Using individual teacher and student-level longitudinal data from North Carolina, this research brief presents selected findings from work examining the stability of value-added model estimates of teacher effectiveness, focusing on their implication for teacher tenure policies and making high stakes personnel decisions. Findings show year-to-year correlations in teacher effects are modest, but pre-tenure estimates of teacher job performance do predict estimated post-tenure performance in both math and reading, and would therefore seem to be a reasonable metric to use as a factor in making substantive teacher selection decisions.

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we consider how parental education relates to four outcomes in the children's generation: education, lifetime earnings, health, and wealth. By focusing on parents' and children's ranks, we characterize relative mobility in terms of distributions of outcomes and can see patterns that even a relatively disaggregated analysis, like a quintile-based transition matrix, can obscure. Our results show relatively high intergenerational mobility except at extremes, where very low-ranked parents are much more likely to have very low-ranked children and very high-ranked parents are much more likely to have very high-ranked children.

A college education strongly affects whether or not children from poor or low-income families move up the economic ladder when they become adults. But they are less likely to enroll in either two- or four-year colleges, and less likely to complete a degree when they do, relative to those from middle- and upper-income families — even after accounting for differences in academic preparation. We review current federal efforts to help low-income students attend college, and recommend new policies that would improve their academic preparation, provide more effective guidance on selecting and paying for college, and improve retention and graduation rates.

The federal college loan program that pays private lenders a generous subsidy to make loans that are guaranteed by the government is an enormous waste of money thathas long served more to enrich lenders than to help students. A bill introduced by Representative George Miller, a Democrat of California, would end the unnecessary private lending subsidies and plow the savings into important education programs. The bill, for example, devotes $40 billion to the all-important Pell grant program, which has allowed millions of poor and working-class students to attend college.

For more information about the struggles students face with paying for college:

The DREAM Act Shouldn't Languish : A June 23, 2009 New York Times editorial put a human face on the struggles of students arriving in America as children and graduating high school only to face huge barriers imposed by their undocumented status. The editorial argued that the DREAM Act could open doors for these young people and should not be held hostage to larger immigration reform dreams.

Graduating with Debt? Today Counts: July 1, 2009 is a big day for student loans. The U.S. Department of Education reports good news about students needing loans, from locking in lower interest rates on previous student loans to increases in Pell Grant awards for current students.

The Education Department says student aid applications are being redesigned to be simpler and easier to use.

A new Child Trends brief finds that youth who have not participated in out-of-school time programs are significantly more likely than are their participating peers to live in an unsupportive neighborhood; to spend more than two hours a day watching TV or playing video games; and to have parents who are in poor health, who don't exercise, and who have less than a high school education.

On July 16, 2009, Senators Jim Webb, Sherrod Brown, and Representatives Patrick Kennedy and Ruben Hinojosa introduced the "Adult Education and Economic Growth Act of 2009" ( S. 1468 and H.R. 3238). This legislation would invest in workforce development, education, and training to prepare adults to participate in the changing workforce.

On July 14, 2009, President Obama unveiled the American Graduation Initiative, a plan to raise graduation rates, improve facilities, and develop new technology. The plan would allow colleges to improve remedial and adult education programs and integrate developmental classes into academic and vocational classes and provide comprehensive personalized services to help students plan their careers and stay in school.

It's never too early to start teaching children big words. Teachers at Lee Academy are teaching their pre-school students sophisticated words, sometimes exceeding the vocabulary level of college students. A growing body of research and classroom practice show that building a sophisticated vocabulary at an early age is also key to raising reading success—and narrowing the achievement gap. Laura Pappano describes research-based strategies to improving children's vocabulary.

A new report from the Center for American Progress explores how policymakers can strengthen the nation's postsecondary education program to help working adults who need additional education to get ahead. It suggests increasing class-schedule flexibility, offering credits and credentials in addition to traditional degrees.

A new report from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics tracks 40 key indicators measuring children’s economic circumstances, health, physical environment and safety, family and social environment, behavior, and education. Some troubling statistics include: In 2007, the poverty rate for children rose from 17% to 18% from the previous year and 12.4 million children in America - or 17% of all kids - live in households that are food-insecure.