Hot Topics in Education
As an extension of our research advocacy, each month NCEA gathers and shares the latest research and data from across the country on issues affecting K-12 students on the path to college and career readiness (CCR). To examine Hot Topics resources organized by NCEA focus area, use navigation keys provided to the right on this page.
January 2010 Archive
Answering Questions About What Works in Improving Low-Performing Schools and Districts
This brief review from the Education Commission of the States summarizes research studies addressing school improvement. The review addresses the question of whether accountability mechanisms drive school improvement. Read More…
Beyond Standardized Tests: Investing in a Culture of Learning
This background paper was released by the Forum for Education and Democracy at a Capitol Hill briefing honoring the work of educator, and Forum Founder, Ted Sizer. The broad argument of the paper is that for children to learn the knowledge and skills they need for the 21st century, systems must be developed that enable educators and schools to become healthy, high-functioning learning environments that prepare all children to be life-long learners as well as productive and engaged citizens. The paper reiterates older stereotypes about standardized testing. Read More…
Common Standards: The Time is Now
This issue brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education says that the state-led common standards movement, which will raise expectations for all students no matter where they live, is sorely needed. The brief notes that states vary widely in the expectations to which they hold their students--a situation that is especially harmful to low-income and minority students. It outlines the need for common standards that are rigorous, clear, and focused and suggests ways that common standards will help lay the foundation for a stronger education system that will prepare all students for college and careers. Read More…
Defining a 21st Century Education
This report from the Center for Public Education, authored by Craig Jerald, describes the corporate, economic, political, cultural and demographic trends that have put U.S. students at a disadvantage, and explains how teachers can adapt what they already teach, the content knowledge and literary and math skills that everyone needs, to help students think critically, collaborate with others, solve new problems and adapt to change. It was released a few months ago, but continues to have impact on this topic. Read More…
Education Reform Starts Early: Lessons from New Jersey’s Pre-K 3rd Reform Efforts
This report from the New America Foundation seeks to describe how New Jersey became a national leader in early education and PreK-3rd student literacy, identify its successes and challenges, draw lessons from its experience for policymakers in other states and nationally, and provide recommendations for New Jersey policymakers to translate progress to date into sustained, large scale learning gains. Read More…
How Does Full-Day Kindergarten Affect Student Achievement
This resource, prepared by WestEd, reviews research in the last decade that examined the impact of full-day kindergarten, as compared with half-day programs, on student achievement in reading and mathematics. Read More…
This report was released by the Center on Education Policy to synthesize findings from five years of state-level research and local case studies of school restructuring. The research covered six states, California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New York, and Ohio as well as 23 districts and 48 schools in the six states. More than 260 state officials, local administrators, teachers, and other school staff were interviewed for the studies. The report concludes with recommendations for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Read More…
Linking Secondary and Postsecondary Systems – Lessons from Indiana
This issue brief from the American Youth Policy Forum spotlights policies and practices that improve college and career readiness by strengthening the transition from high school to postsecondary education. This issue brief frames the overall issue of linking the secondary and postsecondary systems and describes the elements of success in Indiana including cross-system collaboration to align high school education with skills and knowledge needed at the postsecondary level and in the workplace; use of acceleration mechanisms and other academic strategies to bridge the educational systems; innovative approaches for teacher preparation and professional development; and the state's ongoing efforts to develop a data system linking K-12, higher education, and the labor market. Read More…
This issue brief from Learning Point Associates provides a useful scan of publicly available measures particularly intended to evaluate principal performance. The brief evaluates instruments used for hiring, performance assessment, and tenure decisions. Among other findings, the brief suggests that although there is considerable interest in school principal quality and accountability, few principal performance assessments have been rigorously developed or make details of psychometric testing available for public review. Read More…
This report from MDRC offers lessons to policymakers and administrators on program design, management and staffing, and professional development issues that arose during the Foundations of Learning program implementation in Newark, NJ. In order to enhance the quality of preschool programs, the Foundations of Learning program promoted emotionally positive, behaviorally supportive classrooms by providing teachers with intensive in-class training and support, as well as one-on-one clinical services for children who needed extra attention. Read More…
School Improvement by Design: Lessons from a Study of Comprehensive School Reform Programs
