The Education Mayor: Improving Americas Schools (American Governance and Public Policy series)

The Education Mayor

---

Maaka presents this Fall. As though it were a spiderweb. A compliment for a fine piece of work such as weaving or carving. This imagery highlights the interwoven and configurational elements of fine silken strands that make up a creation wondrous to behold. The spider and web analogy encapsulates several inter-related ideas, practices, and perceptions relating to indigenous community development.

These will be highlighted in the presentation—the complexity of culture the integration and validity of cultural norms within educational developments ; the complexity of partnerships the nature of the participants and their ability to obtain deep understandings of the unique contexts in which they work , the complexity associated with the work especially the need to protect and survive in hostile environments , and most important, the complexity of consequence the outcomes of the partnership work.

Margie is interested in the preparation of indigenous leaders in education. View Margie's powerpoint from her presentation. Sarah Pitcock, co-editor of The Summer Slide: What We Know and Can Do About Summer Learning Loss Teachers College Press, , will discuss the growing body of evidence on summer learning loss, the conditions that impede learning over the summer months, and best practices in summer programming with lessons on how to strengthen program evaluations. She will also discuss summer learning as a strategy to both narrow the achievement and opportunity gaps.

Jennifer McCombs will discuss the findings of her research on whether voluntary, district-led summer programs can improve outcomes among low-income students. As a part of this project, The Foundation sponsored RAND to conduct a study of district-led, voluntary summer programs in five school districts—Boston, Dallas, Duval County Florida , Pittsburgh, and Rochester New York —to assess their effects on more than 3, students. The RAND study examined these effects using several methods, including a randomized controlled trial RCT on a cohort of students who were third graders in spring She will present findings from this report focusing on the effects of two consecutive summers of programming in and on language arts LA and mathematics learning and on less-studied outcomes—student behavior and social-emotional competence—in both the near term the fall after the summer program and the longer term through spring Her research focuses on evaluating the extent to which public policies and programs improve outcomes for at-risk students.

Her studies combine implementation and outcome data to provide practitioners and policymakers guidance on how to improve programs and promote student outcomes. She currently leads a five-district, longitudinal study of voluntary summer learning programs for low-income elementary youth that includes extensive primary data collection including classroom observations, interviews, surveys, and student testing.

Over the course of her career, she has studied how to improve teacher effectiveness through professional development, coaching, education ; the development of systems for out-of-school-time programs; the implementation and impact of test-based promotion policies; and the effects of federal accountability policies on schools, classrooms, and students.

McCombs earned her Ph. Sarah Pitcock is a writer and consultant for nonprofits and foundations. Sarah has built support for high-quality summer learning programs through policy advocacy, research and writing and numerous media and communications efforts. The Rising Price of Objectivity. Presentation slides available here.

Read Michael Feuer's Huffington Post guest blog. He notes the convergence of three important trends: Together, he cautions, the combination of these forces threatens scientific research generally, and in particular, jeopardizes the effort to generate independent, credible evidence that is needed to inform and guide our efforts to improve education.

Equipping Leaders to Better Prepare Children & Youth for College, Careers, & Citizenship

Feuer proposes a series of measures for countering the drift toward ideology over inquiry and ensuring that private foundations, the so-called advice industry, and the federal government protect the reliability and credibility of education research for the advancement of the public good. He has written two books, both published by Harvard Education Press. He has had dozens of peer reviewed articles in leading education, economics, philosophy, and policy journals. His essays, commentaries, and poems have appeared in newspapers, blogs, and magazines in the US and abroad.

There is still ways to go to build educator capacity, but incremental progress has shown positive outcomes. Michael Kirst for an education update on the reforms transforming California. Michael Kirst is the president of the California State Board of Education and professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University. He first served as president of the California State Board from to and was a member of the board from to Prior to joining the Stanford University faculty in , Dr.

AERA-IEL Educational Policy Forums | Institute for Educational Leadership

Kirst served in several positions in the federal government, including staff director of the U. Office of Education now the U. Department of Education ; and associate director of the White House Fellows. He began his career in as a budget examiner for the Title I program in the U. Bureau of the Budget in the U.

California Education Policy Overview Slides. In July, Sharon Robinson will be retiring. She has agreed to meet with the Education Policy Forum to discuss her hard-won experiences and well- honed perspectives about scholarship, education policy, teacher education, and citizenship. Among her previous leadership positions are included: A lifelong civil rights activist, Dr. She has been a good citizen in each of the organizations with which she is associated, serving as a frequent committee member for programs of the AERA and the National Council for Measurement in Education, and serving on the board of the PDK Educational Foundation and the Learning First Alliance.

Challenges and Opportunities in the Changing Policy Landscape.

