Education and Literacy, Employment and Labor
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has long advocated that any meaningful understanding of "effective" teaching must be rooted in results for kids. Whatever else they accomplish in the classroom, effective teachers improve student achievement. It seems like commonsense. Yet, until recently, it has been an exceptional way of thinking about teacher quality, totally out of step with teacher policy across the states.
As part of the annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook, NCTQ has systematically collected and analyzed state policies on teacher preparation, training, retention, compensation and other personnel policies. In this paper we provide:
1. A detailed and up-to-date lay of the land on teacher evaluation policies across the 50 states and the District of Columbia Public Schools;
2. An in-depth look at policy in states promising ambitious teacher evaluation systems (states requiring student growth and achievement to be a significant or the most significant factor in teacher ratings), including states' efforts to "connect the dots" and use teacher evaluation results in meaningful ways to inform policy and practice;
3. A compilation of some of the important lessons learned, pitfalls and successes states have experienced on the road to improving teacher evaluation systems.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
Arts and Culture, Education and Literacy
In the early 2000s, there was considerable discussion about the role of the arts in public education, but little data about the status of arts education in all schools in Minnesota. To answer this need, the Perpich Center for Arts Education launched The Minnesota Arts Education Research Project during the 2010/2011 school year with funding provided by the Minnesota State Legislature through its Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund of the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment.
The purpose of this project was to gather, evaluate and disseminate quantitative data regarding arts education in the state. The Research Project was designed to document arts education in every school through a statewide voluntary survey, and combine the survey findings with other information to create a 360-degree view of arts education in the state.
This report is a summary of the status of arts education, education policy and delivery. The intent is to provide decision makers and the public with a clear picture of the status of arts education in Minnesota.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Minnesota
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy
School choice policies, a fixture of efforts to improve public education in many cities. aim to enable families to choose a school that they believe will best meet their child's needs. In New York City, choice and the development of a diverse portfolio of options have played central roles in the Department of Education's high school reform efforts. This report examines the choices and placements of New York City's lowest-achieving students: those scoring among the bottom 20 percent on standardized state tests in middle school. Focusing on data from 2007 to 2011, the report looks at who these low-achieving students are, including how their demographics compare to other students in NYC, the educational challenges they face, and where they live. The bulk of the report reviews low-achieving students' most preferred schools and the ones to which they were ultimately assigned, assessing how these schools compare to those of their higher-achieving peers. The findings show that low-achieving students attended schools that were lower performing, on average, than those of all other students. This was driven by differences in students' initial choices: low-achieving students' first-choice schools were less selective, lower-performing, and more disadvantaged. Overall, lower-achievingand higher-achieving students were matched to their top choices at the same rate. Importantly, both low- and higher-achieving students appear to prefer schools that are close to home, suggesting that differences in students' choices likely reflect, at least in part, the fact that lower-achieving students are highly concentrated in poor neighborhoods, where options may be more limited.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City
Education and Literacy, Employment and Labor
This paper synthesizes findings from the Research Alliance's investigation of teacher turnover in New York City's public middle schools. These years are widely recognized as a critical turning point for students, and the NYC Department of Education (DOE) is pursuing a range of middle school improvement initiatives. The stability of the middle school teaching force has the potential to facilitate or complicate these efforts, yet there have been few studies of the rates and patterns of teacher turnover in the City's middle schools.
This study provides the most current, comprehensive look at middle school teacher turnover to date. Drawing on a range of data sources -- including DOE human resource records from the last decade, a survey of over 4,000 full-time middle school teachers, and in-depth case studies in four middle schools -- this paper examines how long middle school teachers remain in their schools, how long they intend to stay, and what predicts whether or not they leave. It also explores how various aspects of teachers' work environment may influence these decisions. Among the key findings: Among middle school teachers who entered their school during the last decade, more than half left that school within three years -- significantly higher than the rates seen for elementary and high school teachers. Of the teachers who leave, most exit the NYC public school system altogether, and only about 1 in 10 transition to another grade 6-8 school. The findings point to several strategies that may be useful for increasing middle school teachers' lengths of stay.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (New York Metropolitan Area)
Schools throughout the country will soon begin to implement the Common Core State Standards and adopt the Next Generation Science Standards. These new standards, which are "fewer, clearer, and higher" than existing state standards, are designed to provide all young people with the knowledge and skills they need for success in a global economy.
