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Stan Litow argues that recovery from the coronavirus crisis requires a redesign of public education at the national level, and that planning and investment must begin now.
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In memory of Elizabeth (Liz) Davis, the President of the Washington Teachers Union (WTU), who died suddenly and tragically in a car accident on the evening of April 4, 2021.
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Our new report on spending adequacy in 12,000 U.S. school districts finds inadequate funding gaps totaling $104 billion.
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ASI fellow Lauren Schneider argues that using high-quality evidence in education policy requires a system that provides educators with contextualized research tailored to their needs.
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ASI fellow Lauren Schneider argues that schools need to shift away from zero-tolerance student discipline policies and move toward relationship-based student accountability models such as restorative justice.
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In collaboration with researchers from Rutgers University, we have published one page profiles summarizing the adequacy and fairness of the school finance systems of all 50 states and D.C.
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Civil Rights leaders Norman and Velma Murphy Hill offer a tribute to Nat LaCour, the AFT's first Executive Vice President, who passed away earlier this month.
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It is with great sadness that we report the death of Nat LaCour, the AFT's first Executive Vice President, one of the founders of the Albert Shanker Institute, and a mentor and an inspiration to many of those whose lives he touched.
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A new paper finds that students might be segregated by race and ethnicity not only between schools, but also between classes within schools.
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ASI Fellow Lauren Schneider argues that co-teaching models can foster an inclusive and effective learning environment for Emerging Bilingual Learners.
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We are devastated to report the death of David K. Cohen, a founding member of the Albert Shanker Institute’s board of directors, a gifted teacher, and a brilliant scholar.
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It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Eadie Shanker, Al Shanker’s widow and a committed teacher, unionist, and advocate for social justice in her own right.
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Researchers Sara Kerr and Nate Schwartz discuss a new project to provide accessible, research-based briefs to guide educators and decision makers through the pandemic recovery.
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Tia Madkins and Alexis Patterson Williams argue that it is critical to start the conversation about post-pandemic teaching and learning from a place of hope and reimagine what could go well in PK-12 education.
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Without massive federal intervention, state budget cuts will cause disproportionate harm to higher poverty districts, in which spending is already woefully inadequate.
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While there is no substitute for in-person teaching and learning, some schools have strengths that improved their ability to engage students remotely argues Ann Cook, executive director of the New York Performance Standards Consortium..
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Schott Foundation CEO John Jackson argues that the pandemic represents an opportunity to once again move us forward towards creating a more equitable and just "new normal" for students, parents, and families.
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CUNY Professor Peter Consenstein argues that the costs of returning to school will be high and can only come in phases.
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Harvard's Jal Mehta and 2015 National Teacher of the Year Shanna Peeples argue that when schools reopen they should ‘declutter’ the curriculum, focusing on the essential, and creating space for rebuilding the friendships and communities upon which the pandemic intruded.
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New research by Brown University's Matthew Kraft and CUNY's Nicole Simon shows that the sudden move to remote teaching has created substantial challenges for teachers’ work. Their analysis suggest that organizational conditions and supports matter more than ever.
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NYU Professor Susan Neuman argues for using the pandemic to rethink how to instill a love for reading in children and offers three concrete strategies to do so.
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Arizona State professor Sherman Dorn recommends viewing the current crisis as the basis for asking important "what if?" questions about public schooling in the U.S.
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Stan Karp of the Education Law Center argues that the pandemic has once again made public schools a target of privatization and destructive austerity.
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University of New South Wales Professor Pasi Sahlberg offers five recommendations of what schools should NOT do when they re-open after the pandemic.
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In order to respond successfully to the pandemic, teachers will have to work together, says Harvard Professor Susan Moore Johnson.
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Stan Litow offers suggestions for minimizing the negative impact of the pandemic on public schools and colleges and their students.
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CUNY Professor Michelle Fine argues that public education is at a crossroads, and now is a moment for school districts and educators to mobilize for equity.
