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Professional development
Does Principal Professional Development Improve Schooling Outcomes? Evidence from Pennsylvania’s Inspired Leadership Induction Program
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentPrincipals shape the academic setting of schools. Yet, there is limited evidence on whether principal professional development improves schooling outcomes. Beginning in 2008-09, Pennsylvania’s Inspired Leadership (PIL) induction program required that newly hired principals complete targeted in-… more →
A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S.
Recent media reports of teacher shortages across the country are confirmed by the analysis of several national data sets reported in this paper. Shortages are particularly severe in special education, mathematics, science, and bilingual/English learner education, and in locations with lower… more →
Taking the Long View: State Efforts to Solve Teacher Shortages by Strengthening the Profession
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentMuch is known about how to attract, develop, and retain a strong and stable teacher workforce, and states across the country are taking action to address their teacher shortages in ways that strengthen their overall teacher workforce.
Effective Teacher Professional Development
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Professional developmentTeacher professional learning is of increasing interest as one way to support the increasingly complex skills students need to succeed in the 21st century. However, many teacher professional development initiatives appear ineffective in supporting changes in teacher practices and student… more →
Deeper Learning Networks: Taking Student-Centered Learning and Equity to Scale
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceOne of the mysteries of education reform is how leaders and educators can successfully instantiate, sustain, and spread student-centered pedagogical practices from a few schools to many others. Advocates for deeper learning grapple with this mystery as they seek to transform teaching and… more →
Teacher Accountability Reforms and the Supply and Quality of New Teachers
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceIn recent years, states have sought to increase accountability for public school teachers by implementing a package of reforms centered on high-stakes evaluation systems. We examine the effect of these reforms on the supply and quality of new teachers. Leveraging variation across states and time… more →
Can Technology Transform Communication between Schools, Teachers, and Parents? Evidence from a Randomized Field Trial
Topics: Families and CommunitiesWe study the adoption and implementation of a new mobile communication app among a sample of 132 New York City public schools. The app provides a platform for sharing general announcements and news as well as engaging in personalized two-way communication with individual parents. We provide… more →
Strengthening STEM Instruction in Schools: Learning from Research
Topics: Student LearningMore than half of U.S. children fail to meet proficiency standards in mathematics and science in fourth grade. Teacher professional development and curriculum improvement are two of the primary levers that school leaders and policymakers use to improve children’s science, technology, engineering… more →
Teacher peer observation and student test scores: Evidence from a field experiment in English secondary schools
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Professional developmentThis paper reports improvements in teacher job performance, as measured by student test scores, resulting from a program of (zero-) low-stakes peer evaluation. Teachers working at the same school observed and scored each other’s teaching. Students in randomly-assigned treatment schools scored 0.… more →
STEM Instruction Improvement Programs Improve Student Outcomes
Topics: Student LearningHow should teachers spend their STEM-focused professional learning time? To answer this question, we analyzed a recent wave of rigorous new studies of STEM instructional improvement programs. We found that programs work best when focused on building knowledge teachers can use during instruction… more →
Teacher Skill Development: Evidence from Performance Ratings by Principals
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentWe examine the dynamic nature of teacher skill development using panel data on principals’ subjective performance ratings of teachers. Past research on teacher productivity improvement has focused primarily on one important but narrow measure of performance: teachers’ value-added to student… more →
Will Mentoring a Student Teacher Harm My Evaluation Scores? Effects of Serving as a Cooperating Teacher on Evaluation Metrics
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentGrowing evidence suggests that preservice candidates receive better coaching and are more instructionally effective when they are mentored by more instructionally effective cooperating teachers (CTs). Yet, teacher education program leaders indicate it can be difficult to recruit instructionally… more →
Can Teacher Evaluation Systems Produce High-Quality Feedback? An Administrator Training Field Experiment
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Professional developmentA core motivation for the widespread teacher evaluation reforms of the last decade was the belief that these new systems would promote teacher development through high-quality feedback. We examine this theory by studying teachers’ perceptions of evaluation feedback in Boston Public Schools and… more →
Strengthening the Research Base that Informs STEM Instructional Improvement Efforts: A Meta-Analysis
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentWe present results from a meta-analysis of 95 experimental and quasi-experimental preK-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professional development and curriculum programs, seeking to understand what content, activities and formats relate to stronger student outcomes.… more →