Boones Creek Elementary School

2014 Value-Added Achievement Awards Winner: Teresa Leonard, Boones Creek Elementary School Second Place, Eastern Division, Elementary Schools Teresa Leonard, Principal Boones Creek Elementary School 348 Christian Church Road Gray, TN 37615 Washington County Schools Visit website Click here for Teresa Leonard’s Recipe for Success     Materials related to the Boones Creek Elementary School recognition ceremony: Press release from the event PDF of School Performance Chart showing Boones Creek Elementary’s ranking; or visit ECF’s online interactive tool to make a chart that shows … Read More

Andersonville Elementary School

2014 Value-Added Achievement Awards Winner: Beth Roeder, Andersonville Elementary School Third Place, Eastern Division, Elementary Schools Beth Roeder, Principal Andersonville Elementary School 1951 Mountain Road Andersonville, TN, 37705 Anderson County Schools Visit website Click here for Beth Roeder’s Recipe for Success Materials related to the Andersonville Elementary School recognition ceremony: Press release from the event PDF of School Performance Chart showing Andersonville Elementary’s ranking; or visit ECF’s online interactive tool to make a chart that shows other schools by name PDF of … Read More

Who’s Gaining in the Race to the Top?

posted in: Briefings & Reports, Value Added Achievement Awards |

Ten Most Improved States on the Nation’s Report Card, 2011-2013 The fifty states (avg. enrollment ≈ 1M) were ranked like sports teams on the reading and math gains reported by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Other NAEP participants (enrollment <90K) were excluded. Ranks were scored: 1st place = 10pts, 2nd place = 9pts, . . . , 10th place = 1pt. Tie scores received the same rank and points. First place on all 4 tests = 40pts. … Read More

Tennessee’s Value Added Assessment: Why It’s Important and How It Works

Value added assessment of school performance is a breakthrough in the measurement of educational performance.  It tells users how much students’ gained in achievement in the just-completed year relative to their past rate of educational progress–irrespective of starting level and the various social, economic, ethnic, and other factors thought to limit or enhance student learning.  Value-added scores, however, are limited to grades 4 through 8, i.e., grades in which there is standardized testing in the same subjects. Read … Read More

Teacher Evaluation and Student Achievement

(click here for full article) (click here to download a PDF of this article) By James H. Stronge & Pamela D. Tucker Washington, DC: National Education Association, 2000.   Briefing Everyone wants to reward good teaching, but how to fairly and objectively measure it? Clearly, good teaching boosts student achievement but so does a student’s home life and neighborhood. The key is to measure the teacher’s contribution separately-isolated from these other influences? According to James Stronge and Pamela Tucker, two … Read More

Schoolbook Simplification

Schoolbook Simplification and Its Relation to the Decline in SAT-Verbal Scores (click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By Donald P. Hayes, Loreen T. Wolfer, and Michael F. Wolfe American Educational Research Journal, 33(2), 1996, pp. 489-508.   Briefing Eighth grade reading materials of today are no more difficult than the 5th grade texts of 1945. That is exactly what is reported in one of education’s most widely respected journals. Writing … Read More

Why students in some countries do better

(click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By Ludger Woessman Education Next, Summer 2001.   Briefing “Why Do Students in Some Countries Do Better?” Other countries usually have a national ministry of education that sets forth uniform education goals and standards, but not here. Our Constitution leaves authority over schools to the states, which delegate much authority to local school districts, which leave much discretion to principals and teachers. This local … Read More

Teacher Certification Reconsidered

Teacher Certification Reconsidered: Stumbling for Quality (click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By Kate Walsh Baltimore, MD: The Abell Foundation, October, 2001.   Briefing Policymakers and the public assume that trained and certified teachers are better teachers. Aspiring teachers spend years taking education courses. Billions are spent on training programs. Public schools in all states are required to hire certified teachers. But is there evidence that trained and certified (some … Read More

Shifting Images

Shifting Images of Developmentally Appropriate Practice as Seen Through Different Lenses (click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By David K. Dickinson Educational Researcher, 31(1), 2002, pp. 26-32.   Briefing Despite billions spent, preschool programs such as Headstart have produced disappointing results. A prime reason may be that the nation’s largest accreditor of preschool programs has required them to use teaching practices that impede, rather than encourage, school readiness. The National … Read More

The Evolution of the New American Schools

The Evolution of the New American Schools: From Revolution to Mainstream (click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By Jeffery Mirel, Ph.D. School of Education University of Michigan   Briefing What are the “New American Schools?” Unfortunately they are the latest educational reform to be identified as a failure. A variety of factors played a role in their demise, but the most obvious problem was their reliance on the “progressive” vision … Read More

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