eric.ed.gov har udgivet: President Obama and congressional leaders have vowed to take action this year on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), most recently reauthorized and rebranded as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. While most observers remain skeptical that everyone will actually see a signing ceremony in 2011, it does appear likely that at least one house of Congress will produce a bill. In this “briefing book,” the authors identify the ten key issues that policymakers must resolve in order to get reauthorization across the finish line, and explore the major options under consideration for each one. The ten issues–which fall under the areas of standards and assessments, accountability, teacher quality, and flexibility and innovation–are these: (1) College and career readiness–Should states be required to adopt… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the size of high schools, their percentage of SED (socio-economic disadvantaged) students, and API (academic performance index) scores in California, and determine if teacher preparation is a contributing factor. The 2010 API scores and median income of all 52 counties, and the 2010 API scores and % SED of 1,089 high schools were tabulated and graphed to determine the strength of the correlation between the two different sets of data. Also, the percent proficient levels (in English) for all high school students by grade (9-11) and by socio-economic status from 2003 to 2010 were compared. Lastly, the number and percent of English and math teachers with the proper credentials are presented for analysis. Results indicate there… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Recently, the Department of Teacher Education and the Liberal Studies Program in the School of Education at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) collaborated in developing a Blended Liberal Studies/Teacher Education Program (BLTEP) for upper division transfer students interested in completing an elementary credential. The BLTEP curriculum blends the regular Liberal Studies Program with the elementary credential program. Students take both subject matter and pedagogy courses concurrently, as well as a set of blended content and pedagogy courses in science, social science, and mathematics. This article details the curriculum development process of the blended mathematics course, “LBS 360 Math Content and Methods.” The content in this course combines the study of real numbers and problem solving with pedagogy for teaching math content to elementary-aged students. The blending… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Education researchers and policymakers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data set from North Carolina to explore a range of questions related to the relationship between teacher characteristics and credentials on the one hand and student achievement on the other. Though the basic questions underlying this research are not new–and, indeed, have been explored in many papers over the years within the rubric of the “education production function”–the availability of data on all teachers and students in North Carolina over a ten-year period allows us to explore them in more… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Massachusetts is one of a handful of states that is often recognized as a leader in public education, and for good reason. The Commonwealth consistently outperforms most states on national reading and math tests and often leads the pack in education innovations. “Starting Young: Massachusetts Birth-3rd Grade Policies that Support Children’s Literacy Development,” a report from the Early & Elementary Education Policy team at New America, examines state policies and local initiatives that aim to give children a strong start and offers recommendations to help ensure more students are moving up the learning staircase. Massachusetts has taken important steps, but to have a larger sustainable impact on children’s literacy development, more is needed. The report also provides a list of interviews and notes. Link til kilde
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Over 2000 teachers in the state of Washington received reduction-in-force (RIF) notices in the past two years. The authors link data on these RIF notices to a unique dataset that includes student, teacher, school, and district variables to determine the factors that predict the likelihood of a teacher receiving a RIF notice. They find a teacher’s seniority is the greatest predictor, but (all else equal) teachers with a master’s degree and teachers credentialed in the “high-needs areas” of math, science, and special education were less likely to receive a RIF notice. Value-added measures of teacher effectiveness can be calculated for a subset of the teachers and these show no relationship between effectiveness and the likelihood of receiving a RIF notice. Finally, simulations suggest that a very different… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Given the challenges facing American public education today, identifying effective teachers is a more vital task than ever before. In the U.S. public school system today, the method used to determine teacher effectiveness–and thus to drive salary, promotion, and tenure decisions–is based on a few external credentials: certification, advanced degrees, and years of experience in the classroom. Yet according to a new analysis of student performance in Florida that two colleagues and the author conducted, little to no relationship exists between these credentials and the gains that a teacher’s students make on standardized math and reading exams. The expansive study included all test-taking public elementary school students in the state of Florida over a period of four years. This study, to be published in the peer-reviewed journal… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In today’s fast-moving and interconnected world, high school and college graduates must be able to think critically and generate creative solutions to address complex problems. With the world producing new knowledge at an exponential rate, we cannot anticipate what all these future challenges will be. Without a doubt, they will impact a society that is more diverse and complex than ever before. This is especially true in California, where the majority of the population is non-White and increasingly low income, and almost half of its residents speak a language other than English at home. Young people–particularly those who are Black, Latino, multilingual, or who grow up in under-resourced communities–must play a central role in addressing California’s social, economic, and environmental challenges. It is particularly urgent that California’s… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In light of the strong correlation between Kindergarten performance and later cognitive and achievement outcomes, this paper investigates the link between student achievement and the educational background characteristics of Kindergarten teachers. This study will utilize the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally representative dataset, in order to address the following questions: (1) Does a teacher having a master’s degree or higher have a positive effect on student achievement gains in reading and math in kindergarten compared to teachers with only a bachelor’s degree?; (2) Are there effects of teacher coursework in reading, math, and child development on student achievement gains in kindergarten? If so, do impacts of coursework on reading and math scores vary by number of courses taken?; and (3) Do regular and… Continue Reading →
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