McREL's Principal Evaluation System

McREL's Principal Evaluation System provides both an easy-to-use tool for evaluating school administrators and professional development that explains the "why" and "how" of measuring against behaviors that research suggests are linked to higher levels of student performance. View/Download the Principal Evaluation System flier

Learning, adaptation can change brain connections, CMU researchers say

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Brain researchers have recently found that six months of intensive remedial reading instruction not only improved children's reading abilities, but improved the white-matter connections in their brains. While the children in the study did not suddenly out-perform the top tier readers in their classes, the increase in their reading abilities after only six months opened up a whole new world of opportunities for them in the future. "It's kind of like taking people with a physical disability and giving them training but then saying they're still not as good as professional athletes," said Dr. Marcel Just, one of the researchers. The other researcher, Dr. Timothy Keller, suggested that the improved connections in the children's brains might signify an improved ability to filter out distracting thoughts, so that they could devote more resources to reading.

Majoring in math not always a classroom plus

Education Week

A new report from Public Agenda, Learning Point Associates, and Education Week finds that 40 percent of U.S. teachers are disheartened with their profession. Most of those who are disheartened with teaching work in low-income schools and do not believe they have adequate administrative support. Of major concern is the finding that teachers who are the most satisfied with their work anticipate leaving the classroom for other professions.

NAEP Mathematics 2009 District Snapshot Reports

National Center for Education Statistics

Each district that participated in the NAEP 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment in mathematics receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. The reports in this series present bulleted text describing overall student results, bar charts showing NAEP achievement levels for each year in which the district participated, and tables displaying results by gender, race/ethnicity, and eligibility for free/reduced-price lunch. In addition, bulleted text describes the trends in average scale score gaps for gender, race/ethnicity, and eligibility for free/reduced-price lunch.

Closing the Achievement Gap by Providing Poor and Minority Students Access to Suburban Schools

Teacher's College of Columbia University

This study found that inter-district school desegregation programs help close achievement gaps, improve racial attitudes, and lead to long-term mobility and further education for the students who participate. The study also found that many former opponents are now strong defenders of the desegregation programs, having grown to appreciate the results they've seen.

Solution Tree Annual Conference on Standards and Assessment

Solution Tree
April 14-16, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada

This conference offers a range of assessment strategies and the time to explore, network, and discover the tools that will work best for you. This event will help you find direction and return home with practical ideas for making your assessments timely, precise, and instrumental to maximizing your instructional time.
Join McREL's President & CEO, Timothy Waters, in a keynote presentation as he explores what our schools would look like if we treated every student failure as a catastrophic event and outlines how to ensure that every student who enters our system leaves it with a full range of post-secondary and life opportunities.

Autonomy for School Leaders

The School Administrator
January 2010, Number 1, Vol. 67

In this article, Jim Eck, McREL's senior director of field services, and Bryan Goodwin, McREL's vice president of communications and marketing, discuss a key finding from McREL's research on district leadership, which suggests that effective districts intentionally create "defined autonomy" for school leaders: they set clear, non-negotiable goals for student achievement and classroom instruction district-wide, while offering the principals the autonomy and support necessary to achieve those goals.

Cosmic Chemistry Enriches Summer Learning

Greater Tulsa Reporter (Tulsa, Okla.)
November 23, 2009

Cosmic Chemistry is a two-week summer science program being designed and studied by McREL. The curriculum will be based on new scientific findings from the NASA Genesis Mission, the fifth in a series of un-manned space missions focused on the solar system.