Current News

The Connecticut Educator Preparation Advisory Council will develop policy recommendations and propose regulatory revisions to increase teacher and school leader preparation at the behest of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. The council, co-chaired by State Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor and Board of Regents for Higher Education Executive Vice President Michael Meotti, must examine educator training and its alignment with school and district needs and responsiveness to feedback; establish recruitment best practices and standards for candidate acceptance into these programs; and develop metrics for preparation program performance linked in part to graduate performance in the years following entry into the education field.

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has urged more schools to take part in the Technology Readiness Tool survey to gauge the readiness of new online assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards. "We know our schools already face enormous day-to-day challenges -- but we also need to understand what issues they face as we move to online testing over the next few years. We know this effort will take time, energy and resources -- all of which are in short supply. That's why we need the broadest participation possible in this survey, so that we provide as much assistance as possible to schools as they make the transition to 21st-century testing," he says.

All Virginia students in the 2017-18 school year will be expected to meet a 73 percent passing rate on math tests under a plan aimed at narrowing achievement gaps among students of all backgrounds. Schools would be required to reduce achievement gaps on standards-of-learning exams between different student groups by 50 percent. Students must meet or exceed a minimum pass rate every year.

Montana will receive about $2 million in federal grant money to improve K-12 math and science programs. The money will be used to train teachers on how to better teach math and science and to better prepare students for the workforce after graduation. Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau says, "Partnership between Bozeman Public schools and Montana State University, they will develop a training system, they'll bring teachers in from the system who will become experts in math and then they will go out regionally and train other teachers across the state, and so pretty soon you'll have this big pool of teachers that are ready to do a lot of training back onsite at their own school systems."

According to The Nation's Report Card from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), about 25 percent of the 50,000 students who participated in the United States' first national computer-based writing test scored a "proficient" or "advanced" score on the test. While NAEP has conducted writing assessments in the past, this is the first year the test was computer-based, according to officials from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker says that a task force will be created to address the achievement gap among students, noting, "we need to be looking at that at a state level." She plans to seek assistance from the Kansas African American Affairs Commission, Kansas Hispanic and Latino Affairs Commission, and the Midwest Equity Assistance Center at Kansas State University to address achievement gaps among certain student groups.

The Delaware State Board of Education and the State Department of Education have collaborated on a set of guidelines that establishes a new performance framework for charter schools, known as the Charter Performance Framework. The framework is expected to provide clarity of charter school performance and a better platform for monitoring the schools. State Education Secretary Mark Murphy says, "What we achieve with this, is an ability to measure the performance of our charters each year and we have not had a good structure to do that work in the past."

Arizona recently launched the Excellence in Civic Engagement Program to ensure students have knowledge of the general framework of government and that they acquire the skills and traits necessary to participate as active and responsible citizens. State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal said, "If we are to preserve our constitutional democracy, it is critical that we help our children learn about their rights, roles, and responsibilities as American citizens. The Excellence in Civic Engagement Program is designed to support the efforts of our schools in promoting civic learning, and to ensure that each generation sustain and strengthen the values that define the United States of America."

CDW Government LLC, a leading provider of technology solutions to education and government, has released a new free resource designed to help educational institutions more easily search for grant funding opportunities. GetEdFunding, is an easy-to-use, relevant and reliable source of active grants and awards to help offset budget challenges in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 and higher education institutions.

The National Association of Elementary Principals (NAESP), the National Association of Secondary Principals (NASSP), Johns Hopkins University, and the American Institutes for Research released a new collaborative framework and guide for policymakers and practitioners on effective principal evaluation found titled: Rethinking Principal Evaluation.