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NYC teacher Jose Luis Vilson discusses how the importance of hope in teaching disadvantaged children has become even more salient during the pandemic.
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Brown University's Matthew Kraft and Grace Falken present their research showing that teachers in strong climates get better faster, stay longer, and propel their students to greater heights.
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Tufts Professor Peter Levine reflects on the challenges of ensuring educational equity while schools are closed due to the pandemic.
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Andy Hargreaves, drawing on his discussions with school leaders in six countries, lays out five issues and opportunities that will arise once schools reopen.
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Leo Casey discusses the formation and early years of New York City's teachers' union, one of the original locals of the American Federation of Teachers.
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The plan to minimize the harm of the coronavirus recession on K-12 budgets cannot consist solely of federal aid. States will have to change the way they fund schools.
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Emilee O'Brien explores the potential inequities of developing at-home AP and SAT exams during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The Century Foundation's Rick Kahlenberg celebrates the life and career of Clifford Janey, who passed away earlier this month.
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Our new report on the adequacy and fairness of state school finance systems illustrates key issues for properly interpreting finance measures.
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With great sadness we report the passing of Clifford Janey, a member of the Shanker Institute Board of Directors for 13 years.
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Does sex education content belong in a high school social studies course? Emilee O'Brien explores the model to integrate elements of sex education into social science courses.
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In a 1995 column, Al Shanker argued that, although interdisciplinary units can be done well, there is value in the deep knowledge that the disciplines of history and math and science and literature can offer.
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Stan Litow discusses the lessons he learned while serving under New York City schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez during the 1990s.
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A quick discussion of our new analysis of racial school segregation in the D.C. metro area, which focuses on segregation within and between districts in the area.
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Randall Garton reflects on a new movie about Fred Rogers in the context of contemporary partisan politics.
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Emilee O'Brien argues that it is crucial for comprehensive sex education curricula adapt to include sexting as a content area focused on defining consent and risk.
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Emilee O’Brien explores the need for social identity development in students and how to incorporate the concept into existing accountability systems.
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Author Natalie Wexler discusses the critical importance of content knowledge for teaching and learning reading skills.
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A proposal to treat growth and status measures as interchangeable school performance indicators illustrates important issues in test-based school accountability systems.
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Emilee O’Brien explores the social justice implications of the current state of “sex ed” to argue for a national comprehensive sexual health education curriculum.
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Checker Finn and Andrew Scanlan discuss the benefits of Advanced Placement courses, and why AP exams don't seem to provoke the same controversy as other standardized tests.
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Stan Litow argues that private sector companies should recognize their responsibility to the broader community, a stable environment, improved schools, and their employees.
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Poor school districts in the U.S., on average, receive the same amount of state and local revenue as affluent districts. There are good reasons to change this.
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On the anniversary of the passing of former ASI executive director Eugenia Kemble, we reprint her 2012 post, in which she reflects on her time in the labor movement.
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In this 1985 column, Al Shanker argues that teachers need to be treated respectfully, as the dedicated professionals they are.
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A discussion of the findings of our new research brief, which looks at the relationship between teacher pay competitiveness and states' school funding systems.
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Leo Casey responds to Joe Biden's defense of his position on school busing.
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A new study raises interesting questions about why teacher diversity may vary between charter and regular public schools, and, more importantly, how this might inform policy.
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Stan Litow argues that recent progress in improving high school graduation rates needs to be supplemented by efforts to ensure college readiness among graduates and create pathways from high school to college to well-paying jobs.
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Stan Litow discusses how to improve the efficacy of federal funding for K-12 and higher education.
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Earlier this week, ASI released a new report and public database on state school finance systems in the U.S. Here's what the project is all about.
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Leo Casey argues that finding common ground on civic education is possible, but only if that ground is shared by those who have a deep and abiding commitment to American democracy.
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A new working paper lays out a helpful framework for the very important but difficult task of interpreting "effect sizes" in education research studies.
