Education managers are typically inexperienced in and often reluctant to initiate cost-savings actions. Budget cuts may be poorly targeted, and students, particularly economically disadvantaged students, are swept up in the process as collateral damage. In California and Washington, bad budget cutting has already begun. Governors in these two…

In the largest study of instructional practice ever undertaken, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project is searching for tools to save the world from perfunctory teacher evaluations. The first report (released in December 2010) described the potential usefulness of student surveys for providing feedback…

Among the 50 states, Florida's gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) between 1992 and 2011 ranked second only to Maryland's. Florida's progress has been particularly impressive in the early grades. In 1998, Florida scored about one grade level below the national average on the 4th-grade NAEP reading test, but it was…

The modernization of teacher evaluation systems, an increasingly common component of school reform efforts, promises to reveal new, systematic information about the performance of individual classroom teachers. Yet while states and districts race to design new systems, most discussion of how the information might be used has focused on traditional…

Higher education is not only about money. At whatever appropriate cost as borne by whomever, it is supposed to provide life-long value to the students and to society. Yet some critics now complain that in the current system, with its rising costs, students are not in general learning much if anything, and there is a good deal of data to suggest…

In this article, the authors explain why examining the way institutions model democracy on campus is an important, but often overlooked, step in advancing students' democratic learning. First, they note how a decline in shared governance produces an educational environment that adversely affects students' civic inclinations and agency. Next, they…

Civic learning, and education's vital purpose to cultivate engaged and effective citizens, is a national imperative. Civic education is consistent with President Obama's goal of regaining competitiveness in the global marketplace, and it is consistent with the goal of increasing student achievement and closing achievement gaps. There's much more…

In this article, the author proposes that the notion of America be reintroduced as the "shining city on a hill," that abiding image from American history. The image of the shining city on a hill captures the imagination because it reflects the abiding truth that people become fully human in society, not outside of it. People need one another to…

The direction of innovation and reform in science education is moving toward a student-centered learning paradigm that is organized around core concepts and competencies, and engaged through empirically supported instructional practices. What forms of assessment would support these educational aims? Several characteristics of a compatible…

With the US unemployment rate at 9 percent, it's rational for college students to lose confidence in the liberal arts and to opt for a vocational major. Or is it? There is a compelling economic case for the liberal arts. Against those who call for more professional training, liberal educators should concede nothing. However, they do have a…

In 1990, David Breneman asked the provocative question, are we losing our liberal arts colleges? More than twenty years later, it is time to ask Breneman's question again: in 2012, what is the position of liberal arts colleges in the landscape of American higher education? The liberal arts college, a distinctively American institution, has been a…

Despite research showing the broad impact that the study of foreign languages has on the cognitive development of young people, and despite the importance of language expertise for America's economic and geopolitical interests in the twenty-first century, the teaching of world languages has been marginalized within the American educational system…

Sustainability powerfully validates the liberal arts. In response to contemporary accusations of economic impracticality, defenders of liberal education have emphasized how such skills as critical thinking and "learning to learn" are vital to success in careers. This approach readily extends to sustainability, which has become a growing source of…

Curricular innovation is at the center of the challenges many colleges and universities face as they seek to help students address more successfully than previous generations the complex, multi-faceted, systemic challenges of global climate change, population growth, loss of biodiversity, environmental justice, toxic wastes, and food insecurity.…

Colleges across the country are hosting on-campus renewable energy projects. The general assumption is that trade schools, community colleges, or technology-oriented universities with large engineering departments make the most appropriate sites for training future leaders in renewable energy innovation. While it makes sense to take advantage of…