Strategy for Realizing Digital[…]
Analysts Chad Aldeman, Kevin Carey, Erin Dillon, Ben Miller, and Elena Silva of Education Sector examine the way the United States currently prepares teachers and offer some specific suggestions on how to improve it. Over the next five years, more than a million new teachers will enter public school classrooms. Analysts from Education Sector claim Read more about A Measured Approach to Improving Teacher Preparation[…]
Changing circumstances mandate that we shift the focus of higher education policy away from how to enable more students to afford higher education to how we can make a quality postsecondary education affordable. The challenge before the country also mandates a new definition of quality from the perspective of students–so that the education is valuable Read more about Disrupting College: How Disruptive Innovation Can Deliver Quality and Affordability to Postsecondary Education[…]
In direct contrast to the Pathways to Prosperity Project report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (about which I blogged yesterday) Achieve’s sixth annual “Closing the Expectations Gap” report shows that in the six years since the National Governors Association and Achieve co-sponsored the National Education Summit on high schools, the goal of aligning Read more about Closing the Expectations Gap[…]
The U.S. Department of Education has launched a web site providing convenient and transparent access to key national and state education data, highlighting the progress being made at every level of the education system and encouraging communities to engage in an informed conversation about their schools. This first version of the U.S. Education Dashboard (http://dashboard.ed.gov/) Read more about National Dashboard Release[…]