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Sedalia Elementary partners with McREL |
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OurCastleRockNews.com |
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On December 7, McREL and Sedalia Elementary in Sedalia, Colorado, will formalize a partnership to create McREL’s first-ever demonstration school. Sedalia, a low-performing, semi-rural school that is part of the high-performing, suburban Douglas County School District, hopes to reduce the achievement gap among its students through its work with McREL. The school will complete the Success in Sight approach to school improvement, which it began in 2010, as well as a number of other McREL programs aimed at improving achievement. In just over a year of work, Sedalia has increased its writing scores school-wide by 6 percent and, most notably, by 19 percent among 6th graders. |
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TPS teacher evaluation system preferred as new state model |
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TulsaWorld.com |
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Oklahoma’s Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Commission has recommended McREL’s Principal Evaluation System as the model for school leader evaluations in the state. For the teacher evaluation system, it has recommended Tulsa Public School’s (TPS) system. The Commission, acting on a mandate for a new, state-wide evaluation system as part of the Oklahoma Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Act of 2010, will now send its recommendations to the state board of education for final approval.
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School Improvement, Step by Step |
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Educational Leadership |
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In this article, McREL Principal Consultant Sammye Wheeler-Clouse and Senior Director Michael Siebersma, along with former Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) Chief Academic Officer Deborah Backus, share the success story of Eiber Elementary, an under-performing school that the JCPS partnered with to ensure effective implementation of its improvement plan. Realizing it needed to get serious about monitoring how well school initiatives were carried out, the school worked with McREL to break down a large improvement goal into manageable parts, involve the entire staff, monitor and provide support along the way, and apply lessons learned to future initiatives. |
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Grade Inflation: Killing with Kindness |
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Educational Leadership |
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Bryan Goodwin’s latest Educational Leadership article discusses the possibility of grade inflation and why it may be occurring. Using data from several studies, Goodwin shows that even though grades have risen over the years, student performance on national tests has not improved. He gives several possible reasons for grade inflation, including that teachers base grades on factors indirectly related to their learning, including effort, ability, behavior, and attitude. Goodwin concludes that if grade inflation is occurring, giving unrealistic grades only harms students when they fail in college because they do not have the necessary skills. |
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McREL Teacher Evaluation System |
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NJEA Review |
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A profile of McREL’s Teacher Evaluation System, written by Tony Davis and Bryan Goodwin, appears in the November issue of NJEA Review, a publication of the New Jersey Education Association. The profile describes the system, defines “good teaching,” and addresses questions about the system’s efficacy, how it uses data and promotes collaboration among educators, and how it differs from other models available to New Jersey schools. McREL’s system has been approved by the New Jersey Department of Education as a provider of a standards-based evaluation system as part of the Excellent Educators for New Jersey Pilot Program.
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Experts mentor school administrators, officials on 'balanced leadership' |
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Saipan Tribune |
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McREL’s Greg Cameron and Mel Sussman traveled to Saipan recently to deliver a two-day professional development session on Balanced Leadership® to 50 educators in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI) Public School System (PSS). According to Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan, the training, involving school administrators, key PSS staff members, and Board of Education members, continues work started a year ago that aims to improve the capability and leadership skills of not only school administrators but all stakeholders in the community who want to support student success. |
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Technology Revolution |
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The Advocate and Democrat (Sweetwater, TN) |
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Gary Sharp, technology director for the Monroe County (Tenn.) School System, recently attended a McREL Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works workshop, and came away inspired to break the barriers of “old-school learning” and embrace technology. The district, which recently hired a data and instructional technology coach through a school technology grant, is able to provide one-on-one training to teachers on how to take advantage of its 300 iPads and the iPad lab at its high school. "It's time to change," said Sharp. "We're in the 21st century and still trying to teach 20th century stuff."
