Bibliography

This article examines how technology could expand the reach and impact that great teachers have through “time swapping.”  “Time swapping” uses technology to capture a teacher’s effective instruction so that the teacher can impact more students without physically being in a room. This method allows more students to receive both the lecture and one-on-one attention of a great teacher. They examine policies affecting teachers—from professional development to compensation and class size restrictions— that require change in order for digital instruction to have a wider and more positive impact on student learning.  

This site highlights the nine winning applications of the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant program.  The grant program aims to increase the number and percentage of low-income and disadvantaged children in each age group of infants, toddlers and preschoolers who are enrolled in high-quality early learning programs; design and implement an integrated system of high-quality early learning programs and services; and ensure that any use of assessments conforms with the recommendations of the National Research Council's report on early childhood.

This primer aims to provide policymakers with information and recommendations to propel states’ progress toward using P–20W (from pre-K through college and into the workforce) data to prepare individuals for today’s economy. The primer recommends policymakers make the P–20W linkages possible by establishing P–20W governance structures and processes. They also recommend ensuring that data systems are both interoperable across the educational spectrum while also protecting personally identifiable information. Lastly, they recommend providing appropriate access to data and building the capacity of stakeholders to use the data.

The Center for American Progress and Education Sector teamed up to lay out recommendations for how to make sure that ESEA encourages great teachers in every state.

This article offers a summary of the types of waivers to current NCLB language that the US Education Secretary has proposed offering to states pending congressional reauthorization of ESEA.

This blueprint, developed and released by the US Department of Education under Secretary Duncan and President Obama, recommends reforms to the current NCLB language or additions to ESEA within four areas: improving teacher and principal effectiveness; providing information to families to help them evaluate and improve their children’s schools, and to educators to help them improve their students’ learning; implementing college- and career-ready standards and aligned assessments; and turning around America’s lowest-performing schools.

This report, updated annually by The College Board, presents detailed evidence of the private and public benefits of higher education. It also sheds light on the distribution of these benefits by examining both the increases and the persistent disparities in college participation and completion.

This report examines the dimensions of four distinct gaps in education: (1) between the United States and other nations, (2) between black and Latino students and white students, (3) between students of different income levels, and (4) between similar students schooled in different systems or regions. The report finds that the underutilization of human potential as reflected in the achievement gap is extremely costly. Existing gaps impose the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession—one substantially larger than the deep recession the country is currently experiencing. For individuals, avoidable shortfalls in academic achievement impose heavy and often tragic consequences via lower earnings, poor health, and higher rates of incarceration.

This new policy brief lists fifteen concrete ways that states can “stretch the school dollar” in these difficult financial times. It argues that budget cuts alone, without concurrent reforms, could set our schools back years. But by addressing state mandates around teacher tenure, “last hired, first fired” policies, minimum class sizes, and more, states can free local leaders’ hands to make smart, courageous cuts and do more with less. In other words, this challenging climate is an opportunity to make some real changes in education.

Based on interviews with ten executives from a range of EMOs and CMOs, this report finds that replicating successful charter schools has been tougher and more costly than expected for both for-profit and nonprofit charter management organizations (EMOs and CMOs). The report analyzes why this is so and offers strategies to help new management organizations shorten their learning curves and avoid problems encountered by pioneering management organizations.

This report explores the potential impact of policy initiatives designed to improve student access to great teachers. Current policy initiatives overlook the most obvious, immediate source of improved teaching effectiveness: the great teachers we already have. The top 25 percent of U.S. teachers—more than 800,000 of them—already achieve results that would enable all of our children to meet and exceed standards. Top-quartile teachers are so much better than their bottom-quartile peers, they could close our nation’s achievement gaps and raise our bar to internationally competitive levels in less than half a decade. The report projects the payoff of different strategies for giving more children access to great teachers, including recruitment of high-potential teachers, dismissal of ineffective teachers, retention of proven top-quartile teachers, and extension of top-teacher instruction to more children.

The Department of Education reviewed more than 1,000 empirical studies of online learning and conducted a meta-analysis of 45 studies that compare online or blended and face-to-face conditions. Researchers found only a small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning in K-12 education; they therefore drew their conclusions primarily from studies in other settings, including higher education. Researchers found that students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than students learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction. They saw a larger difference when comparing students learning face-to-face with those learning in blended environments.

