|
The long-term rewards of quality early education continue to collect an impressive basket of evidence. An overwhelming majority of voters continue to call out the importance of quality preschool, even if the issue has not yet gotten much airtime in the 2016 presidential election. But how do parents know whether a preschool is of high quality?
|
Community schools serve as a neighborhood hub, where both students and their families can receive medical, dental, and psychological services and other supports in partnership with local organizations. Research shows that such schools can have an outsized impact, including cutting the achievement gap and absentee rates.
|
As California embarks on an ambitious journey to raise standards for student learning and rethink nearly every aspect of its educational system, one of the state’s most pressing challenges is hiring and retaining well-prepared, high-quality teachers who can teach the challenging new skills our society demands. This is especially true as the state faces emerging teacher shortages.
|
There is broad agreement among researchers across a wide range of disciplines that early education can give children a powerful start on the path that leads to college and career success. Early learning professionals need what any savvy businessperson wants for his or her company—a motivated, skilled, quality workforce. While recent studies have highlighted several obstacles to building a high-quality early childhood workforce, another points to promising models in four states.
The First Five Years Fund and the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) held an #ECEMatters Twitter Chat discussing national polling on early education and what states/communities are doing to ensure quality early education for all students.
|
On July 14, Linda Darling-Hammond, President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) during the the hearing "ESSA Implementation: Perspectives from Education Stakeholders on Proposed Regulations." In her remarks, Dr. Darling-Hammond stressed that ESSA regulations must support accountability that leads to equity and improvement by providing transparency and clarity for action.
|
By Roberta Furger and David Robertson | School districts and county offices of education estimate they will need to hire about 22,000 new teachers for the 2016–17 school year. These projections, part of a multiyear rebuilding of the state’s teaching force, are a good sign. There’s just one problem: California is not preparing enough new teachers to meet the projected need. Even with re-entrants and an increase in out-of-state recruits, districts are experiencing shortfalls they cannot easily address.
|
Teachers, on average, increase their effectiveness as they gain experience, and this improvement continues in the second and often third decade of their careers. This is a key finding from a comprehensive review of 30 studies analyzing the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes.
|
States are seeking remedies to the shortage of teachers and the increasing need to recruit and retain teachers in underserved rural and urban communities and in specific subject areas. Forgivable loans and service scholarships are two promising solutions, especially given the high level of student debt.
|
Two new reports, published jointly by the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), provide timely research and evidence-based examples for educators and policymakers looking to leverage ESSA to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for all children.
