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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 – The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and Its Implications for Student Achievement in High-Poverty Schools. Working Paper 10

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Studies have found substantial sorting of teachers across schools, with the schools with the highest proportions of poor, non-white, and low-scoring students having the least qualified teachers as measured by certification, exam performance, and inexperience (Lankford, Loeb and Wyckoff, 2002). Yet, there have been substantial changes in the educational policy landscape over the past five years. New laws, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), have changed requirements for teachers. Assessment-based accountability policies at the state-level have created standards and increased oversight of schools, especially those with low-achieving students. New routes into teaching, many with fewer requirements before teaching, have changed the cost for individuals to enter the teaching profession. These changes have affected teacher labor markets profoundly. In this paper the authors examine… 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 – 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 – Educators Challenging Poverty and Latino Low Achievement: Extending and Enriching the School Day

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Latino students, as children of historically underachieving populations, often have their academic success in jeopardy. For many schools, after-school programs complement the regular school day, with more than half of the 49,700 U.S. elementary schools having one or more on-site programs. Such programs vary in intent, purposes, and resources and typically emphasize remediation rather than developing interests or competencies in curricular areas beyond language arts and math. This qualitative case study explores the practices of one dual language elementary school in a high poverty Latino community and its academic/enrichment extended day program. Wenger’s (1998) community of practice framework captures the mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire of practices tightly woven between the regular school day’s classroom teachers and the after-school instructional assistants. This investigation provides insight… 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 – Teacher Retention at Low-Performing Schools. Using the Evidence

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In 2004-2005, North Carolina’s average teacher turnover rate was nearly 13 percent, ranging from a high of 29 percent to a low of 4 percent. Turnover among teachers in low-performing schools was substantially higher, with a low of 12 percent and a high of 57 percent. North Carolina has put strategies in place to address teacher retention but how will these strategies impact retention at low-performing schools? This research update summarizes three studies that address issues related to teacher retention. One study examined North Carolina’s use of an annual bonus to certified math, science and special education teachers working in high poverty or academically failing public secondary schools. The study found that: (1) The bonus payment was sufficient to reduce mean turnover rates of the targeted teachers… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Project LIFT: Year Two Report

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Research for Action (RFA) has completed its second year of a five-year external evaluation of the Project Leadership and Investment for Transformation (LIFT) Initiative in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District (CMS). Project LIFT is a public-private partnership between CMS and the local philanthropic and business communities in Charlotte, designed to turn around nine schools in the West Charlotte Corridor. Starting in the 2012-13 school year, Project LIFT operates as a semi-autonomous Learning Community within CMS, providing the initiative with CMS infrastructural support and access to an initial $55 Million investment of private resources to drive a multifaceted reform effort in Charlotte’s highest poverty schools. Project LIFT’s long-term goals are to significantly improve student achievement in the following ways: 1) 90% of students will achieve proficiency in math and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) Shrinks Gap in Kindergarten Readiness for Economically Disadvantaged Students

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: One important reason early childhood education contributes to the overall success of students in the K-12 system is that it helps students start kindergarten better prepared. Every kindergartener entering a public school in Arkansas is given the Qualls Early Learning Inventory (QELI). This is a developmentally appropriate assessment that observes known cognitive knowledge and classroom behaviors that are linked to success in school. It also provides a snapshot of how prepared students are entering kindergarten. The QELI has six areas of assessment: General Knowledge, Oral Communication, Written Language, Math Concepts, Work Habits, and Attentive Behaviors. Through a series of observations and questions, teachers determine if the student is Not Developed, Developing, or Developed in each of the six areas. QELI scores for 130,583 students from 2008-2012 were… Continue Reading