For folks who follow teacher preparation, this will come as no surprise. It’s been brewing. The two largest US groups concerned with accreditation of teacher education programs are joining together to create a new organization, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). Given the critical importance of preparing prospective teachers to use evidence-based practices, procedures, curricula, and such, I’m hoping that this new accrediting group will promote efforts to have new teachers ready to teach effectively.
Continue reading ‘NCATE and TEAC emerge under new CAEP’
Tag Archive for 'Policy'
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I usually leave the technology cheering up to colleagues who know better than I about the topic, but this piece from the mainstream press is too good to let pass without amplification. In the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries reported about children using contemporary devices as assistive technologies to their great benefit. Under the headline “Using the iPad to Connect: Parents, Therapists Use Apple Tablet to Communicate With Special Needs Kids,” she reported about the popular tablet device allowing a young child with disabilities to communicate.
Sphere: Related ContentBefore she got an iPad at age two, Caleigh Gray couldn’t respond to yes-or-no questions. Now Caleigh, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, uses a $190 software application that speaks the words associated with pictures she touches on Apple Inc.’s device.
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’
Ed 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.
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I am scheduled to be in Hong Kong as a guest of the Hong Kong Institute of Education in late May of 2010 where I shall speak about the importance of educators employing evidence-based procedures in collaborative teaching procedures. I am very honored that F. C. Ho has invited me to talk about this topic. As regular readers know, it’s a foundational concept for me.
Learn more about special education and counselling at HKIE. Also, see my note from our 2006 stop to visit with FC and colleagues.
Sphere: Related ContentIsabel Sawhill and Jon Baron published an editorial in Education Week calling for a new approach to the venerable Head Start program, one founded on evidence about effectiveness. They argue that in the wake of the discouraging Head Start Impact Study reported by US Department of Health & Human Services, it’s time to bring research into the nation’s play pre-schools.
A new approach is needed. One that has been suggested—defunding these programs—would amount to giving up the fight against major social problems such as educational failure and poverty that damage millions of American lives. A far better alternative is to use rigorous evidence about “what works” to evolve Head Start and other federal efforts into truly effective programs over time, and to use sophisticated models to trace their longer-term effects on children’s life prospects.
Continue reading ‘Evidence-based education in Head Start?’
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