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Group works on vision for Joplin High School |
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The Joplin Globe |
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In September, representatives from McREL, Apple Inc., Missouri Southern State University, and Pittsburg State University met with school officials and community members for the second time in Joplin, Missouri, to discuss how these organizations can contribute to a new vision for the city’s high school, which was destroyed by last May’s tornado. “It’s very seldom that a school district gets to start from scratch and create a vision and build a building around that vision,” said Superintendent C.J. Huff. Ideas discussed included the use of technology, flexible scheduling, the creation of a freshman wing, and implementation of “career cluster academies” in areas such as information technology, finance, and health sciences. |
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Back to School: Technology, teaching changes await students |
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The Daily Journal.com (Millville, NJ) |
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Millville Public Schools has stepped up its technology use in monitoring instruction, based on McREL’s Classroom Instruction that Works strategies and Power Walkthrough classroom observation software. "The collection of data over time allows both the leadership team and the instructional staff to see instructional trends," said Superintendent David N. Gentile. "Utilizing the data, the teaching staff and leaders can engage in coaching conversations to foster professional development." |
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Keeping Rural Schools Up to Speed |
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THE Journal |
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In this article, McREL Senior Director of Research Andrea Beesley writes about the challenges facing rural schools, such as less access to advanced courses and difficulty recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers, and how best to address them. An obvious solution, Beesley writes, is online courses and professional development. However, while rural schools often have excellent access to technology, the way technology is provided and serviced as well as the level of connectivity varies greatly among schools and districts. Beesley makes the case that overcoming these challenges in order to provide high-quality instruction for both students and teachers is well worth the effort. |
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In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores |
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New York Times |
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An Educational Leadership column by McREL's Bryan Goodwin, vice president for marketing, communications, and business development, is referenced in this article that examines the value of technology in increasing student achievement. While more and more schools spend significant amounts of money on technology, there continues to be a lack of evidence that it is helping students learn. Wrote Goodwin, "Rather than being a cure-all or silver bullet, one-to-one laptop programs may simply amplify what’s already occurring—for better or worse." |
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Raising the Bar Earned Ankeny Schools a Spot at National Conference |
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Ankeny Patch.com (Ankeny, IA) |
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Ankeny Community Schools in central Iowa is one of the high-performing districts invited to McREL's Summit for Innovative Education, to be held September 21-23 in Orlando, Fla. The Summit, hosted by McREL in partnership with Lockheed Martin, will bring together education leaders from across the country to focus on elevating the performance of America's schools to that of high-reliability organizations. |
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Take a dawn journey to the asteroid belt |
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Estes Park Trail Gazette |
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McREL Senior Director John Ristvey will bring the journey of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft to life for visitors to the Estes Park Memorial Observatory in Estes Park, Colorado, on July 28. The talk, which is free, open to the public, and held in conjunction with the monthly meeting of the Estes Valley Astronomical Society, will focus on the super-fast ion engine propelling Dawn and how the mission will contribute to our understanding of the solar system. After four years of traveling through the solar system, Dawn has recently reached its destination of the asteroid Vesta, which it will explore until 2012. |
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Arne (Duncan) joins Senator Harkin in Iowa to Highlight Early Learning |
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Ed.gov Blog |
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On July 25, preschool teachers in an Early Reading First classroom in Des Moines, Iowa, got to try out a couple strategies from McREL’s Scaffolding Early Learning (SEL) program for Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The distinguished guests visited Carver Community School, which participated in the SEL program as part of a three-year Early Reading First grant, and led a round table discussion that focused on the importance of high-quality early learning programs. Duncan, who also gave the keynote address at the Iowa Education Summit on the following day, highlighted the Obama administration’s recent announcement that it will invest $500 million in a state-level Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge. |
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English acquisition crucial to closing achievement gap in Summit County schools |
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Summit Daily.com (Frisco, CO) |
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According to achievement data taken from a five-year period, it’s the language proficiency gap—not poverty or ethnicity—that most effects the disparity in performance between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students in Summit County. McREL’s Jim Eck presented this data to school board members following three years of school improvement work through a state Closing the Achievement Gap (CTAG) grant. After examining scores according to how well students knew English, he said, “As students are being moved into (fluency), you’re seeing improvements in their performance.” The gap in reading performance overall went from 47 percent to 39 percent, with 9th and 10th graders closing the gap most significantly—from 60 to 37 percent. |
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So Many Devices, So Little Use |
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THE Journal |
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Observation data from more than 60,000 classrooms across 34 states shows that, while more and more schools have technology devices available, the percentage of teachers and students using them is startlingly low, writes McREL’s Howard Pitler. McREL collected the data from classrooms that use the Power Walkthrough observation tool, which measures, among other indicators, how technology is being used in classrooms. In 63 percent of all observations, teachers utilized no technology at all. The percentage of students using no technology in any form was even lower at 73 percent. Pitler concludes that, “If we really want to see technology supporting quality instruction...we need to get serious about providing ongoing and targeted professional development and set clear expectations for the use of technology...” |
