As value-added research designs gain in popularity and undergo increasing scrutiny, experts are beginning to wave cautionary flags about how best to make use of them in education. Value-added techniques for measuring student achievement appeal to administrators and policymakers at all levels of education because they quantify the gains that…

Few in the education field discount the eminently logical idea that teachers should be supported in the continuous improvement of their craft. But as a term for describing ongoing training investments in the teaching force, "professional development" has become both ubiquitous and all but meaningless. Though frequently invoked by…

As the U.S. Department of Education prepares final rules for the $650 million Investing in Innovation Fund, officials face strong concerns from school districts and philanthropies that requiring matching funds from the private sector is unworkable and would turn foundations into the gatekeepers for the federal grants. Concern about the proposed…

Amid stepped-up school accountability pressures under the No Child Left Behind Act, many teachers appear to be adjusting how they do their jobs. However, principals and district leaders are not necessarily in control of those instructional changes, a new study concludes. Using data collected through surveys of math teachers, principals, and…

Researchers looking to tap into the treasure troves of long-term student-achievement data that states and districts are starting to pile up say their efforts are increasingly running up against a decades-old federal law designed to protect student privacy. "More and more people are starting to look into questions of the federal…

President Bush says that the No Child Left Behind Act is working, pointing to student-achievement results from a single subsection of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and tentative Reading First data. But the evidence available to support his claim is questionable. The data Mr. Bush cited are from just the "long-term…