Accreditation holds a place within accountability systems as a mechanism to evaluate quality that leads to the practices that certify credentials. In K-12 school district these credentials manifest in curriculum, instruction, standards, and ultimately the certifying of credits that lead to receipt of a diploma. School district leadership would…

In a dedicated effort to build high-quality, equitable career pathways Advance CTE, in partnership with Education Strategy Group through JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s "New Skills ready network," released "Braiding Funding To Support Equitable Career Pathways." This policy brief is the fourth in a series designed to help build…

This study investigated teacher evaluation practices used in Indiana as the state was implementing a mandated teacher evaluation system (Public Law 90) and early reporting of subsequent teacher effectiveness results by the Indiana Department of Education. The study surveyed public school administrators: (a) superintendents, (b) special education…

To help teachers implement new, research-based approaches for leveraging technology to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning, a systematic review of the research literature on the impact of integrating innovative digital technology in STEM and computer science curricula and classrooms was conducted. For purposes…

Evaluating teacher effectiveness is not new in the United States. Stakeholders both in and outside education, ranging from the federal government to local school districts, have been exploring ways to increase teacher quality and quantify teacher effectiveness for years. The current trend, however, has increasingly included value-added data…

Policy-makers are frequently interested in understanding how effective a particular intervention may be for a specific (and often broad) population. In many fields, particularly education and social welfare, the ideal form of these evaluations is a large-scale randomized experiment. Recent research has highlighted that sites in these large-scale…

This article explores a two-year professional development initiative with four state geographic alliances. Professional development planners, whether planning for a large- or small-scale initiative or one with unlimited or limited funding, will benefit from learning about this successful professional development activity and how the impact in the…

Each year, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) publishes the "State Teacher Policy Yearbook," a comprehensive examination of the state laws, rules and regulations that govern the teaching profession, measured against a realistic set of reform goals. For five years running, the full "Yearbook" compendium…

Teachers have the greatest school-based effect on the achievement of any child in their classrooms, but highly effective principals can positively affect the achievement of every student in their schools. The difference between a highly effective principal and an average one is equal to two-to-seven months of extra learning per year for each child…

Before awarding waivers from core tenets of the No Child Left Behind Act to 11 states, the U.S. Department of Education ordered changes to address a significant weakness in most states' proposals: how they would hold schools accountable for groups of students deemed academically at risk, particularly those in special education or learning English.…

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is working to respond to increased interest in the use of growth models for school accountability. Growth models are based on tracking change in individual student achievement scores over multiple years. While growth models have been used for decades in academic research and program evaluation, a…

As one part of a broad reform package, the 2011 Indiana General Assembly passed Senate Enrolled Act 001 (Public Law 90), a bill that significantly changed the way Indiana teachers will be evaluated and compensated. An earlier Center for Evaluation & Education Policy (CEEP) policy brief, "Revamping the Teacher Evaluation Process"…

Differentiated instruction is commonly believed to be critical to improving the quality and efficiency of teachers' instructional repertoires (Fischer & Rose, 2001; Tomlinson, 2004). Tomlinson (2000) describes differentiation in four domains: content, process, product, and learning environment. Content differentiation involves varying…

A profile of one state's principal preparation programs is presented in this article. The collaborative inquiry process used to develop a program narrative instrument and to capture data on characteristics of all 17 state-approved programs in the state of Indiana is provided. The statewide preparation program characteristics profiled in this…

The Indiana Department of Education, at the direction of Phyllis Lewis, commissioned the National Association of Peer Programs (NAPP: formerly known as the National Peer Helpers Association) and the authors listed above to develop a rubric for peer helping programs. Development of the rubric began with a review of the NAPP Programmatic Standards…