There’s lots of talk about getting more teacher voices into public discussions about education. As there should be. What we don’t talk about as often, however, is this: Just because someone puts a microphone in front of you doesn’t mean you’re ready to represent your profession – or even yourself – in a public forum. Read more about How to Make the Most of an Opportunity for Teacher Voice[…]
Learning Forward and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) recently released a white paper on the role that teacher agency plays in creating successful professional learning opportunities. The white paper, Moving from Compliance to Agency: What Teachers Need to Make Professional Learning Work, defines teacher agency as “the capacity of teachers to Read more about What Teachers Need to Make Professional Learning Work[…]
A recent survey by the Association of American Educators asked its members about how they felt about education reform. The survey asked its members about current issues in education including School Choice, Virtual Education and Technology, Testing and Assessments, Teacher Preparation and Leadership, and the 2016 Presidential Election. The results were surprising: The organization’s 2016 Read more about Teachers Speak Out on Education Reform and Use of Technology[…]
Policy implementation is perhaps the most difficult element of education reform. But what if policy development and implementation were flipped? What if policy design began with an implementation perspective? In a blog post in Education Week, Jal Mehta explores this concept: The idea of Human-Centered Systems Design is that if we want to design policies Read more about The Case for Human-Centered Systems Design[…]
Many states are developing or implementing teacher evaluation systems that include feedback to teachers as one part of the evaluation process. Do teachers find the feedback they receive to be useful and high quality? Regional Educational Laboratory Central has created an easy-to-use survey toolkit to help administrators answer this question in their state or district. Read more about Surveying Teachers about Evaluator Feedback[…]
The National Council of Education Statistics (NCES) has released Public School Teacher Autonomy in the Classroom Across School Years 2003–04, 2007–08, and 2011–12. This report traces the feelings of public school educators when it comes to their own autonomy in the classroom. According to the report brief, larger percentages of teachers perceived low autonomy in 2007-08 Read more about NCES Releases Statistics in Brief on Public School Teacher Autonomy in the Classroom[…]
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[…]
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[…]
Anyone following education policy over the past several years has most likely read a headline along the lines of this: “Disgruntled New Teachers Leave the Profession in Droves.” Despite such recent education policy stories, the picture since 2007 has been decidedly rosier: Fully 70 percent of beginning teachers stay in the profession for at least Read more about Despite Reports to the Contrary, New Teachers Are Staying in Their Jobs Longer[…]
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[…]
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[…]
Linda Darling-Hammond sees the recent PISA and TALIS results as a strong indictment of the direction of American education over the last two decades. Her answer, as she explains in an article for the Huffington Post Education, is to focus on teachers. Below is an excerpt from the article: For years now, educators have looked Read more about To Close the Achievement Gap, We Need to Close the Teaching Gap[…]
A new poll by Education Next finds that the Common Core State Standards may have an image problem. The poll finds that the public likes the idea of shared standards – so long as the question doesn’t mention the phrase “Common Core.” Even Republicans, who express the most antipathy to the Common Core brand, overwhelmingly Read more about Education Next Poll Results[…]
An often-cited educational utopia is Finland, but even there, a new study finds, only 58.6% of teachers said they felt properly appreciated. The new study is from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and is entitled the “Teaching and Learning International Survey”. It questioned more than 100,000 lower secondary school teachers and about 6,500 Read more about Teachers feel satisfied yet underappreciated[…]
Nearly 90 percent of lower secondary teachers in the U.S. are happy with their job, but only 34 percent think society values their work. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development‘s Teaching and Learning International Survey features results from the U.S. for the first time. The survey asks educators in 34 countries about various factors Read more about A Global Look at Teaching and Learning[…]
A new comprehensive research study, first available from the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, argues that No Child Left Behind has not damaged teachers’ opinion of their profession, as many might have expected. In fact, according to Vanderbilt professor Jason A. Grissom, “Over the time spanning the implementation of No Child Left Behind, the Read more about Teachers Happier with NCLB Than Many Would Think[…]