This publication, updated annually, reviews online learning policy in all 50 states. It includes detailed state policy profiles that capture recent changes to state law and policy. It also summarizes key numbers (including enrollment figures by state), issues, and trends across the country, and provides introductory sections on online learning background, categories, and definitions. The 2010 update includes sections on blended learning, competency-based learning, and mobile learning.

The Measures of Effective Teaching project studies nearly 3,000 teachers in six urban school districts to test various methods of teacher evaluation and analyze their effectiveness in predicting teacher performance over time. First, the report establishes that there is huge variance in student achievement gains among teachers: value-added by teachers in the top quartile can close more than one-third of the black-white achievement gap, while the lowest quartile of teachers actually widen it. The project analyzes two measures for teacher evaluation: student achievement gains and student feedback. Initial data confirm that growth on standardized tests is a reliable indicator of growth on other assessments that require demonstration of deeper conceptual understandings, contradicting the frequent criticism that teachers whose students attain high growth only “teach to the test.” Evidence also shows a strong correlation between student achievement gains and students’ perception of teachers’ effectiveness, leading researchers to believe that the most effective teacher evaluation “package” may require more than one measure. The project will also examine other potential predictors of teacher performance, including multiple classroom observation rubrics, a test of teachers’ content pedagogical knowledge, and teacher perceptions of working conditions.

This report uses survey results from 12 districts in 4 states to examine systems of evaluation for teachers. Findings state that district evaluations do not distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers, and as a result see teachers as “widgets,” or interchangeable parts of an education system that are all equal in performance. This indifference offers no consequences for poor teaching, nor benefits for excellent teaching. The authors suggest that districts adopt more comprehensive performance evaluation systems that differentiate teachers; train administrators, and hold them accountable for using evaluation systems; and base important decisions such as tenure, assignment, compensation, professional development, retention, and dismissal on evaluation results.

In the most comprehensive study of charter school finance to-date, researchers compared federal, state, and local revenues in charter schools and traditional public school districts across 25 states and within the largest district in each state.  The report examines outcomes in each state individually, and finds that, on average, charters are significantly underfunded compared to traditional public school districts.

This report suggests measures to evaluate charter school performance across three areas: financial performance and sustainability, board performance and stewardship, and parental and community engagement. The report includes example measures in each area as well as suggestions for implementation.

This paper discusses the mismatch between research on the one hand, and political and public perceptions of class size on the other. According to the author, research suggests that class size reduction can improve student achievement if implemented in a focused way under certain circumstances, but policymakers generally pursue and the public strongly supports broad across-the-board reductions that are unlikely to have positive effects.

This primer proposes seven priorities to guide states’ allocation of resources during tough budget times, and offers policymakers concrete action steps to reallocate funds. Topics include organizing people and time, state and district funding systems, and district data and reporting.

This paper notes the paucity of high-quality, relevant studies of class-size effects on academic achievement. The authors summarize the few available noteworthy studies and conclude that they collectively suggest that very large class size reductions (7-10 fewer students per class) can produce meaningful student achievement gains and other positive outcomes, especially when introduced in early grades and for students from less advantaged backgrounds. However, the authors note the large cost associated with class size reduction and suggest that it might not the most productive use of available educational dollars.

This report compares standards in all 50 states to the rigor of those included for ELA and math in the Common Core standards to help state officials determine whether their students might be better off under a standards aligned with the common standards, or whether they may be wise to keep those they already have. Analysis shows that Common Core standards are clearly superior to those currently in use in 39 states in math and 37 states in English. For 33 states, the Common Core is superior in both math and reading. Three states have ELA standards that are clearly superior to the Common Core: California, the District of Columbia, and Indiana. Another 11 states have ELA standards that are in the same league as the Common Core (or “too close to call”).  Eleven states plus the District of Columbia have math standards at least as clear and rigorous as the Common Core standards.

This paper describes why and how four urban districts—Denver Public Schools, Chicago Public Schools, Hartford Public Schools, and Pittsburgh Public Schools—closed schools for low performance. It discusses the lessons district officials learned from their experience with school closure and the changes they made to their closure process as a result of these experiences. Written for state and district officials, the report is designed to help decision makers who are contemplating closing schools for performance reasons learn from districts that have already tackled this difficult challenge.

Despite steadily increasing urgency about the nation’s lowest-performing schools, efforts to turn them around have largely failed. This report draws upon research about high-performing high-poverty schools; experience with successfully scaled school interventions; and interviews with practitioners, researchers, leading policymakers and reform experts to explore the types of changes, environment and support that successful school turnarounds entail. Recommendations for state and district leaders include providing a “protected space” where schools are given the flexibility, resources, and support true cultural and system change requires.

