Current News

Rhode Island continues to develop and implement an intensive teacher evaluation system that uses student learning as a performance metric for teacher effectiveness. The evaluation system will be used for the first time this year, and over the summer, teachers worked with school principals to create personal student learning objectives to help them track student progress throughout the year. The state will use the students' progress on those objectives to determine teacher effectiveness.

Like seven states that have parent triggers on the books, Oklahoma State Senator David Holt has proposed legislation to allow parents to drive change in low performing schools. If 51 percent of parents sign a petition, changes could be made to staffing or turning a school into a charter, among other things.

In Maryland, the General Assembly paved the way for the state to create new teacher and principal evaluation systems as part of the federal Race to the Top grant program. Now, 129 Howard County teachers and 23 principals will participate in a pilot evaluation, even though the new evaluation system does not take effect until 2013. The evaluation systems must ensure that student growth is used as a measure in teacher evaluations, with about 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation based on student growth.

Louisiana State Superintendent of Education John White visited sixth- and seventh-grade math classes at Natchitoches Magnet School, and said that just adding "I can" motivates students, and "good teachers are motivators also. It's a hard thing to do but at the same time it's critical." White said that under Louisiana Believes students will be assessed throughout the year, providing more opportunity for a good test day, and the tests will be better reflections of the year's subject matter and the students' critical thinking ability.

CCSSO has created a resource to provide guidance to states on aligning English Language Proficiency standards with the Common Core State Standards and the forthcoming Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The English Language Proficiency Development (ELPD) Framework outlines the underlying English language practices found in the CCSS and the NGSS, communicates to ELL stakeholders the language that all ELLs must acquire in order to successfully engage the CCSS and NGSS.

The Conrad Foundation has announced its Spirit of Innovation Challenge, which invites high school students and their coaches to work as a team and develop innovative products and services to help solve global and local problems while supporting global sustainability.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that cheating was rampant across 44 Atlanta schools before the state stepped in, and unless state oversight is more consistent, even in other states, experts say that the integrity of standardized tests will be called into question. The investigation says that cheating scandals are inevitable if there is poor oversight, and this problem could undermine national education policy built on test scores, which states and local districts hope to use as part of school and teacher evaluations.

For the first time this year, Oregon's school districts must set goals in "achievement compacts" as part of Gov. John Kitzhaber's plan to bolster education. Oregon Chief Education Officer Rudy Crew has given 69 of the state's school districts until Oct. 15 to rewrite their goals to boost high school graduation rates and third grade reading and math scores by at least one percentage point this school year.

The Kentucky Department of Education plans to release new accountability data in October, which will simplify accountability by assigning each district and school a score based on five main data sets. Achievement gaps, graduation rates, test scores, growth, and new college-and-career ready standards will be used to generate the scores, which will determine whether a district or school is "distinguished," "proficient," or "needs improvement."

During his State of Education address, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett praised the new teacher evaluation models and said he hoped to expand the state's accountability system to all districts. All school districts are using new teacher evaluations this year based on the state's general framework, and Bennett indicated that the feedback from the evaluations will help identify the best teacher preparation programs.