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Superintendent Staying Power |
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District Administration |
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McREL's research on superintendent effectiveness--specifically, that tenure positively effects student achievement--was referenced in this article in District Administration. The article profiles superintendents in the 10 largest school districts in the country and notes a recently released study by the Council of the Great City Schools which found the average tenure of urban superintendents has gone up in the past decade, from 2.3 to 3.6 years. |
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Putting a Little Mystery into Teaching |
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Principal Leadership |
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We all look to teachers to tell us things we don’t know, right? Yes, but just giving students information does little to engage them. A better route, write Bryan Goodwin, McREL’s vice president of communications & marketing, and John Ristvey, principal consultant, is to “build suspense [around a topic], piquing students’ natural curiosity.” They cite example science and mathematics lessons McREL has created for NASA on comets and meteorites, one of which has students reach into a box and feel a variety of materials—dirt, dust, ice, a potato—that represent the materials in a comet. Students then record their observations and speculations about the composition of a comet. Exploration and solving mysteries is not just a “gimmicky way to increase the entertainment value of a lesson,” Goodwin and Ristvey write, but a way to tap into a human’s natural “desire to explore and learn about their environments.” |
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Inquiry into the Heart of a Comet |
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Science and Children (by subscription only) |
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McREL Senior Consultant Whitney Cobb contributed to this article on teaching about comets through hands-on activities that emulate real science. The authors describe modeling an object in space while introducing key vocabulary and science concepts with visuals in order to support learning and retention. Then, students collaborate by developing their own models. Finally, students engage in scientific argumentation as they discuss the strengths and limitations of their models and brainstorm ways to improve them. |
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Success measurable in quality programs |
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Des Moines Register (Iowa) |
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This editorial, written by McREL’s early childhood team in response to a January 27 article, "Preschool Funding: $150 Million to What Result?", highlights the achievement gains of children participating in the Preparing Early Readers for Kindergarten (PERK) program. At the core of this program are strategies for self-regulation, which research shows to be a predictor of academic success. In fact, an independent evaluation of the PERK program found that, of the four year olds in the program, 73 percent gained age-appropriate language skills in the first year, and 82 percent in the second year.
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Before Adopting a Laptop Initiative |
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The School Administrator |
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Millions of dollars have been spent in recent years on one-to-one laptop initiatives in schools across the country—but the effects on student achievement have been mixed and depend largely on the amount of planning by the participating school or district. This article by McREL Principal Consultant Elizabeth Hubbell explains one of the best ways to get the most from a laptop initiative: Conduct a technology audit first. A good audit will gather data through various means—surveys, focus groups, classroom walkthroughs, and interviews—to see how comfortable staff is with current technologies and how easily a new tool could be integrated into the current culture. It will save a school or district time, money and, potentially, a lot of headaches. |
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One-to-One Laptop Programs Are No Silver Bullet |
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Educational Leadership |
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Though extremely popular in recent years, one-to-one laptop initiatives do not guarantee better student achievement. As Bryan Goodwin, McREL vice president of communciations and marketing, writes, studies show that students with laptops are more engaged and have better technology skills, but most large-scale evaluations have found little to no effect on achievement. However, successful initiatives have some common elements:
uniform integration in every class; teacher training and collaboration; and daily use by students for cooperative learning. |
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Aurora library exhibit bringing space science down to earth |
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Aurora Sentinel (Aurora, CO) |
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"Comet and Asteroid Mysteries Revealed" was the topic of a lecture given by McREL Senior Director John Ristvey in January at the Aurora Central Library in Aurora, Colo., as part of its Discover Space exhibit. Ristvey described recent satellite images, for example, one of a snowstorm created by carbon dioxide jets on the surface of a comet, which had never been seen by scientists before. |
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The Great Pretenders |
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Parents |
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McREL Principal Researcher Elena Bodrova was quoted in this article on the importance of imaginative play for children. Bodrova asserts that such play increases children’s vocabulary--if parents and children are role-playing being in a doctor's office, for example, parents can use words like “vaccination,” or, in a restaurant, ask the chef to “saute” the vegetables. “Children will use these words when they play the game again,” says Bodrova. While kids feel more confident when parents participate, she cautions to let the children control the theme and direction of the game. |
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GAO Study Shines Light on Student Mobility (by subscription only) |
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Education Week |
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Despite being linked with multiple negative outcomes for students, student mobility hasn't been addressed in any significant way, according to McREL Senior Director Andrea Beesley, who was interviewed for this Education Week article. A new report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows that 13 percent of schoolchildren in the United States change schools four or more times before high school, and this number may be on the rise due to job loss, home foreclosures, and homelessness. |
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Learning and Working in a Collaborative World (web only) |
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Principal Leadership |
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In the 21st century classroom, are an engaging teacher, fascinating content, and good test scores enough? No, writes McREL's Elizabeth Hubbell, who presents two scenarios of a small-group project in a college English course--one with students who used technology extensively in middle and high school, and one with students who did not. Technology tools, she asserts, not only enhance learning but also teach communication and collaboration skills that students will need well into the future.