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The current evidence on how online charter schools affect student testing outcomes is almost uniformly bad, but why and what to do about it remain open (and interesting) questions.
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Over the past 15 years, the amount of student debt that teachers take on has risen dramatically, while teacher pay has fallen further and further behind that of similarly-educated professionals.
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We at the Shanker Institute wish you a happy and healthy holiday season, and a new year in which the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. Posts will resume in the new year.
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A quick update to our report, published earlier this year, on the collection and availability of teacher diversity data -- some good news, some bad news, and some rather odd news.
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Bilan Jama examines racial disparities in school disciplinary outcomes, and argues that schools need resources and policies to address this issue adequately and equitably.
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IBM's Stan Litow discusses how, 80 years ago, the public and private sector worked together to pass and implement social security, and how they are doing the same for a new law funding career and technical education.
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Two education researchers argue that one way to improve the quality of education studies is to encourage researchers to "pre-register" their studies before examining their data.
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A discussion of our new report, a summary of whether states collect and make public teacher diversity data, based on our survey of all 51 state education agencies.
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Recent research suggests that teacher evaluation reform had no discernible impact on student outcomes. But it is too early, and would be shortsighted, to proclaim it a failure.
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It is with great sorrow that we report the death of Eugenia Kemble, the founding executive director of the Albert Shanker Institute, after a long battle with cancer. In her honor we are establishing and accepting donations for the
Eugenia Kemble Research Grants.
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There much contentious debate about the impact of teacher's unions on schools, but what do teachers think? We look at survey data over the past five years.
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The U.S. Education Department recently recycled a misleading graph intended to make a point unsupported by research. They can do better.
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Teacher evaluation reform, which dominated education policy for years, is now in place throughout the U.S. Now comes the hard part: assessing its impact.
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ASI's Jose Enrique Calvo Elhauge discusses gun control and the idea of arming teachers in the wake of another mass school shooting.
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Three Harvard researchers discuss their work on how schools can foster a "growth mindset," the idea of developing knowledge and skills over time, rather than assuming individuals are born with fixed abilities.
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Is it possible to influence staff social relations to promote professional learning and school improvement? Here’s what James Spillane and his colleagues found.
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Three important yet often unarticulated questions underlie the debate about school choice and segregation, and may be partially responsible for the impasse on this topic.
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We at the Shanker Institute wish all of you a very happy and healthy holiday season. Posts will resume after the New Year.
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Mandating collaboration may not be enough to encourage teachers to work together; there is much to learn about the resources and supports that are needed to promote productive collaboration.
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Two classroom teachers discuss TeacherAdvisor, a new technology to help strengthen teachers’ ability to instruct students with varying degrees of preparation in elementary school math.
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Some additional discussion of the findings of our report, released last week, about public and private school segregation in D.C.
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A large study of school closures finds no positive effects, but the results are difficult to interpret given how we identify schools to close in the U.S.
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The conventional wisdom that schools are "resegregating" often fails to highlight key issues about the context of segregation and, thus, what to do about it.
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A new analysis shows that schools vary widely in the size of their SES-based achievement gaps, and in trends in these gaps over time.
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With all of the recent debate about school voucher proposals, we decided to reprint this January 1997 New York Times column by Al Shanker in which he discusses inconsistencies in many conservatives' position on vouchers.
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A recent change to Florida's school grading system might have weakened the relationship between the state's school ratings and student poverty. It did not.
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Bill Penuel and Caitlin Farrell discuss how long-term research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have helped districts select, adapt, and design evidence-based programs
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Professor Conra D. Gist discusses her project designed to work with aspiring and current teachers of color.
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John B. King Jr. argues that desegregating schools is a key to expanding equality of opportunity in the U.S., and highlights places and programs that are already making progress.
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The Every Student Succeeds Act represents an improvement in accountability measurement, but there is still a long way to go.
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Joshua Starr argues that the primary responsibility of education leaders seeking to improve student achievement is to empower educators to learn together.
