Blog

This op-ed was originally published in The 74. More than 9 million children attend our country’s lowest-performing schools, the vast majority of them students of color. While we are familiar with the components of successful schools — attributes such as high expectations for all students, strong leadership, highly capable teachers, excellent curriculum, regular use of data, a safe learning environment, and attention to...
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This essay was first published by Carnegie Corporation of New York. As the education laws came tumbling down from the statehouse, Alison Johnson’s head spun. New, more rigorous standards for student learning. New teacher evaluation procedures. New expectations for how teachers plan and deliver their instruction. As each law passed, the English teacher at “Typicaloosa” High School tried to understand them...
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This case study appears in our publication Partnering on Prep: A Toolkit for Building Strong District-Teacher Preparation Program Partnerships. You can access the full publication here. When Lisa Barron became the Director of Teacher Education and Partnerships at Austin Peay State University (APSU), she knew that APSU had work to do. Though the institution was placing student teachers in an...
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This piece originally appeared in The 74.  Jarred Amato of Maplewood High School in Nashville is building Project LIT Community, a national, grassroots literacy movement that empowers students as readers and leaders. Rosalia Burson of Baker Middle School in Tacoma, Washington, is developing a restorative re-entry process for students who have been out of school due to exclusionary discipline. Baltimore City...
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We are excited to announce a potential grant opportunity for organizations interested in implementing and supporting “Family Math.” Family Math refers to activities that happen outside of the classroom and within the context of family relationships, the community and everyday life that support young children and families to strengthen their math awareness and math concepts; feel enthusiastic about their math abilities...
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The Social Emotional Learning Innovation Fund offers up to $5,000 grant awards for teachers seeking to foster students’ social and emotional skills in fresh, inventive or innovative ways. In 2018, for the first time, the fund asked for proposals from educators working to support the social emotional needs of LGBTQI students. In honor of National Coming Out Day, we met...
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Nearly three years ago, we asked ourselves the question: “What can districts and teacher preparation programs, partnering closely together to prepare teachers, truly do to ensure that teachers are ready to support all students to succeed?” Together, with the Joyce Foundation, we embarked on a journey to learn from successful partnerships nationwide, and built a roadmap with 10 recommendations to...
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Over the past few years, we at Education First have created a number of tools and resources–specialized websites, toolkits, videos, maps and others–that we have released publicly for families, educators, policymakers, funders and other advocates. As of this week, a selection of these tools and resources now “live” on one section of our websites, which we are calling “Featured Resources.”...
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For the past two years, we have facilitated a community of practice (CoP) of five teacher preparation technical assistance centers–Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, National Center for Teacher Residencies, TeacherSquared, TeachingWorks and University-School Partnerships for the Renewal of Educator Prep–working to reimagine the way teachers are prepared for the classroom. They support teacher preparation programs in their networks...
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In partnership with the NoVo Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, we are proud to announce the 2018 teacher and district awardees of the Social and Emotional Learning Innovation Fund. This year, we received over 1,000 applications from more than 45 states. Through a competitive process, 12% of applicants were selected, 90 teachers and 34 districts. Read more about the teacher...
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