Issues in Public Education

posted in: Briefings & Reports |

Policy Analyses by J.E. Stone, Ed.D. Research and Analysis A great deal of research and policy analysis is available and its ostensive purpose is to improve public education.  The problem, however, is that almost all of it is produced by and for educators, not consumers.  As a result, it tends to serve the aims and purposes of its educator audience, not those of the consuming public.  In general, the public want schools to produce better student learning outcomes.  … Read More

Policy Highlights

Tennessee’s Race to the Top Application Significant Reforms Found By J.E. Stone, Ed.D. President Education Consumers Foundation February 15, 2010 (click here for PDF) Introduction Tennessee can take justifiable pride in its Race to the Top (RTTT) application. It is a bold plan and it succeeds by ensuring that the key elements of schooling enterprise—governance, hiring, compensation, and training—all treat student achievement gains as schooling’s top priority. Even retention for tenured teachers is subject to job performance requirements. In … Read More

About TVAAS

Tennessee’s Value Added Assessment: Why It’s Important and How It Works Ten years prior to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, Tennessee enacted its Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS). TVAAS was and is a major advancement in educational accountability. It remains the most sophisticated and mature school accountability system in use today. It is TVAAS’s statistical precision that makes it possible to rank Tennessee’s schools according to their effectiveness in helping students learn. Prior to 1980, school … Read More

3rd Grade Reading Proficiency Charts

Are Tennessee’s Children Learning to Read? Reading is the most essential skill that children learn in school. It is taught over a 4-5 year period that begins in preschool or kindergartenand extends to 3rd grade. Beyond 3rd grade, schooling turns from learning to read, to reading to learn. Promoting children to the 4th and subsequent grades without sound reading skills not only reduces their chances of success, it misleads their parents about the child’s progress, it unloads poorly … Read More

Direct Instruction Resources

For those interested in learning more about DI The Education Consumers Foundation has made available a great deal of information for those wishing to see real and dramatic improvements in reading proficiency rates. The resources below will help educators, legislators, school board leaders and others to learn more about Direct Instruction.   DI Policy Briefing Progress in reading proficiency rates has stalled: Tennessee has seen a move of just three points (on a 500-point scale) over the past … Read More

Needed: Truth in Grading

posted in: Education Research |

It is a disappointment when a child does poorly in school.  It becomes a tragedy, however, when a child and his parents are not told the truth. Every year, hundreds of thousands of primary and secondary school students are tested and found to lack minimum skills despite having been promoted from grade to grade. Many have been socially promoted, i.e., moved ahead despite poor marks. Most, however, are the victims of grade inflation: They were awarded letter grades … Read More

For Media

About the Education Consumers Foundation The Education Consumers Foundation (ECF) is a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation chartered in Tennessee. It is a spin-off of the Education Consumers ClearingHouse (ECC)—an online consumer organization founded in 1995.  ECF is dedicated to representing the interests of parents. taxpayers, and their elected representatives.  Its mission is to improve public education outcomes through the use of research and policy analysis.  ECF is like Consumer Reports but focused primarily on education policy, practice, and outcomes.   … Read More

For Activists

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

New report on teacher preparation aligns with ECF resources

posted in: General Information |

The National Council on Teacher Quality has released a landmark report, evaluating more than 1,100 colleges and universities that prepare elementary and secondary teachers and largely finding them wanting. Kate Walsh, CEO of NCTQ, writes on the issue here. This effort aligns closely with ECF’s work on the subject, a summary of which can be found here. Update: J.E. Stone, President of the Education Consumers Foundation, pens an article on this new report here.

Are Tennessee’s Children Learning to Read?

posted in: Data Scoreboards, Graphic Tools Used in Tennessee, Tools for Rating Schools |

Reading is the most essential skill that children learn in school. It is taught over a 4-5 year period that begins in preschool or kindergarten and extends to 3rd grade. Beyond 3rd grade, schooling turns from learning to read, to reading to learn. Promoting children to the 4th and subsequent grades without sound reading skills not only reduces their chances of success, it misleads their parents about the child’s progress, it unloads poorly equipped and discouraged learners on … Read More

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