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
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
The Great Recession has been hard on recent college graduates, but it has been even harder for black recent college graduates. This report examines the labor-market outcomes of black recent college graduates using the general approach developed by Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers Jaison Abel, Richard Deitz, and Yaqin Su (2014), who recently studied the outcomes of all recent college graduates.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Parenting and Families;Poverty
In an effort to improve family economic security in rural communities, Southern Bancorp Community Partners (SBCP) sought a sustainable funding source in 2013 for Arkansas's Aspiring Scholars Matching Grant (ASMG) Program, a savings incentive for low-to-moderate income families that matches funds saved for a child's college education in the 529 GIFT Plan, and investigated the possible creation of a matched 529 savings program in Mississippi. SBCP authored this paper to illustrate and examine the current options of college savings accounts offered in both states and analyze the causes behind low participation in each state's 529 plans.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Southern) / Arkansas;North America / United States (Southern) / Mississippi
A previous Education Trust report, "Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Achievement for Low-Income Students and Students of Color", described inequities at the high end of the achievement spectrum and found that gaps at the advanced level on the 12th-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have generally stagnated or grown over the past decade.
In this report, we want to explore the experiences of these high-achieving students. We examine the trajectories of students who are high-achieving when they enter high school and document their success on key indicators of postsecondary readiness, including high school course-taking, performance on AP exams and college admissions tests (SAT/ACT), academic GPAs, and college enrollment patterns.
Our intention is to drill down further and understand if and on what indicators initially high-achieving students of color and low-socioeconomic status (SES) students are getting off track in high school. By better understanding such patterns, we hope educators can look at their practices with a fresh eye and think anew about how to provide truly rigorous opportunities that will best support students of color and low-SES students who are already high-achieving.
This responsibility, of course, also lies with elementary and middle schools, but there are actions that high school educators can take now to improve experiences for these students. Schools like CAHS provide some insight into how this work is being done.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Women
The 2011 report Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School presents the most comprehensive research to date on sexual harassment in grades 7-12. Based on a nationally representative survey commissioned by AAUW, Crossing the Line reveals sobering statistics about the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and online. The report includes student perceptions of and reactions to harassment among those instigating and witnessing harassment as well as those being harassed. The conclusion of the report gives recommendations to administrators, educators, parents, students, and community groups on how to address sexual harassment in schools.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Women
The 2011 report Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School presents the most comprehensive research to date on sexual harassment in grades 7-12. Based on a nationally representative survey commissioned by AAUW, Crossing the Line reveals sobering statistics about the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and online. The report includes student perceptions of and reactions to harassment among those instigating and witnessing harassment as well as those being harassed. The conclusion of the report gives recommendations to administrators, educators, parents, students, and community groups on how to address sexual harassment in schools.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Women
The 2011 report Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School presents the most comprehensive research to date on sexual harassment in grades 7-12. Based on a nationally representative survey commissioned by AAUW, Crossing the Line reveals sobering statistics about the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and online. The report includes student perceptions of and reactions to harassment among those instigating and witnessing harassment as well as those being harassed. The conclusion of the report gives recommendations to administrators, educators, parents, students, and community groups on how to address sexual harassment in schools.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
By 2020, more than six out of 10 U.S. jobs will require postsecondary training. Despite a slight increase in college attainment nationally in recent years, the fastest-growing minority groups are being left behind. Only 25 and 18 percent of Blacks and Hispanics, respectively, hold at least an associate's degree, compared with 39 percent of Whites. Without substantial increases in educational attainment, particularly for our nation's already underserved groups, the United States will have a difficult time developing a robust economy.
Home to 65 percent of Americans, and a majority of all African Americans and Hispanics (74 and 79 percent, respectively), the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) can play a strong role in developing this nation's workforce. In fact, to reach a national attainment target that meets our workforce needs, more than half of college degrees could be generated from the these cities. The majority of degrees needed among African-American and Hispanic adults could also be produced in MSAs.
Clearly, investing in and organizing around the potential of metropolitan areas is critical, and the stakes have never been higher. Yet the current funding climate requires strategic public and private partnerships to invest in education innovation and human capital development in order to have the most robust impact on sustainable national growth. For this study, the Institute for Higher Education (IHEP) sought to follow up on its previous work examining MSA educational attainment rates by further exploring policies that either inhibit or facilitate degree production, and identifying metropolitan-level, cross-section collaborations that help local leaders contribute to national completion goals.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Southern) / District of Columbia / Washington;North America / United States (Southern) / Maryland / Baltimore;North America / United States (Southern) / Tennessee / Shelby County / Memphis;North America / United States (Western) / Nebraska / Douglas County / Omaha