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Professor Corrie Stone-Johnson describes the challenges school leaders face in building networks within and across schools and offers suggestions for how leadership preparation can support future leaders to do this work.
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University of Chicago researchers Elaine Allensworth, Molly Gordon and Lucinda Fickel zero in on the role of school-community relations in school improvement.
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Esther Quintero discusses her new book, an edited volume synthesizing research on how the context of teachers’ work matters for teaching quality and student achievement.
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GW professor Matthew Shirrell discusses his new research showing that holding schools accountable for student subgroups' performance affects teachers' assignments and attrition.
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A new paper looks the impact of teacher evaluations in Houston, and the results speak to the promise and challenges of evaluation reform nationwide.
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Eugenia Kemble remembers Al Shanker 20 years after his passing, and how his commitment to democracy showed in how he ran his union.
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On the 20th anniversary of her father's death, Jennie Shanker remembers how his life's trajectory was formed by the struggles of his family.
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20 years after Al Shanker's death, AFT secretary treasurer Dr. Lorretta Johnson recalls Shanker's belief that justice, fairness and equality could only grow in a climate of unity and togetherness.
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On the 20th anniversary of Al Shanker's death, Herb Magidson remembers Shanker's clear and persuasive voice in support of freedom and democracy.
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In our ongoing series commemorating the 20th anniversary of Al Shanker's death, Rick Kahlenberg discusses Shanker's inclusive yet firm brand of liberalism.
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On the 20th anniversary of Al Shanker's death, we celebrate his life and legacy with a series of posts by those who knew and were influenced by him, beginning with ASI's Leo Casey.
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A new paper looks at the impact of teacher evaluation ratings on teacher job satisfaction in Tennessee.
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A final update on the students of the 15 winners of our call for teachers to design a civic engagement project important to their students, school or community.
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Checking in on a few of the 15 winners of our call for teachers to design a civic engagement project important to their students, school or community.
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School segregation is a frequent topic of discussion, and rightfully so. Here are three very important details that should be made clear in these discussions.
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Over two years ago, we requested basic public data on the race and ethnicity of DC teachers. Here's what happened.
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The Shanker Institute, partnering with two other organizations, challenged educators to identify an issue and a civic engagement project important to their students, school or community. We received over 900 proposals.
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A very large, very important new study suggests that lower- and higher income students' access to effective teachers may not be unequal as is often assumed.
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The superintendent and union president from Meriden, CT discuss how a focus on both student and teacher learning has shaped policy in their district.
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How many schools are effective in boosting test scores of all students but not those of traditionally lower scoring subgroups, and what are the implications of this question for accountability policy?
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David Blazar and Matthew Kraft discuss their research on how teachers influence students' social emotional development, and its implications for policy.
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Having eased the requirements for test-based measures, the final regulations for holding teacher preparation programs accountable encourage states to find and test alternatives.
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Danette Parsley of Education Northwest shows how rural schools address the challenges they face, while leveraging their inherent assets, to establish professional networks of teacher leaders.
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A quick look at the segregation by income among students in the nation's largest school district.
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A new paper shows how seemingly small choices in design can have a rather drastic impact on the results of teacher evaluations.
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A new paper offers an alternative to a serious problem in education research and policy -- how to measure student income and poverty.
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Between 2000 and 2012, the prevalence of contingent faculty and instructors increased at all types of U.S. colleges and universities, perhaps representing a shift in employment relations at institutions of higher education.
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Focus groups are a potentially useful research method, but their results are too often misinterpreted and misrepresented.
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This year’s New York City testing results raise questions about the presentation of test data while moving beyond test-based accountability.
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A seemingly small change to Florida's school rating system, among the oldest and most copied in the nation, may improve the validity of the grades as measures of actual school performance.
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A new education funding proposal in New Jersey illustrates the importance and risks of the relationship between research and policy.
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Geoff Marietta, Chad d'Entremont, and Emily Murphy discuss the importance of collaboration in schools and districts, and how to foster teamwork that improves results.
