Knowledge Alliance

The Rising Tide of Evidence-based Solutions

John Waters — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:53:30 +0000

Recently, Results for America joined with The Hamilton Project to host a wide-ranging discussion on the importance of using evidence and data to inform policy and funding decisions.The discussion brought together those who are doing the hard work in communities with those who are in charge of crafting policies at the local and federal levels. At the event, leaders from both parties, and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, called for greater use of evidence in crafting social policies and improving outcomes for young people, families and their communities. Michele Jolin, Managing Partner of America Achieves, writes here about the rising tide of evidence-based solutions in the social sector and the political alignment happening to drive it on a meaningful scale.

Gates Foundation Asks EDC to Create Digital Tools for Better History Teaching

John Waters — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:34:40 +0000

EDC has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a suite of digital tools that will help middle-school history and social studies teachers make better use of primary sources. As part of the three-year $3 million project, Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), will create, test, and scale effective instructional methods for teaching with original source materials.

Specifically, Zoom In! Tools for Teaching Literacy in the Social Studies will support social studies teachers in aligning their teaching with the Common Core State Standards for literacy in history and social studies. EDC will develop a set of interactive analysis tools that teachers can use to help students foster habits of reading and writing while using evidence from primary and secondary sources. Zoom In! will also help social studies teachers learn how to read complex texts for evidence and perspective, anticipate and address the reading challenges their students will face, and lead focused discussions of rich texts in the social studies classroom.

“Helping students use challenging historical sources, such as newspaper articles and photos from the Civil War, and cite these sources in the writing they do, is more important than ever,” said EDC’s Bill Tally, who will lead the project in EDC’s Center for Children and Technology. “We’ll be working with teachers and students to be sure our new toolkit reflects classroom realities and offers skills that are useful in and beyond the history classroom.”

EDC has partnered with the American Social History Project at CUNY, which will help develop content for the toolkit, and the Brooklyn-based Blenderbox, a Web design and technology group.

The new toolkit is expected to be ready for teachers in late 2015.

McREL Policy Brief: Early Care and Education: Policy Considerations for Ensuring High-Quality Pre-K Programs

John Waters — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:33:01 +0000

In his 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama announced plans to expand pre-K programs and take a step towards universal pre-K in all states. Multiple other bills introduced by Congress also focus on early care and education (ECE; … Continue reading →

DRAFT: Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance—Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century

John Waters — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:28:13 +0000

We face a critical need to prepare children and adolescents to thrive in the 21st century—an era of rapidly evolving technology, demanding and collaborative STEM knowledge work, changing workforce needs, economic volatility, and unacceptable achievement gaps. This report from SRI International takes a close look at a core set of noncognitive factors—grit, tenacity, and perseverance—that are essential to an individual’s capacity to strive for and succeed at important goals, and to persist in the face of an array of challenges encountered throughout schooling and life.

Proposed Changes to EDGAR Emphasize Evidence & Research; Knowledge Alliance Comments

John Waters — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:54:13 +0000

The Dept. of Education is taking the next step to make research and evidence more important factors as it awards competitive grants by proposing significant changes to a set of rules known as EDGAR as part of a government-wide push to introduce more evidence into decision-making. Knowledge Alliance has submitted these comments on the proposed changes.

Research-Practice Partnerships Help Districts

John Waters — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 20:35:40 +0000

A new report by the William T. Grant Foundation says that thinking purely in terms of how to get educators to use research presented to them creates a “one-way street” that’s less effective than developing true partnerships between districts and researchers.

Supporting the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund

John Waters — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:29:09 +0000

Knowledge Alliance has been supportive of the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) since its inception. We believe it has been a highly effective vehicle for developing, validating, and bringing to scale educational innovations that can have a true impact on achievement and other educational outcomes. Perhaps the single biggest reason for i3’s success has been its laser-like focus on awarding grants based on an innovative three-tier structure of evidence that enables the Department to select a wide range of grantees to pursue innovative new ideas to vexing problems in education, while at the same time ensuring that proven success can be scaled up. In fact, we believe these same principles should be infused into even more education programs found across the Federal government. Read our full letter of support in response to the recently proposed priorities for the program here.

EDWeek/Inside School Research Notes Knowledge Alliance’s Support for IES’ Continuous Improvement Research

John Waters — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:49:13 +0000

Writing for Education Week’s Inside School Research blog, Sarah Sparks observes that “The Institute of Education Sciences is getting a lot of support for its proposal to go beyond research on ‘what works’ in education to explore the process of how schools in different contexts can continue to improve over time.” She then quotes from Knowledge Alliance’s letter of support to IES. Read the full blog post here.

SEDL President Wes Hoover Elected as Knowledge Alliance’s Board Chairman

John Waters — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 18:29:30 +0000

Wesley A. Hoover, the president and CEO of SEDL, has been elected to serve as chairman of the board of directors of Knowledge Alliance. In this role, Dr. Hoover will lead Knowledge Alliance’s Board of Directors in providing oversight and advice to the organization’s professional staff members. The Knowledge Alliance board elected Dr. Hoover for the two-year appointment. He succeeds Mark Elgart, president and CEO of AdvancED.

“I am pleased to lead Knowledge Alliance’s board as the association and its members work to improve k-12 education by widely expanding the development and use of research-based knowledge in policy and practice,” Dr. Hoover said. “Knowledge Alliance has an important responsibility to provide policymakers with information and research to help ensure that their decisions are in the best interest of all students.”

Dr. Hoover has served as SEDL’s President and CEO since 1996. In this role, he is responsible to the Board of Directors for the overall management and operation of SEDL. Prior to being named president, Dr. Hoover was a senior vice-president of the organization, leading the Eisenhower Southwest Consortium for the Improvement of Mathematics and Science Teaching (SCIMAST) and the Office of Institutional Assessment and Evaluation (OIAE). He joined SEDL in 1980 as a programmer/analyst in the Division of Bilingual and International Education, working on research in bilingual reading acquisition. He holds a B.A. in psychology from Trinity University in San Antonio, and a Ph.D. in human experimental psychology (with a specialization in reading and psycholinguistics) from The University of Texas at Austin.

“As a nationally recognized leader in the field of education research, Wes brings to Knowledge Alliance an in-depth understanding of the need to develop and disseminate research-based solutions to the most urgent education problems,” said Knowledge Alliance President Michele McLaughlin. “The association’s staff looks forward to working closely with him.”

The Knowledge Alliance board also elected the following individuals to its Executive Committee for 2013: Joanne Brady (Vice-Chair), Education Development Center; Jane Best, McREL; Mark Elgart, AdvancED; and Peter Hofman, Measured Progress.

Evidence-based policy & the President’s second-term agenda

John Waters — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:53:18 +0000

Jon Baron, president of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, proposes that the Obama Administration and Congress make it a priority, in the President’s second term, to increase the effectiveness of social spending through evidence-based policy reform. Read his opinion piece here.