PDK polls consistently show that parents give their children's schools high marks but are dissatisfied with the performance of public schools nationally. This paradox may be explained by the persistent narrative of failing public schools that has dominated media coverage in the past 50 years. Authors Mark Hlavacik and Jack Schneider tracked the…

Negative public perception of schools nationally impacts the teaching profession in direct and indirect ways. This perception has depressed the number of students in teacher preparation programs at universities. Indirectly, public perception affects teacher working conditions, compensation, and morale. Education advocates and researchers talk…

Adults' beliefs and knowledge about the state of the U.S. education system drive decisions about policy, funding, program adoption, student participation in programs, and the selection of decision makers to elected positions. Amie Rapaport and Anna Rosefsky Saavedra share national survey data showing that U.S. adults have little knowledge about…

Feedback is an essential ingredient for professional growth, but teachers receive limited feedback that is actually useful. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley and Tray Geiger discuss the flaws in two common forms of teacher feedback, value-added measures and classroom observations, often used as part of a summative evaluation. They suggest that student…

Preparing students to enter the workforce and attracting and retaining good teachers are Americans' top educational priorities for the next administration in Washington, regardless of who wins the upcoming presidential election, the 2024 PDK Poll finds. While eight in 10 or more Americans pick those two items as priorities, other policy priorities…

Teaching has always been a demanding profession, and the demands have only escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic. David T. Marshall, Tim Pressley, Natalie M. Neugebauer, & David M. Shannon review research from before and during the pandemic to learn what makes teachers likely to leave the profession and share results from their May 2022…

As the Every Student Succeeds Act is returning authority over teacher evaluation policies back to the states, policy makers at the state level have the opportunity to revise their policies. But who will they listen to when it comes to potential reforms? The author surveyed education policy makers to determine to what degree teachers, education…

As states consider non-academic measures of school quality for their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act, few are choosing to focus on the school climate in which students learn. That's not a surprise, given concerns about the validity and usefulness of existing climate surveys. However, the authors argue, a recent study…

Little attention has been given to better understanding how to effectively evaluate the work of instructional coaches. This study by Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides and Sarah Theule Lubienski illustrates how a new evaluation system for coaches was implemented in one mid-size, urban district. They describe two ways in which the Evaluation Tool…

If educators want to engage girls in learning, they must align teaching practices with girls' specific needs. In a study modeled after Reichert and Hawley's study of boys, the authors learned that lessons with hands-on learning, elements of creativity, multimodal projects, and class discussions all worked to stimulate girls'…

Learner-centered education has been touted as an improvement over teacher-centered educational systems. However, educators and researchers need to be cautious about its problems, in addition to considering its benefits. The authors set out to identify challenges to learner-centered education through the eyes of educators in a truly…

Being an expert involves explaining how things are supposed to work, and, perhaps more important, why things might not work as supposed. In this study, researchers surveyed scholars with expertise in value-added models (VAMs) to solicit their opinions about the uses and potential of VAMs for teacher-level accountability purposes (for example, in…

Formal mentoring is the cornerstone of most teacher induction programs, but teachers receive support from informal mentors as well. The authors report on findings from a study of 57 first-year mathematics teachers in 11 school districts to describe who teachers' formal and informal mentors are, how teachers work with them, and how the functions of…

In this, the second installment of a two-part report of the 46th annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, the report unveils what Americans are thinking about public schools--in particular their views of teachers and the classrooms where they work. Some findings were surprising, others were not. For example,…

In this sexcerpt from their book, "Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids," Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti discuss the phenomenon of helicopter parenting, in which parents spend more time monitoring their kids' activities. They present empirical evidence for a rise in parental involvement and…