According to the ACLU (2005), ". . .at times of national stress -- real or imagined -- First Amendment rights come under enormous pressure." So, too, academic freedom of expression for faculty, staff, and students has become a casualty in the post-9/11 world. Academics were criticized and reprimanded for not being patriotic enough. Using…

The unpredictable nature of the COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges including a need for new curricula, pedagogy, and more accessible forms of professional development (PD). A gap in research exists regarding professional development of educators. This qualitative study used data collected from two surveys, a focus group, and a…

In this bulletin, we describe the processes and practices associated with "Evidence Based Standard Setting," which draw directly from the concept of evidence-based medicine.

The national common educational standards and the role of citizenship education is an important issue for all social studies educators--preK through college. This article presents websites that examine the Common Core Standards Initiative's work and plans for the future and some that focus more specifically on the social studies/citizenship…

This study examined mathematics teacher content knowledge in terms of policy maker recommendations, college coursework and teacher certification mathematics test scores. Transcript analysis indicated poor alignment of national policy maker recommendations for mathematics teachers and college degrees in mathematics. Teacher certification test…

This study examines mathematics teacher content knowledge in terms of state and national policymaker recommendations, college coursework and the Mathematics Texas Examination of Educator Standards (TExES) score. Results indicate differences between state and national policy recommendations and college degrees in mathematics. A statistically…

Teacher quality is instrumental in improving student performance. Unfortunately, discrepancies between teacher preparation programs and national and state K-12 student standards have contributed to the difficult task of producing quality teachers. The contemporary mathematics education paradigm used at most colleges and universities relies on…

Graduate students seeking to be educational leaders in today's high-demand society require more than lectures and textbooks to learn the requisite leadership skills. They must also have the opportunity to develop and test job skills in an on-the-job environment. Future leaders need the opportunity to grapple with the dilemmas principals face…

In this report, the National Council on Teacher Quality evaluates key features of 67 undergraduate institutions elementary, secondary and special education teacher preparation in the state of Texas. The authors apply 25 standards that bear directly on the capacity of those programs to attract talented individuals and prepare them to teach…

Texas is in the process of transitioning to new English language arts and mathematics standards that will better prepare students to be successful in college and their careers. Time, effort, and resources must be dedicated to effective implementation in order to realize the promise of these new common core state standards. This paper captures the…

In Texas, undergraduate teacher preparation programs graduate 9,300 new elementary, secondary and special education teachers, nearly half (43 percent) of the total number produced each year in the state. This report examines 67 of those programs on a range of standards. The standards bear directly on their programs' capacity to attract the most…

Debates over the use of college rankings are often framed in binaries: ardent advocates versus outright rejectionists, rankers versus rankees. But the American higher education landscape is complex, and so too should be discussions of rankings. Moreover, the policymaking process is simultaneously intricate and predictable--information is processed…