September 5, 2010
September 5, 2010
Hold schools accountable for helping all students to complete school with the core academic skills and success attributes with a focus on continually improving the capacity of the teachers, faculty and other school leaders to provide a high-impact education to the students.
Success Factor Resources:
A robust accountability system must look at three elements, creating a “balanced scorecard” among all data, to mitigate the effects of overemphasis of just one or two measures.
Implementation Resources
Measuring Skills for the 21st Century
Education Sector
November 2008
This report discusses the need for better assessments to measure skills necessary for student success in the 21st century, including the ability to think creatively and to evaluate and analyze information. It highlights challenges to this type of assessment, outlines essential skills and examines appropriate measures.
Measures that Matter - Making College and Career Readiness the Mission for America’s High Schools
Achieve and The Education Trust
November 2008
This report is broken into five sections that each contain probing questions about state and local policy that allow for self-assessment. The five sections are:
Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-class Education
Achieve, Inc.
December 2008
This report discusses the need for U.S. action to maintain a competitive pace in global education. It outlines five action steps related to benchmarking standards, teaching and learning, measurement and accountability. It concludes that states must lead these efforts and that “The United States will only achieve true international competitiveness when state education policies and institutions are restructured to meet 21st century realities.”
Measuring Student Growth: A Guide for Informed Decision Making
The Center for Public Education
November 2007
This Web site contains a collection of resources on the use of “growth” models for education accountability, organized primarily into these categories:
Additional references and summaries of NCLB growth model pilots are also included.
Policymakers’ Guide to Growth Models for School Accountability: How Do Accountability Models Differ?
Council of Chief State School Officers
2005
This paper addresses the differences between status accountability models and growth accountability models, including research and best practices. It answers policy-related questions about the use of growth measures in accountability systems and discusses the key technical and practical issues for implementing different accountability models.
Return on Investment Examples:
Two samples of state efforts to measure the return on investment of career and technical education programs.
Back to TopActively engage the school’s principal and leadership team in all aspects of the school in order to create a shared mission and positive culture. The culture emphasizes paying attention to the whole student and measuring outcomes, a bias toward action, and extensive collaboration among teachers and staff. As Jim Collins describes Level Five Leadership in “Good to Great,” leaders should exude a combination of deep personal humility and a strong determination to fulfill the mission of the organization.
Implementation Resources:
National Association of Secondary School Principals
This Web page contains a collection of resources related to collaborative leadership. Articles include focuses on developing leadership programs, principal advisory councils, and engaging teachers in sustainable leadership.
Southern Regional Education Board – High Schools that Work
2008
This brochure describes the Southern Regional Education Board’s Learning-Centered Leadership Program and its goals, critical success factors, and research. The program is an effort to redesign educational leadership preparation and professional development programs.
Guide to Collaborative Culture and Shared Leadership
Center for Collaborative Education
January 2001
This guide begins includes detailed information on developing a collaborative culture and creating shared leadership, decision making, and effective teacher teams. A special focus is placed on creating effective teams, and examples of tools, protocols and exercises for use in such an endeavor can be found in the appendix. While predominately focused on middle schools, the material is applicable across the education spectrum.
Back to TopGive teachers the time to collaborate, support them with professional development experiences, and set clear expectations and measurement of the results of their efforts.
Collaboration strategies must include an ongoing attention to:
Implementation Resources:
Council for Exceptional Children
This Web page contains a collection of resources on a variety of teacher support facets, including collaboration, co-teaching, instructional strategies, networking and more. While the main audience is special education teachers, the majority of the content is applicable across disciplines.
Leading Gen Y Teachers: Emerging Strategies for School Leaders
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality
2009
This research brief examines strategies for the recruitment, retention and support of younger, “Generation Y” teachers (those born between 1977 and 1995). It focuses on what school-level leaders can do to ensure that the profession benefits from these teachers, and draws on research from the private sector related to effectively supporting Generation Y talent.
A Plan to Help Teachers and School Supervisors Implement Seven Tips to Improve
Instructional Skills
Southern Regional Education Board
2008
This toolkit provides seven tips to improving instructions skills. Rubrics are provided for each tip to indicate three levels of implementation: beginning, partial and complete. Comments and resource recommendations for utilizing technology to support the tips are provided as well.
Lifelines to the Classroom: Designing Support for Beginning Teachers
WestEd
2000
This paper addresses the question, “What does it take to adequately address novice teachers?” Types of support, specific support strategies, the institutional role in beginning teacher support, and challenges for support programs are all discussed.
Journal Of Education For Students Placed At Risk
2005
This research study discussed teacher use of computer technologies that allow efficient organization and access to student data, helping teachers overcome barriers to the use of data. It discusses various systems, provides insight into the function of the tools and discussed conditions that make these tools of the most service to teachers. Information on collaboration and information sharing is included.
Back to TopWithin individual districts, identify the skills, knowledge and success attributes needed for successful teaching, and create individual teacher development plans to build on the successful methods being used. Teacher preparation programs in the State and new teacher induction programs should be aligned with the teacher profile.
Implementation Resources:
Professional Development: Continuing Education
U.S. Department of Education
This federal Web site presents a collection of resources on teacher quality and professional development, including links to a number of additional external organizations with more information.
Measuring and Improving the Effectiveness of High School Teachers
Alliance for Excellent Education
March 2008
This Issue Brief presents the idea that “With robust, multiple measures of teacher effectiveness, complemented by targeted professional development, high-quality evaluations, and smart accountability, educators and policymakers can indeed use effectiveness measures to improve the quality of high school teaching. It examines how effectiveness should be defined and measured, and includes an in depth discussion of how to improve teacher effectiveness and the policies that can support that effort.
Induction into Learning Communities
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future
2005
This paper focuses on teacher induction programs and discusses a number of key questions, including:
Tapping the Potential: Retaining and Developing High-Quality New Teachers
Alliance for Excellent Education
June 2004
This paper takes a close look at the problem of how to retain teachers and develop them into high-quality professionals. The solution that is presented focuses on comprehensive induction for every beginning teacher. Components of such programs and tips for success are addressed, and policy recommendations are provided.
Sample teacher development plans/guidelines:
A number of states have instituted requirements for teacher professional development plans. Below are samples from two states:
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