Though they are a powerful tool for improving our educational system, standards alone cannot deliver widespread, meaningful change. To bring all students to much higher levels of achievement and to help underprepared students catch up to meet the standards' new demands, we must "do school differently." This means redesigning how schools use teaching, time, technology, and money to create opportunities for more young people to succeed. And, it means replacing existing one-size-fits-all approaches with rigorous, personalized learning that creates multiple opportunities for students to be successful.
Individual interventions are important, yet by themselves, they are not likely to produce sufficiently strong outcomes to help all students meet the demands of the new standards. Instead of retooling individual elements such as teacher preparation, learning time, or technology in isolation, all the elements that we know work and some emerging tools must be integrated into comprehensive school designs that will truly meet the needs of every student.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Ohio Governor Kasich issued his "Achievement Everywhere" plan in early February, and as details came out over the following weeks we again asked Professor Hill if he would provide a review of the governor's plan. Professor Hill took on the challenge and here the Thomas B. Fordham Institute proudly presents "Steps in the Right Direction: Assessing "Ohio Achievement Everywhere" -- the Kasich Plan", which should interest lawmakers, policy makers, journalists, and others concerned about the education of Ohio's children.
As the title notes, Professor Hill observes that Governor Kasich's reform plan will advance Ohio and it schools, but it could be better and bolder. Or, as Professor Hill concludes, "Governor Kasich's Achievement Everywhere moves Ohio in the right direction, but it needs to go further if the ultimate goal is a world-class education for all students."
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Ohio
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy;Employment and Labor
This report presents findings from the first of three components of a mixed-methods study of middle school teacher turnover in New York City. The project is a collaboration between researchers at The Research Alliance for New York City Schools, New York University, Teachers College, and Baruch College. This study reveals that 55% of the teachers who entered middle schools between 2002 and 2009 left these schools within three years. Further, nearly 60% of departing middle school teachers left the New York City public school system altogether and another 23% either moved to schools that did not include the middle grades (Grades 6-8) or took on non-teaching positions. These findings suggest an exodus of newly-arrived teachers from middle schools, and they raise questions for future research about the causes, consequences, and implications of teacher turnover. The remaining two components of the Research Alliance's larger study -- a survey and a case study analysis -- will investigate these and other questions.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (New York Metropolitan Area)
"Irreplaceables" are teachers who are so successful they are nearly impossible to replace, but who too often vanish from schools as the result of neglect and inattention.To identify and better understand the experience of these teachers, we started by studying 90,000 teachers across four large, geographically diverse urban school districts.
We also examined student academic growth data or value-added results for approximately 20,000 of those teachers. While these measures cannot provide a complete picture of a teacher's performance or ability on their own -- and shouldn't be the only measure used in realworld teacher evaluations -- they are the most practical way to identify trends in a study of this scale, and research has demonstrated that they show a relationship to other performance measures, such as classroom observations.
We used the data to identify teachers who performed exceptionally well (by helping students make much more academic progress than expected), and to see how their experiences and opinions about their work differed from other teachers' -- particularly teachers whose performance was exceptionally poor.
So who are the Irreplaceables? They are, by any measure, our very best teachers. Across the districts we studied, about 20 percent of teachers fell into the category. On average, each year they help students learn two to three additional months' worth of math and reading compared with the average teacher, and five to six months more compared to low-performing teachers.
Better test scores are just the beginning: Students whose teachers help them make these kinds of gains are more likely to go to college and earn higher salaries as adults, and they are less likely to become teenage parents.Teachers of this caliber not only get outstanding academic results, but also provide a more engaging learning experience for students. For example, when placed in the classroom of an Irreplaceable secondary math teacher, students are much more likely to say that their teacher cares, does not let them give up when things get difficult and makes learning enjoyable.
Irreplaceables influence students for life, and their talents make them invaluable assets to their schools. The problem is, their schools don't seem to know it.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
