ALEC Report Card on American Education

2007 Report Card on American Education from the American Legislative Exchange Council (the 14th edition) gathers and presents in a quick-glance format helpful data for reviewing the condition of education among the states. The “snapshot” pages reveal states’ “inputs” and “outputs,” as well as demographic information. Policymakers and parents will be able to easily reference per-pupil spending, for example, as well as class size and achievement scores. By compiling this data from its sources, the Report Card aims to contribute to a well-informed community of parents and leaders.

The Report Card also reviews the data across states to identify any promising relationships among “inputs” and “outputs” in an effort to help answer the question: What works?
The results show that we are not doing enough to prepare America’s children for global competitiveness. International data and trends cannot be ignored. The latest results of comparison among participating nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development peg American students’ achievement levels in science below dozens of other countries including Croatia, Latvia, and mainland China. In fact, the United States scores below the combined average of all countries observed. These results come on the heels of a Wall Street Journal editorial warning that America’s output of American-born Ph.D. students is losing ground to foreign-born students with temporary visas.

Individual state reports also are available.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

NCLB Reauthorization Database


The Education Commission of the States (ECS) has launched its No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Reauthorization database — a single source for “who’s saying what” about renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The database captures the recommendations of 15 national organizations for revising specific NCLB requirements and provisions, as well as how recent education reform priorities should be part of the NCLB discussion. According to the ECS synthesis and analysis of 15 key education policy stakeholders across 16 issues, the greatest collective agreement emerged in the following areas:
*Allow growth models for calculating Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
*Provide more flexibility for students with disabilities and English Language Learners (ELL)
*Provide adequate funding to support NCLB requirements
*Build state and local capacity to assist low-performing schools
*Offer high-quality professional development
*Target assistance and interventions

Source: Education Commission of the States (ECS)

Performance Pay for Teachers

From The Center for Teaching Quality:

Performance-Pay for Teachers: Designing a System that Students Deserve

From press release
(PDF; 110 KB)

Teachers will support performance-pay plans that advance student achievement and the teaching profession, says a first-of-its-kind report written by a diverse group of expert teachers from across the United States.

The new TeacherSolutions study proposes radical changes in the way teachers have traditionally been compensated, including:

Rewarding small teams of teachers who raise student achievement together;
Rewarding teachers who accept challenging assignments in high-needs schools and strengthen connections between school and community; and
Redesigning pay systems so that teacher success, not seniority or graduate degrees, determines maximum teacher pay.

Executive Summary (PDF; 386 KB)
Full Report (PDF; 844 KB)

Online Learning

K-12 Online Learning: A Survey of U.S. School District Administrators

The Sloan Consortium’s first ever survey of online learning in elementary and secondary education, K-12 Online Learning: A Survey of U.S. School District Administrators, predicts rapid growth in online education. The nationwide survey, conducted during the 2005-2006 academic year, finds that almost two out of three (63 %) school districts had one or more students enrolled in either a fully online or a blended course, which combines online learning with traditional face-to-face instruction.

The new study estimates that 700,000 K-12 students were engaged in online courses in the 2005-2006 academic year…Survey results show online learning is meeting the specific needs of a range of students including those who need extra help, those who want to take more advanced courses and those whose districts do not have enough teachers to offer certain subjects.

+ Almost two-thirds of the responding public school districts are offering online courses:* 63.1% had one or more students enrolled in a fully online or blended course.* 57.9% had one or more students enrolled in a fully online course.* 32.4% had one or more students enrolled in a blended course.

Direct to Highlights Direct to Full Text (30 pages; PDF)

Source: The Sloan Consortium