Hot Topics in Education

A Coherent Approach to High School Improvement: A Needs Assessment Tool

This tool was also recently released by the National High School Center. Building off of the Center’s Eight Elements of High School Improvement: A Mapping Framework, this tool is designed to help districts and schools assess current high school education policies and practices, identify areas of strengths and limitations, and implement coherent and sustainable school reform initiatives.  Read More…

A New Diverse Majority: Students of Color in the South’s Public Schools

This study, released by the Southern Education Foundation, finds that for the first time in history children “of color” constitute a new diverse majority of those enrolled in the South’s public schools. This shift is largely due to a dramatic increase of Latinos, Asian Pacific Islanders, and other population groups in the region. Most students in this new majority are also low income. The South is home to 40 percent of the nation’s low income people and has among the lowest educational achievement and attainment levels in the nation. The report suggests that there will be catastrophic economic consequences if the education needs of the new majority are not met.  Read More…

Bringing School Reform to Scale: Five Award-Winning Urban Districts

It is great to see former colleague, Heather Zavadsky, publish this book that builds on her work with NCEA to analyze the Broad Foundation’s candidate districts for exceptional overall performance and improvement in student achievement and to help determine the eventual winners of the Broad Prize. The book describes the paths these districts have taken over years of intentional, sustained, patient focus on improving teaching and learning that fully aligns instructional practices across all organizational levels of a school system.  Read More…

Cages of Their Own Design: Five Strategies to Help Education Leaders Break Free

The American Enterprise Institute released this brief paper describing the perceived hurdles to education reform faced by superintendents and what can be done to overcome them. Key points include: 1) statutory and contractual hurdles to reform are often worsened by the culture of the K-12 environment; 2) school administrators are often unaware that they have the power to clear those hurdles; 3) and the crucial step in breakthrough leadership is shifting from a defensive to a change-agent mind-set. The paper offers five strategies that can help leaders, policymakers, and reformers break out of the cage of district design.  Read More…

College- and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success

The Education Sector released this policy brief on how to measure whether a student is college- and career-ready. Policy Analyst Chad Aldeman argues that the best way to measure whether students are prepared for college or a career is by looking at what actually happens when students arrive at their intended destination. The report suggests ways states can use existing data systems to create richer, more multi-dimensional measures of high school success.  Read More…

Connecting Policy and Data: What are Your State’s Critical Policy Question?

The Data Quality Campaign issued this publication to explore each state’s need to have a common P–20/workforce vision and to develop key policy questions to drive the development of state data systems. The paper is designed to help states as they seek to meet the Recovery Act (ARRA) requirements for following individuals through the P–20 pipeline and into the workforce by 2011. State progress would be expedited by using the framework in the paper to guide the development and implementation of their cross-agency data sharing efforts. The key points include: defining a common state vision for the system; clarify privacy laws to ensure that personally identifiable information is protected and data can be shared across agencies; and develop common data standards to facilitate interoperability of systems. It also provides a set of resources (appendices) to help states begin this task.  Read More…

Education Research: Past, Present, and Future

This paper from WestEd by Grover (Russ) Whitehurst, former Director of the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, describes the historical challenges and opportunities for the Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs). Created in 1966, the RELs were originally designed to be the brokers and translators of education research to practice and policy. However, according to Whitehurst, they could not fulfill that role absent a strong research base, effective mechanisms for quality control of their products, and an activist stance by the federal government in education reform.  Read More…

Focusing on the Essentials for College and Career Readiness

This policy brief highlights findings of the ACT National Curriculum Survey 2009 that are particularly relevant to current education policy efforts. Key findings of the survey are highlighted, followed by the implications of these findings for education policy and practice. The final section of the policy brief presents action steps suggested by the findings and implications. The ACT National Curriculum Survey, conducted every 3 to 5 years, collects data about what entering college students should know and be able to do to be ready for college-level coursework.  Read More…

Gauging the Gaps: A Deeper Look at Student Achievement

The Education Trust released this new report that reveals the pitfalls of measuring achievement gaps just one way. It lists four measures to more accurately assess gaps: simple gap narrowing, progress for all, gap size, and group comparisons across jurisdictions. For instance, comparing the performance of the same group of students across jurisdictions can reveal striking differences in performance. The report suggests that Florida stands near the top of all states -- along with Delaware, Massachusetts and Texas -- in making the most progress in closing the achievement gap among races.  Read More…

Head Start Impact Study Final Report, 2010

This congressionally-mandated study on the impact of the 2002-2003 Head Start program was submitted to Congress by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on January 13, 2010. The study measured the cognitive and social/emotional development, health status and behavior of approximately five thousand 3 and 4 year olds who were randomly assigned to either a control group or a group that had access to a Head Start program. A key finding of the study indicates that participation in Head Start has positive effects on children's learning while they are in the program, but most of the advantages they gain disappear by the end of 1st grade.  Read More…

Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2009

This fifth annual report published by the National Charter School Research Project (NCSRP) at the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education, contains several positive indicators about charter schools’ ability to improve public education. The report suggests a steady appeal for charter schools continued in 2009, especially from low-income and minority parents. It finds that school culture must exude an urgency that communicates that the work is important, a tight alignment of lesson content with state curriculum, and frequent formative assessments that mirror high-stakes test conditions and items.  Read More…

Inaugural Overview of States’ Actions To Leverage Data To Improve Student Success

