A standing-room-only crowd of about one hundred thirty educators, stakeholders, and policymakers gathered on September 12 to consider strategies to keep students in school so that they ultimately graduate prepared for postsecondary education and the modern workplace.

Nearly seventy educators, stakeholders, and policymakers gathered July 10 on Capitol Hill to learn about municipal leaders and practitioners who are at the forefront of a national movement to establish alternative high schools for students poorly served by, and at risk of dropping out from, traditional schools. The discussion was hosted by the Alliance for Excellent Education and the National League of Cities (NLC). NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF) has spearheaded the Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) in over two hundred communities nationwide through a partnership with the Big Picture Company. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Mayor Karl Dean of Nashville, Tennessee—one of the municipalities recently selected to join the AHSI network—both attended to discuss their interest in reducing the number of high school dropouts, while increasing the number of high school graduates.

About one hundred educators, policymakers, and stakeholders gathered to attend a pair of forums on the practices of urban school leaders who are making dramatic gains in student achievement. Co-hosted by the Alliance for Excellent Education and New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), the event featured principals from Chicago, Washington, DC, and Sacramento, who shared their experiences regarding the effectiveness of strategies promoted by New Leaders for New Schools in high-poverty schools.

The Alliance released a brief exploring how to improve the distribution of teachers among and within low-performing high schools, and which outlines recommendations for federal policymakers in supporting and encouraging good practice at the state and local level. A panel of teacher quality experts discussed how state and local practice can inform federal policy.

At this event, the Alliance will release its newest brief, which explores ways to define and measure teacher effectiveness at the high school level and how to use this information to improve teaching. A panel of national experts on teacher quality—including experts on measurement and the use of effectiveness data to improve instruction—will discuss how research can be used to improve high school teaching.

Teachers are crucial to the success of our students. Yet many of them are leaving their schools and the profession, particularly in poorer, lower performing schools. Common wisdom says that good teachers are more likely to leave. But are they?

On Friday, February 22, Directions For Our Youth, Inc. (DFOY) hosted a Dropout Summit at Lehman College, City University of New York. Among the event sponsors were the Alliance for Excellent Education, America’s Promise, the Hispanic Federation and the After-School Corporation. The goals for the event were to assess progress since the Dropout Summit held in 2007 and to develop recommendations for local, state, and federal action.

Reauthorizing and improving NCLB is critical to our nation’s future -- to accelerating progress in assuring that all students, regardless of race or economic status, have access to a quality education. Every day we wait, thousands of students drop out of school, teachers continue to struggle for the support they need, and too many of our students, schools and communities miss out on the benefits that would come from improving the law.

Amid growing speculation over whether the U.S. Congress would reauthorize the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2008, the Alliance for Excellent Education and Catalyst Chicago convened a panel of experts to discuss ways that the law should be changed to be more supportive of local high school reform efforts—whenever reauthorization takes place.

The 2006 Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) results will be released to an international audience by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the early hours of December 4 in Paris. Join us at the National Press Club to hear Andreas Schleicher, Head of the Indicators and Analysis Division at OECD’s Directorate for Education present the results of the OECD study including performance results in reading, mathematics, and science; a special focus on students’ attitudes towards science; and an analysis of the common elements of high performing education systems. More Information...