Great teachers recognize great assessments. As policy and education leaders work to make sure state tests are measuring the problem-solving, writing, and critical-thinking skills students need for success, they should convene and rely on teachers to review test quality and help answer the question: Do the questions on our state test reflect…

In this article, I serve as a secretary for the critical policy analysis presented by hundreds of teachers, parents, students, and community members during 19 public hearings on school closures in New York City. In testimony at hearings, community members rejected the narrow, statistical approach they felt the Department of Education was using to…

Learning consists of all the ways that youth acquire new knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors. It happens not just in school, but also through afterschool and summer activities, time spent with the family, and increasingly, through interaction with digital media. Broadening ideas about where, when, and how learning happens helps communities to…

Over the past 15 years, in New York City and across the country, expectations for high schools--and high school students--have changed dramatically. Increasingly, high schools are being asked not only to reduce dropout rates and boost graduation rates, but also to impart knowledge, skills, and experiences that will prepare students to succeed in…

Over the past 15 years, in New York City and across the country, expectations for high schools--and high school students--have changed dramatically. Increasingly, high schools are being asked not only to reduce dropout rates and boost graduation rates, but also to impart knowledge, skills, and experiences that will prepare students to succeed in…

Over the past 15 years, in New York City and across the country, expectations for high schools--and high school students--have changed dramatically. Increasingly, high schools are being asked not only to reduce dropout rates and boost graduation rates, but also to impart knowledge, skills, and experiences that will prepare students to succeed in…

Our nation's educational system has scored many extraordinary successes in raising the level of reading and writing skills in younger children. Yet the pace of literacy improvement in our schools has not kept up with the accelerating demands of the global knowledge economy. In state after state, the testing data mandated by No Child Left Behind…

Annually, ACT provides each state with "The Condition of College & Career Readiness," a report that details the college readiness of students who took the ACT[R] test. This report is a companion to "The Condition of College & Career Readiness." This paper traces the college enrollment, retention, re-enrollment, and…

The expansion of Pre-K in early childhood programs, both in the community and in schools, has the potential to build significant new alignment between the traditional K-12 education system and the preschool year. Most communities, however, have only scratched the surface of collaboration between public schools and community programs as…

The 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" provided a comprehensive review of states' policies that impact the teaching profession. As a companion to last year's comprehensive state-by-state analysis, the 2010 edition provides each state with an individualized "Blueprint for Change," building off last year's "Yearbook"…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…

The Capital Area School Development Association, New York, sponsored a school law conference to fulfill a need in the region for school board members and administrators who desire to maintain and improve their knowledge in the area of school law. This document contains the text or outline of the following four presentations: (1) "Preserving…

High-quality pre-K that really improves children's outcomes--that's the goal early childhood professionals will work toward with this groundbreaking text, the first volume in the NEW National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (NCRECE) series. Combining the most current knowledge of top researchers, policy makers, and federal and…

The relationship between the costs of schooling and the size of school districts is discussed. The first section of this paper provides a critical survey of what economists have written about economies of scale and questions whether bigger is really cheaper or more efficient, as is generally found in commercial endeavors. The second section…

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: state government. This New York edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the first of what will be an annual look at the status of state policies…