Seizing Opportunity at the Top

A recent report released by Public Impact proposes a strategy for getting an excellent teacher into every classroom, which would “close most of our stubborn achievement gaps in just five years.”  An “excellent teacher” is described as one who produces well over today’s typical year of learning growth, and the authors emphasize that it is Read more about Seizing Opportunity at the Top[…]

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Education Technology: After the Investment

Jack Schneider, postdoctoral fellow for innovation in the liberal arts at Carleton College, recently blogged for Education Week’s “Teaching Now” blog on the “mania” for educational technology.  He touches on the apparent consensus that the solution to the nation’s education problem is new technologies: smartboards in every classroom, iPads for each student, and collaborative projects Read more about Education Technology: After the Investment[…]

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Teachers Matter Most in Early Grades

In the most recent edition of Teachers College Record, Spyros Konstantopoulos examines the long-term benefits of teacher effects on student achievement in early elementary grades.  Konstantopoulos uses experimental data from Tennessee’s Student Teacher Achievement Ratio Study (Project STAR) for his study, and focused on two specific areas:  1) Determining the persistence of teacher effects in Read more about Teachers Matter Most in Early Grades[…]

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NCES Maps State Proficiency Standards

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released its annual report on Wednesday which compares each state’s proficiency standards in Reading and Math to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) standards.  The current report looks at 2009 standards, and found the following: –There is wide variation among state proficiency standards. –Most states’ proficiency standards are Read more about NCES Maps State Proficiency Standards[…]

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Speaking of Salaries: A Report from the Center for American Progress

The fact that well-qualified teachers are inequitably distributed to students in the United States has received growing public attention. Studies in state after state have found that students of color in low- income schools are 3 to 10 times more likely to have unqualified teachers than students in predominantly white schools. In Speaking of Salaries: Read more about Speaking of Salaries: A Report from the Center for American Progress[…]

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Student Subgroups and NAEP

In a blog post written by Jack Jennings, Center for Education Policy’s president, Jennings discusses achievement gains of white, Latino, and African American students on the long-term National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The blog points out that while general trends show a mixed picture of achievement gains over the last four decades, Latino and Read more about Student Subgroups and NAEP[…]

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The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction

Class-size reduction, or CSR, is enormously popular with parents, teachers, and the public in general. The latest poll results indicate that 77 percent of Americans think that additional educational dollars should be spent on smaller classes rather than higher teacher salaries. Many parents believe that their children will benefit from more individualized attention in a Read more about The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction[…]

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Merit Pay in NYC

For the past four years, New York City has experimented with merit pay. Recently their experiment came to a halt, after $57 million and no increase in test scores in schools that received bonus money.  Why did NYC’s merit-pay program fail? According to the Wall Street Journal, one reason is that unlike other incentive programs, Read more about Merit Pay in NYC[…]

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American Achievement in International Perspective

The latest results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) garnered all the usual headlines about America’s lackluster performance and the rise of competitor nations. And to be sure, the findings—that America’s 15-year-olds perform in the middle of the pack in both reading and math—are disconcerting for a nation that considers itself an international Read more about American Achievement in International Perspective[…]

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Transforming High Schools: Performance Systems for Powerful Teaching

A new policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education calls for a practical set of standards and assessments to measure the quality of teacher performance. “Transforming High Schools: Performance Systems for Powerful Teaching” recommends providing teachers with the quality education and ongoing training needed to greatly improve student outcomes. The brief proposes changes to Read more about Transforming High Schools: Performance Systems for Powerful Teaching[…]

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Academically Adrift in College?

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?[…]

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