THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
Challenges in Evaluating Principal Effectiveness
The purpose of this article is to examine the assumptions underlying efforts to evaluate principal effectiveness in terms of student test scores, to review extant research on efforts to estimate principal effectiveness, and to discuss the appropriateness of including estimates of principal effectiveness in evaluations of principals. The authors review 10 different strategies for estimating princip
JUN 26
Study: Teachers More Likely to Use Ineffective Instruction When Teaching Students with Mathematics Difficulties
First-grade teachers in the United States may need to change their instructional practices if they are to raise the mathematics achievement of students with mathematics difficulties (MD), according to new research published online today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. VIDEO: Co-author Paul L. Morgan discusse
Principals Have More Authority Than They Think, New Study Says
Though there are real policy barriers that get in the way of innovation, principals have more authority than they think. So concludes a new study that examined the real and imagined barriers to school improvement in four Northeastern cities.The study, released Tuesday by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington Bothell, found that two-thirds of the 128 barriers t
Review questions RAND report’s attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of a principal preparation program using value-added measures of students’ test scores
An evaluation of the New Leaders principal preparation program concludes that the program has a slightly positive effect on student test scores, though only for certain grade levels, subject areas, and districts. But a review published today cautions that the evaluation, even with such tepid conclusions, overreaches.Reviewer Edward J. Fuller of Penn State University notes that the evaluation, con
JUN 24
Is there a connection between teacher value-added scores and student lifetime earnings?
Although policymakers may grab onto easy answers, questions about teacher effectiveness—how we measure it and what we can conclude about a teacher’s long-term impact—are being heatedly debated among scholars.Today, the National Education Policy Center published a clear and detailed response to some of the most influential research claims about teacher effectiveness.Those claims were made by resear
JUN 20
Improving academic performance with physical fitness
Physical fitness in childhood and adolescence is beneficial for both physical and mental health throughout life. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that it may also play a key role in brain health and academic performance. In a new study scheduled for publication in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers studied the independent and combined influence of components of physical fitness on