The 2013 merger of Memphis City Schools (with 103,000 students) and Shelby County Schools (with 47,000 students) was the largest school district consolidation in American history. In its first year of operation, the new Shelby County Schools (SCS) commissioned CRPE researchers to perform a critical review of the district's readiness to implement a portfolio strategy for managing its schools. Based on interviews with internal and external stakeholders and analysis against model system progress, this report outlines CRPE's baseline measurement of where SCS stands in relation to the seven main components of the portfolio strategy. The report also provides suggestions for how SCS can seek progress over the next year, and track progress or decline at future intervals.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Southern)-Tennessee-Shelby County
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
Low rates of access and success in post-secondary education are arguably the single biggest challenge facing South Africa's public education system. The sustem is failing to meet the educational needs of young people, a growing economy, and a rapidly changing society. Black students, particularly those from poor backgrounds are deeply affected. Senior managers, 30 in all, at 18 of the country's 23 public universities were interviewed to understand issues such as primary academic interventions designed to support and improve student success. The authors conclude that no single intervention is likely to shift student performance and success. The answer, however, will require "understanding the holistic needs of students." The authors also feel it is crucial that the imporatnce of teaching and learning - as well as research- be understood.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: Africa (Southern) / South Africa
Until recently, teacher quality was largely seen as a constant among education's sea of variables. Policy efforts to increase teacher quality emphasized the field as a whole instead of the individual: for instance, increased regulation, additional credentials, or a profession modeled after medicine and law. Even as research emerged showing how the quality of each classroom teacher was crucial to student achievement, much of the debate in American public education focused on everything except teacher quality. School systems treated one teacher much like any other, as long as they
had the right credentials. Policy, too, treated teachers as if they were interchangeable parts, or "widgets."
The perception of teachers as widgets began to change in the late 1990s and early aughts as new organizations launched and policymakers and philanthropists began to concentrate on teacher effectiveness. Under the Obama administration, the pace of change quickened. Two ideas, bolstered by research, animated the policy community:
1) Teachers are the single most important in-school factor for student learning.
2) Traditional methods of measuring teacher quality have little to no bearing on actual student learning.
Using new data and research, school districts, states, and the federal government sought to change how teachers are trained, hired, staffed in schools, evaluated, and compensated. The result was an unprecedented amount of policy change that has, at once, driven noteworthy progress, revealed new problems to policymakers, and created problems of its own. Between 2009 and 2013, the number of states that require annual evaluations for all teachers increased from 15 to 28. The number of states that require teacher evaluations to include objective measures of student achievement nearly tripled, from 15 to 41; and the number of states that require student growth to be the preponderant criteria increased fivefold, from 4 to 20
This paper takes a look at where the country has been with regards to teacher effectiveness over the last decade, and outlines policy suggestions for the future.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
Productivity is clearly a priority in state education agencies (SEA). The first two volumes of The SEA of the Future made the case for a "productivity mindset" in our country's state education agencies. Authors in these volumes argued that SEAs must fight against focusing exclusively on regulatory compliance to find more ways to provide local autonomy and consistently measure, assess, and hold themselves, their districts, and schools accountable for both performance and costs. Though these essays sharply challenged the traditional work of SEAs, state leaders responded enthusiastically, saying, "Yes. Where do we start?"
In this third volume of the series, we introduce the "productivity infrastructure." The productivity infrastructure constitutes the building blocks for an SEA committed to supporting productivity, innovation, and performance -- from the state chief to the classroom. These building blocks include:
* Policies to expand the flexibility of district and school leaders and allow them to make choices about resource use.
* State funding arrangements that fund students, not programs.
* Information systems that allow district and school leaders to accurately assess the productivity of policies and practices.
The essays in this volume offer a rich discussion of each of these elements.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
Education and Literacy, Employment and Labor
Americans are often reminded that it's never too soon to start saving for retirement. Many of the nation's public school teachers are doing just that -- buying into their state pension system with plans to retire comfortably. However, this new study estimates that nearly 50 percent of all public school teachers will not qualify for even a minimal pension benefit, and less than 20 percent will stay in the profession long enough to earn a normal retirement benefit.
This Joyce-funded report demonstrates the consequences of poorly structured state and city policies that can exacerbate retirement insecurity for our nation's teachers. For example, an individual teacher could forfeit up to 6.5 percent of her annual salary for one year, or, due to compound interest, 22.6 percent of her annual salary after three years according to Bellwether's analysis. To put these penalties in dollar terms, a hypothetical teacher earning $40,000 a year could face a savings penalty of $2,601 for teaching only one year and $9,035 if she left after three years. This money stays with the pension funds and is used to supplement the pensions of the remaining teachers.
Tackling the pension system is critical for reducing teacher turnover and retaining the profession's most talented educators. Several policy solutions are offered.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
This report takes a broad look at the overall makeup of public schools in Boston, combining results from the Boston Public Schools and the city's Commonwealth Charter schools to provide a snapshot of how school structures and student performance have been affected by reforms that have expanded autonomy to larger numbers of schools.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Northeastern)-Massachusetts-Suffolk County-Boston
Education and Literacy, Employment and Labor
Reform of educator evaluation, in Illinois and around the nation, is intended to more accurately identify effective and ineffective teachers and to inform teacher development. The reality is that more effort and attention has been focused on how to rate teachers within such systems than on how to design these systems to provide regular and useful feedback on teaching. If the 2010 Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA) is to achieve its aims in Illinois, it must help teachers to learn and improve on the job.
For beginning teachers, the challenge is more pronounced. On average, new teachers are less effective than their more experienced peers. Improvements in individual teaching practices tend to occur during these early years in the classroom, when teachers are applying lessons learned during preparation and developing their own pedagogical approach. While beginning teachers should not be held to a different performance standard, they do require more intensive support and more frequent feedback to grow into highly effective practitioners. This is one reason why highly structured, intensive new teacher support is prized by beginning teachers -- and strengthens their teaching.
If PERA is to accelerate new teacher effectiveness, beginning teachers in Illinois will require more feedback and support than what is provided by this law alone. An aligned system of high-quality induction -- featuring regular contact with a mentor, frequent classroom observation, on -- going opportunities to engage in reflection and self-assessment, and actionable, "real time" feedback to inform instructional improvement throughout the school year -- would provide the necessary intensity of instructional support. To accomplish this, Illinois should design and articulate a comprehensive talent development system with teacher learning at its center.
Illinois is well-positioned to succeed. Its deep commitment to successful PERA design coupled with a gradual approach to implementation has put the state on the right track. Its existing induction program standards and new induction rules lend important tools to the effort to address the unique learning curve of beginning teachers.
This Guide explores how the state can solidify PERA's role in informing and supporting new teacher development. In this effort, we have identified two main priorities for Illinois policymakers and PERA implementers.
- Design a comprehensive educator effectiveness system that encompasses both evaluation and robust instructional feedback and support. For new teachers, this system must include induction support aligned with PERA's evaluation requirements.
- Encourage and enable teacher leaders to serve as teacher mentors and as peer evaluators. Instructional improvement is a collective responsibility and is too critical and time-intensive an endeavor to leave solely to school administrators.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Illinois
This paper articulates the case for a renewed role for business in global education through the lens of shared value. It is intended to help business leaders and their partners seize opportunities to create economic value while addressing unmet needs in education at scale. The concepts we describe apply across industries and to developed and emerging economies alike, although their implementation will naturally differ based on context
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
