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Better Benefits: Reforming Teacher Pensions for a Changing Work Force

Forty-seven states have unfunded pension liabilities, and collectively the gap between what states owe to current and future retirees and what they have saved totals almost $500 billion. But the problems with teacher pensions are not just financial, and they do not just affect individual teachers and retirees, argue Chad Aldeman and Andrew J. Rotherham in this new Education Sector report. The way pension plans are structured can negatively influence the teaching work force as a whole, they say.

The Course of Innovation: Using Technology to Transform Higher Education

The National Center for Academic Transformation has helped a number of colleges redesign courses to both improve student learning and save costs. With higher education facing its worst fiscal environment in a generation, it would seem that all institutions would adopt these proven reforms. But this is not the case. In this new report, Policy Analyst Ben Miller highlights successful redesign models as well as the barriers to innovation in higher education.

Restructuring 'Restructuring'

The Obama administration has made "turnaround" a major priority—vowing to fundamentally restructure and reshape the nation's lowest-performing schools. In this Education Sector report, Senior Policy Analyst Rob Manwaring examines what happens after states identify schools as low-performing. He documents how few states and districts use the tools provided to them by NCLB and what policy changes must be made in order to address the administration's challenge.

Rising to the Challenge: Hispanic College Graduation Rates as a National Priority

This report from Education Sector's Kevin Carey, along with AEI's Mark Schneider, and Andrew P. Kelly, reveals that far too many four-year colleges and universities graduate less than half of their Hispanic students.

Understanding Teachers Contracts

Despite increasing attention to contract reform, the public often has no idea what a typical teachers contract looks like. This interactive Education Sector explainer offers a side-by-side comparison of common provisions found in contracts and highlights the differences and similarities between two contracts on key dimensions, including teacher pay, evaluation, and transfers.

False Fronts? Behind Higher Education's Voluntary Accountability Systems

Public online databases are defining the contours of higher education accountability today. But serious design flaws undermine their utility, argue Andrew P. Kelly and Chad Aldeman in this new report from the American Enterprise Institute and Education Sector.

Lowering Student Loan Default Rates

In this new Education Sector report, co-authors Erin Dillon and Robin V. Smiles discuss the growing problem of students defaulting on their student loans. Based on the experiences of a small group of Texas HBCUs and a new statistical analysis of cohort default rates, they argue that institutions play a significant role in helping students avoid default.

College- and Career-Ready

In this Education Sector report, Policy Analyst Chad Aldeman calls for a new approach to high school accountability. He argues that the best way to measure whether students are prepared for college or a career is by looking at what actually happens when students arrive at their intended destination. Also watch our short video primer of the report!

Growing Pains: Scaling Up the Nation's Best Charter Schools

This Education Sector report takes an objective look at how prepared the nation's best charter schools are to meet the challenge of rapid expansion.

Teachers at Work

In this Education Sector report, Senior Policy Analyst Elena Silva highlights promising models of school design and calls for a new approach to addressing the teacher quality challenge in public education.