Improving Michigan STEM Teachers and Teaching analyzed the efforts of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellowship, which began in the state in 2010 with the generous financial support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Woodrow Wilson selected and worked closely with six Michigan universities that demonstrated the capacity, willingness, and leadership to create model teacher education programs—rigorous, highly selective, clinically based programs integrating disciplinary content and pedagogical instruction.

Partner universities in the state included Eastern Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and Western Michigan University. Teaching Fellows completed their clinical experiences in school districts across the state, including Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Benton Harbor, Comstock, Detroit, Godwin Heights, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Lincoln, and Ypsilanti.

"Woodrow Wilson Fellows are indeed taking on the challenge of teaching in Michigan's high-need classrooms, and they are well prepared to work with students in those schools," the report states "Michigan students taught by Fellows are four times more likely to be black (61 percent, as opposed to -15 percent for inexperienced non-Fellows); about twice as likely to be eligible for free/reduced price lunch (80 percent, versus 44 percent for non-Fellows); more likely to have changed schools within the school year (31 percent, versus 10 percent for non-Fellows); three times as likely to be English language learners (10 percent, versus 3 percent for non-Fellows), and more likely to have special education needs (16 percent, compared to 10 percent for non-Fellows)."

The analysis found that W.K. Kellogg Foundation Woodrow Wilson Michigan Teaching Fellows were placed in some of the state's most challenging teaching assignments, while bringing more subject matter expertise to Michigan classrooms than did their peers. Fully 100 percent of Woodrow Wilson Fellows hold a Michigan STEM license. By contrast, just 87 percent of new Michigan teachers statewide who taught core STEM classes have STEM licenses.

Information provided by the Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at the American Institutes for Research demonstrated that the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship Program does lead to improved teacher performance in the high-need schools that the program focuses on, as measured by Fellows' impact on student achievement. In addition, compared to students of non-Fellows, students of Woodrow Wilson Fellows showed more growth in middle school math, middle school science, and high school science. The exception was Fellows teaching high school science, who only outperformed the same-district inexperienced comparison group.

As the formal W.K. Kellogg-Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship program concludes, each of the six partner universities demonstrates how the transformation project will be continued in ongoing teacher education efforts across the state. Eastern Michigan University, for instance, has built a new degree program based on the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship model that is moving, as intended, into non-STEM areas. Michigan State University and the University of Michigan have embedded elements of the WKKF-WW Michigan Teaching Fellowship within their larger teacher education communities. The WKKF-WW Teaching Fellowship program has also resulted in the development of models for specialized preparation programs in other subject areas in Western Michigan University's college of education.

This report has one central premise: Keeping great principals starts with hiring the right principal. Even as Chicago fights to retain principals long enough to make student learning and school culture gains more permanent, we must recognize some principal attrition is inevitable.

More than 70,000 students started the 2016-17 school year with a new principal, and at least 60 schools will need a new principal each year for the foreseeable future. The stakes are high: No great public school exists without great leadership. In fact, variation in principal quality accounts for about 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student learning. Yet, more than four out of every 10 public school principals in Chicago leave before they begin their fifth year. To keep great principals, we have to make the right match from the start.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and replaces the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The law focuses on using research evidence to improve teaching and learning and at the same time passes considerable authority from federal to state policymakers. This means that responsibility largely falls on states and localities to effectively make sense of and use research evidence in their decisions around school improvement, teacher preparation, principal recruitment, and family engagement. With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation, the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) has developed Guides for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and replaces the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The law focuses on using research evidence to improve teaching and learning and at the same time passes considerable authority from federal to state policymakers. This means that responsibility largely falls on states and localities to effectively make sense of and use research evidence in their decisions around school improvement, teacher preparation, principal recruitment, and family engagement. With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation, the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) has developed Guides for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and replaces the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The law focuses on using research evidence to improve teaching and learning and at the same time passes considerable authority from federal to state policymakers. This means that responsibility largely falls on states and localities to effectively make sense of and use research evidence in their decisions around school improvement, teacher preparation, principal recruitment, and family engagement. With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation, the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) has developed Guides for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement.

While access to higher education has grown considerably for low-income students and students of color over the past decades, the rates at which those students succeed in completing or transferring to a four-year university remain low and have been slow to improve. This report describes how four successful community colleges have cultivated robust, cross-sector partnerships to create seamless educational pathways for students, and highlights three specific strategies the institutions have used to help eliminate structural barriers that perpetuate student success gaps along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines. Development of this guide was supported by the Lumina Foundation.

The Global Strategy Task Force created a final report documenting its findings and recommendations. The intent of this report is to provide a framework through which the University can articulate and pursue an ambitious set of institutional goals that will increase its global connectivity and impact.

To guide our work, the Task Force articulated a Global Vision for 2020:

To establish Northwestern as one of the world’s premier universities. To develop a culture and an infrastructure that link our intellectual communities to larger international idea and innovation networks and enable our faculty, students, and staff to lead and to learn from global advancements in research and teaching critical to human development and understanding.

The Task Force identified three guiding principles for how we enact our vision.

1. An ambitious intellectual agenda, not an economic one, must drive Northwestern’s global investments. Northwestern should hire new faculty and staff, open new facilities, and initiate new dialogues and collaborations to the extent that it has a clear and compelling intellectual mission guiding each decision.
2. Northwestern must focus on excellence to gain greater prominence in the world’s leading innovation and idea networks, by identifying and investing deeply in select areas of strength and impact.
3. Being global requires a bi-directional orientation. Northwestern must, with equal focus and vigor, expand its outward horizons while integrating global perspectives into the rich intellectual life of its US campuses and activities.

The Global Strategy Task Force created a final report documenting its findings and recommendations. The intent of this report is to provide a framework through which the University can articulate and pursue an ambitious set of institutional goals that will increase its global connectivity and impact.

To guide our work, the Task Force articulated a Global Vision for 2020:

To establish Northwestern as one of the world’s premier universities. To develop a culture and an infrastructure that link our intellectual communities to larger international idea and innovation networks and enable our faculty, students, and staff to lead and to learn from global advancements in research and teaching critical to human development and understanding.

The Task Force identified three guiding principles for how we enact our vision.

1. An ambitious intellectual agenda, not an economic one, must drive Northwestern’s global investments. Northwestern should hire new faculty and staff, open new facilities, and initiate new dialogues and collaborations to the extent that it has a clear and compelling intellectual mission guiding each decision.
2. Northwestern must focus on excellence to gain greater prominence in the world’s leading innovation and idea networks, by identifying and investing deeply in select areas of strength and impact.
3. Being global requires a bi-directional orientation. Northwestern must, with equal focus and vigor, expand its outward horizons while integrating global perspectives into the rich intellectual life of its US campuses and activities.