Report on performance-based teacher evaluation systems

Thought this might be of interest given the current national push for this type of accountability.

"...An examination of performance-based teacher evaluation systems in five states, was conducted by the 2006-2011 REL Northeast and Islands at Education Development Center, Inc. This study reviewed state education agency websites and publicly available documents for all 50 states to identify states whose performance-based teacher evaluation systems met certain criteria similar to the guidelines set forth in the 2009 Race to the Top grant competition"

The criteria were:

• Was required for practicing general educators.
• Was operational statewide as of the 2010/11 school year.
• Included multiple rating categories.
• Used multiple measures of teacher effectiveness, such as observations, self-assessments, and professional growth plans.
Five states (Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas) met these criteria.

Report is linked here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=294

New enrollment figures for elementary/secondary schools

Some highlights from the new NCES report on the  2009-2010 year.


• About 49 million students attended 98,817 operating public elementary/secondary schools in the 2009–10 school year.

• Almost 1.6 million students were enrolled in 4,952 charter schools in 2009-10.

• Across all active regular public schools with students, the pupil/teacher ratio in 2009-10 was 16.1. Pupil/teacher ratio ranged from 10.9 in Vermont to 23.4 in Utah. [ Nevada's overall ratio was 19.4]

Full report is available here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011345

Projections of Education Statistics to 2019

New report out from NCES that covers "statistics on enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures in elementary and secondary schools, and enrollment and earned degrees conferred expenditures of degree-granting institutions. For the Nation, the tables, figures, and text contain data on enrollment, teachers, graduates, and expenditures for the past 14 years and projections to the year 2019. For the 50 States and the District of Columbia, the tables, figures, and text contain data on projections of public elementary and secondary enrollment and public high school graduates to the year 2019."
I will also put a link to this source in the Education subject guide on the "Statistics and Demographics" page. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011017

HIgher ed finance and the upcoming gubernatorial elections

Citing the most recent (2009) "State Higher Education Finance" report, Inside Higher Ed  ( Aug. 5) provides an overview of economic projections and the issues that face higher ed financially in the next few years. They also review some of the promises made by gubernatorial candidates about protecting higher ed even though jobs--not education--is the major election issue right now. Nevada is mentioned briefly as focusing on eliminating duplicate programs.

Updated public school data (2008-2009)

NCES has released the 2008-09 school year data from the State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary/Secondary Education Survey of the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system. The accompanying First Look presents national and state level data on student enrollment by grade and by race/ethnicity within grade, the numbers of teachers and other education staff, and several student/staff ratios for the school year.


To view the full First Look report please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010347

2007-2008 Data on HS Graduation Rates

This newest data from NCES shows Nevada with the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation: 51%. Tthe only other jurisdiction with a graduation rate in the 50's is Washington, D.C. at 56%.

"Nationwide, 75 percent of public high school students who started as freshmen in the fall of 2004 graduated high school in 2008—up from 74 percent who graduated on time in the spring of 2007.

This First Look presents findings associated with public high school graduation and event dropout counts for the 2007–08 school year. These data were collected as part of the Common Core of Data (CCD), a universe survey of public schools operating in the United States and associated other jurisdictions by the National Center for Education Statistics."
To view the full report please visit
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010341

New report on public school revenues and expenditures: 2007-2008

"This brief publication contains basic revenue and expenditure data, by state, for public elementary and secondary education for school year 2007-08. It contains state-level data on revenues by source and expenditures by function, including expenditures per pupil."
The full report is linked here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010326

Common Core Data for Elementary/Secondary Schools, 2007-08

This First Look presents national and state level data on student enrollment by grade and by race/ethnicity within grade, the numbers of teachers and other education staff, and several student/staff ratios for the 2007-08 school year.

New report from NCES on HS graduation and dropout rates

"High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2007"
includes national and regional population estimates for the percentage of students who dropped out of high school between 2006 and 2007, the percentage of young people who were dropouts in 2007, and the percentage of young people who were not in high school and had some form of high school credential in 2007.

