Making Better Use of Limited Resources

WCER’s Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) offers strategies that schools and districts can use to align the level and use of their resources to dramatically improve student performance, which it labels as doubling student performance, over a period of 5–10 years.

Supplemental Educational Services under NCLB

Market-based reforms in education are part of a larger neo-liberal movement in economic and political discourse. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but market-based education reforms are sometimes promoted at a rate outpacing evidence of their effectiveness, according to UW-Madison education professor Patricia Burch.

Ramping Up Data Expertise

“I want to call attention to smart people who are doing innovative things in their schools,” says Richard Halverson. In particular he’s watching as student services staff ramp up their expertise in using student performance data to help their schools meet performance goals.

Aligning Assessments and Standards

The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to align their performance standards and assessments. But correspondence between state-level standards and assessments tends to be only moderate, particularly in terms of ‘depth of knowledge’ and ‘range of knowledge.’ Based on years of working with standards and assessments, WCER Senior Scientist Norman Webb has designed a system for measuring the degree of alignment.

Multimedia Analysis of Students' Growth

Transana, developed at WCER by David Woods, Chris Fassnacht, and colleagues, is software that lets researchers easily transcribe and analyze digital video of classroom interactions.

Coleman Report, Forty Years On

Recent papers by UW-Madison professors Adam Gamoran and Geoffrey Borman review the 1966 “Equality of Educational Opportunity” report on the 40th anniversary of its publication, and both reach provoking conclusions.

CGI Math Encourages Ingenuity and Reasoning

Elementary age students bring lots of things to school with them -- besides huge backpacks stuffed with supplies. They bring ingenuity, intuitive knowledge, and mathematical insight. They sometimes amaze their teachers with innovative ways to solve problems. When mathematics teachers link their classroom instruction to students’ intuitive knowledge, students can take classroom instruction a lot farther.

Multiyear Summer School

The large and persistent achievement gap between minority poor students and white middle class students is an enduring national problem. But that can be changed. What children do during summer break has tremendous implications for understanding and addressing the achievement gap.

States Get Support for English Language Learners

More students than ever come to the classroom speaking a language other than English. Some of them bring solid experience in academic subjects in another language and just need help translating that knowledge into English.

The Real Issue of Performance Evaluation

When offering professional development services to teachers it may be more important to provide quality developmental assistance than to separate the summative (salary-related) evaluation from developmental (formative) evaluation.

Taking Reform to Scale

The federal government’s continued support of replicable, research-based educational programs, funded through Title I and other national policies, could revolutionize school improvement in some of the most challenging contexts, says UW-Madison education professor Geoffrey Borman.

Algebra Instruction, Then and Now

When the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) issued its Curriculum Focal Points document this past September the nation witnessed a flood of media response. Unfortunately, many articles, editorials, and op-ed pieces missed the point.