To ensure that America has the most competitive global workforce, President Barack Obama articulated a goal that, by 2020, every American should continue their educational training after high school so that the United States will increase its proportion of college graduates. This ambitious policy objective will require our postsecondary education system to embrace changes and Read more about Competency-Based Degree Programs[…]
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[…]
Thomas S. Dee, of Stanford University, and James Wyckoff, of the University of Virginia, have sparked the debate on teacher evaluations with a new working paper which suggests that DCPS’ IMPACT teacher evaluations have proven effective to increase teacher performance and student test scores. IMPACT is the most radical of various teacher incentive plans tied Read more about Promising results from new study of DC Impact Teacher Evaluations[…]
As forty-six states and the District of Columbia implement the Common Core State standards, questions abound regarding implementation, including the implications for curriculum and pedagogy. In Common Core in the Schools: A First Look at Reading Assignments, researchers analyze what texts English teachers assign their students and the instructional techniques they used in the classroom. Read more about Common Core in the Schools: A First Look at Reading Assignments[…]
Are students being forgotten in the midst of the political battle that is ramping up over Common Core? It sure seems so. Conservative groups across the country, as well as a few liberal ones, have escalated their campaign to awaken Americans to the supposed dangers of the Common Core. An array of organizations with multimillion Read more about The Common Core Money War[…]
A suburban Colorado county, Douglas County, has taken conservative school reform efforts farther than any other large school district has before. Douglas county, which has 65,000 students, making it larger than Washington DC schools and as large as Detroit schools, has pursued an aggressive program of school vouchers and market-based pay for teachers. Furthermore, they Read more about Conservative, Suburban School Reform: Can it work?[…]
Parker Palmer of the Center for Courage and Renewal is a well-known author and speaker in the field of education. He is worried about the current direction of education reform, which seeks to use more value-added measures to judge student, teacher, and school proficiency. Here are his thoughts: “We’re always being asked how effective is Read more about The Place of Faithfulness in Education[…]
Michele McNeil at Education Week describes in a recent article how the Education Department, under Secretary Arne Duncan, continues to use NCLB waivers to enforce its policy goals. The situation, which we have blogged about before here and here, is essentially that Congress has yet to pass a new version of the Elementary and Secondary Read more about ED Attaches More Strings to NCLB Waiver Renewals[…]
Many have made their careers in the field of education by comparing and contrasting the American education system with those around the world. Marc Tucker, of the National Center on Education and the Economy, is one of those. His book, Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems integrates a Read more about The Smartest Kids in the World[…]
Education Evolving wants to give teachers a larger role in their schools through a model that they call “Teacher Professional Partnerships.” Consider the following three propositions: 1. If teachers are to be accountable for student learning, teachers should control what matters for student learning. It’s a serious mistake to be trying to push accountability down Read more about Education Evolving Launches “Teachers in Partnership” Initiative[…]
As states and districts transition to the more rigorous Common Core State Standards, the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) has released a new paper, “Preparing Teachers for the Common Core: Aligning Standards for Teaching with Standards for Learning”, outlining how the TAP Teaching Standards clearly align to the Common Core. This connection allows Read more about TAP System Prepares Teachers for Common Core[…]
John Merrow, longtime education reporter and author, begins his blog post, “The Business of Schools is. . . . .?”, with a short multiple choice quiz: Here are two multiple-choice questions for you: 1. The primary business of public schools is to produce: A. Educated students B. Knowledge 2. Which more accurately describes the structure Read more about John Merrow on 21st Century Education[…]
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[…]
The Center on Education Policy (CEP) at George Washington University has prepared three new reports based on state survey data about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The reports focus on state implementation efforts and professional development issues related to CCSS. “Year 3 of Implementing the Common Core State Standards: An Overview of States’ Progress Read more about States Report Progress in Implementing Common Core[…]
As the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve have recently released the final version of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has completed its review of the new standards and given them a C. While this may certainly Read more about Fordham Evaluates the Next Generation Science Standards[…]
Well-meaning education reformers are too often content to layer their new proposals atop outdated schools and systems. Unsurprisingly, school improvement efforts have repeatedly failed to deliver the results we had hoped for. Doing radically better will require state, civic, and system leaders to embrace a more coherent and comprehensive push to overhaul antiquated structures, regulations, Read more about A Roadmap for Education Reform: Milwaukee as a Model[…]