Though it continues to oppose the use of standardized test scores to gauge effectiveness, the nation’s largest teachers’ union for the first time affirmed that evidence of student learning must be considered in teacher evaluations.

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Tags: assessments, Education Policy, NEA, teacher evaluation, teachers union

The summer break will cost many students a month of learning, a sweeping new study by the nonprofit RAND Corporation and the Wallace Foundation reports. The setbacks also are cumulative, disproportionately affecting pupils from low-income families and all but guaranteeing a permanent achievement gap. The good news: quality summer programs can help stave off summer slide.

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Tags: achievement gap, Education Policy, Programs for Students, Public Policy, Research on Learning, summer, Summer Programs (Students)

Eighty four percent of school districts nationwide anticipate cuts in funding for the coming school year. Of these, well over half plan to cut staff. “A grim situation is expected to worsen in the coming school year,” predicts the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based advocacy group.

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Tags: Education Policy, Public Policy

The Republican chairman of the House education committee outlined publicly for the first time a timetable for rewriting the sprawling No Child Left Behind school accountability law. Minnesota Rep. John Kline said he would move five bills to the House floor by year’s end. Experts say that profound partisan disagreement with the Democrat-led Senate could doom the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s reauthorization this year.

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Tags: Education Policy, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, Public Policy, reauthorization, U. S. Department of Education

Apple’s iPad hasn’t yet taken over the nation’s classrooms, but it’s starting to look as though it might. In Colorado, Manitou Springs Middle School plans to buy an iPad for every fifth-through-eighth grader next year and have one for every high schooler the following year. Now in pilot: an iPad-only algebra curriculum.

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Tags: education firsts, Education Policy, Technology, Technology for Learning

Nearly a decade of graduation exams, “adequate yearly progress,” and other test-based accountability systems has produced little or no positive effect on student learning, a blue-ribbon committee of the National Academies concludes in a new report. Moreover, there are insufficient safeguards against gaming the system.

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Tags: Education Policy, Public Policy

It’s been a banner spring for STEM this year. First, a Maryland science teacher draws White House honors as national Teacher of the Year. Now, the School of Science and Engineering Magnet high school in Dallas, Texas, has soared to the head of the latest Washington Post Challenge Index of more than 1,900 high schools nationwide.

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Tags: Education Policy, Research on Learning, STEM education

New Census figures reveal that the nation’s overall spending on education grew at a significantly slower pace in 2009 than at any other time in more than a decade. State and local revenues supplied all but 9.5 percent of the nation’s total $590.9 billion education tab. New York topped the class at $18,126 per student, with D.C. a close second at $16,408. Utah spent the least: $6,356.

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Tags: Education Policy, Public Policy

The foundation launched by Microsoft founder Bill Gates is spending millions of dollars to enlist educators and experts in promoting sweeping changes to public education. Teachers hired by Gates-funded advocacy group Teach Plus helped persuade Indiana lawmakers this spring to eliminate seniority-based layoff policies.

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Tags: Corporations, Education Policy, Organizations, Public Policy