The Latino population of young people is the fastest growing minority group in the United States. Although they are accessing postsecondary institutions in record numbers, data shows that Latino students continue to face multiple barriers to opportunity, access, and success. For more than 20 years, she has led research and policy efforts from the community to national and federal levels to improve educational opportunities and success for all students. Her current work focuses on federal and state policy, financial aid, Hispanic-Serving Institutions HSIs , and effective institutional practices for student success in higher education.

Deborah serves on the board of the National Student Clearinghouse, and the advisory boards of thedream. This is an extraordinary time in education. Our students are facing a future world whose parameters have yet to be defined and they are relying on us to make the best decisions for them. As a result, an enormous amount of energy, time, and emotion has been expended reacting to issues such as Common Core State Standards CCSS and various types of assessments. The Every Student Succeeds Act ESSA presents a unique and timely opportunity to step back, reflect, refocus, and become proactive on how our schools, districts, and states should define and evaluate student success.

This moment may never cross our paths again; hence, it is critical to seize it with vigor, focus and, most especially, with students at the core of decisions.

Better evidence for decision making

This session will focus on work being considered and done involving the use of multimetric accountability systems across states and districts. A short presentation will be followed by a robust conversation. During Deb's year career in education, she has served as a teacher, gifted education specialist, curriculum director, elementary school principal, district associate superintendent, superintendent, state superintendent, and university instructor. She was nominated as the U. Senate on April 27, , and served in that position until As an assistant secretary of education, she played a pivotal role in policy and management issues affecting preK, elementary, and secondary education for the U.

Department of Education and oversaw 86 programs with a portfolio of almost 26 billion dollars. Delisle coordinated and recommended policy for programs designed to assist state and local education agencies in improving the achievement of preschool, elementary, and secondary school students. With the passage of o ur new federal ed ucation law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, states are working with diverse stakeholders to design their state plans. Join us for a conversation on wh ere states are i n their planning, what they see as the biggest opportunities and challenges, and what the recent national elections might mean for the implementation of this new law.

Amundson—a former teacher—served for nearly a decade on the Fairfax County, Va. Mary leads policy and advocacy efforts to promote the community schools approach at federal and state levels for IEL. She also manages the Coalition for Community Schools' relationships with its over national par tners. Before coming to IEL, Mary was manager of government relations for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, where she represented our nation's secondary school leaders.

Mary began her career teaching 6th and 9th grade English for three years in Oakland, California. This innovative, digitally-based assessment incorporates many scenario-based tasks that utilize a multimedia approach. Additionally, the Governing Board is finalizing a strategic vision to guide its policy work during the next four years.

This work will focus on increased dissemination of results, new efforts supporting academic preparedness assessment and reporting, and advanced techniques to refine NAEP's assessment frameworks. In an interactive environment, learn more about the Board's direction and offer recommendations on approaches to help inform the Board's work.

In overseeing the National Assessment of Educational Progress NAEP , the Governing Board identifies subjects to be tested, determines the content and achievement levels for each assessment, approves all test questions, and takes steps to improve the form, reporting, and use of results. Prior to PDK, Bushaw held other education positions including: He began his education career as a middle school science teacher and high school principal. His bachelor's and doctorate degrees are from the University Michigan. Bushaw also served in the United States Navy, active and reserve, retiring at the rank of Captain.

Parking is available in the building's garage for a fee. In the winter of , the Center on Education Policy CEP surveyed a nationally representative sample of public school teachers to learn their views on the teaching profession, state standards and assessments, testing, and teacher evaluations.

The report, Listen to Us: Teacher Views and Voices , summarizes these survey findings, including responses indicating that public school teachers are concerned and frustrated with shifting policies, over emphasis on student testing, and their lack of voice in decision-making. CEP is a trusted, nonpartisan source for education research and analysis for policymakers, educators and the public. Her long career as an educator includes many national leadership positions and accolades. Ruth Neild, deputy director for policy and research at the Institute of Education Sciences IES , spoke about federal education research policy issues.

She addressed some of the familiar criticisms about the federal research programs in a recent article titled: Neild has also been delegated the duties of the IES director, ably filling the vacancy arising with the departure of John Easton. She is the first person to head the agency who has prior experience as an IES commissioner of one of the four research centers.

In addition to her research experience within the Department of Education, Neild was a research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Social Organization of Schools. Michael Cohen has worked to promote standards-based education reform in significant and varied leadership positions for much of his career.

Department of Education, and education advisor to the president during the Clinton Administration. Since , Michael has been president of Achieve, an organization dedicated to standards-based education, and has become a leading spokesperson for improved standards and assessments. Under his leadership, Achieve also has formed the American Diploma Project Network to develop state standards for improving preparation for postsecondary education. Cohen shared his thoughts about the historical development of the standards-based reform movement in the U.