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A new report provides some very early insight into teachers' opinions of evaluation systems, and the association of these opinions with teacher and school characteristics.
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Our new report, by Bruce Baker and Mark Weber (Rutgers), dismantles the common argument that U.S. schools are inefficient, and shows what can and cannot be learned from existing data.
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A recent GAO report was reported as showing that U.S. schools were "resegregating" between 2000 and 2013. The reality and the evidence is more complicated.
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New evidence confirms that early childhood intervention is crucial for increasing the disproportionally low number of people of color that are employed in the well paid science, technology, engineering and mathematics professions.
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A new Shanker Institute report presents an analysis of the segregation of teachers by race and ethnicity in the nation's two largest school districts, New York City and Los Angeles.
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A new paper is among the first to examine longer term impacts of charter schools, and its findings carry implications for and beyond the charter school research literature.
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The second and concluding part of ASI Executive Director Leo Casey's discussion of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
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Part one of ASI Executive Director Leo Casey's discussion of the political calculus behind the Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
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Professors Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kara Finnigan offer proposals for how ESSA could help to foster school integration.
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NYC teacher David Sherrin on helping students to understand the 2016 presidential candidates’ positions, while also helping them to examine the needs, goals, and voting patterns of our diverse citizenry.
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As school systems devote tremendous resources to examining the effectiveness of individual teachers, how can we encourage schools to make room for collaborative practices?
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A new ASI publication features six of the most important blog posts from a series that attempts to shine a light on new research pointing to the centrality of the social dimension in educational improvement.
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Professors Mark Smylie, Joseph Murphy, and Karen Seashore Louis share their research and theory about what caring school leadership is and why it is important.
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NYC teacher J. Vincente describes East Side, one of a growing network of 38 NY public HS where teachers routinely work interdependently to serve all students and grow as professionals.
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A new working paper suggests that the result of new teacher evaluation systems look a lot like those of the old ones, but what does this really mean?
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In this New York Times piece, published on January 13, 1991, Al Shanker discusses the persistent problem of student mobility, how it disrupts children's lives and educational prospects, and what schools and school systems might do to help.
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Professor Matthew Ronfeldt summarizes his and others' high quality empirical research on teacher collaboration, and its impact on student performance.
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Professor Andy Hargreaves uses the research and his own experience working with leaders and practitioners to explore how teacher collaboration and teacher leadership can be accelerators of positive change.
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A new analysis of teacher classroom observations illustrates that these measures, like their test-based counterparts, are also influenced by the students assigned to teachers.
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The key difference between high performing nations' education systems and that of the United States is that these other nations don’t assume that teacher effectiveness is static, portable, and independent of context.
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State data show that, in NYC's Success Academy charter schools, the size of classes declines dramatically after third grade, due to the schools' deliberate decision not to fill the seats of students who leave.
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A new working paper examines the impact of teacher turnover in District of Columbia Public Schools. The results do not fit neatly into our educational policy debates about teacher quality.
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Professors Kara Finnigan and Jennifer Jellison Holme argue that school segregation by race and poverty is one of the underlying causes of school failure, and that it has been largely overlooked in federal and state educational policy in recent decades.
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The second edition of our "Does Money Matter in Education?" report provides a thorough review of the high quality empirical evidence on the relationship between K-12 spending and outcomes.
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Northwestern professor Simone Ispa-Landa discusses the recent protests by Black students on college campuses.
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Harvard's David Sherer and Johanna Barmore review the empirical research on teacher collaboration and argue for increased focus on the conditions that foster effective teamwork.
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A new experimental study of a teacher evaluation pilot in Chicago offers important evidence and implications for the national effort to improve teacher quality.
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Everyone has their own opinion on how to fix teaching, but it's important to step back and examine how we define teaching expertise, and where it might be found.
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In this New York Times piece, published on July 29, 1990, Al Shanker discusses the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and what they suggested about the U.S. education system at the time.
