This article is concerned with assessment of those in England training to become citizenship secondary teachers. We sketch the background to initial teacher education for secondary citizenship education, outline the methods of an empirical project on assessment of trainees and draw attention to emerging issues. We describe practice in selection,…

This article investigates the effects of trainee teachers on secondary school student outcomes. The additional resources which schools receive from being involved in teacher training offer them an opportunity to raise standards, but this has to be set against the possible losses due to school students being taught by inexperienced beginning…

This brief is a summary of "Increasing the Application of Developmental Sciences Knowledge in Educator Preparation: Policy Issues and Recommendations" by Robert C. Pianta, Randy Hitz and Blake West. It includes highlights and policy recommendations contained in that paper. This brief argues that teachers and education administrators need…

Teacher evaluation systems have tremendous potential in helping teachers grow in their profession. A standards-based teacher evaluation system with a rubric and multiple sources of data has the potential to create a collaborative environment that focuses on the continuous improvement of each teacher in the district. This ultimately leads to an…

Federal education policy in recent years has encouraged state and local education agencies to embrace data use and analysis in decision-making, ranging from policy development and implementation to performance evaluation. The capacity of these agencies to make effective and methodologically sound use of collected data for these purposes remains an…

This study examined the impact of the 2+2 Alternative Teacher Performance Appraisal System that has been implemented in Shanxi province in China. A mixed research design was used to evaluate the program. Six high schools and a total of 78 teachers (13 teachers in each school) in Shanxi province were selected. Three of the schools participated in…

This report, produced jointly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress, and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, is a call to action in response to how poorly states measured up on key indicators of educational innovation. The report is the first-ever attempt to evaluate the innovation gap in American…

Adolescents with disabilities require access to general education and life skills instruction. Knowledge of food safety for this audience is important for health and valuable for work placement. The objective was to implement a survey to assess high school and transition special education teachers in RI, CT, and MA for food safety knowledge and…

This is the second of two reports commissioned by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) intended to address the dire need for teacher preparation policy and programs to reflect recent advances in scientific knowledge of child and adolescent development. In the first report, "Principles and Exemplars for…

With an increasing prevalence of virtual high school programs in the United States, a better understanding of evaluative tools available for distance educators and administrators is needed. These evaluative tools would provide opportunities for assessment and a determination of success within virtual schools. This article seeks to provide an…

Cooperative learning is an instructional method designed to teach students to work together in small, structured, heterogeneous teams to achieve a common goal. The Performer and Coach Earn Rewards (PACER) system is a new way to incorporate cooperative learning in the gymnasium. It consists of six components that help teachers to introduce new…

The process of teacher identification, selection, initial training, and on-going professional development that has developed at the Illinois Virtual High School (IVHS) over the past seven years is described and discussed in this article. Validation was based upon existing practices and research. To provide background the creation and initial…

"Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" is the authoritative source for accurate information on the state of education around the world. It provides data on the output of educational institutions; the impact of learning across countries; the financial and human resources invested in education; access, participation and progression in…

This research, conducted at a university in South Texas (87% Hispanic), investigated how well pre-service teachers' performance on the Secondary Professional Development Examination for Certification of Educators in Texas (ExCET) can be predicted. The linear regression equation explained 51% of the total variance in the ExCET scores while the…

With the enactment of the NCLB mandates, emphasis on high-stakes testing became more prevalent than ever. Some argue that high-stakes tests can be a driving force behind fundamental change in schools. Whether or not this type of test-driven change leads to school improvement is an empirical question. What we do know is that high-stake testing can…