The need for new forms of schooling with a learner-centered focus underlies the urgency to retool and enhance the systems that are used to leverage improvements in teaching and learning. In order to transform education at this most fundamental level, policy leaders and educators must focus on crafting integrated systems for defining and developing teacher effectiveness. These policies must take into account capacity building for educators. Solutions cannot be brief or superficial; they must address widespread inconsistencies in what students are expected to achieve and the knowledge and competencies teachers must bring to ensure their success. This brief examines the misalignment of current policies that shape teacher development in the United States and suggests ways to reframe human capital systems to deliver on the promise of next-generation learning.

Improving the quality of public high schools through the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is a voting issue for over eight in ten voters, according to a new national poll released July 14, 2010 by the Alliance for Excellent Education. Additionally, over half of voters say that their decision to vote for a current elected official in the 2010 congressional elections will be affected if Congress takes no action to reform the law currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act. The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research and Consulting for the purpose of gaining insight into Americans' views of the public education system, the concern over the growing problems with the nation’s high schools, and the urgency to enact meaningful education reform through reauthorization of ESEA.

Lowering the high school dropout rate among students of color will greatly increase the economic vitality for some of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. The results are part of the Alliance’s continuing work linking improved educational outcomes to economic returns. The city-by-city findings include the growth in jobs, home ownership, levels of spending and investment, and car sales that will result from cutting the high school dropout rate among students of color in half.

Currently, K–12 education in the United States is dealing with three major crises, each of which on its own is capable of wreaking havoc on schools and communities around the nation, but together are an all-out perfect storm. Simultaneously, the U.S. education system is facing a growing workforce whose mounting needs for education and training will not be met by the nation’s current public education system; declining state fiscal revenues; and mounting teacher shortages, further crippling low-performing secondary schools. The time for merely rethinking and upgrading the role of technology in education has passed; policy decisions today must embrace a dramatic transformation of teaching and learning. Technology can no longer be thought of simply as an “add-on” tool in education, but rather an integral part of the total educational environment. This issue brief describes these looming crises and suggests ways that online learning can lead the U.S. education system out of them.

Lowering the high school dropout rate will greatly increase the economic vitality for some of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. The results are part of the Alliance’s continuing work linking improved educational outcomes to economic returns. Combined with its release of the forty-five largest metro areas in January, the June 9 release brings the number of cities for which the Alliance has data to over eighty-five. The city-by-city findings include the growth in jobs, home ownership, levels of spending and investment, and car sales that will result from cutting the high school dropout rate in half.

America’s K–12 education system faces three significant challenges: (1) increased global demands for skilled workers, (2) significant financial shortfalls, and (3) a looming teacher shortage. Independently, these factors present significant challenges for U.S. schools. In combination, they create a national imperative for swift action to create a more innovative, effective, and efficient education system. Every day, creative educators are using technology better to meet the needs of students and teachers. Technology can no longer be considered an “add-on” tool in education but rather one that is integral. Embracing online-learning opportunities for students and teachers will strengthen the supply and quality of teachers, improve efficiency, and increase students’ college and career readiness. The "Online Learning: Addressing Challenges and Seizing Opportunities" state profiles present state-specific information about the three challenges. Each state profile summarizes information about (1) online-learning opportunities in that state, (2) the presence of state policies that support online learning, and (3) how federal policy supports online learning in that state.

In the spring of 2009, the Common Core State Standards Initiative was launched with forty-eight states, the District of Columbia, and two territories coming together under the auspices of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop a common core of state K–12 English language arts and mathematics standards. The standards will be college and career ready; internationally benchmarked; consistent for all students; focused, clear, and coherent; and based on the collaborative work of states and districts along with leading subject matter experts, K–12 teachers, postsecondary faculty, and others. The Alliance for Excellent Education strongly supports this state-led movement that promises to lay a new foundation for systemwide education reform. The Alliance is committed to ensuring that these standards improve educational quality for students who historically have been held to lower academic expectations and experienced the worst academic outcomes. The attached profiles of the fifty states capture some of the data relevant to the need for improved standards and assessments in the United States and the potential benefits of educating all students to meet the common college- and career-ready core standards.

In the weeks since the Obama administration released its blueprint for revising ESEA on March 13, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee have held multiple hearings on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind. The Alliance for Excellent Education has prepared primers for each hearing that contain useful facts, flaws in current law, and recommendations for how to improve federal policy on the subject featured in each hearing.

Although some progress has been made in improving the literacy achievement of students in American high schools during the last twenty years, the majority of students still do not read or write well enough to meet grade-level demands. Poor literacy skills play a role in why many of these students do not complete high school. Among those who do graduate, many will not be ready for college or a career where reading and writing are required. These young people will find themselves at a serious disadvantage in successfully pursuing some form of higher education, securing a job that pays a living wage, or participating in social and civic activities. One often-overlooked tool for improving students’ reading, as well as their learning from text, is writing. This report identifies instructional practices in writing shown to improve students’ reading abilities and recommends ways that teachers can improve students’ reading skills through teaching writing.

Noting that the nation is in the midst of a dropout crisis that will cost more than $3 trillion in lost wages over the lifetime of the 12 million students projected to drop out over the next decade, Prioritizing the Nation's Lowest-Performing High Schools calls on federal policymakers to perform "legislative triage" by devoting attention to the lowest-performing high schools and immediately improving or replacing the most severely "injured" schools. It points out that the nation’s lowest-performing high schools may be diverse in size and geographic location, but most all of these schools disproportionally serve low-income students and students of color.