Public Policy

A new report from The Education Trust entitled Stuck Schools: A Framework for Identifying Schools Where Students Need Change—Now!  shows that schools characterized as “low performing” are not all the same; in fact, they vary considerably.  While some low-performing schools have remained “stuck” year after year, for example, others have made rapid and substantial gains. 

Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert, Newsweek, February 19, 2010

“For the first time in American history, there is the risk that the rising generation will be less well educated than the previous one... Studies show that more and more poor and nonwhite students aspire to graduate from college—but their graduation rates fall far short of their dreams. The graduation rates for blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans lag far behind the graduation rates for whites and Asians. As the minority population grows in the United States, low college graduation rates become a threat to national prosperity.”

To read the full article, click here.

The Center for American Progress too has weighed in on the intertwined issues of transforming schools and expanding learning time.  Their recent white paper reminds us that there are no silver bullets in education reform, and that it is best to consider how different change initiatives work in tandem.  "For more learning time to deliver meaningful results," the authors of the white paper observe, "other key elements and conditions like strong principal leadership, effective teachers, and a culture of excellence must be in place in schools.  The success of more time depends on how well it is added and spent."

According to the first of a new series of briefs from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, four strategies are all vital to improving the recruitment, placement, evaluation, retention, and support of highly effective teachers:

In the fall of 2009, MetLife asked 1,003 K-12 public school teachers, 500 K-12 public school principals and 1,018 public school students in grades 3-12 to share their views on their respective roles and responsibilities, current practice, and priorities for the future. The effort marked a continuation of MetLife’s Annual Survey of the American Teacher, which it has been conducting since 1984. The first report on the survey findings, Effective Teaching and Leadership, compares teachers’, principals’, and students’ perspectives on responsibility and accountability and explores the nature and extent of collaboration in schools today.

Among the key survey findings:

Houston Independent School District has been the focus of considerable national attention lately as a result of the school board’s bold decision to link student achievement data to teacher evaluations as well as the superintendent’s announcement of a pilot program that will allow struggling schools to adopt an extended-year calendar beginning this fall. 

Regardless of whether or not one agrees that longer school days are the right approach, or whether the evaluation system currently being used to measure teachers' effectiveness is ideal, the conversations about doing what's needed to ensure that all students have access to the high-quality education they deserve are vital and healthy.

On Sept. 9 at Rice University, Chester E. Finn, Jr. (Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University & President of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute) will lead a discussion on why so much reform has produced so little in the way of measureable systemic improvements in educational outputs, and what we ought to do about it.

As the New York Times' Room for Debate blog notes, performance of New York City students on statewide tests has improved over the seven years since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took over public schools. Scores have risen across neighborhoods, and the racial achievement gap has closed significantly. However, some argue that these are more about teaching the test, and less about students' improved academic readiness for the challenges of college and beyond.

A new report by the National Staff Development Council finds that intensive, sustained professional learning over a period of time is more likely than "one-shot" workshops to have an impact on teachers' classroom performance and student achievement.

As the nation's schools prepare for a financial windfall, thanks to the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, there are a number of places online to track the latest information.