What is an Education Consumers Association? An Education Consumers Association (ECA) is local or state level citizen group that is dedicated to empowering parents, school board members, employers, and all others who have a consumer’s…… Read More
National Council on Teacher Quality There may be caveats but the grim findings can’t be dismissed. Also reported by Real Clear Education.
The ACT is a college readiness exam that measures the likelihood of a high school graduate’s success in college. The test covers reading, math, science and English and uses multiple choice questions to predict a graduate’s chance of earning a B or C grade in four critical college courses. An individual’s score in each of the four subject matter areas are compared to College Readiness Benchmarks that ACT established from its studies of successful and unsuccessful students. The … Read More
Tennessee Education Schools Need Accountability, Not a New Report Card J. E. Stone, Ed.D. December 8, 2016 Tennessee has had a Teacher Preparation Report Card since 2007 and it has had no impact on the effectiveness of Tennessee’s newly trained teachers. The reason is that the sanctions promised by Tennessee’s $500 million Race to the Top grant were never implemented. As of 2015—the last year for which the number of “highly ineffective” teachers are reported–the state’s teacher training … Read More
In most states, a school district’s number of proficient third-grade readers is highly predictive of the number of 8th graders who will be proficient five years later. The significance of this fact is that 8th-grade reading skill is highly predictive of high school outcomes and preparedness for work and college. In other words, third grade reading success is vitally important because it predicts the trajectory of a child’s educational career. The above chart school district reading scores illustrates … Read More
Ginsberg, R. & Kingston, N. (2014). Caught in a vise: the challenges facing teacher preparation in an era of accountability. Teachers College Record 116(1). Online: http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=17295 Reflecting the view of most teacher educators, “Caught in a Vice” says that teacher educators hear all of the criticisms and are working diligently to address them. They are faced, however, with insurmountable technical problems in assessing teacher and training effectiveness. In other words, they are doing everything that the state of … Read More
American Association of School Administrators Harrington-Lueker, D. (2000). The uneasy coexistence of high stakes and developmental practice. Online: http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=14474 Written in 2000, the following well illustrates how schools and educators are affected by the propagation of faddish teaching practices. In the eighties, states dropped traditional teacher-led instruction in order to adopt developmentally appropriate practice in grades K-2. When school outcomes declined and test-based accountability was imposed to stop the slide, school leaders bemoaned the retreat from what they … Read More
Education Week: Commentary Stevens, K. B. (2015). Early-education teachers need better training. Education Week. Online: https://www.aei.org/articles/early-education-teachers-need-better-training/ “Conventional teacher training comes with a lot of baggage, and relying on it to prepare early educators would be a mistake.” “A 2011 Thomas B. Fordham Institute study by Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett found that half of all education professors themselves think that “‘teacher education programs often fail to prepare teachers for the challenges of teaching in the real world.” That … Read More
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) vs State Self Reports Are States Being Honest with Themselves About Student Achievement? The charts below compare the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reading and math reports with the state testing reports required by the No Child Left Behind Act. The discrepancies are surprising. If judged by national standards, students in most states are not as proficient in reading and math as the state tests say they are. To … Read More
Options for Parent and Citizen Action A school’s scores reflect your child’s risk of success or failure. At some schools, 90% or more of students have mastered reading by grade 3 and only 10% have not. The national average, however, is around 33%. Schools with a low percentage of proficient third grade readers will have a low percentage of proficient students in other grades and subjects. 1. If it appears that your child is among those who are … Read More