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[…]
Jenny DeMonte of the Center for American Progress has penned a new report that calls for teacher-training programs to be more closely aligned with those organizations that actually hire and professionally develop the teachers that make such a crucial difference in the academics and lives of students. Everyone agrees that teacher quality is important and Read more about Who Is In Charge of Teacher Preparation?[…]
Meredith I. Honig at AEI Education has penned a new report urging reform of school district central offices. Honig sees these offices as good candidates to lead schools to higher rates of student progress, but because these central offices have traditionally focused on issues of business and compliance, they are not making the grade when Read more about From tinkering to transformation: Strengthening school district central office performance[…]
Marc Tucker, of the National Center on Education and the Economy, was recently commissioned by the Center for American Progress to write a report in which he would outline his plans for education reform in the United States. Tucker, a veteran voice in American education debates, has long studied the similarities and differences between the Read more about Governing American Education: Marc Tucker’s Opus[…]
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[…]
State Education Agencies (or SEAs) are a crucial element in translating policy to schools. A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, in coordination with the Building State Capacity and Productivity Center, “The SEA of the Future“, urges state education agencies to use performance management to support school improvement. Authors Paul Hill, Patrick Read more about The SEA of the Future: Leveraging Performance Management[…]
To strengthen state implementation of Common Core State Standards and meaningful teacher evaluations, the Aspen Institute and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released a set of recommendations for forging coherence across these efforts at CCSSO’s Implementing the Common Core Standards (ICCS) meeting of 22 states in New Orleans. “Teaching to the Core: Read more about 10 Steps for Integrating Teacher Effectiveness Systems and the Common Core[…]
While criticism of the Common Core State Standards has largely come from expected conservative sources, such as the Republican National Committee, which this blog discussed here, other conservative voices have spoken up in support of Common Core. In an opinion piece, entitled “GOP fear of Common Core education standards unfounded”, in The Washington Post that Read more about Conservative support for Common Core[…]
Since 2009, more than 35 states have made policy changes to their system of teacher evaluations. Many factors have driven the increase of teacher evaluation overhauls, including federal grant programs such as Race to the Top and the Teacher Incentive Fund, as well as the administration’s No Child Left Behind waivers. Recently, a network of Read more about Map Provides Context for Reforms of Teacher Evaluation Systems[…]
Last month, the Democratic Party in California held a three day convention. The convention, at which the California Teachers Association was prominently represented, sparked a wave of rhetoric that reveals at least a temporary rift among some members and former members of the Democratic Party in California. The rift concerns how much school choice and Read more about California: Hot Seat for Contentious Education Issues[…]
In case you missed it, the final Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a new set of voluntary, rigorous, and internationally benchmarked standards for K-12 science education, have been released. Twenty six states and their broad-based teams worked together for two years with a 41-member writing team and partners to develop the standards which identify science Read more about Final Next Generation Science Standards Released[…]
The Think Twice Think Tank charges that “state grades” reports are mainly helpful to understand the policy agenda of those creating the grades, not as a means to understand the policies of state education departments. The Think Twice think tank review project, part of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado Read more about How helpful are “state grade” reports really?[…]
A new report released by Education First suggests that states have made “significant progress” toward Common Core readiness. Education First and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center have released Moving Forward: A National Perspective on States’ Progress in Common Core State Standards Implementation Planning. A sequel to last year’s Preparing for Change report, this Read more about Will States be Ready for Common Core?[…]
In addition to ranking states’ educational quality in an annual education report card, Education Week made Code of Conduct their theme for Quality Counts 2013. The report focuses on “the impact of a school’s social and disciplinary environment on students’ ability to learn and on the teachers and administrators tasked with guiding them.” After last year’s Read more about Education Week releases annual Quality Counts Report: MD 1st for 5th year in a row[…]
The organization created by former DC public schools chair Michelle Rhee, StudentsFirst, has recently released results from their State Policy Report Card. The results, to put it mildly, are poor and are an effort by StudentsFirst to motivate reforms at the state level that StudentsFirst argues that states have been unwilling to make. According the Read more about StudentsFirst gives 48 states C’s or below for Education Policy[…]
In April of 2012, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo convened the New NY Education Reform Commission. Their task was to develop “an actionable course of reforms – based on proven models of success from within New York as well as other states and nations – that will provide the level of educational excellence that Read more about New York State Education Commission Proposes Significant Changes[…]