This study by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) attempts to figure out why such comprehensive or school-wide programs have succeeded or failed. At the time the study got under way, "comprehensive school reform" was the promising intervention in schools. While the school improvement discussion under the Obama administration is focused on other approaches, the study's lessons apply to any kind of "design-based" intervention for schools, the authors say. Read More…
The End of the Education Debate
This editorialized article by Chester Finn, Jr. of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation argues that the education-reform debate is creaking to a halt. No new way of thinking has emerged to displace the current wave of reform (¬standards, testing, and choice), and the conceptual framework built around them, but these approaches are proving ineffective. The ideas are not powerful enough to force the infrastructure of American primary and secondary education to undergo meaningful change. They have failed at bringing about the most important goal: dramatically improved student achievement. The author offers a new direction. Read More…
The Nation's Report Card: Trial Urban District Assessment Mathematics 2009
The National Center for Education Statistics released the 2009 mathematics results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ Trial Urban Districts on December 8. Fourth and 8th graders in the country’s large cities have made progress in math over the past two years as measured by the test, but the performance in several urban areas was stagnant—and in some cases, lagged behind that of other districts by vast margins. Just two of those districts made statistically significant gains during the past two years in grade 4: Boston and the District of Columbia. In grade 8, only Austin, Texas, and San Diego made statistically relevant gains. Scores among the other cities were flat statistically. Read More…
The Center for American Progress and College Summit collaborated on this report about helping high schools learn in a systematic, methodical way how their graduates are doing, whether in four-year colleges, two-year colleges, vocational programs, or apprenticeships. The report provides recommendations for helping high schools use data to track their graduates and make decisions to help their current students. Read More…
Tracking an Emerging Movement: A Report on Expanded-Time Schools in America
The National Center on Time & Learning released this report documenting the state of expanded-time schools in America. The report draws from a database of 655 schools that have broken from the conventional school calendar in order to improve educational outcomes across 36 states serving more than 300,000 students. The report analyzes the schools’ key characteristics, as well as survey data on a subset of 245 schools on how the added time is utilized and funded. The database and report represent the broadest attempt so far to define and describe this growing and much watched field. Read More…
Tracking and Detracking: High Achievers in Massachusetts Middle Schools
In this new Thomas B. Fordham Institute report, Brookings scholar Tom Loveless examines tracking and detracking in Massachusetts middle schools, with particular focus on changes that have occurred over time and their implications for high-achieving students. Among the report's key findings: detracked schools have fewer advanced students in mathematics than tracked schools. Read More…
This policy brief from the Education and the Public Interest Center under the University of Colorado at Boulder’s school of education examines the benefits of moving toward heterogeneous grouping of students. Unlike the Fordham study above, this brief finds that "detracking" classes can benefit higher-achieving students. For many years, education researchers have documented the negative effects of curricular stratification -- the practice of grouping students into different classes by perceived ability. This brief argues that the primary research focus is shifting toward implementing reforms -- moving toward heterogeneous grouping. Learning from schools that have abolished curricular stratification and promoted outstanding student achievement, this brief highlights lessons and offers recommendations for changing policy and practice. Read More…
What Makes an Effective Principal? The Characteristics and Skills of Quality School Leaders
This working paper was produced for the Urban Institute’s Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). Two key findings emerge: (1) principals become more effective as they acquire more experience overall and, in particular, as they acquire more experience at a particular school; (2) effective principals are able to attract and retain quality teachers. The evidence suggests high value-added principals are associated with higher turnover among less effective teachers and lower turnover among more effective teachers. Moreover, high value-added principals are not only able to retain effective teachers but are also able to recruit them from other schools. Read More…
This report from the Consortium on Chicago School Research and the National High School Center indicates that freshman year course performance—more than background characteristics such as race, gender, socioeconomic status or prior achievement—predicts which students with disabilities are most at risk for dropping out of high school. The report found that absences, course failures, course credits and GPA can all be used to accurately predict whether ninth-graders with disabilities will graduate from high school. Read More…
This detailed study from the National Bureau of Economic Research identifies the bulk of the decline on the change in the types of institutions students are attending. The study suggests that the shift of a greater proportion of first-time college students to community colleges and non-flagship publics, as well as the declining per-student resources of those institutions, have driven down completion rates. Higher education officials often attribute the last few decades' decline in the college completion rate on high schools, arguing that students are inadequately prepared as freshmen. Read More…