Articles, Essays and Reports
What Other Writers Are Saying
The EII staff is always on the lookout for opinion pieces, news stories, and reports published elsewhere about topics central to our mission. This page features some we found particularly interesting. This list is not intended to be exhaustive -- it mostly represents the work of respected organizations that write about or work with policy issues. Neither EII nor UNC endorses the views expressed in these pieces, but the topics are important and the writing is often lively.
April 1, 2012
Data as a tool for education improvement and research
- National Governors Association: Using Data to Guide State Education Policy and Practice (issue brief)
- Education Week: The Rising Tide of Data (blog post)
Professionalization of teaching
- Scholastic and Gates Foundation: Primary Sources: 2012 America’s Teachers on the Teaching Profession (survey report)
- Education Week Teacher: Survey: Teacher Job Satisfaction Hits a Low Point (news story)
- Hechinger Report: There are no miracles, but there are teachers: An educator’s view on the Common Core (blog post)
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pittsburgh Students Surveyed in Teaching Plan (news story)
Value-added measures and teacher evaluations
(Note: Debates over the validity and fairness of value-added ratings ratcheted up several notches with the recent release in New York of test-based rankings for teachers and schools. A particularly sensitive point was the decision by several news organizations to provide access to ratings for individual teachers and schools. Much of the coverage trended negative during this period but we expect the range of perspectives to balance out as we continue to track this issue into the future.
- Education Week: Arne Duncan: Newspapers Shouldn't Publish Teacher Ratings (blog post)
- Education Week: The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Approaches to Teacher Quality (blog post)
- Washington Post: ‘Creative ... motivating’ and fired (news feature)
- Education Week: High Stakes Testing is ONLY 20% of an Evaluation (blog post)
Policy-making and reform
- Education Week: A School Improvement Grant Report Card from CEP (news story)
- Education Week: School Reform, New Orleans-Style (news story)
- Education Week: Technology Counts 2012: Spotlight Turns Toward Virtual Ed. Accountability (special report)
- Council on Foreign Relations: U.S. Education Reform and National Security (task force report)
Higher Education Accountability, Money, and Survival
- Education Sector: 5 Myths about College Debt (blog post)
- Chronicle of Higher Education: Could Many Universities Follow Borders Bookstores Into Oblivion? (blog post)
- Education Week: Teacher-Prep Negotiators Divided Over Federal Rules (news story)
- Inside Higher Ed: Post-Tenure Blues (news story)
- Inside Higher Ed: Standardized Tests That Fail (news story about research on tests for placement in remedial courses)
Archive of earlier pages
Click on the date to read opinion pieces, news stories, and reports published at that time by other organizations about topics central to EII’s mission.