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Despite efforts to suppress this information, students in Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy charter schools are suspended at alarmingly high rates.
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Do African-American and Latino students benefit from having teachers of the same race and ethnicity? We examine the research evidence.
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By changing the configuration of actors in the school setting, it is possible to influence who will interact with whom – and, in the process, disconfirm the preconceptions that undergird stereotypes and unconscious biases.
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A brief discussion of recent evidence on the test-based impact of New Orleans schools since Katrina.
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In a 1986 column, Al Shanker discusses a study suggesting that union-district partnership, not confrontation, is the best way to enact and implement reforms that will improve schools.
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In Vista Unified Schools, Superintendent Dr. Devin Vodicka approached improvement by understanding social dynamics and relationships first, a process that was aided by data and research, with the goal of building trust and partnerships throughout the system.
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A recent working paper questions the conventional wisdom about whether teachers improve beyond their first few years in the classroom, and also illustrates important lessons about the relationship between research and policy.
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Cara Jackson of the Urban Teacher Center provides recommendations for designing and using teacher evaluations as a means to teacher improvement, but does so in a rather "magical" context.
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In a 1995 piece, Al Shanker uses a creative analogy to argue that policies require experimentation and refinement before they are brought to scale, a fact that education reformers sometimes fail to consider.
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Cara Jackson of the Urban Teacher Center discusses assumptions and expectations regarding the relationships between different components of teacher evaluations systems.
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A group of four teachers and scholars offer straightforward recommendations for improving the recruitment and retention of teachers of color in U.S. public schools.
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Former teacher Ashim Shanker argues that teachers should guide students to think critically and ask questions, and that it's unclear whether these goals are compatible with the current focus on test-based accountability in the U.S.
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Programs encouraging young women into STEM degrees and occupations are one way to narrow the gender pay gap, but research on their efficacy remains scarce.
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District research director Alvin Larson discusses his school climate survey, which serves as an early warning system and intervention protocol that can help students develop and maintain pro-social attitudes and effective coping skills, contributing to a positive school climate.
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The U.S. Department of Education's teacher preparation accountability plan seems to imply that we already know what outcomes are important and how to measure them. Neither is true at this time.
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Susan Moore Johnson argues that reformers should be very cautious about relying on value-added to make high stakes decisions, as these models may undermine school-based improvement efforts already underway.
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Our new policy brief reviews the evidence on the "Florida Formula for education success," a package of policies that focus generally on test-based accountability, competition, and choice.
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Credit recovery programs have proliferated rapidly since the enactment of NCLB, despite virtually no evidence as to their effectiveness.
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Researcher John Lane argues that teachers, and thus education reform efforts more generally, would benefit from opportunities to learn about the social dynamics of classrooms.
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Harvard graduate student and teacher Melissa Halpern argues for the importance of talking to students about their experiences and perspectives, and that these relationships are critical for learning.
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Professors Matthew Kraft and John Papay discuss research showing that the school contexts in which teachers work have a profound influence on their job decisions and effectiveness.
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Harvard graduate student Emma Gulley argues that increasing support for early childhood educations requires advocates to better explain the substance and benefits of these programs.
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Those who advocate for an overly strong focus on testing results in accountability systems often ignore the potential of social-relational and other contextual measures to help schools improve.
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The primary purpose of standards is to specify what students should know, not to generate short term student achievement gains; Common Core supporters should stop implying otherwise.
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Professor Marilyn Jager Adams discusses the primary takeaways from her new Shanker Institute anthology about how educators can raise students’ language and literacy skills to levels that enable them to understand and gain from complex texts.
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Recent findings on the retention of new teachers require careful interpretation, as the study coincided almost perfectly with the Great Recession.
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Opening remarks from our recent "In Defense of the Public Square" conference focus on the importance of the public square as a driver of opportunity and justice not just for a privileged few, but for all.