One promising strategy to dramatically improve chronically low performing schools is known as a “turnaround” – a quick, dramatic, sustained improvement in performance brought about by a highly-capable leader. This brief offers seven steps for district leaders to support the dramatic change required to turn around chronic low performance, including (1): making a commitment to dramatic change, (2) choosing turnarounds for the right schools, (3) developing a pipeline of turnaround leaders, (4) providing leaders extra flexibility, (5) holding schools accountable, (6) prioritizing teacher hiring for turnaround schools, and (7) proactively engaging the community.

A handful of state and district leaders across the U.S. have begun to try new approach to radically improve schools where too many have failed for far too long. By beginning anew with the freedom to do things differently – such as through the “restart” or “contracting” options under NCLB, education leaders have a real opportunity to improve student achievement. This publication from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers explains why education leaders are empowering schools to “start fresh” with a new leader and staff, and gives an overview of the major components of a successful start fresh strategy.

These principles and standards, developed by the membership organization for charter authorizers nationally, are intended to serve as a guide to formative development for authorizers at all stages and levels of experience: as a road map to guide planning and organizational development of initial practices, and as a resource for identifying areas for improvement or refinement to achieve stronger outcomes. It is also designed to anchor state policy concerning charter authorizing.

To develop fresh insights to spur growth of the charter sector’s best, the authors researched the distinguishing characteristics of organizations in other sectors that have grown at sustained exponential rates. The report summarizes lessons that emerged from that research and initial recommendations for the charter sector, including (1) committing not just to excellence, but to reaching large numbers of students with excellence; (2) negotiating performance-based contracts in charter contracts; (3) importing management talent; (4) providing opportunities and rewarding charter leaders and staff for reaching more students with excellent outcomes; (5) using branding to enable innovation; (6) investing in systems for scale; (7) acquiring other organizations strategically; and (8) pursuing operational alliances. 

Educa¬tion has been slower than many other fields in developing and widely adopting well-crafted, reliable ways to assess the performance of its leaders. This brief discusses the elements of an improved system of principal evaluations, including what should be assessed, and how. It highlights several newly-developed instruments: the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED), designed to assess instructional leadership; and two others designed for more targeted purposes. It also discusses the potential and the unknowns involved in using evaluations as a key strategy for promoting better leader performance as well as system-wide improvements.

This brief draws upon available research to describe the challenges that school superintendents and hiring committees face when trying to hire a school principal. It also offers emerging practices that school superintendents and hiring committees have implemented to address challenges, such as recruitment planning and research-based selection processes and criteria.

Building on the success of its 2003 study, Missed Opportunities, The New  Teacher Project investigated the  methods  that urban school  districts  use  to  recruit, select and hire  principals. This working paper  presents  the  basic  findings  of  that investigation along with recommendations  for how urban districts  and schools  can build model recruitment, screening, selection and hiring processes  to obtain quality principals. Specifically, it addresses the following questions: what obstacles do urban schools and districts face in hiring principals? how is principal quality affected as a result? It offers solutions to help districts hire higher-quality principals related to recruitment, initial screening, full competency screening, and school panel fit interviews. 

This report brings together lessons learned from members of the Rainwater Leadership Alliance (RLA) to provide a vision for making principal preparation programs more systematic and rigorous, and offer a new path forward using illustrations of RLA approaches. Key lessons include: (1) defining a Competency Framework—the set of skills, knowledge, and dispositions that a principal must have in order to drive high levels of student achievement; (2) relying on strategic, proactive, and targeted recruiting strategies; (3) establishing clear criteria and rigorous processes for evaluating applicants; (4) providing experiential training and intensive support; and (5) using data to assess the effectiveness of their program and principals’ work in schools. Members providing input include Gwinnett County Public Schools, Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Foundation, Long Beach Unified School District, New Leaders for New Schools, NYC Leadership Academy, Rice University’s Education Entrepreneurship Program, School Leaders Network, The University of Illinois at Chicago, and The University of Virginia’s Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education.

