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Eric.ed.gov – Race to the Top. New York. State-Reported APR: Year One

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper describes New York’s progress in implementing a comprehensive and coherent approach to education reform from the time of application through June 30, 2011. In particular, this report highlights key accomplishments over the reporting period in the four reform areas: standards and assessments, data systems to support instruction, great teachers and leaders, and turning around lowest-achieving schools. Highlights of this report include: (1) The State Board of Regents adopted the Common Core State Standards for Math and ELA; made progress in developing and disseminating CCSS implementation resources–including conducting a statewide webinar with David Coleman and creating the EngageNY.org microsite; completed the design of its very successful statewide Network Team Summer Institute for approximately 500 educators (August 2011); continued its active engagement as a governing state for… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Review of “Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude?”

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The research report reviewed here concludes that many initially high-achieving students are falling further and further behind over the course of their years in school. The report intends to raise the alarm and to advocate for improved programs for these students. It is, however, a false alarm due to biased methodology and misleading arguments. The report’s norm-referenced framework guarantees “losers” as well as “winners,” regardless of any true improvement made by the students. Also, the “regression to the mean” effect produces a false illusion of a tradeoff of over-progress by low achievers at the cost of under-progress for high achievers. Finally, its prescription for stronger school accountability for high-achieving students under NCLB does not follow research-based guidance on how to improve student learning. Other research, including that… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Race to the Top. Massachusetts Report. Year 4: School Year 2013-2014. [State-Specific Summary Report]

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Massachusetts’ annual Race to the Top implementation. The Year 4 report for Phase 2 grantees highlights successes and accomplishments, identifies challenges, and provides lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2013 through September 2014. In Year 4, Massachusetts continued to refine its use of the Delivery process to track project implementation within the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE), gather data on progress, and share updates with senior leadership. The State’s college- and career-readiness initiatives included multiple strategies for supporting educators in meeting the demands of new standards and raising standards for students. In school year (SY) 2013-2014, the State developed and made available a variety of instructional resources, standards-aligned assessments, and curriculum documents to support… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Hampshire Hundreds: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Hampshire Hundreds project was a local authority-led intervention which brought together lead teachers from Hampshire primary schools to provide them with evidence and support for effective teaching strategies to decrease the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils (aged 9-11) and their peers. The intervention involved a facilitator working with staff from a number of schools, and providing supporting materials comprising the “Hampshire Hundreds Handbook,” to provide good quality teaching and support to disadvantaged pupils. The evaluation was set up as a randomised control trial to test the impact of the Hampshire Hundreds intervention in comparison to a ‘business as usual’ control group, with the local authority leading the training and overseeing the provision of the intervention. As the intervention was run by the local authority it is… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – One Vision, Seven Strategies

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The “American Dream” is under duress as the economy slows, incomes stagnate, and upward mobility is more limited than at any time in recent history. Despite a steady increase in per-pupil spending on public schooling over the last decades, not enough students graduate with proficiency in reading and math. And despite some progress over the past decade, students living in poverty and who are African American or Hispanic, still lag far behind white students with more means. Yet not all schools are failing. There are many exemplary schools including urban schools that are succeeding despite high poverty rates, and growing numbers of district leaders taking courageous steps toward real and lasting improvement. To achieve the nation’s ambitious performance goals for all students, school-level change alone is not… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Race to the Top. Tennessee. State-Reported APR: Year One

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper describes Tennessee’s progress in implementing a comprehensive and coherent approach to education reform from the time of application through June 30, 2011. In particular, this report highlights key accomplishments over the reporting period in the four reform areas: standards and assessments, data systems to support instruction, great teachers and leaders, and turning around lowest-achieving schools. Tennessee’s application for Race to the Top laid out an ambitious education reform agenda at all levels–from the state to the school district to the classroom. The state established equally ambitious goals for improving both teacher and leader effectiveness and student achievement. In the first year of implementation of the Tennessee First to the Top initiatives, the state made modest gains towards achieving those goals. From 2010 to 2011, overall… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Measuring Student Success from a Developmental Mathematics Course at an Elite Public Institution

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper asks whether placement recommendations for a developmental math course at an elite public institution impact students’ future academic performance, course-taking, and college outcomes. Researchers use these specific outcomes to measure whether developmental courses help students develop the skills necessary to succeed in college, inspire them to take different courses, and help them graduate or persist in college. The study examines the ways in which instructor characteristics can drive these outcomes, and whether instruction at this university in a program for low-achieving students and particularly underprepared low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented minority students achieves its goal of reducing achievement gaps. This informs specific course and instructor policies to help underprepared students in their first semesters in college. The research setting is an elite public institution with a… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Promoting Effective Early Learning: What Every Policymaker and Educator Should Know

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Language and literacy skills are critical to success in school. For low-income preschoolers, increasing early literacy and math skills is vital to closing the achievement gap between them and their more advantaged peers. New research shows that an intentional curriculum and professional development and supports for teachers are important components of effective preschool classrooms and programs. A special focus on these strategies is important because many low-income children in early learning settings fall behind early and remain very much behind their peers in reading and math. This brief provides a blueprint for state and local policymakers, early learning administrators, teachers, families, community leaders, and researchers to use effective preschool curricula and teaching strategies to help low-income young children close the achievement gap in early literacy and math… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mathematics Mastery: Secondary Evaluation Report

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Mathematics Mastery programme is a whole-school approach to teaching mathematics that aims to raise attainment for all pupils and close the attainment gap between pupils from low income families and their peers. The programme aims to deepen pupils’ conceptual understanding of key mathematical concepts. This clustered Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) investigated whether implementing the Mathematics Mastery programme led to improvement in Year 7 pupils’ maths test scores. It was intended that schools would also begin to use the programme in Year 8 in the second year of implementation, and continue until the approach was in place across the school. 44 schools from London and the South East participated in the trial, with a total sample of 5,938 pupils. Participating schools received training and resources to support… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Analyzing Performance by Pennsylvania Grade 8 Hispanic Students on the 2007/08 State Assessment. REL Technical Brief. REL 2012-No. 025

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Between 2000 and 2009, the Hispanic population more than doubled in 25 of 67 Pennsylvania counties. Over the same period, the Hispanic student population in Pennsylvania schools also rose, from 4 percent to 8 percent (Pennsylvania State Data Center 2011). The focus on Hispanic students’ level of academic achievement rose along with this rapid population growth. Recent research reveals that, although the achievement gap between ethnic subgroups at the national level has been shrinking over the past five years, the gap remains wide (Aud et al. 2010). This is also the case and a matter of concern in Pennsylvania. Research has identified several student-level factors associated with academic achievement among ethnic minority students, including gender and socioeconomic status (Freeman 2004; McGraw, Lubienski, and Strutchens 2006; Pong 2010);… Continue Reading