This Field Guide is designed to give quick and easy access to key data that will support the work to improve Idaho's education system.
To meet the needs of the 21st century workforce and economy, the Idaho State Board of Education has set an ambitious goal: 60% of Idahoans age 25-34 will have a post-secondary certificate or degree by 2020.
Given the current status and pace of progress, we are not on track to meet that goal.
Idaho must do better to prepare its students for success.
This Field Guild provides the facts and figures, with key information and insight, about the need and opportunity to improve Idaho's K-12 education system.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Western) / Idaho
Education and Literacy, Parenting and Families
The James Irvine Foundation launched the Families Improving Education (FIE) initiative in 2008 by funding eleven community-based organizations in California's Central Valley and Inland Empire to support parent involvement in K-12 educational policymaking. Families In Schools, a Los Angeles-based advocacy organization was selected to serve as a technical assistance provider and grant-making intermediary. The FIE initiative is based on the premise that parent-engagement efforts can foster more responsive and appropriate school policies that enhance student success. This report, prepared by Harder+Company Community Research, highlights the insights and promising strategies of the FIE initiative, looking closely at three core components: increasing the involvement of parents in K-12 decision-making; influencing educational decisions, policies, and practices that lead to improved academic outcomes; and strengthening the capacity of community-based organizations to engage in educational advocacy.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Western)-California
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)
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:
