How COVID-19 Is Hurting Teacher Diversity
The Albany-area district was highlighted by the state education department and other groups for its efforts, which included recruiting a more diverse pool of educators, building relationships with historically Black colleges and universities, and creating affinity spaces to help educators of color feel supported once on staff. It seemed like momentum was gaining. But earlier this month, more than 100 teachers and social workers, most of whom were hired during this recent push for diversity, logged onto a Zoom call and were told they no longer had jobs.
The Era of Artificial Scarcity
When does a $5,000 investment pay off with a $100-million return? No, this is not a tale of Wall Street chicanery or Reddit-inspired investing. Rather, it is a story of rank-and-file university employees mobilizing to defend their vision of university governance — and winning big.
Education Data 101: A Briefing Book for Policymakers
Data Quality Campaign (DQC) released an updated version of it Education Data 101: A Briefing Book for Policymakers. With information on everything from student growth data to state longitudinal data systems to teacher data literacy, our resource brings policymakers up to speed on the major data topics they need to know about. As policymakers make decisions to aid students, families, teachers, schools and districts in recovery, Education Data 101 offers the background information they need to make informed decisions. Education Data 101 covers ten topics policymakers should know about data in education.
Portrait of a Culturally Responsive School
Based on our research and experience supporting education leaders across the country, the Portrait offers school leaders and their teams guidance for developing practices, policies and structures that support the establishment of schools intentionally built to ensure children of every race, ethnicity, language or other characteristics of their identity, have what they need to achieve academic, social, and emotional success. Organized into The Leadership Academy’s eight critical action areas of a culturally responsive leader, this guide is designed to support leaders and their school communities in consciously disrupting systemic racism and decentering dominant culture in order to accelerate learning for every student.
REL Tool: Developing a Survey Instrument to Measure Civic Readiness
In response to growing concerns about postsecondary student civic engagement, REL Central has developed a resource to support civic readiness initiatives across the nation. The resource provides guidance for state and local education agency staff and others on identifying, comparing, and contrasting survey scales that measure a variety of civic readiness categories. It describes the format and structure of 183 survey scales, details the civic readiness categories measured, and summarizes associated reliability and validity evidence. The resource also includes a worksheet for selecting and evaluating potential survey scales as well as an appendix with additional details about each survey scale. Access this resource here.
Investing in Illinois’ Students: An Analysis of Evidence-Based Funding and the Path to Equity, Student Success, and Long-Term COVID-19 Recovery
Investing in Illinois’ Students: An Analysis of Evidence-Based Funding and the Path to Equity, Student Success, and Long-Term COVID-19 Recovery shares new analyses on the impact of EBF on K-12 education resource equity and remaining gaps between current funding levels and full, adequate funding. The data are striking and underscore the need for the state to honor the commitment it made in the EBF legislation to invest at least $350 million in our schools through the new formula each year. This investment is critical to support long-term school improvement and close longstanding funding disparities, even as significant federal funds are needed to enable schools to respond to the varied and serious implications of COVID-19.
