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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 – Reducing “Math Anxiety” in College Algebra Courses Including Comparisons with Elementary Statistics Courses.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The high levels of anxiety, apprehension, and apathy of students in college algebra courses caused the instructor to create and test a variety of math teaching techniques designed to boost student confidence and enthusiasm in the subject. Overall, this proposal covers several different techniques, which have been evaluated by both students and the instructor. The paper proposes a series of study techniques, which are covered on the first day of class and throughout the course. Armed with practical advice about approaching the algebra course, the students learn by example. The instructor uses examples, such as rules of cricket matches as a way to make the material come to life. Other suggested techniques are making chapter notes available to students, and providing example tests before final exams and… 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 – Eisenhower Pre-Service Teacher Education Project, Higher Education Consortium Region III. Final Report.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Eisenhower Pre-Service Teacher Education Project was developed by the University of Central Florida, the five community colleges in Region III of the Higher Education Consortium, and the private college and universities in the same region to design curriculum changes to improve the preparation of elementary and secondary math and science teachers. Faculty members at participating institutions developed projects designed to both improve the math and science content knowledge of pre-service teachers, as well as teaching methods in undergraduate math and science courses. Funded projects included the following: (1) the introduction of “hands-on” activities into college Astronomy and Oceanography courses; (2) the identification of potential K-12 pre-service teachers during their freshman and sophomore years to improve their math and science backgrounds; (3) the development of a field… 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 – A Survey of Student Perspectives toward Faculty Evaluations

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study was designed to help faculty and administrators weigh the value of using student ratings of professors’ teaching effectiveness and to determine factors that may affect those ratings. For this study, conducted at a Midwestern AACSB accredited School of Business, 163 students (23% of the business majors) were surveyed to determine their perceptions concerning student ratings of faculty. Although 100% of the students surveyed believed they were honest in their evaluations, only 33% of them believed other students were honest. International students tended to give higher evaluations in math-related classes than U.S. students. Students tended to give higher evaluations to professors who used humor and to professors they liked. They did not give higher evaluations to male professors or ones under 55 years of age. The… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – How Stable Are Value-Added Estimates across Years, Subjects and Student Groups? What We Know Series: Value-Added Methods and Applications. Knowledge Brief 3

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Value-added models measure teacher performance by the test score gains of their students, adjusted for a variety of factors such as the performance of students when they enter the class. The measures are based on desired student outcomes such as math and reading scores, but they have a number of potential drawbacks. One of them is the inconsistency in estimates for the same teacher when value added is measured in a different year, or for different subjects, or for different groups of students. Some of the differences in value added from year to year result from true differences in a teacher’s performance. Differences can also arise from classroom peer effects; the students themselves contribute to the quality of classroom life, and this contribution changes from year to… 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 – Partnerships for Reform: Changing Teacher Preparation through the Title II HEA Partnership Program. Final Report

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In 1998, Congress reauthorized and amended the “Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA)”, creating, under Title II, the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants Program for States and Partnerships. One initiative under this amendment, the partnership grants program, funded partnerships among colleges of education, schools of arts and sciences, and local school districts. Congress designed the partnership initiative as one of several pre-“No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)” efforts to support accountability for teacher preparation and to improve the work of teacher-preparation programs. It was anticipated that the collaboration among the partners would result in the successful implementation of reforms holding teacher-training programs accountable for producing high-quality teachers and providing sustained and quality preservice field experiences and professional development opportunities. This evaluation report focuses on the 25 grantees of… Continue Reading