A new report from the OECD offers a detailed look at 450 education reforms adopted across OECD countries between 2008 and 2014. The (OECD) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s mission is to “promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.” Of those 450 education reforms, 16 percent Read more about A Global Look at Education Reform[…]
Competency-based education (CBE), in which credit is provided on the basis of student learning rather than credit or clock hours, is starting to gain traction with educators and policymakers. CBE programs are often touted as a far more affordable route to college credit and a degree, but these claims often fail to account for assessment Read more about The landscape of competency-based education: Enrollments, demographics, and affordability[…]
Education reformers are working diligently to design new teacher performance-based compensation systems and career pathways that reward high-quality teaching and offer opportunities for advancement without leaving the classroom. In this month’s issue brief, we explore various resources, research reports, and ideas related to teacher compensation to provide food for thought about this important topic. How Read more about January Issue Brief: Teacher Compensation[…]
Stuart Butler of the Brookings Institutions has some bold predictions for changes to higher education in coming years. He bases his predictions on signs that have become more evident in recent years, but as of yet have not significantly disturbed the four-year college education establishment. His 4 key predictions are: Tuition will begin to fall Read more about Reimagining College in 2015[…]
Teacher Preparation Analytics has released a new report, Building an Evidence-Based System for Teacher Preparation. The report was commissioned by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). This report: Summarizes the research on our nation’s current ability to evaluate the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs; Identifies and develops a proposed framework and a Read more about Building an Evidence-Based System for Teacher Preparation[…]
A new guide from Public Impact shows how districts can design teacher career paths that will keep excellent teachers in the classroom and extend their reach to more students, for more pay, within budget. When districts design career paths of this type, they create opportunities for excellent teachers to reach more students directly and by Read more about Teacher Pay and Career Paths in an Opportunity Culture: A Practical Policy Guide[…]
The Center for American Progress and the Council of Chief State School Officers are out with a new report looking at next-generation accountability concepts that states have implemented in lieu of zero congressional action on No Child Left Behind. Generally, the accountability reforms fall into 5 categories across the states: Measuring progress toward college and Read more about Next Generation Accountability Concepts[…]
The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) is making significant strides in guiding and supporting the implementation of Student Learning Objectives as part of a teacher and principal evaluation (TPE) system statewide. A new report from CTAC and WestEd prepared through the Mid-Atlantic Comprehensive Center (MACC at WestEd), examines frontline educators’ overall perceptions of TPE and Read more about Real Progress in Maryland: SLOs and Teacher and Principal Evaluation[…]
There is considerable variance in state performance standards, exposing a large gap in expectations between the states with the highest standards and the states with the lowest standards. Although this gap in expectations is large, many policymakers may not be aware of just how large it is. In general, the difference between the standards in Read more about International Benchmarking: State and National Education Performance Standards[…]
According to the 46th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll, the American public sees a need for change in how teachers are prepared, meaning a higher likelihood for the teacher “bar exam”. With stunning unanimity, the American public has concluded the nation must demand more of its future teachers and those who prepare them, a new Read more about “Bar Exam” for Teachers looks more likely[…]
Chad Aldeman and a Bellwether Education team have collected and synthesized data from 17 states and the District of Columbia that tracked and reported information on their teacher evaluation efforts as of July 2014. Data analysis revealed five major conclusions: Districts are starting to differentiate between poor, fair, and great educator performance, rather than treating Read more about Teacher Evaluations in an Era of Rapid Change[…]
On his Education Week blog, Marc Tucker discusses the National Center for Education and the Economy’s latest report, which calls for replacing the current system of test-based accountability with a system much more likely to result in improvements in student performance. Following is an excerpt describing the plan outlined in the new report: Fixing Our Read more about Educator Accountability for Education Professionals – A New Idea[…]
After months of pressure from civil rights groups, the Education Department has taken another bold step to deal with the challenge of teacher inequity in the United States. Following up on the 50 State Strategy for Equity that the Education Department rolled out back in the spring (https://www.coreeducationllc.com/blog2/50-state-strategy-for-equitable-distribution-of-teachers/), the Education Department last month rolled out Read more about ED: Excellent Educators for All[…]
In his edweek.org blog, Marc Tucker argues that success in improving teacher quality should be measured by our country’s ability to transform teaching from a blue-collar occupation to a high-status profession. Tucker was encouraged to write this particular blog post by a new report, “Genuine Progress, Greater Challenges: A Decade of Teacher Effectiveness Reforms”, penned Read more about Who Gets to Write the History of Teacher Quality?[…]
Today, well more than a decade since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and because of its demands for states to keep statistics on students’ access to highly qualified teachers, we know much more about the impact of high-quality teaching on student achievement. We also know that teacher characteristics once Read more about Attaining Equitable Distribution of Effective Teachers in Public Schools[…]
With America’s public schools unlikely to return to past funding levels in the near future, the District Management Council (http://www.dmjournal.org/spending-money-wisely/) released a policy guide this week to help districts thrive, rather than just survive, within the constraints of their new fiscal realities. In the main report, “Spending Money Wisely: Getting the Most From School District Read more about School Districts Get Advice on ‘Doing More With Less’: Report reflects new realities[…]