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Eric.ed.gov – Implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act: Toward a Coherent, Aligned Assessment System

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation’s major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that states ensure those tests align with states’ college- and career-ready standards. However, the law makes significant changes to the role of tests in state education systems. For example, ESSA requires states to include a broader set of factors in school accountability systems rather than just test scores; provides funding for states and districts to audit and streamline their testing regimes; and allows states to cap the amount of instructional time… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Promising Practices in Professional Growth & Support: “Case Study of Agile Mind”

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Four organizations with promising practices in teacher Professional Growth & Support have significantly raised outcomes for low-income students. The charter management networks, Achievement First and Aspire Public Schools, and the two reform organizations, Teach Plus and Agile Mind, have successfully increased student achievement with a sustained focus on teaching effectiveness and capacity. As these organizations respond to the challenges of Common Core standards, invest heavily in teaching capacity through teacher leadership and collaborative planning time, and capitalize on assessment and evaluation data and technology, they exemplify best practices in Professional Growth & Support. They also reinforce what Education Resource Strategies (ERS) terms the Eight Principles of a Strategic Professional Growth & Support System which are presented here. The eight principles summarize ERS research and work with partner… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Assessing Academic Rigor in Mathematics Instruction: The Development of the Instructional Quality Assessment Toolkit. CSE Technical Report 672

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The development of an assessment tool to measure the quality of instruction is necessary to provide an informative accountability system in education. Such a tool should be capable of characterizing the quality of teaching and learning that occurs in actual classrooms, schools, or districts. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of the Academic Rigor in Mathematics (AR-Math) rubrics of the Instructional Quality Assessment Toolkit and to share the findings from a small pilot study conducted in the Spring of 2003. The study described in this paper examined the instructional quality of mathematics programs in elementary classrooms in two urban school districts. The study assessed the reliability of the AR-Math rubrics, the ability of the AR-Math rubrics to distinguish important difference between districts, the… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – States’ Perspectives on Waivers: Relief from NCLB, Concern about Long-Term Solutions

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: On February 9, 2012, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan granted 10 states waivers of key accountability requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. One year later, applications for this ESEA flexibility, also known as NCLB waivers, had been approved for an additional 24 states and the District of Columbia. States that receive waivers have the flexibility to depart from some of NCLB’s most significant requirements, such as judging school performance against a goal of 100% of students reaching reading and math “proficiency” by 2014 and implementing specific interventions in schools that fall short of performance targets. States with approved waiver applications must meet several new requirements, described below, that relate to standards and assessments,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Readiness Matters! 2014-2015 Kindergarten Readiness Assessment

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Maryland’s demanding new Kindergarten Readiness Assessment was administered statewide for the first time. Its results are revealing and sobering. Many states do not even check in any systematic way on their children’s readiness for kindergarten, and in previous years, Maryland used metrics based on modest expectations, outdated standards, and feel-good politics. With the leadership of State Superintendent Lillian Lowery and Assistant Superintendent Rolf Grafwallner, Maryland has brought a new sense of reality to the skills that five-year-olds should possess if they are truly prepared to succeed in kindergarten and the early grades. These span four domains, two of them cognitive (language, math), plus physical well-being (motor development, hygiene, etc.) and what they term “social foundations” (self-control, for example). The assessment is individually administered by kindergarten teachers and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The OECD, PISA and the Impacts on Educational Policy

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Large-scale assessment regularly takes place in most jurisdictions across Canada, a fact not lost on the Fraser Institute and other right wing think tanks such as AIMS (Atlantic Institute for Market Studies) which use the test results as the primary basis for compiling school rankings at both the elementary and secondary level (see Gutstein, 2010). The frequency of external testing at different levels (provincial/territorial, national, international)–coupled with the high visibility accorded by the mainstream media to the results, usually in the form of league tables, and the imperatives of short term political mandates–have all contributed to a focus on improving one’s position within the list of rankings, as well as to a narrow focus on the tested subjects–math, science, reading. In this era of accountability-by-numbers, the elevated… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Beyond the Basics: Achieving a Liberal Education for All Children

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Citing Aristotle, Franklin and Einstein as proponents of a broad, liberal-arts education, Finn and Ravitch promote the need for liberal learning as preparatory to the civic life needed for a well-functioning democracy. Drawing together the work of a number of educators, the editors have organized this volume in two sections. Part I, Liberal Learning: Its Value and Future, includes three papers that advocate both for liberal learning, and for a common curriculum. Part II, Restoring Liberal Art to the K-12 Curriculum, features eleven explorations of how to expand liberal learning by improving accountability systems, teacher training and education delivery. Maintaining that their support of liberal learning is well-documented, the editors conclude the volume by noting four opposing trends: (1) Gradual extinction of liberal learning in higher education;… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Michigan No Child Left Behind Waiver Analysis

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The U.S. Department of Education has given Michigan a rare opportunity to devise new educational systems that better serve our state’s students, families and educators. In return, Washington has agreed to waive some provisions of No Child Left Behind. For instance, states will no longer have to ensure that all students are proficient in reading and math by 2014, so long as they adopt more rigorous academic standards and a meaningful system to support schools while holding them accountable. The consequences of the waiver are high. Michigan’s approved waiver request will impact: (1) How well Michigan’s teachers are able to prepare students to meet new academic standards; (2) The helpfulness and reliability of information the state will provide to parents, students and educators on how well their… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Biennial Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Title III State Formula Grant Program: School Years 2008-10

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This is the fourth biennial report to Congress on the implementation of the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s” Title III State Formula Grant Program (also known as the English Language Acquisition State Grants Program). This report provides information reported by states to the U.S. Department of Education regarding services provided for children served under Title III to ensure that all limited English proficient (LEP) students attain English proficiency and are achieving in reading or language arts and in mathematics at the same high level set by the states for all students. Under the State Formula Grant Program, states also are accountable for the education of immigrant children and youth. In this report, the U.S. Department of Education presents data reported by the 50 states, the District of… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Innovation America: A Compact for Postsecondary Education

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: American postsecondary education is a diverse collection of public and private institutions, ranging from community and technical colleges to comprehensive and research universities. These institutions are an invaluable resource to states and to the nation — they educate many of the talented people who work in our industries, businesses, and civic sectors, and they are the places where much of the research and development that benefits this country is conducted. While postsecondary education in the United States has already achieved key successes in the innovation economy, the public postsecondary education system overall risks falling behind its counterparts in many other nations around the world — places where there have been massive efforts to link postsecondary education to the specific innovation needs of industries and regions. This paper… Continue Reading