He also will provide his perspective on the future of the movement. AYPF founder Samuel Halperin believed strongly in the value of public service and the potential for education to lift youth out of poverty and to change their lives.

Cahill has a strong commitment to advancing youth policy and working to expand opportunities for disconnected youth. Rempson, a year-old D. Read the the transcript of Michele Cahill's lecture and Ebony Rempson's winning essay. Our learning programs help organizations accelerate growth by unlocking their people's potential. Governments everywhere face a daunting paradox. On the one hand, they operate in an increasingly complex environment and must deliver on an expanded set of policy objectives. On the other hand, governments are hampered by unsustainable debt burdens and shrinking budgets.

The ratio of general government debt to gross domestic product for member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD now exceeds percent. McKinsey analysis based on Economic Outlook No. Meanwhile, public trust in government is eroding. Against this backdrop, not only must governments do more with less; they must do so in highly visible ways, if they are to regain the faith of their constituents. The good news is that governments can deliver the performance their citizens need and expect—and, indeed, some have begun to do so.

Government by design calls on public-sector leaders to favor the rational and the analytical over the purely ideological, and to be willing to abandon tools and techniques that no longer work. Four principles are at its core: Each of these principles is central to creating more effective yet affordable government. The value at stake is staggering: Francois Bouvard et al. The European Union is also represented. Results-oriented governments are increasingly making use of hard data and statistical analysis to inform decisions.

We have seen three forms of evidence-based decision making in government:. Governments must decide what to measure and how, always with an eye on the overall goal of the program or initiative. One of the goals of a government-wide transformation effort in France between and was to reduce the perceived complexity of dealing with the government. As part of this initiative, the government identified 50 life events—such as getting married or starting a business—during which citizens have to interact with public agencies.

It then sought to simplify each of these interactions, all the while measuring citizen satisfaction to track whether the changes were actually working. National and international benchmarks are powerful but underutilized as inputs into decision making, particularly in a world where governments everywhere face similar issues and no single government excels across the board. On almost any metric—from high-school graduation rates to unemployment to per capita health-care costs—there are wide variations in government performance across the OECD and even within large federal countries.

An economist would say this inconsistency is to be expected since monopolies, absent any competitive pressure, tend to deliver suboptimal performance.

Reliable, clean data can inform the design or refinement of government initiatives. The team sets up randomized control trials long used in the medical field but only now gaining favor in the public sector to test the impact of small changes, like adjustments in the language and tone of the letter that the tax department sends to delinquent taxpayers. In its first two years, the team paid for itself 22 times over in savings. And the unit has started to advise other governments on how to use data and randomized control trials to improve government performance.

Evidence-based decision making creates real value, both financial and nonfinancial, for citizens. Done right, it allows government to assess policy and program effectiveness, measure progress, and engage in a more rational public debate on sensitive topics. Innovative governments are making it easier for citizens to access public services.

And the most forward-thinking governments are starting to master the shift from simply administering services to regularly engaging and empowering citizens, involving them in the design—and, in some cases, the delivery—of these services. Governments are investing to meet these expectations. Australia, for instance, has pioneered mobile government offices—satellite-equipped trucks—that serve as a one-stop-shop for government services for people living in remote areas.

In this Book

Innovative governments are creating new ways for citizens to make their voices heard, giving them the ability to provide input into regulations, budgets, and the provision of services. Users post more than 27, comments on the site every month. Other governments are going even further to solicit citizen feedback: And the city of Cologne, Germany, has used participatory budgeting: Citizens can play an important role not just in the design but also in the delivery of public services.

Thanks to the Open platform, a free web-based application programming interface, the city now processes 60 percent of service requests online, lowering transaction and issue-resolution costs. Open platforms have been rolled out to other cities as well, including San Francisco and Chicago.

These platforms, along with third-party apps such as SeeClickFix, empower citizens to do some of the work that has traditionally fallen to municipal employees: In a similar vein, the mayors of Boston and Philadelphia have each created an Office of New Urban Mechanics, which works with residents to fund and launch promising projects that address civic needs.

Citizens—not government employees—come up with the ideas and do much of the work, but also reap the benefits. The trend toward participatory government will only gain in strength. In a survey of public-sector leaders, we found that only about 39 percent of large-scale public-sector projects fully met their targets. Stacey Dietsch et al.

• A Place to Belong (Serenity House Book 2)
• E. coli in Motion (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering)
• The Root of All Evil (Knowledge of Good and Evil Book 1)
• Reading Epic: An Introduction to the Ancient Narratives
• The Encourager
• The Anatomy of England: A History in Ten Matches
• Handbook of Evidence-Based Therapies for Children and Adolescents: Bridging Science and Practice (Is