"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) The Value of Enhanced Reading Opportunities in High Schools: Report Finds Supplemental Reading Programs Can Improve…

If pressed to provide a predictor of academic success, most people would choose socioeconomic status (SES). SES is a strong predictor when one looks at averages, but everyone knows that there are individual students of high wealth who are academic disasters and students of low wealth who are academic marvels. Wayne Hoy and colleagues, in numerous…

This report is the twenty-fifth in a series of surveys sponsored annually by MetLife since 1984 as a public service. This 25th anniversary edition includes the views of teachers, principals and students and looks back to the earliest MetLife Surveys to examine how perspectives on teachers, teaching and public education have changed. It documents…

Research studies have documented a strong link between perennial high rates of beginning teacher attrition and teacher shortages that impact teaching, especially in the major urban areas of the United States. It is widely concluded that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate school academic performance is a teacher shortage and the resulting…

A positive school climate is an important component of successful and effective schools and thus is often an aim of schoolwide initiatives. Climate has traditionally been conceptualized as a school-level factor and is often assumed to be related to other school-level factors (e.g., school size). The current study examines variation in perceptions…

This quantitative study uses data from North Carolina to examine the extent to which survey based perceptions of working conditions are predictive of policy-relevant outcomes, independent of other school characteristics such as the demographic mix of the school's students. Working conditions emerge as highly predictive of teachers' stated…

This report set out to profile the Missouri Career Ladder program by delving beneath the surface and comparing how the program works in practice (based on stakeholder accounts) with how it works in theory (based on published statutes and regulations). The authors found that in many respects the program operates as one might expect. Districts…

State public policy has been an important tool for improving the educational preparation and opportunity for many communities. However, without concerted statewide efforts it will continue to be difficult to substantially expand opportunities to accelerate higher education attainment and workforce preparation. Over the next 15 years, the states…

U.S. society proposes that all students should have equal opportunities to achieve academically; therefore, urban and rural schools that serve socio-economically disadvantaged students must employ highly qualified teachers who are prepared to teach in those particular school environments. Recruitment practices, teacher preparation programs, and…

This report reveals that about 100 Chicago schools suffer from chronically high rates of teacher turnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff every year, and many of these schools serve predominantly low-income African American children. In the typical Chicago elementary school, 51 percent of the teachers working in 2002 had left…

American educational leaders seek to educate children (regardless of race, class, or economic status) to become productive citizens. In order for our country to compete with other countries where students are well educated and highly motivated, we need to ensure that our educational system is equipped with the technology and tools that would allow…

We designed a professional development (PD) program to increase the teacher efficacy of mathematics teachers. We randomly assigned 106 Grade 6 teachers in 1 school district to treatment and control conditions in a delayed-treatment design. The PD explicitly addressed 4 sources of teacher-efficacy information identified in social-cognition theory…

Governor Easley of North Carolina has made a sustained commitment to listening to educators and reforming schools to create the working conditions necessary for student and teacher success. With three iterations of the working conditions survey and about 150,000 responses to critical questions about their workplace, analyses have been consistent…

"Teachers are leaders when they function in professional communities to affect student learning; contribute to school improvement; inspire excellence in practice; and empower stakeholders to participate in educational improvement" (Childs-Bowen, Moller, & Scrivner, 2000, p. 28). Enhancing teacher leadership can help schools and districts reach the…

Teacher-learner relationships are founded on the fundamental human need of knowing that another person genuinely cares. Students know when they are recognized, understood, and respected for their unique abilities and interests by their teachers. Teachers who believe in their students' abilities demonstrate that they care by placing the learners at…