Since the early 2000s, accountability and evaluation have been regarded by policymakers as key mechanisms for "fixing" teacher education and by many teacher education leaders as vehicles for elevating the status of the profession and uniting a fragmented field. Although educational inequity has been an enduring and endemic problem during…

This study describes the development of a special education teacher observation protocol detailing the elements of effective decoding instruction. The psychometric properties of the protocol were investigated through many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM). Video observations of classroom decoding instruction from 20 special education teachers across…

This multi-case study explored how local policy actors in rural school districts interpreted new teacher evaluation policies and how state-level policy actors influenced local policy responses. In the first phase of the study, teachers and administrators in four rural school districts in two U.S. states were interviewed about new state teacher…

The specific purpose of this study to is to discover what trainings and professional development are most beneficial to, and meet the needs of, clinical supervising teachers who work with first-year practicum student teachers and second-year resident student teachers within a clinical model of student teaching. The information from this study is…

On January 26, 2017, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), held a workshop in Washington, DC, on the engagement of engineering societies in undergraduate engineering education. Since then, the NAE has held a series of follow-up regional workshops to investigate specific issues…

This special report provides context and examples of new legislation impacting preparation, certification, induction, professional development, evaluation and compensation for leaders of schools and districts.

The rapid pace of change on teacher evaluation continues across the states in 2012. Since 2009, 36 states and the District of Columbia Public Schools have made policy changes on their books related to teacher evaluation. In the few short months since the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) published "State of the States" and the…

Many layers of education governance press upon U.S. schools, so we separated state actors into those internal to and those external to the system. In the process, we unpacked the traditional state-local dichotomy. Using interview data (n = 45) from six case-study states, we analyzed local leaders', state-internal actors', and state-external…

In an era of standardized exams to support No Child Left Behind, the influence a teacher candidate has on a P-12 classroom can greatly impact the academic achievement of students. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Educators (NCATE) Blue Ribbon Panel Report (2010) suggested that teacher preparation programs and school districts need…

In this article, we explain how overly prescriptive, rigid state statutory and regulatory policy frameworks regarding teacher evaluation, tenure and employment decisions outstrip the statistical reliability and validity of proposed measures of teaching effectiveness. We begin with a discussion of the emergence of highly prescriptive state…

Until recently, states focused on ensuring the presence of a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom. Under the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), this title described a teacher holding at least a bachelor's degree and the appropriate state license and…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) "Now What?": New Fordham Institute Report Explores Next Steps After Common Core Adoption, Offers Model to…

Social-emotional competence is an important determinant of school readiness. School readiness, in turn, sets the stage for school success. There is clear longitudinal evidence that school success, attachment and bonding to the schooling process, and full engagement of schooling can, in combination, operate as a protective factor against a host of…

REL Pacific at McREL, 1 of 10 Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), serves educators in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap), Guam, Hawai'i, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic…

In this paper, the authors report research focused directly on the validation of the Coding of Academic Teacher-Student interactions (CATS) direct observation instrument. They use classroom information gathered by the CATS instrument to better understand the potential mediating variables hypothesized to influence student achievement. Their study's…