Numerous techniques and methods are used in School-Based Agricultural Education. These techniques are vital to the goal of educating a diverse and expansive population that exist within secondary agricultural science courses. Agricultural educators, both traditionally and alternatively certified, know and understand the value of using multiple…

Salaries are one of the most powerful policy levers states and school districts can use to attract qualified, effective, and diverse teachers. What role do states play in supporting strategic use of salaries? This report examines the state teacher compensation policies that influence districts' potential strategic use of teacher pay. It analyzes…

This report offers state leaders key areas for action to continue progress in implementing evaluation systems, even as federal policies on teacher evaluation relax state requirements. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) offers its current best thinking for how state agencies can make the smartest use of funds, time and partners to refine…

An ePortfolio Assessment Institute (AI) structured as a faculty development opportunity was undertaken to increase faculty confidence in teaching and assessing ePortfolios and to collect reliable data about student performance on four learning outcomes associated with an institutionwide ePortfolio initiative. Faculty raters participated in the…

Across three phases, we investigated college students' perceptions of poor college teaching to develop a typology of poor teaching behaviors. In Phase 1, students generated a list of qualities representative of poor teaching. In Phase 2, another group of students assigned behavioral correspondents to these qualities, resulting in a list of 15 poor…

Teacher certification is an important topic in the history of teaching in American education. Policymakers have recognized that for students to meet high standards, their teachers must also be of high quality (Goldhaber, Perry & Anthony, 2004; McCaffrey, Lockwood, Koretz, & Hamilton, 2003). The National Board for Professional Teaching…

By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. The systems include many and varying updates. In some cases, the updates were designed to meet conditions for a state's "Race to the Top" grant. In others, the updates were made to meet conditions for a state's waiver…

By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. There are many and varying updates to these systems, and some of them have been made to meet conditions for a state's federal "Race to the Top" (RTT) grant. Other updates have been made to meet conditions for a state's…

This February 2015 report presents an analysis of classroom observation policies and progress in implementation in Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states. It offers a closer look at how states are framing observations, training observers, ensuring observation quality and building a culture of educator support. The report outlines…

Implementation of college- and career-readiness standards is some of the most important work currently underway in states to improve public education and student achievement. This report provides a summary of findings from SREB's research into the efforts of 15 states--12 in the Southern Educational Research Board (SREB) region--to support…

Teacher quality is one of the most important school related variables associated with student achievement. Therefore, raising the quality of the U.S. public education teaching force is essential to ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve academic success. In order to accomplish this, significant analytical inspection of teachers is…

Implementation of college- and career-readiness standards is some of the most important work currently underway in states to improve student achievement and public education overall. SREB examined the efforts of 14 states--including 11 SREB states--to support implementation of new college- and career-readiness standards. The goal of the research…

Stewart Thorson, principal of New Century Technology High School in Huntsville, Alabama, develops plans for his school's professional learning in an environment restricted by state regulations. In Alabama's Title I and low socioeconomic status schools and through initiatives such as Blue Ribbon Schools and the State Department of Education's Plan…

Recruit, train, reward, retain. These actions sound like the core competencies of a human resources manager or the buzzwords for economic development initiatives aiming to attract Fortune 500 companies. The same principles apply to finding, preparing and retaining effective educators. All 16 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states have…

Online instructional ratings are taken by many with a grain of salt. This study analyzes the ability of said ratings to estimate the official (university-administered) instructional ratings of the same respective university instructors. Given self-selection among raters, we further test whether more online ratings of instructors lead to better…