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Op-Ed: What Pre-K Means for Your Pre-Teenager

David L. Kirp

Dec 14 2017
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A recent long-term study concluded that the effects of high-quality preschool programs last long into adulthood, and that because of higher projected income and diminished likelihood of incarceration, every dollar invested in quality preschool could generate a two-dollar return. Unfortunately, without a commitment by policymakers to invest in children’s education, this “powerful vaccine” won’t survive.

Topic Early Childhood Learning
Blog

Why Addressing Teacher Turnover Matters

Linda Darling-Hammond

Leib Sutcher

Desiree Carver-Thomas

Nov 13 2017
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Over the last three years, thousands of news stories and dozens of studies from LPI and other organizations have documented teacher shortages across the country. Yet some critics argue that turnover is not generally a problem and shortages may not even be real. In this blog, Linda Darling-Hammond, Leib Sutcher, and Desiree Carver Thomas break down the research and explain that solving turnover and shortages is not a pipedream; it’s a policy question.

Topics Educator Quality, Educator Quality: Recruitment & Retention
Blog

Oakland’s Graduate Capstone Project: It’s About Equity

Oct 26 2017
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By Young Whan Choi | What should a high school student be able to do upon graduation? In this guest blog, Young Whan Choi, manager of performance assessments for the Oakland Unified School District, discusses how the use of a districtwide Graduate Capstone Project is an integral part of the district’s commitment to graduating all students prepared for college, career, and community.

Topics Deeper Learning: Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment, Deeper Learning, Deeper Learning: College, Career & Civic Participation
Blog

Beyond the Numbers: How Teacher Turnover and Shortages Undermine Teacher-Student Relationships

Oct 19 2017
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By Jiawen Wang | How are students impacted by teacher turnover and shortages? Oakland High School junior and guest blogger Jiawen Wang, a student leader with Californians for Justice (CFJ), discusses how she and her classmates experience these issues and why a strong and stable teacher workforce is key to creating relationship-centered schools.

Topic Educator Quality
Blog

For High-Quality Early Childhood Education, Invest in a Skilled and Supported Workforce

Beth Meloy

Sep 20 2017
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An effective, stable, and diverse workforce provides the critical foundation for the other building blocks of high-quality early childhood education programs. In this LPI Blog, Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst Beth Meloy outlines key elements of a high-quality system to achieve this goal, including improvements to teacher preparation and supports for ongoing professional development.

Topic Early Childhood Learning
Blog

Where Have All the Teachers Gone?

Linda Darling-Hammond

Sep 20 2017
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Across the country, districts and schools continue to struggle to meet the growing demand for qualified teachers. Since 2012, when Recession-era layoffs ended, the teacher workforce has grown by about 400,000, as districts have sought to reclaim the positions they had previously cut and replace teachers who have left. But even with intensive recruiting both in and outside of the country, more than 100,000 classrooms are being staffed this year by instructors who are unqualified for their jobs.

Topic Educator Quality
Blog

Let’s Talk: Starting a Conversation About Teacher Turnover

Roberta C. Furger

Sep 13 2017
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High teacher turnover is costly for schools and districts and can undermine efforts to improve academic opportunities and outcomes. This blog post outlines the causes and impact of turnover and speaks to the need for schools and districts to understand their local costs and begin a conversation about how to improve retention and build a strong and stable teacher workforce.

Topics Educator Quality, Equitable Resources and Access
Blog

Keep the DREAM Alive

Linda Darling-Hammond

Sep 07 2017
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On September 5, President Trump announced his plan to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Since it was implemented, the DACA program has ensured that nearly 800,000 children of immigrants—many of whom have no recollection of any country other than the U.S.—can safely attend school, earn degrees, and become contributing members of the country in which they were raised.
Blog

An Equity Q & A with Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond

Linda Darling-Hammond

Sep 04 2017
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In this re-posting of a Q&A first published as part of the Hunt Institute’s blog, The Intersection, LPI President Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond describes the opportunity ESSA presents to advance educational equity in our nation’s schools and offers examples of how states are capitalizing on ESSA requirements to address longstanding disparities and better support marginalized youth.

Topics Equitable Resources and Access, The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
Blog

Op-Ed: Don’t Suspend Students. Empathize.

David L. Kirp

Sep 02 2017
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School discipline can be a lose-lose proposition for both students and teachers but “empathic discipline,” a strategy combining discipline with rapport, can be used to good effect. Researchers are investigating how teachers can be supported in their use of this strategy and how it can be used to improve outcomes for "troubled" students.

Topic Equitable Resources and Access

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Blog

Why Our Education Funding Systems Are Derailing the American Dream

Feb 18 2019

We live in an era of extreme income inequality and one of the places it’s hitting hardest is in our schools. That’s because inequity is hard-wired into our school-funding systems. Linda Darling-Hammond and Jeff Raikes explain the hard wiring and discuss what we can do to shift direction and ensure that every child receives a quality education.

Blog

Just as schools were becoming safer, Trump ‘safety’ commission likely to halt progress

Jan 08 2019

In late December, 2018, the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidance on school discipline that has helped improve school safety and student achievement across the country. In advance of that decision, Linda Darling-Hammond and Chris Edley cautioned against this move in a commentary in The Hill. They explained that after states adopted the guidance, suspensions and expulsions—which are given at much higher rates to students of color—were reduced significantly as were school-based firearms incidents.

Blog

What Detroit and Chicago Can Teach Us About Student Growth and School Rating Systems

Dec 13 2018

Historically, U.S. schools have been rated based largely on student performance on an annual summative test. With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state accountability systems now feature additional measures of student and school success, including academic growth. These factors are critical if we are to create accountability systems that recognize the contributions that schools make to student progress, while reducing bias against educators and schools serving students in diverse, high-poverty communities.

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