Advancing Teaching – Improving Learning Program

The Advancing Teaching – Improving Learning (ATIL) program at the Carnegie Foundation seeks to enhance the capacity of those working in the field of teacher assessment and evaluation by helping them to learn from emerging practices in order to build more effective information systems to advance teacher quality.

Background

A major focus of policy action in K-12 education has coalesced around the importance of teacher quality and the need to build teacher assessment, evaluation, and support systems to advance improvements of instruction. Evaluation systems are being created to address multiple purposes; most notably to inform consequential decisions about teachers, support teacher development, and inform policy decisions. A great deal of activity has emerged around the design and use of new tools and protocols for teacher assessment. Parallel and sometimes competing development efforts are now active in the field. Well-articulated advocacy arguments, both pro and con, characterize the policy debate. Strong commercial interests are beginning to respond to an emerging marketplace for goods and services. This flurry of activity and all of its creative energy vitalizes a sense of new possibilities for educational reform.

Program Description and Objectives

The Institute for Education Sciences of the US Department of Education (IES) has commissioned the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to serve as an integrative force in this burgeoning field of teacher assessment and evaluation. The Assessing-Teaching Improving-Learning program at the Carnegie Foundation seeks to enhance the capacity of those working in this space by helping them to learn from emerging practices in order to build more effective information systems to advance teacher quality. The Carnegie Foundation is engaging key policy stakeholders, educational officials, and system designers in this effort. The main objectives are to synthesize what is already known, learn from practice as it emerges, and frame a dynamic research and development agenda that will advance further improvements.

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Advancing Teaching – Improving Learning is supported by a cooperative agreement with the Institute of Education Sciences.