Annual data from 1972-2007 reveals trends by race, gender, income and other characteristics. State, regional and national level data is provided.
To view the full report please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009064

REL West has new report on state implementation of RTI

The report provides descriptive information on state-level RTI policies and procedures in 9 states (including Nevada).

A Wealth of Data: The new Higher Ed Almanac is out

Even though prices are posted for print and online purchase, lots of data at the state and national level is available from the Chronicle's new edition of The Almanac of Higher Education. Basic demographics, students enrollments, faculty salaries and more.

NCSER issues new reports on alternate assessments

Two new reports are out from the National Center for Special Education Research. The national report is available here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20093014.asp
The state level reports are available here:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20093013.asp
The National Study on Alternate Assessments (NSAA)was mandated by Section 664(c) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) to examine alternate assessment systems in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Follow the money

This map shows "national and state-by-state breakdowns of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that has been budgeted for distribution by the U.S. Department of Education, based on estimates by the department. These amounts...do not include funds that are to be awarded through competitive grants...

For current news as well as a collection of articles and opinions (blog posts), see EdWeek's "Schools and the Stimulus" page:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/schools-stimulus/index.html

Interactive data charts available from Google

Still somewhat limited in their coverage but great fun to play with, you can now find population or unemployment data for states and counties and then interact with the data (do comparisons across counties, states, to the whole U.S., etc.). This is a Google search tool imposed on Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Centus data. Go to Google's regular search screen (Google.com) and enter, for example, population nevada or unemployment rate clark county
Here are some sample graphs:

• http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=county:CN320230:CN320030

• http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met=population&idim=state:32000&idim=county:32003:32023:06001

Google's blog entry is here:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/adding-search-power-to-public-data.html

Thanks to librarian Michael Yunkin for bringing this to my attention! I'll add this to the "Statistics and Demographics" tab of the Education subject guide, too.

Fiscal year 2007 data on revenues/expenditures for public elementary & secondary schools

"The Common Core of Data (CCD) is an annual collection of public elementary and secondary education data by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences. The data are reported by state education agencies (SEAs). The finance data are reported to the U.S. Census Bureau, which acts as the data collection agent for NCES. Student membership data are reported to the U.S. Department of Education’s EDFacts data collection system. This report presents findings on public education revenues and expenditures using fiscal year 2007 (FY 07) data from the National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) of the CCD survey system. Programs covered in the NPEFS include regular, special, and vocational education; charter schools (if they reported data to the SEA); and state-run education programs (such as special education centers or education programs for incarcerated youth).

The CCD NPEFS is a universe collection of public elementary and secondary education finance data reported annually by SEAs in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the four other jurisdictions of American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The NPEFS provides SEA-level data for all revenues and expenditures associated with each reporting state or jurisdiction, including revenues by source and expenditures by function and object." (from the Introduction at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/expenditures/)

Links to all Table data (also available in Excel format) are here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/expenditures/tables.asp

Link to the full report is here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009337

Measuring Up 2008: National and State report cards on higher education

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has issued it fifth set of report cards on higher education for the nation (with international comparisons) and the individual states. In spite of some improvements, other nations are advancing more quickly than the United States in preparing students for and providing access to higher education. Nevada, in spite of improvements, is still performing abysmally.

State math assessments align with 2009 NAEP

Five new reports from REL Southwest examine the alignment of mathematics assessement standards in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Okalahoma, and New Mexico with the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics framework. These reports look at the extent to which current state assessments standards cover the content on which the 2009 NAEP assessments will be based.

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Texas and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=120

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Arkansas and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=119

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Louisiana and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=118

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Oklahoma and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=117

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: New Mexico and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=116

State funding for higher education: Fiscal year 2007

The fifth annual SHEEO State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) study of state support
for higher education was issued today. There is an article summarizing the reports findings in today's Inside Higher Education; it includes a table comparing public higher ed institutions in all states. Nevada has higher than the national average for per student appropriations but appears to net considerably less of the tuition.