Blog

This is one of a series of posts written by awardees of the NoVo Foundation Social Emotional Learning Innovation Fund. You can learn more about the Fund and other winners here. Long Lake Elementary was awarded a NoVo SEL Innovation Fund grant this past school year.  Prior to receiving the grant our school committed to focusing efforts on social and...
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Given the complexities of changing education systems, funders regularly collaborate to leverage their influence, channel their funding and mobilize grantees in the same direction. But many well-intentioned collaborations fall short of expectations. So what actions and approaches might lead to more success? In a recently published article in the journal The Foundation Review, we and Barbara Chow (former program director at the William...
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This piece originally appeared in The 74. “I’m just not a math person.” We’ve all heard that phrase from friends, family, or colleagues. Though usually presented as a harmless personality quirk, it conceals math anxiety, insecurity, and potentially a belief that math isn’t as valuable as other areas of study. This has real implications: Research shows that merely expressing math...
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The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides an important opportunity for district and state leaders to pursue their visions for equity in education. To help them take full advantage of that opportunity, we partnered with the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program, Chiefs for Change and EducationCounsel to produce Seizing the Moment: A District Guide to Advance Equity Through ESSA. This suite of tools...
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This piece originally appeared in The 74. Now more than ever, a high-quality STEM education matters. The STEM fields cultivate curiosity and creativity while preparing students to reach their highest potential in work and life. They are also critical for personal and national prosperity: In the next decade, almost all of the 30 fastest-growing occupations will require intermediate or advanced...
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Education First is proud to once again seek applications for teacher-led projects that foster social and emotional learning (SEL) skills in students in grades PK-12 through the NoVo Foundation Social Emotional Learning Innovation Fund. We will award up to $5,000 to individual teachers or groups of teachers to implement an innovative project in their classrooms and schools in the 2018-19 school year. Awardees will also have...
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Teachers are the most important in-school factor affecting student achievement, and state leaders play a critical role in ensuring every student has equitable access to excellent teachers. High-quality teacher evaluations are an important component of comprehensive systems to ensure that all students are being taught by effective teachers. From them, districts and states can generate data that can positively impact...
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Education First envisions a world in which income and race no longer determine the quality of one’s education.  Yet we know that combating persistent and prevalent inequities in our education system requires individual, organizational and systemic change. We are addressing this through our Race, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (RIDE) agenda. At our last all staff retreat we honed in on...
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As we’ve previously written on this blog, systemic racism is real, ubiquitous and insidious—and that, in our role as advisors to education leaders, we have an obligation to do something about it. A new study from researchers at Stanford, Harvard and the U.S. Census Bureau provides even more evidence for that position. The authors examined racial and ethnic disparities in...
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In 2010, 46 states joined together in two different consortia (PARCC and Smarter Balanced) to create higher-quality, next-generation state summative assessments. Though these new tests have been consistently highly rated, today only 20 states are participating in either consortia. So what has happened to state assessments, where are they headed in the next couple of years and—most importantly for those who see the value of...
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