New teachers are drawn to the profession by a strong desire to teach. They go into teaching aware of the demands of the job and the salary levels they can expect. Once in the profession, new teachers feel a tremendous sense of fulfillment and job satisfaction, much more so than college graduates of the same…

Diversity Preparation Teachers felt their formal pre-service training did little to prepare them for teaching a diverse student population. Typically, discussion about diversity was the extent of their training. Teachers felt the best pre-service preparation was student teaching in schools with racially and culturally diverse student populations. In the absence of formal training, they drew…

Although educational opportunities for minority and low-income students have improved over the past 30 years, the achievement gap has not been closed. Understanding diversity and how it affects teaching and learning is a critical component in reaching this goal. Yet even with additional resources for multicultural education, most educators are not aware of the many…

The demand for new teachers has been climbing steadily since the 1990s and is expected to continue in the foreseeable future given the increases in teacher retirement and student enrollment, lower pupil/teacher ratios, and rising teacher attrition rates. New teachers enter the profession with varying degrees of preparation, ranging from extensive coursework and classroom experience…

The potential benefits in opening data are not confined to improvements in transparency and accountability in the public sector (as may have been the previous consensus) – in fact, open data can provide the biggest gains by enabling the development of useful services. Before this potential can be unlocked however there are some significant challenges…

This paper provides an overview of evidence-based educational interventions (EBEIs) and associated practices in school psychology. The profession has, for some time, embraced scientific principles and procedures across areas of professional practice, including diagnosis and classification, assessment, prevention and intervention, consultation, and research and program evaluation. More recently, the profession has embraced evidence-based prevention and…

Much literature is available on programs to teach critical thinking, and a substantial amount of evidence indicates critical thinking can be taught and learned, especially when instruction is specifically designed to encourage transfer of skills. Nevertheless, the types of studies required to confirm with certitude the efficacy of teaching critical thinking present practical and methodological…

Key questions facing researchers and policymakers are whether teacher education programs are effective in changing teachers’ knowledge and practices and whether such changes, if they occur, increase student learning. Answers to these questions will help determine the characteristics of effective programs for reading teachers. Because there are multiple layers of causal relationships, encompassing teacher educators…

Advocates believe more school choice will allow better student-school fit than public education. But others maintain better matching will not improve performance unless financial pressures improve educational practices. A voucher-based educational market linking funding to pupil counts based on parental choice could motivate improvement, especially in inefficient public schools, eliminating allocations unrelated to student achievement.…

For two decades, educators have attempted to get parents more involved in children’s learning. Experts agree that parental involvement is crucial to student success, but too often the typical involvement—work on fundraising, open houses, and school committees—is detached from an understanding of the type of involvement that research has shown necessary for improved student learning.…

If one seeks to eliminate achievement gaps at elementary, middle, and secondary school levels, then it is essential that improvement efforts focus on implementing a series of initiatives. The initiatives must aim to achieve a targeted degree of implementation in a focused and progressive effort. Periodic evaluations of progress in reaching new standards help determine…

Teacher quality and related issues (i.e., teacher preparation, recruitment, and professional development) ranked among the highest priority areas among a sample of education policymakers surveyed by the Institute of Education Sciences. And it is not surprising that quality teaching also emerged as a central theme in one recent series of Policy Forums. These Policy Forums—designed…