Events

Over the last year, the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) and EducationCounsel have convened leaders in k-12 and higher education to explore how both systems might benefit greatly from more authentic and holistic ways of assessing students’ competencies and mastery of 21st-century skills. In this webinar, we explored the emerging recommendations from the Reimagining College Access initiative and engaged participants in a discussion of where the work is heading.

The Learning Policy Institute and our partners at the Coalition for Community Schools, Communities In Schools, and the Center for American Progress hosted a conversation with leaders on community schools. Panelists discussed how to implement a community schools strategy at scale and how local and state education policy can support this crucial work.

In partnership with the Stuart Foundation, the Forum for Youth Investment, and the Learning Policy Institute held a discussion on how to spark a Whole Child Challenge in communities across America. Ignited by Stuart Foundation’s President Jonathan P. Raymond's new book, Wildflowers: A School Superintendent’s Challenge to America, panelists built on themes that resonated with them in the book by sharing their stories and discussed how to place children at the center of every policy, every debate, and every decision made about K-12 education.

On June 13, LPI hosted the third webinar in the series, State Efforts for Building an Effective, Diverse Teacher Workforce series, in partnership with Learning Forward, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Association of State Boards of Education. This webinar explored state and district efforts to connect quality teacher preparation and induction with the principles of deeper learning and will also look at ways that states and districts are aligning systems of quality professional learning and early career supports.

The third webinar in LPI’s series, Achieving Equity Through Deeper Learning, explored how states are using and sharing information on deeper learning assessments. Specific projects, like the 4 State Performance Assessment Project and the State Performance Assessment Learning Community (SPA-LC), were discussed along with two major efforts underway in Washington that incorporate performance assessments in ways that engage students in three-dimensional science learning.

At this briefing, speakers discussed a new report from the Learning Policy Institute, Diversifying the Teaching Profession: Barriers to Recruiting and Retaining Teachers of Color and How to Overcome Them. The report reviews the research on the recruitment and retention of teachers of color, examines the current state of teachers of color in the workforce and the factors that affect their recruitment, hiring, and retention, and highlights opportunities for policymakers to grow a stable workforce of teachers of color in their districts and states.

The Learning Policy Institute will be well represented at the 2018 AERA Annual Meeting in New York, NY, from April 13 to April 17, 2018. Staff and research fellows will present their research on a range of topics including performance assessments, teacher diversity, and social-emotional learning.

As states, districts, and schools are expanding instruction to include the competencies associated with college, career, and civic readiness, they are also developing ways to measure mastery of higher-order thinking skills. These measures include performance assessments that show what students know and can do through demonstrations of their thinking, writing, research, and products. During this briefing, speakers shared information on how performance assessments can inform teaching and learning, advance educational equity, and be used to inform the postsecondary admission, placement, and advisement process in ways that increase access.

On March 21, LPI, the National Conference of State Legislatures, Learning Forward, and the National Association of State Boards of Education launched State Efforts for Building an Effective, Diverse Teacher Workforce, a series of webinars on how states can help develop and support a diverse workforce of teachers who develop greater mastery and leadership. The first webinar addressed opportunities under ESSA for effective professional learning systems, professional development to help teachers provide instruction that supports deeper learning, and how state departments of education can work with state boards of education to develop state-funded strategies.

On March 20, LPI held the second webinar in a series that explores why deeper learning is crucial for students in today’s innovation economy and how we can achieve greater equity in access to deeper learning. This webinar explored how performance assessments are providing all students, including those who are farthest from opportunity, a vehicle to show what they know in a way that matters.