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Harvard's Bryan Mascio argues that true education reform can only come once we begin to see teaching and learning as highly complex cognitive processes that have vital relationships at their core.
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In a 1974 NY Times column, Al Shanker discusses the key role of verbal ability for student learning, and how it speaks to the importance of early childhood education.
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Please join us May 1-2 for a special conference, bringing together prominent elected officials, public intellectuals, and union, business and civil rights leaders “in defense of the public square.”
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School and residential segregation, which are due primarily to direct and indirect exclusionary forces, are persistent, whereas integration can be more unstable.
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The USED guidelines for holding teacher preparations accountable for their graduates' outcomes are premature, and not yet well supported by empirical evidence.
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A review of rigorous research on the relationship between aspects of teachers' social-organizational environments and their students' achievement growth.
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Social capital is critical for school improvement; research suggests that educational leaders who wish to reap its benefits should carefully weigh decisions about leadership roles, teaching assignments and professional development.
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A quick look at teacher retention and turnover in New York City's Success Academy charter schools between 2013 and 2014, and the ongoing debate about it.
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Until test-based accountability systems stop penalizing schools for the students they serve, there will be a strong disincentive for charter schools to serve more special education students.
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We realize that Edu-CAT-ion Reform can be very confusing, so we have compiled a list of terms that you can keep right under your paws for easy reference.
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April 1, 2015: In order to increase understanding and consistency in our national education debate, we have published a new glossary of education policy jargon.
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Interpreting effect sizes, reviewing subgroup breakdowns, and discussing big picture implications from the new CREDO urban charter school study.
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A quick look at Census data illustrate the shifting impact of the Great Recession on the sources of public education revenue.
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Any discussion of gender gaps in test scores, within and between nations, is incomplete without attention to how and why these gaps vary by subject.
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A recent NY Times feature on how to improve teacher quality largely misses the importance of social capital and relationships in education reform.
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Several important findings and implications of a new report on the test-based effectiveness of Teach for America recruits received little public attention.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's plan to re-reform the state's new teacher evaluations is an excellent example of how not to approach these changes.
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A recent speech by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo illustrates the negative influence of a common misinterpretation of testing data.
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The Century Foundation's Greg Anrig argues that effective public schools are built on strong collaborative relationships, including those between teachers and administrators.
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New York's new policy of releasing actual growth measures shows how often standard NCLB-style measures mislead about student progress.
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A brief illustration of how, in most contemporary test-based school accountability systems, smaller schools are more likely to be punished or rewarded than larger schools.
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Students of color in the U.S., and those in rural communities, face unique challenges, and new teachers must be prepared to meet these students' needs.
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Ongoing debates over whether NCLB worked often oversimplify the complexity of the policy and the available evidence on school accountability.
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New research shows recent improvements in the SAT scores of incoming New York teachers, but predicting who will be a good teacher is difficult.
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Leo Casey employs a novel format to respond to NY Governor Andrew Cuomo's education reform plan,
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A quick analysis showing that many schools identified as low performing by a common criterion are actually quite effective; it is the criterion that is flawed.
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Short video on why educational improvement is both about the capacities of individuals (human capital) and the broader social context (social capital).
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A quick look at survey data since the 1970s asking respondents whether people with certain views or characteristics should be allowed to teach.
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A look at the latest data on turnover among public school teachers in the U.S.
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NYC teacher Stephen Lazar's testimony to the U.S. Senate argues that the purpose of testing is to inform and improve teaching and learning.
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A list of resources exploring the idea that social relationships and networks are critical for understanding and improving school performance.
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Scientist Jonathan Garlick argues that science literacy is needed to find common ground on the important science-based issues facing us today.
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Education accountability systems require balancing the need for rigorous measures with that of making the information accessible to stakeholders.
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School discipline has been a major education policy focus this year. Two recent studies suggest that there are proven strategies that can work.
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MSU Professor Ken Frank discusses his constitution for effective school governance, designed to facilitate coordination and cooperation among teachers.