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Good Teachers May Not Fit the Mold |
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Educational Leadership |
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If given the choice between a teacher with 20 years' experience and a teacher with little experience who ethusiastically believes in her own and her students' abilities, which one would you hire? In this column, McREL's Bryan Goodwin looks at the surprising research on good teachers to sort out which measures matter--and which ones don't. |
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The 15% Solution? |
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Phi Delta Kappan (by subscription only) |
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When the Common Core standards take effect, some students in every grade will be prepared—but some won’t. McREL’s John Kendall writes that states can address the resulting gap in knowledge by cutting 15% of their current standards in order to find the time to help students prepare for the change. These “transition standards,” a mix of current state standards and content that anticipates the Common Core, would give schools time to determine how Common Core will impact instruction, curriculum, and assessment—and to examine data from existing assessments to help anticipate areas where students may excel and where they may need extra help. |
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Holmdel Schools partner with Monmouth University |
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The Independent (Middletown, NJ) |
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The Holmdel Township Public School District, as part of a collaboration with Monmouth University to improve student achievement, is reviewing McREL's report, Changing the Odds for Student Success: What Matters Most, to inform their professional development process. Assistant Superintendent Mary Beth Currie said the district is looking at the five aspects of the What Matters Most framework and how they can connect them to their curriculum, assessments, and instruction. |
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Kagman High sets higher bar for student achievement |
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Saipan Tribune |
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This interview with Principal Alfred Ada of Kagman High School in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, highlights the work the school has done with McREL in recent months. Principal Ada plans to set a higher bar for students this year, based on what he's learned through McREL's Balanced Leadership professional development about managing change, setting higher standards for everyone, and optimizing classroom observations. |
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Partnering with Research Studies Pays Off in PD |
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ASCD Express |
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Are you looking for new professional development opportunities that support teacher growth? Try becoming a partner in a research project. This article, written by educational consultant and former McREL research associate Andrew Newman, suggests that partnering with a research agency, university, or foundation is ideal for schools and districts with limited budgets but increased pressure to improve student performance. Such a partnership offers three important benefits: learning about and piloting promising practices; increasing professionalism within your school or district; and becoming better producers and consumers of data and research. |
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An Accountability Lesson from Michelle Obama |
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Education Week (subscription only) |
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Education can learn something from Michelle Obama's campaign to combat childhood obesity, according to an op-ed piece appearing in the August 25 issue of Education Week, written by McREL President and CEO Tim Waters and Douglas B. Reeves, chairman of the Leadership and Learning Center. Waters and Reeves contrast education's superficial focus on test scores with Obama's more nuanced approach, including not just a focus on pounds but also on nutrition, exercise, and frequent monitoring of health indicators.
State and federal policymakers would do well, they write, to revisit the accountability equation. "If we want to avoid the educational equivalent of anorexia and pill-popping--teaching focused only on test content and test-taking strategy--then the accountability equation must include causes, not merely effects." |
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Choice is a matter of degree |
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Educational Leadership |
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Does more choice make better, happier students? McREL's vice president of communications and marketing, Bryan Goodwin, tackles this issue in his new column for Educational Leadership, appearing in the September issue. By examining current research on the topic, Goodwin concludes that, like in other areas of life, giving some choice can help motivate but that too many choices can backfire. |
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Battling the Boys: Educators Grapple with Violent Play |
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LiveScience.com |
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Should boys be allowed to pretend to fight, capture, rescue, or even kill when "playing" in the classroom? This article examines the debate, citing an article by McREL early childhood education researcher Elena Bodrova and her colleague Deborah Leong, which states that sophisticated play (including games like cops and robbers) are critical to teaching children how to "delay gratification, prioritize, consider the perspective of others, represent things symbolically, and control impulses." |
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Vision plan aims for better schools |
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Columbia Daily Tribune (Mo.) |
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The Vision for Missouri Public Education Project, led by the Missouri School Boards' Association and the Missouri Association of School Administrators, aims to develop a new vision for the state's public school system. The project's goals, which will focus on the key areas of early learning, governance, teaching and learning, and physical and financial resources, can be met with better use of resources and without additional funding, said Tim Waters, president and CEO of McREL, another participant in the project. |
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Local view: Teachers' labors key to society's future successes |
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Duluth News Tribune (Minn.) |
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This Labor Day column extols the difficult, meaningful work of teachers and cites several recent studies that provide evidence of the impact teachers make in the lives of their students--including McREL's meta-analysis on five things that matter most for student achievement (Changing the Odds for Student Success: What Matters Most). |
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Using Leadership Teams to Elevate English Learning |
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Education.com |
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What happens after the workshop? To ensure that McREL's research-based instructional strategies for English language learners are implemented with quality and fidelity back in the classroom, McREL offers English Language Learner Leadership Academies, which combine the best in instructional practice with the best in leadership practice. This article, written by consultants Jane Hill and Anne Lundquist, details the five key elements of the academies.
