Teachers often know best when it comes to helping their students achieve academic success, but districts and schools are not set up to capitalize on the wisdom of teachers. In this month’s issue brief from Core Education, we explore ideas related to increasing teacher professionalism, including changed teacher roles, teacher-powered schools, and ideas borrowed from Read more about March Issue Brief: Teacher Professionalism[…]
Over a the past several months Real Clear Education has been spotlighting schools and teachers participating in the Opportunity Culture initiative, a movement launched in 2011 by education policy and consulting firm Public Impact. Opportunity Culture models are aimed at improving the quality of education by extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams, encouraging teacher Read more about When Top Students Drop: Why Even Good Schools Need to Grow[…]
A recent report released by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) states that among those educators who have be awarded Teacher of the Year, there is a consensus that new consortia assessments, PARCC and Smarter Balance, are on the right trajectory and are an improvement on previous state assessments. Related findings Read more about State Teacher of the Year Recipients Weigh in on New Consortia Assessments[…]
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA) have recently released new standards for educational leaders. This project started last year with the intent to update the 2008 standards. The standards, now known as the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (formerly ISLLC), were designed to ensure Read more about New Educational Leadership Standards seek to Increase Student Achievement[…]
In 2016-17, the Opportunity Culture initiative included more than 110 schools, 1250 teachers, and 34,000 students in 17 sites across 7 states. According to the Public Impact website, Opportunity Culture schools are defined by the following characteristics: Teachers lead the way. Each Opportunity Culture school creates a team of teachers and administrators who decide what Read more about Opportunity Culture Initiative Update[…]
Joe Ashby was a a multi-classroom leader (MCL) at Buena Vista Enhanced Option Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee before finishing his doctorate and moving on to be a principal in California. He recently wrote an article about that experience for Real Clear Education, and he focused on the flexibility and growth that was present in Read more about Giving, Receiving Professional Development Every Day[…]
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has offered a national certification for interested teachers since the late 1980s. There are currently 110,000 National Board certified teachers across the U.S. This blog wrote about changes the NBPTS made to its certification process to incentivize more teachers to become board-certified. With new research out showing Read more about Board-Certified Teachers More Effective, New Studies Affirm[…]
In a newly released survey of the 2015 State Teachers of the Year (STOY), this new class of accomplished teachers shared their views on topics affecting educators across the country. Forty-six of the 56 STOYs responded to Scholastic’s online survey, and while this is not a nationally representative sample of teachers, it is an Read more about Scholastic Survey of the 2015 State Teachers of the Year[…]
The Common Core State Standards began in 2009 as a state-led effort to measure the nation’s students against a shared benchmark. At first, the standards received broad acceptance. But as the standards rolled out–and as they continue to roll out–the Common Core has become a political football. With all of the political posturing, it’s easy Read more about Teacher Leadership: The Pathway to Common Core Success[…]
Over the past 15 years, Teach for America has grown to a scale, and at a pace, that is virtually unprecedented in education and the domestic nonprofit sector more generally. From 2000 to 2014, the number of Teach for America corps members rose nearly tenfold, the number of alumni increased even more rapidly, and the Read more about Exponential Growth, Unexpected Challenges: How Teach for America Grew in Scale and Impact[…]
A new Education Week special report explores the growing interest among many educators and school leaders in altering the conventional understandings around what teachers do. In particular, it looks at the ways districts, schools, and teachers themselves are transforming teachers’ positions—and the types of supports available to them—in order to drive organizational change, build capacity, Read more about Ed Week Special Report on Transforming Teachers’ Roles[…]
ASCD has a new bulletin out about teacher leadership that is an excellent jumping off point for anyone looking to both advance the role of teachers and improve student achievement. It first explores the teacher leadership landscape by featuring recent data on the primary characteristics of teacher leaders, identifying states that offer formal teacher leader Read more about ASCD’s newest Policy Points on Teacher Leadership[…]
Education Evolving is launching, in partnership with the Center for Teaching Quality, an online guide: “Steps to Creating a Teacher-Powered School.” The guide walks educators through the stages in creating a school designed and run by teachers. It’s an updated, interactive version of the PDF guide with the same name released earlier this year. This Read more about Creating a Teacher-Powered School[…]
The Aspen Institute and Leading Educators are out with a roadmap outlining paths teachers can take to assume more leadership roles in classrooms and schools. The Aspen Institute released Leading from the Front of the Classroom: A Roadmap for Teacher Leadership that Works, which provides practical guidance for designing effective teacher leadership opportunities. The paper Read more about A Roadmap for Teacher Leadership[…]
According to a new Alliance for Excellent Education report, supporting great teaching is key to a positive school climate and academic success for at-risk students. With schools implementing higher academic standards that require engaging and effective teaching, a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education in partnership with the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign Read more about School Climate Change[…]
On his Education Week blog, Marc Tucker argues that teachers should serve as the agents of education research, not just subjects of it. There is no argument about the need for research in the United States, but Tucker worries that most of it is done by academics not involved in the daily demands of teaching. Read more about Teachers as Researchers: Another Mark of Professionalism[…]