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 City Scholarships Aim to Guarantee Future Workforce
The Oregonian (May 2008)
This story focuses on the new trend of cities across the nation to offer college and technical college scholarships to high school grads in an effort to guarantee a future home-grown, educated workforce.
The Benwood Plan: A Lesson in Comprehensive Teacher Reform
Education Sector (April 2008 - Public Education Network - PEN)
Hamilton County (Tenn.) is home to one of the nation's most widely touted school-reform success stories. At the outset of what is known as the Benwood Initiative, district officials reconstituted the faculties of participating schools by requiring teachers to reapply for their jobs and hiring replacements for those that didn't make the cut. In addition, community officials established incentives (free graduate school tuition, mortgage loans and performance bonuses) to attract new talent.
Making a Difference? The Effects of Teach for America in High School
The Urban Institute and CALDER (April 2008 - ECS)
This paper examines the effectiveness of Teach For America (TFA) teachers in North Carolina high schools, especially in math and science. The report finds that TFA teachers tend to have a positive effect on student test scores relative to non-TFA teachers, including those who are certified in their field.
A New Way To Teach Math Shows Merit
Two new studies (Study #1, Study #2) examined teacher practices and early outcomes of a dynamic classroom assessment approach known as Proximal Assessment for Learner Diagnosis (PALD). The reports find that sixth graders who were taught by PALD scored significantly higher on standardized math tests than peers who weren't exposed to the method. In addition, fifth graders who participated in the program outperformed their peers in geometry. Measuring and Improving the Effectiveness of High School Teachers Alliance for Excellent Education (March 2008) More effective teaching in high schools will get its biggest boost from a variety of high-quality student assessments, according to an Alliance for Excellent Education policy brief. The trove of assessment data that has begun to focus the quest for more effective teaching in the elementary and middle grades often doesn't exist in high schools, nor do high schools typically have the schedules and routines that allow teachers to learn from the data and one another. Teacher's Pay Continues to Slide - Latest data show pay gap widening between public school teachers and other professionals Economic Policy Institute (March 2008) At a time of national debate over ways to improve the performance of America's schools, this report reveals a trend that undermines chances of reaching that goal: a large and growing pay penalty for those who choose to become public school teachers. What Keeps Good Teachers in the Classrooms? Understanding and Reducing Teacher Turnover Alliance for Excellent Education (March 2008) This brief explores the costs associated with teachers leaving the profession and their schools, the characteristics of those likely to leave, and what can be done to prevent unnecessary and costly turnover. Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Range Plans National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality and Public Agenda (December 2007) Only half the teachers in high-needs schools trained via alternative routes said they were prepared for the first year of teaching, compared with 80 percent of teachers prepared in traditional programs, according to this new report that looks at other teaching issues as well. Teacher Quality in a Changing Policy Landscape: Improvements in the Teacher Pool Educational Testing Service (December 2007) Teaching is attracting better-qualified people than it did just a few years ago, according to this report. Prospective teachers who took state teacher licensing exams from 2002 to 2005 scored higher on SATs and earned higher grades in college than their counterparts who took the exams in the mid-1990s. Current State Policies That Reform Teacher Pay Center for American Progress (November 2007) Alternative compensation strategies have seen a significant resurgence in recent years as state and district policymakers acknowledge that the single salary schedule isn't meeting their needs. This report is an examination of pay-for-performance programs in eight states. America's Challenge: Effective Teachers for At-Risk Schools and Students National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (October 2007) In the two short years since the launch of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (NCCTQ), a tremendous amount of information has been compiled about the availability, recruitment, and retention of teachers for at-risk schools and students. NCCTQ has compiled much of this learning in this its inaugural biennial report. State Teacher Policy Yearbook 2007 National Council on Teacher Quality (June 2007) This is a 51-volume encyclopedia--with a handy national summary--that takes an "unparalleled look at what states are doing to improve teacher quality and lays out a framework for what they should be doing." The Partnership's first in a four-part Gap Analysis (Executive Summary) series focuses on teacher quality in Georgia and covers many of the issues raised in report. Click here to request a hard copy of the Partnership report. Please include mailing address. The Cost of Teacher Turnover Study and Cost Calulator National Commission of Teaching and America's Future (June 2007) Teacher turnover is "spiraling out of control" and is estimated to have cost the nation more than $7 billion in the 2003-04 school year alone. This study says that despite the staggering expense, virtually no school district now has systems in place to track or control such turnover. This subject was addressed in the Georgia Partnership's first Gap Analysis (Executive Summary) report that focused on teacher quality. Common Features of Effective Principal Preparation Programs Identified Stanford Educational Leadership Institute (April 2007) It's widely accepted that principals are vital to school success, but few studies have closely examined how to train effective school leaders. Now, this new report has identified the common features of exemplary programs for preparing principals who can guide instruction and foster school improvement. Where We Teach National School Boards Association (March 2007) This is the second school climate survey conducted by the National School Boards Association's Council or Urban Boards of Education. Approximately 4,700 teachers and 267 building principals participated from 12 urban districts in 10 states. The report shares teacher and adminisitrator perceptions about eight major themes - safety, professional development, expectations, bullying, professional climate, parental involvement, influence of race, and trust, respect, and ethos of caring. Teacher Attrition and Mobility - Results from the 2004 - 05 Teacher Follow-Up Survey National Center for Education Statistics - Institute of Education Services (February 2007) The Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) is a follow-up of a sample of elementary and secondary school teachers who participated in the previous year's Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). The TFS sample includes teachers who leave teaching in the year after the SASS data collection and those who continue to teach. The objective of TFAS is to provide information about teacher mobility and attrition among elementary and secondary school teachers who teach in grades K-12 in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In pursuit of this objective, TFS examines the characteristics of those who stay in the teaching profession and leave, including retirees. Progress Report: Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) Teachers, Schools Demonstrate Higher Achievement Growth than Controls National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NET) (Febraury 2007) This report by NET - which operates the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) in more than 130 schools across the country - concludes that teachers and schools participating in the program produce higher student acheivement growth than their control counterparts. Comparisons also show TAP's meaningful results in terms of adequate yearly progress (AYP), and its support among teachers as an effective professional development program. How Much are Publc School Teachers Paid? Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (February 2007) Education policy discussions often assume that public school teachers are poorly paid. Is that true? This report sheds some light on that. Here are a few key findings from the report: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average public school teacher in the U.S. earned $34.06 per hour in 2005; the average public school teacher was paid 36 percent more per hour than the average non-sales white collar worker and 11 percent more than the average professional specialty and technical worker; compared with public school teachers, editors and reporters earn 24 percent less, architects, 11 percent less, psychologists, 9 percent less, chemists, 5 percent less, mechcanical engineers, 6 percent less, and economists, 1 percent less. A visitor to the Partnership's site points out there is some research that describes this Manhattan Institute study "fundamentally flawed." He offers this Economic Policy Institute report as a counterpoint. |
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