Over on US National Public Radio’s “The Root,” John McWhorter comes pretty close to getting it right. In “Getting The Best Teaching Tools To Schools” he notes that the much-in-the-news results from the US National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP) simply show the need for effective educational practices. And he points squarely at Direct Instruction as a recommended remedy.
Continue reading ‘Somebody gets it’
Archive for the 'Policy' Category
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The Microsoft folks who bring us the search engine Bing have begun an effort to promote change in US education with REDU. The Web site makes a good case for why there should be concern about education in the US: high rates of dropping out, low rankings in international comparisons, aging teaching force, proportion of children attending schools in high-poverty areas, and so forth.
Sphere: Related ContentREDU stands for rethinking, reforming and rebuilding US education. Powered by people and technology, REDU is a movement designed to expand and encourage the national conversation around education reform by providing information and resources to learn, a community platform to connect, and tools and initiatives to act.
Thanks to GreatSchools and its partners, there is a way for parents to examine the relative outcomes of different schools. Although I’m not among them, this is likely to make advocates of charter schools crow. For me, though, it’s a good time to celebrate the nose of the camel getting into the tent.
To be sure, many of these data have been available on the Web previously, but this version is especially accessible and has a very high profile. Now that these data are aggregated here, I long even more for the day when schools will routinely publish the results of regular measurements of students’
Continue reading ‘Schools scorecard’
In his recurring posts for the Washington Post, Dan Willingham has three suggestions about how to approach the problem of creating a system for evaluating teachers’ contributions to students’ outcomes. The guidelines are sensible and worth reviewing. Read them here.
Sphere: Related ContentEd Week reporter Christina Samuels reminded me that the US Department of Education has announced awards under the “Investing in Innovation Fund” (“i3″ program). There are substantial funds for cooperative agreements or grants aimed at promoting practices with demonstrated benefits.
Program Description: The Investing in Innovation Fund, established under section 14007 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), provides funding to support (1) local educational agencies (LEAs), and (2) nonprofit organizations in partnership with (a) one or more LEAs or (b) a consortium of schools. The purpose of this program is to provide competitive grants to applicants with a record of improving student achievement and attainment in order to expand the implementation of, and investment in, innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on improving student achievement or student growth, closing achievement gaps, decreasing dropout rates, increasing high school graduation rates, or increasing college enrollment and completion rates.
These grants will (1) allow eligible entities to expand and develop innovative practices that can serve as models of best practices, (2) allow eligible entities to work in partnership with the private sector and the philanthropic community, and (3) identify and document best practices that can be shared and taken to scale based on demonstrated success.
I’m regularly a little wary about “innovation,” as an interest in what’s “new” or “innovative” too often trumps the employment of well-established (“old school”) practices that have a documented track record for success. Let’s hope that the track records for these innovations are actually well established. Also, let’s hope the US Department of Ed applies a level of scrutiny to them that at least approximates the evaluation that it focused on the Reading First initiatives.
Although Ms. Samuels focused her analysis on projects that fit with special education (a sensible take, given that special ed is her beat), there are many others. Readers can see a complete list of the funded projects on a site provided by the department by following this link and learn about the program by following this one.
Sphere: Related ContentAccording to Stannis Steinbeck, principal of Broadus Elementary School in Pacoima (CA, US), this is the view of the members of her faculty. According to data about the teachers’ effects on student achievement, not all teachers are effective. It should come as no surprise that some are more effective than others and some are woefully ineffective.
Jason Felch, Jason Song, and Doug Smith of the Los Angeles Times aggregated achievement test data over seven years and across many students assigned to 6000 teachers to assess which teachers consistently improved and which consistently diminished their students’ outcomes.
Continue reading ‘“Our teachers think they’re all effective.”’
The Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) will soon open a Web page where one can respond to it’s call for proposals for the spring 2011 conference. Launched in 2008, the conference series continues to offer direct access to studies of education practices that effectively change students’ outcomes. Not every session will focus on matters reflected in this blog, but many will.
The theme for the 2011 annual research conference, “Building an Education Science: Investigating Mechanisms,” focuses attention on the need to advance beyond primarily pragmatic education research in order to build an evidence-based science made up of explanatory theories of educational mechanisms. Symposium and paper presentations that address issues of process and mechanism within the context of rigorous experimental or quasi-experimental designs and that advance our understanding of the effectiveness of educational practices and policies, will offer the best fit for the 2011 conference. Topics of particular interest include studies that: (a) test hypotheses regarding the mechanisms through which educational practices and policies affect student outcomes or differentially impact individuals or groups, (b) investigate interactions among emotional, behavioral, cognitive and social processes and outcomes, or (c) develop new methods and research designs to enhance rigor in the evaluation of educational processes and mechanisms.
Link to the call for papers. Visit SREE. See the published materials from the 2010 conference.
Sphere: Related ContentThe IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College (TN, US), which has produced lots of good stuff, published a module entitled “Fidelity of Implementation: Selecting and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs.” The center has now announced a 7 July, Web-mediated meeting focused on the same subject.
Fidelity of Implementation: Selecting and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs
Wednesday, July 7
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time (1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time)Fidelity of implementation is a vital component of any school improvement process. This interactive webinar will outline the “nuts and bolts” of implementation fidelity by highlighting the IRIS Center’s newly developed, free, online professional development instructional module about fidelity. This module discusses the importance of selecting evidence-based practices and programs and examines actions that school personnel can take to increase the likelihood that the practice or program is implemented as it was designed. Presenters include Larry Wexler, Director, Research to Practice Division at the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP); Mel Riddile, Associate Director of High School Services at the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP); Silvia DeRuvo, Senior Program Associate at the California Comprehensive Center at WestEd; Naomi Tyler, Co-principal Investigator of The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University; and Kim Skow, Project Coordinator of The IRIS Center and Fidelity of Implementation Module Co-developer.
To sign up for this webinar, please visit http://www.schoolsmovingup.net/webinars/irisfidelity
Here’s a link so one can preview the module Fidelity of Implementation: Selecting and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs.
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