According to the Data Quality Campaign’s annual survey of states, the states have made remarkable progress in developing longitudinal data systems that can follow student progress over time, from early childhood through 12th grade and into postsecondary education through implementation of the 10 Essential Elements. The 10 State Actions are the fundamental steps states must put in place to change the culture around how data are used to inform decisions to improve system and student performance. Forty-three states have taken three or fewer of the actions, which call for states to expand their data systems to include higher education and workforce information; ensure that the data can be accessed, analyzed and used; and build the capacity of stakeholders to use the data.  Read More…

Managing for Results in America’s Great City Schools

This paper by Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools was presented at a Thomas B Fordham Institute forum on how schools and districts can tighten their belts in the current economy while serving students better. The day-long session featured many papers that offer several suggestions, including taking a hard look at personnel decisions, converting what districts spend into a per-unit cost to better track expenditures, and making business decisions based on data.  Read More…

New York City's Strategy for Improving High Schools: An Overview

The Alliance for Excellent Education held a forum with Chancellor Joel Kline to feature the findings in this paper. The analysis describes how New York City leaders have prioritized redesigning high schools and improving outcomes as part of a districtwide reform effort. This brief describes the theory of action underlying the efforts of the New York City Department of Education and some of the specific strategies it has employed to improve high schools.  Read More…

Quality Counts 2010: Fresh Course, Swift Current

This annual report by Education Week and Editorial Projects in Education Research Center is a comprehensive assessment of the state of American education, evaluating the nation, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia across six areas of policy and performance. The special theme of this year's edition examines the national debate over common academic standards. Through a combination of journalism and analysis, the report investigates the challenges that current initiatives pose for administrators, educators, and state and local officials.  Read More…

Retaining Teacher Talent: Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers’ Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas

This joint survey report from Learning Point Associates and Public Agenda found that the most popular indicator of instructional effectiveness among classroom educators is student engagement in coursework, with 92 percent of public school teachers surveyed rating it as a “good” or “excellent” measure. The report looks at how instructional effectiveness should be measured, as well as how it could be improved, and the findings are not well-aligned with current education policy initiatives. The most popular indicator of instructional effectiveness among classroom educators is student engagement in coursework (92% of teachers). Only 56 percent of teachers rated student performance on standardized tests as a good or excellent teacher-effectiveness indicator.  Read More…

Science and Engineering Indicators, 2010

The National Science Board published this report which suggests that the U.S. position of influence in these fields is slipping as other nations make long-term investments to boost higher education access and quality. The report brings together some major developments in international and U.S. science, technology, engineering, and math fields and provides a close look at emerging trends. The U.S. standing among selected nations dropped below its 2000 rank in both math and science. One chapter is specifically devoted to elementary and secondary mathematics and science education.  Read More…

The Economic Benefits from Halving the Dropout Rate: A Boom to Businesses in the Nation’s Largest Metropolitan Areas

The Alliance for Excellent Education released this report calling it a “game-changing” analysis of the economic costs of high school dropouts. It calculates the costs of a single-year’s cohort of dropouts to each of 40 U.S. cities using local economic data, and calculates the economic assets that would accrue to each locality if they could cut the dropout rate in half.  Read More…

The Educational Crisis Facing Young Men of Color

In this report, the College Board gathered the insights and experiences of 60 scholars, practitioners, and activists from minority communities and addressed the education needs of minority males. Experts found that destructive pressures undermine the educational aspirations of minority males, and they identify promising programs to accelerate achievement. The report highlights some of the challenges among minority students, including a lack of role models, search for respect outside of education, loss of cultural memory, poverty challenges, language barriers, community pressures, and a sense of a failing education system.   Read More…

The High Cost of Low Educational Performance

This report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) uses recent economic modeling to relate cognitive skills – as measured by PISA and other international instruments – to economic growth, demonstrating that relatively small improvements to labor force skills can largely impact the future well-being of a nation. The report also shows that it is the quality of learning outcomes, not the length of schooling, which makes the difference.  Read More…

Use of Education Data at The Local Level

This report was released yesterday by the Department of Education. Researchers surveyed officials from 529 districts, conducted site visits to 36 schools in 12 innovative districts, and analyzed data from a survey of 6,000 teachers nationwide. Key theme: most districts are looking for a way to link their multiple data systems. Over 60 percent of districts reported that lack of interoperability across data systems was a current barrier to expanded use of data-driven decision-making.  Read More…

Using the Right Data to Determine if High School Interventions Are Working to Prepare Students for College and Careers

The National High School Center released a new report to guide educators in collecting and analyzing valuable student achievement data that can help them determine if and how high school interventions for underprepared students are working to effectively prepare them for college and careers. Authored by our own Chrys Dougherty at the National Center for Educational Achievement, (NCEA is a partner in the National High School Center), the report discusses research on the relationship between students' academic preparation gaps in eighth grade and their likelihood of achieving college- and career-readiness by the end of high school. It also explores the datasets that state and local education agencies can create as a way to evaluate the benefits of interventions for students at varying achievement levels, and provides direction for high schools and districts once they obtain student data.  Read More…

Who Are America’s Poor Children: The Official Story

This new report from the National Center for Children in Poverty indicates 19% of children live in families that are officially poor and 8% of children live in extreme poverty; and nationwide 13 million US children live in poverty. Findings also show the impact quality education can provide in closing the achievement gap between students at opposite ends of the income spectrum.  Read More…