VARC Works with TIF Grantees

WCER's Value-Added Research Center recently began providing technical assistance to recipients of Teacher Incentive Fund grants from the U.S. Department of Education..

Nourish the Roots

Education administrators and managers cannot improve student achievement just with talented people, high expectations, and random acts of good practice.

Comparing Job Content

Teacher salaries have historically been modest. But how do K-12 teacher salaries compare with those of similar occupations?

Students Respond to Solidarity in Community

Recent efforts to close the gap in achievement between African American and White students have produced disappointing results. But some classrooms are quite successful in helping young students succeed. How do they do it?

CPRE School Finance Research

For 15 years, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) has worked to better align allocation and use of resources to school-based strategies to boost student learning.

Learning Communities Nurture Graduate Teacher-Researchers

For the past 5 years, the Delta Program at UW-Madison has brought together students from many disciplines for teacher-related professional development.

Training Tomorrow's Researchers

WCER’s Interdisciplinary Training Program (ITP) in the Education Sciences is preparing a new generation of scholars who can provide solid evidence of “what works” in education.

Personal Stories Show CIRTL's Commitment to Diversity

The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) seeks to engage all students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, irrespective of preferred learning styles, race, ethnicity and culture. An active interest in diversity units the professional lives of many CIRTL researchers and student.

Value-Added and Other Measures of Teacher Quality

School districts, individual schools, and education policies all contribute to student achievement. But it can be argued that the most important contributing factor is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Evaluating teacher quality is complicated, yet it has become even more important with the testing and assessment focus of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

 

Learning Science: Conceptual Learning and Hands-On Design Activities

UW-Madison education professor Sadhana Puntambekar helps teachers improve students’ conceptual learning by integrating informational text with experimental and hands-on activities. Her research project, CoMPASS: Integrating Digital Text in Design-Based Science Classes, aims to help teachers better understand students' changing representations of science concepts as they use multiple texts in their science explorations.

 

Making Better Use of Limited Resources, Part II

This is the second of a four-part series covering highlights from CPRE research. This article covers reallocating dollars at the school level and by educational strategy; documenting best practices in school finance adequacy; and using resources to double student performance.

Approaches to Alternative Teacher Compensation

About 95% of public school districts use a uniform salary schedule. But merit pay and performance-based pay programs are attracting the attention of policymakers and educators across the nation.