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Recent research suggests that the sports teams with the most superstars don't always perform the best. Is this true in education?
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MSU Professor William Schmidt explains why nations' results can differ on PISA and TIMSS, the two major international tests, and whether this matters.
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A look at the latest results of the DC charter school rating system, and whether they support the claims of charter supporters.
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To what extent are dispositions such as motivation, persistence and engagement, mediated by social relationships and social-relational context?
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So-called achievement gaps are important social and economic indicators, but they should not be used in formal school accountability systems.
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The newly-released results of Minneapolis' new teacher evaluation system should be examined, but should not be taken at face value.
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Librarian Connie Williams argues that school libraries create a culture of inquiry in schools, and that library cutbacks are harmful to students and teachers.
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Florida officials' arguments for how they want to use ELL students' test scores in school grades are actually arguments against their grading system itself.
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An evaluation of a NYC charter schools that pays teachers $125,000 a year found positive results, but the former may not necessarily explain the latter.
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Recognizing that bias may help explain disparities in student disciplinary outcomes by race, sex and other subgroups is important, but requires caution.
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In his final NY Times column in March 1997, Al Shanker discussed the role of democracy in public education.
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A recent commission details flaws of common health care measures that are almost perfectly analogous to issues with common education measures.
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One often-overlooked reason for unions' decline is that labor history gets little attention in history textbooks, and when it does, it is marked by distortions.
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NYC teacher John McCrann argues that student assessment should be designed via a process that embodies democratic principles.
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Two infrequently-mentioned arguments for increasing diversity in the teacher workforce, rooted in decades of social scientific theory and research.
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The question of whether the overhaul of the SAT will achieve greater equity and fairness for disadvantaged students is actually a question of curriculum.
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Two more questions on implicit bias: How can we support teachers' orientation to get to know their students? What other strategies can mitigate implicit bias?
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The research on implicit bias is fascinating, but the fact that it is automatic, and therefore outside of our conscious control, can be harder to stomach.
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New York City teacher Jose Vilson discusses and lays out some ideas for recruiting and retaining more teachers of color.
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Recent cuts to the test called "the nation's report card" reflect a disturbing erosion of public disinvestment in research and development.
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New York City teacher Stephen Lazar reviews the first draft of a framework for civics standards released by the Council of Chief State School Officers.
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New York City teacher Stephen Lazar lays out two major requirements for proper implementation of the Common Core standards.
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A simple illustration shows that the manner in which we usually measure school growth doesn't really measure growth at all.
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Cornell Professor David Dunning argues that the time is right for increasing the role of experiments in policymaking.
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Almost one in five employed women works in a professional education or healthcare job, two areas currently undergoing drastic policy changes.
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All the polarization and controversy over Teach for America often misses one important larger point: What the evidence on this program teaches us about the shared goal of "attracting talent" to the teaching profession.
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University of Michigan Professor Jeffrey Mirel argues that strong public schools are a primary means by which citizens learn trust, tolerance and faith in democracy, and that this is evident in the history of our nation.
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A new Shanker Institute report reviews the portrayal of organized labor in U.S. high school textbooks. The report concludes that U.S. history texts have essentially "taken sides" in the intense political debate around unions - the anti-union side.
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The Shanker Institute is proud to release "Islam and Democracy," a collection of speeches, articles, and idea by pro-democracy Muslims. The selections were reviewed by scholars, teachers, and others, and the collection is also designed for use in high school classrooms.
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A diverse group of influential education and other leaders today announced support for clear curricular guidance to complement the new Common Core State Standards that have been adopted by most states.
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A quick note: Yale University recently announced that it will end its two prestigious teacher training programs due to a lack of interest.
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Nurses top Gallup’s survey of the most ethical and honest workers for 11th year. Grade school teachers rank 4th.
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Do the words we use frame the thoughts that we have? And, if so, does the language we speak affect how we think?
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The same research that shows teachers are the most important school-based factor affecting achievement also shows that non-school factors matter much more.
