Children and Youth, Education and Literacy
Many public school districts across New York State provide sex-ed instruction that is inaccurate, incomplete and biased, according to Birds, Bees and Bias: How Absent Sex Ed Standards Fail New York's Students. This report examines sex-ed materials used during the 2009-2010 and 2010-11 school years from across New York State.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Northeastern)-New York
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)
In September 2011, the New York State Department of Education convened a School and District Accountability Think Tank to provide public input regarding the creation of a second generation educational accountability system for the State's Elementary and Secondary Education Act waiver application. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) participated in the Think Tank and submitted a set of comprehensive recommendations regarding sound accountability practices for English Language Learners (ELLs).
In May 2012, the U.S. Department of Education granted New York's waiver application, which included several of AALDEF's and AFC's recommendations. We believe our ELL accountability recommendations have relevance beyond the ESEA waiver, and now release this paper which sets forth key principles for a sound ELL accountability framework in New York State.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Northeastern)-New York
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
Children and Youth, Education and Literacy
This brief presents preliminary findings from an exploratory study of New York City students' transitions into, through, and out of the middle grades. Our analysis reveals that students' attendance and achievement in their early schooling (fourth grade) predict whether students are likely to graduate from high school many years later. Further, we find that many students begin the middle grades on-track to graduate high school but fall off this trajectory before the end of eighth grade. These findings suggest that teachers and administrators should pay close attention to students whose attendance and math achievement fall during the middle grades, as these students are particularly at risk for not graduating from high school on time.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (New York Metropolitan Area)
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)
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
The Tripartite Framework for Leadership Evaluation provides a comprehensive examination of the leadership evaluation landscape and makes key recommendations about how the field of leadership evaluation should proceed. The chief concern addressed by this working paper is the use of student outcome data as a measurement of leadership effectiveness. A second concern in our work with urban leaders is the absence or surface treatment of race and equity in nearly all evaluation instruments or processes. Finally, we call for an overhaul of the conventional cycle of inquiry, which is based largely on needs analysis and leader deficits, and incomplete use of evidence to support recurring short cycles within the larger yearly cycle of inquiry.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Arts and Culture, Computers and Technology, Education and Literacy
Music open educational resources (OER) have the potential to fill gaps in access to instructional materials for K-12 music teachers and learners, and to support teachers and learners as content creators and collaborators in meeting educational goals. This study explores the current state of music OER, the audiences that these resources serve to benefit, and the opportunities and challenges involved in adopting an open approach to the development of music education resources.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