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Adapt ELL Lessons in 3 Simple Steps |
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TeachHub.com |
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McREL's Jane Hill and Cynthia Björk share a three-step process for mainstream teachers on how to differentiate instruction for ELLs: First, understand thoroughly the stages of language acquisition and the level of each of your students; use Bloom's Taxonomy and "levels of thinking" in aligning students' acquisition levels with classroom assignments and homework; and set expectations in the classrooms according to the "remember" level of thinking. |
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12 educators get distinguished leadership awards |
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Saipan Tribune |
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McREL consultants Greg Cameron and David Rease, Jr., traveled to Saipan to deliver a four-day leadership institute to 65 principals, vice principals, program managers, and board of education members, with a focus on establishing strategic priorities that are "clear, concise, coherent, and realistic," said Education Commissioner Dr. Rita Sablan. |
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Using McREL's Knowledge Taxonomy for Ed Tech Professional Development |
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Learning and Leading with Technology |
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In this article, which appears in the June/July issue, McREL Lead Consultant Elizabeth Ross Hubbell shares ideas for helping teachers embrace technology by applying McREL's Knowledge Taxonomy to technology integration in the classroom. The taxonomy is based on the assertion that teachers need to know not only what to do to improve student achievement (declarative knowledge) but also why (experiential knowledge), how (procedural knowledge), and when (contextual knowledge) to do it. For example, Hubbell helps teachers understand why technology is important with articles or videos that illustrate the stark contrast between a student's digital life outside and inside the classroom. Or she may use a logic model to help teachers think about their student "clients," identify their needs, and determine the best resources to meet those needs. |
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Playing games makes your child clever |
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Times Online (London) |
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McREL early childhood education researcher Elena Bodrova was interviewed for this article on the resurging popularity of the ideas of pioneering Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, which appeared in the online version of the London Times. Bodrova, who is leading the charge in the U.S. for using more play in the classroom to teach children self-control, focus, and self-motivation, explains that children are arriving at school less able to focus because "they don't know how to play." When children spend more time participating in structured make-believe and social games, they are "a head above themselves," practicing for the next level of learning, Vygotsky wrote back in the 1920s. |
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Audit clears schools of wrongdoing |
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Gainesville Times (Georgia) |
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Two schools in Gainesville were among dozens flagged across the state for unusually high wrong-to-right erasure marks on last spring’s exam. McREL assessment expert Bruce Randel helped district officials interpret the results of the analysis of erasures conducted by the testing company. |
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Presentation by Mike May, visually impaired inventor and entrepreneur, caps McREL’s ACE project |
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McREL |
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Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), in conjunction with Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, is concluding its Visualizing Science with Adapted Curriculum Enhancements (ACE) project with a presentation by Mike May, a blind inventor, entrepreneur, and athlete, on May 7 at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind in Colorado Springs. |
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McREL chosen as educational services provider for Washington state |
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McREL |
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Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) has been chosen by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) in Olympia, Wash., as one of 11 providers eligible to provide comprehensive educational services to the state’s low-performing schools as part of a School Improvement Grant from the United States Department of Education. |
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Autonomy for School Leaders |
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The School Administrator
January 2010, Number 1, Vol. 67 |
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In this article, Jim Eck, McREL's senior director of field services, and Bryan Goodwin, McREL's vice president of communications and marketing, discuss a key finding from McREL's research on district leadership, which suggests that effective districts intentionally create "defined autonomy" for school leaders: they set clear, non-negotiable goals for student achievement and classroom instruction district-wide, while offering the principals the autonomy and support necessary to achieve those goals. |
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