Districts across the country are struggling to improve low-performing schools, many using school improvement formulas imbedded in state and federal law. But what can research tell us about the relevance of family and school context to learning? About the “social capital” such contexts produce? About how effective these efforts have been and are likely to be? And about what is really known about “what works” to help schools improve?
The quest to define and measure teacher effectiveness has sparked useful research on many different fronts, using different means to gauge various important outcomes. But it has also prompted many ieffective, punitive redesigns of techer evaluation systems. How do we create a system that is clear, fair, and useful for improving practice?
In May 2010, ASI gathered together a remarkable group of researchers, policymakers, journalists and other leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., on May 3 for a thoughtful, in-depth, off-the-record discussion on the role of civic education in the United States.
The fifth meeting of district partners in the Albert Shanker Institute’s “good schools” seminar series was convened in the wake of the first round of the Obama Administration’s $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition. Although only two states were declared as winners, scores of others made plans and passed laws that changed state education systems in ways that could be positive or negative, depending on the care with which these changes are planned and implemented.
Education reform will fail a vast number of U.S. students unless the role of career and technical education (CTE, formerly called vocational education) is reconsidered, recast and placed in the mainstream of K-12 curriculum design. These were some of the conclusions of a small group of top federal and state policymakers, educators, business and labor leaders, practitioners, researchers and other workforce experts who took part in an informal conversation on Feb. 17, hosted by AFT president Randi Weingarten and sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute.
In this February, 2010 off-the-record Conversation, top federal and state policymakers, educators, business and labor leaders, practitioners, researchers and other experts with an interest in Career and Technical Education (CTE), including Education Secretary Arne Duncan and American Federation of Teachers and Shanker Institute President Randi Weingarten discussed the achievements and challenges facing high quality CTE. Following the Conversation, one of several sponsored by the Institute on key education topics, the Institute published a Compendium of the issues and questions addressed by the group.
In June 2009 the Institute sponsored a two-day conference on The Financial Crisis and Worker Rights in China: What Has The Recession Done to Prospects for True Worker Representation?
In addition to shoring up decimated education budgets, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is a possible funding source for state and local education reform efforts. This seminar examines what the law really says and the sorts of projects it might fund to: improve teacher quality, develop effective curriculum, improve the achievement of low-performing students, develop useful assessments, etc.
In cooperation with the Committee for Free Trade Unionism (CFTU) headed by AFL-CIO President Emeritus Tom Donahue, Freeodm House, the National Endowment for Democracy and the 21st Century ILGWU Heritage Fund, the Institute sponsored a conference in April 2009 which examined current conditions on workers in Cuba and the prospects for change on the island nation suffering under political repression. The keynote address was delivered by Pedro Alvarez Ramos, one of the leading voices in the exile of Cuban workers and their struggle to create representative unions free of State or Party control. The conference brought together a diverse and broad group of labor leaders, journalists, activists, and human rights groups.
In this November 2008 Good Schools Seminar, panelists including Doug Harris, David Osher, and Randi Weingarten discuss the evidence and policy on compensation and staffing policies for teachers in the U.S.
