Teachers & Teacher Preparation

Disconnected and Unaccountable Teacher Training is at the Heart of Schooling Failure Evidence from the few states where such data is collected indicates that many elementary and secondary school students fail to make adequate progress because they too frequently encounter ineffective teachers, i.e., teachers whose students’ achievement growth is significantly less than one year of achievement gain per school year. Part of the problem is that many school districts are only now beginning to systematically monitor or address the problem … Read More

Consumer Empowerment

American Decline can be Reversed through Grassroots Action Public education has been decaying on the inside for decades. Educators blame poverty, poor parenting, changing demographics, the growth of hedonistic popular culture, insufficient funding, and myriad other factors. Seldom mentioned, however, is education’s failure to adapt and overcome these conditions. In the view of most educators, schools are doing all they can–an explanation that is contradicted by the measurable differences in effectiveness among teachers within the same school and … Read More

Tennessee Teacher Prep Change Would be First in the Nation

posted in: Home Carousel, News & Announcements, The Tennessee Model |

A bill before the 2019 Tennessee General Assembly could lead to dramatic improvements in teaching, learning, and college readiness for Tennessee’s PK-12 students. The bill would require the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) to incentivize Tennessee’s public universities for producing a greater percentage of highly effective new teachers.  It would do so by incorporating the percentage of newly graduated teachers who produce above-average achievement gains into THEC’s Quality Assurance funding program. Although Tennessee’s universities have historically produced many excellent teachers, a decline in quality … Read More

Teacher Ed Needs Accountability

posted in: General Information, News & Announcements |

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

Misdirected Teacher Training & Failed Reform

Misdirected Teacher Training has Crippled Education Reform Significant Improvement will Require Teaching that Agrees with State Policy Aims An online controversy about the impact of Common Core on teaching in grades preK-3 revealed an illusion that has crippled education reform for decades. Policymakers may think that educators disagree with them only about the means to education reform. In truth, they also disagree about the ends. Since the 1983 Nation at Risk report, state and national policymakers have set … Read More

National Board Certification: Is it worth the time and expense?

Studies pertaining to the effectiveness of NBPTS-certified teachers are ongoing. Here is a partial list. Advanced Teacher Certification http://www.education-consumers.com/Cunningham-Stone.pdf Evidence that there is any educationally meaningful advantage to certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is still lacking.  [Cunningham, G. K. & Stone, J. E. (2005). Value-added assessment of teacher quality as an alternative to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: What recent studies say.  In Robert Lissitz (Ed.). Value added models in education: Theory and applications. Maple … Read More

Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Preparation Programs

posted in: General Information |

Tennessee Higher Education Commission (2013) Teacher training may be the single most important contributor teacher effectiveness but few states actually measure the student achievement gains produced by the graduates of their teacher preparation programs. Tennessee and Louisiana are the exceptions. The Praxis Examinations long used by state teacher licensure agencies have little demonstrated relationship to student achievement gains ( Buddin & Zamarro , RAND, 2009) http://www.tn.gov/thec/Divisions/fttt/13report_card/1_Report%20Card%20on%20the%20Effectiveness%20of%20Teacher%20Training%20Programs.pdf

ACT Profile Report

posted in: Briefings & Reports, Research, Analysis, & Opinion for Reform-minded Consumers, Tools for Ranking Schools |

  For nearly a decade, states have sought to have all high school graduates meet a standard of “prepared for college or the workplace.”  According to ACT’s most recent report, only 27% meet that standard. The ACT Profile Reports provide valuable information about the performance of each state’s 2017 graduating seniors who took the ACT as sophomores, juniors, or seniors. The reports focus on student performance, student access, course selection, course rigor, college readiness, student awareness, and articulation to higher education. … Read More

Parents and School

The 150-Year Struggle for Control in American Education The following material was excerpted from Chapter 2. Parents and Schools is not available online.   The Peripheral Parent: Making the Most of Marginality In the 1920S, there was widespread support in the United States for the idea that parents and teachers should work together. However, Americans were still uncertain about the nature and extent of this cooperation. It remained unclear to what degree parents should join in the education … Read More

Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs

posted in: Briefings & Reports |

By Richard Phelps, Ph.D. Economist Education Consumers Consultants Network   Benefit-cost analysis is imbedded in all studies that ask the essential question of an activity, “Is it worth doing?” Benefit-cost analysis is a set of techniques, philosophy, and logic that can impose an order and rigor on the process used to answer the essential question. The logic of benefit-cost analysis is that of the accountant’s spreadsheet. Indeed, one could accurately describe it as economists’ accounting method. The essential … Read More

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