Researchers analyze incentives embedded in teacher pension systems by examining the pattern of pension wealth accumulation over a teacher’s career. They show the “pull and push” of most pension systems - pulling teachers to remain in the profession for many years until large benefits start to accrue, and then pushing them out at relatively young ages even if they are still effective. They propose two solutions (defined contribution systems and cash balance plans) that restore the broken link between benefits and contributions, and propose four principles for reform (neutrality toward longevity; transparency; portability; and sustainability).

The authors discuss steps to modernize pension systems, from addressing technical aspects or basic structural elements of the systems to tackling political or legal obstacles. ”Guideposts” for pension reform include (1) acknowledging both the fiscal realities and the human capital challenges that must be confronted for any solution to work; (2) rethinking pension systems in light of increasing mobility and steep learning curves in the early years of teaching; (3) reforming the political process to make it harder to use pension plans for short-term gain at the expense of long-term sustainability; (4) protecting current beneficiaries; and (5) increasing transparency.

This report summarizes three studies of teacher compensation to underscore both the importance and the difficulty of redesigning teacher pay incentives in public education. The first study looks at teacher attitudes about pay reforms and provides a sense of what teachers think about particular incentive proposals. The second and third papers examine how high incentives would have to be to attract people with technical skills to teaching and to make working in high-needs schools more attractive. Together, these papers suggest that incentives are already in play in public education, and education leaders can make them more strategically aligned with their goals by undertaking more trials and paying close attention to the results.

This report explores cross-sector research about pay policies to provide insights for states about how to pay teachers in ways that enhance teaching effectiveness and, thereby, improve student learning. Summarizes research and offers recommendations for states related to pay for performance, positions in hard-to-staff schools pay, skill shortages, advanced roles, skills and knowledge, advanced degrees, and retention. 

This paper summarizes key features of layoff policies in 100 districts across the country, noting that in 75 of 100 districts surveyed, seniority alone determines whether a teacher is laid off. The authors note that inadequate evaluation systems frequently hinder layoff policies that incorporate evidence of teacher effectiveness, and recommend improving these systems to strengthen layoff policies based on multiple factors. Even in the absence of strong evaluation policies, however, the authors recommend removing some seniority preferences or creating systems where star teachers can earn exemptions from layoffs based on performance.

This brief, authored by Marguerite Roza, highlights an important but often ignored consequence of seniority-based layoffs: more people lose their jobs under these systems than under alternative systems. Cutting the most junior staff, who tend to be the lowest paid, saves less money per laid-off employee. The result is that more junior employees need to be laid off to meet budget requirements, as well as program cuts and increased class sizes. The brief uses financial modeling for a sample district to project the number of teachers who must be laid off under a seniority-neutral layoff policy versus a seniority-based policy.

This report asks what lessons the US might learn from nations that succeed in delivering world-class educational outcomes with top talent in teaching – Singapore, South Korea, and Finland – and what an American version of such a strategy might entail. The authors’ research among teachers and top-third college students suggests what it might take to attract and retain such talent, how to do so cost-effectively, and what other systemic changes would make the strategy most effective.

This report examines the research and case studies outside education – such as private businesses, non-profits, and government and health care organizations – to reveal four key strategies to boost high-performer retention in K-12 schools: pay with purpose, give high-performers mountains to climb, design flexible and challenging work roles, and build lasting teams. The report also examines individualized strategies that education leaders can use to go to the mat for individual employees they do not want to lose, such as retaining relationships beyond direct employment, generating positive non-hires, and using short-term contracts to keep a high-performing team member who might otherwise leave.

This guide aims to help schools attempting turnarounds understand the underlying characteristics of teachers likely to succeed by clarifying the critical competencies – or patterns of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting – that enable people to be successful in the turnaround context. The guide includes definitions of each competency and examples of various levels as they may play out in a turnaround school. 

The authors examine two other sectors that have long histories with tenure or tenure-like job protections – the civil service and higher education – to recommend reform options for K-12 education leaders. The authors describe five “design elements” that determine who receives tenure and what protections it affords: the number of years required to earn tenure, the criteria used to determine whether to award it, the process for conferring tenure, the specific protections it affords; and tenure’s place among other career and reward opportunities. Tenure reform options include redesigning the tenure system – either to grant more meaningful tenure to a large number of teachers, or to grant it only to consistent high-performers – or to eliminate it altogether. 

The authors interviewed directors of alternate route programs across the country. Findings suggest that while nearly all states have something on their books labeled “alternate route to certification,” most alternate route teachers have had to jump through many of the same hoops—meeting the same “traditional” academic requirements and undergoing much the same training—as typical education school graduates.