In an effort to inform preschool policy in California, an interdisciplinary team of RAND researchers conducted a multiyear study of preschool education known as the California Preschool Study. One of the recommendations from that study was the need for a more in-depth analysis of the effectiveness of the early care and education (ECE) workforce…

Early life experiences are critical to a child's development. Research has shown that, for a variety of reasons, children born into low-income families are at a disadvantage when compared to their higher-income peers. Fortunately, research has also shown a positive association between high quality child care and the academic and social-emotional…

The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP)--disproportionately impacting students of color--involves a set of interactions between and among children, youth, their families, school personnel, other service providers, and gatekeepers to such outcomes as incarceration or college. Educators can, through their interactions with and expectations for…

We live in an era in which standardized assessments play a necessary and important role in the mission of our public schools to provide equal and equitable educational opportunity to all students. However, our focus on summative accountability measures often has an eclipsing effect on the equally important role of formative assessment practices in…

"It's All About Student Learning Assessing Teacher Candidates' Ability to Impact P-12 Students", provides practical assistance for institutions designing or revising assessment systems or individual assessments for use by units or programs. The publication includes performance assessments currently used by teacher preparation institutions and…

The Business-Higher Education Forum's (BHEF's) Securing America's Leadership in STEM Initiative has broken new ground in addressing one of the nation's most critical challenges--increasing the number of students who are interested in and pursue careers in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, the so-called "STEM" fields. The…

The findings in this study will add to the body of research regarding improving workplace support for urban educators. One of the major issues in public education today is that of teacher induction. In this study, the researcher explored, through first-hand accounts of early service educators, the perceived effect, in terms of performance in the…

"Education Matters" is the monthly newsletter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), an organization dedicated to advancing the American teaching profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection. This issue of the newsletter includes: (1) You Speak Out: 2010 AAE Member Survey; (2) Five Ways to…

Over the last decade, policy and business leaders have come to know what parents have always known: teachers make the greatest difference to student achievement. With new statistical and analytical methods used by a wide range of researchers, evidence has been mounting that teacher quality can account for a large share of variance in student test…

Each school year, the School Climate Survey is administered to gather information on the perceptions that students, their parents, and school staffs hold concerning their schools and their performance. In 2009-2010, the survey was distributed to approximately 85,000 parents, 45,000 elementary, secondary, and adult students, and 25,000 staff. This…

This report presents the findings of the review of the evidence base on comparative practices of teacher selection and recruitment, specifically on the different mechanisms countries use to assess teacher readiness to take up teaching posts, with particular emphasis on testing or examinations. It is intended that the report will be helpful to…

Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES) 2006 was an international study about pedagogical practices and the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in math and science classrooms. One of the findings of SITES 2006 was that--across educational systems--a proportion of the math and science teachers in the 22 countries…

The sustained increase in the number of children diagnosed with autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has become a widespread concern throughout the US as well as globally. Federal mandates (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 2004; No Child Left Behind [NCLB]) have directed state education departments and local educational…

The authors trace changes in conceptions of special education teacher quality and preparation in response to developments in special education research, policy, and practice. This developmental arc is a backdrop for understanding contemporary special education practice and charting future directions for preparing special education teachers.…

One dimension of the current educational reform movement made testing teacher candidates a fixture in nearly every state. The companion problem is that standardized test scores often correlate with the test-takers ethnicity and gender. Such an outcome appears to place teacher competency interests in competition with egalitarian interests. Is…